Rise Of The Worm Sovereign

Lin Wu had expected there to be many functions in the formation array but he was still surprised to see them. 

He read through the list and saw that most of them were not as important and were operation formations for minor things, such as opening doors, sorting names, listing things. A lot of them were repeats of the same function just for different parts of the location.

The one that Lin Wu considered to be of importance was the one that checked one's identity.

"Hmm… this one requires an identity badge for it to work. Let's see if we can figure something else out." Lin Wu muttered to himself.

He knew his crystals could function as jade slips and should thus work as identity slips too. Though the only thing was he would need an authentic one so that the system could replicate the intricacies of it.

"Let's see if I can find someone willing to donate one to me… Hehe." Lin Wu said, before checking the map.

What he was looking for now, were disciples that were outside of the sect or were heading there. There were many of them going in and out of the sect, but the location they were located in was quite risky for Lin Wu to go to.

That area was the main gateway of the Frozen Cloud sect and had tough security, along with many formations. Even beyond it, the path was quite well-traveled and it was likely someone else would discover him if he went there.

'Gotta prepare a bait I guess…' Lin Wu thought to himself before coming up with an idea.

He brought his tail forward and created a small crystal from it. The crystal was shaped like a pendant and if one saw it, they would think it was a treasure no doubt. But this was not all Lin Wu did. 

He touched the crystal and poured some spirit Qi into it. The amount was barely anything to him, but for anyone in the Qi refining realm or core condensation realm, it would probably be worth a lot.

He then went to the area that was near the main entrance of the sect. He didn't go all the way through. He stopped about 3 kilometers from there, which was sufficient for others to not detect him.

Then he placed the pendant on the ground and started releasing pulses of spirit Qi. They were not too strong or too weak, but they would definitely pull the attention of someone that had strong enough spirit sense.

Lin Wu didn't want any tom, dick, and harry disciple from the sect or their identity may not even be good enough for the system to use. Lin Wu knew the system would be able to fake a higher level authority but seeing the experts of the sect, he didn't want to risk getting found out even if the chance was minute.

He sent out the spirit Qi pulses towards the main path every five minutes and waited for someone to sense them. But didn't make the pulses too strong either or if he attracted the attention of some elder, it would only make things more difficult as he wouldn't be able to use their identity for longer.

Lin Wu stayed beneath the ground there like a fisherman waiting with his line cast. The pendant was the bait, and the spirit Qi pulse was the bob. Though his position was inverted where he was below the prey unlike in the case of the fisherman and he was a worm too on top of it.

It took Lin Wu about an hour before he saw someone moving towards his direction on the map. From the marker, Lin Wu could tell that it was a cultivator at the core condensation realm, though what stage that was still unknown.

He didn't change the frequency of the pulses, though. If he did that and the person suspected it was a trap, they may alert the sect. Thus, he patiently waited without doing anything different. 

The person who had sensed the spirit Qi pulses did not come there quickly either. Whoever it was, they seemed to be cautious and did not want to either bring attention to this or were scared perhaps.

"Come on, come on, I'm waiting little fishy." Lin Wu said as he watched the person like a hawk.

Eventually, the man came within the range of Lin Wu's spirit sense and he could see who he was.

"Ah, an inner court disciple! Perfect." Lin Wu said before waiting for him to get even closer.

The man was certainly cautious and was looking at his back and sides every few seconds.

"Where are these spirit Qi fluctuations coming from? They're way too strong to belong to a spirit herb and they won't grow here. If they did, they would have already been picked by the sect. 

What could it be, then? A treasure? Or did someone drop something?" The man muttered to himself with furrowed brows.

Finally, the man reached the pendant and looked at it. His eyes went wide upon realizing what it was.

"Trea-…" He was about to exclaim, but then shut his mouth with his hand. 

His spirit sense spread around as he checked for anyone nearby.

~phew~

"It truly is my lucky day. Looks like someone dropped this here… though looking at the quality and spirit Qi coming from this pendant it must belong to an elder at the very least. If he went past here while flying then it makes sense he dropped it and did not realize." The man said to himself.

Lin Wu nodded his head at the man's guess while thinking. 'Thank you for making up a story on your own and dispelling your own doubts.'

The man didn't pick it up directly though. He first checked it with his spirit sense and verified that it was safe. Seeing that the pendant only had spirit Qi in it, the man bent down to pick it up.

But the moment his fingers touched the pendants, he felt the ground shake.

"Huh?"