Chapter 3951: Junior Elder Zhenyu

Lin Mu studied the mirror carefully. The formation had preserved spatial information so precisely that he could almost feel a presence on the opposite side.

"Such a high quality recording formation." Lin Mu couldn’t help but admit.

Xukong remained silent for a moment. "This formation is quite good."

Lin Mu nodded slowly. "If someone went through the trouble of using this, then whatever information was preserved must have been important."

The thought made his curiosity grow.

He had already spent a considerable amount of time inside this hidden space. The clues had led him through a lot of things before he ended up here. Now he had reached the first thing that seemed specifically designed to communicate with whoever discovered it.

Lin Mu waited as the spiral gradually slowed and the liquid-like surface flattened. Soon the silvery distortion disappeared and the mirror became completely smooth before the image appeared.

Lin Mu’s expression changed immediately as the person reflected within the mirror was an old man. At least, his face and hair suggested age. But his physique suggested something entirely different.

The man stood at a height exceeding three meters, towering even by the standards of powerful body cultivators. His shoulders were broad, his chest thick and his arms filled with dense muscle.

His body looked as though it had been carved from stone by someone who had taken physical perfection as an obsession. Long white hair flowed down his back, reaching his waist, while an equally long white beard covered much of his chest.

Lin Mu stared at him for several seconds.

"That physique..." He had seen plenty of body cultivators during his travels.

This man’s body was extraordinary to the level where even Cattaleya would probably have approved of the physique. More importantly, Lin Mu could feel something through the recording.

It was so detailed that for a brief moment he felt as though the old man were genuinely standing several steps away from him. The vitality contained within the recorded image was incredibly clear and so was the man’s cultivation.

Every layer of his aura had been preserved. Lin Mu could even sense the subtle characteristics of his energy, the pressure generated by his physical body and the faint fluctuations surrounding his soul.

His expression became solemn. "This is incredible."

A normal recording array preserved an image while a superior recording array could preserve an image and sound. But this formation had preserved the presence of the person to such an extent that Lin Mu could almost mistake the recording for the original.

Whoever created it had clearly understood spatial principles at an extremely high level. The old man’s eyes seemed to focus directly on Lin Mu and for an instant, he felt a strange sensation.

’Almost as if the old man can actually see me.’ He thought.

Then the recorded figure spoke. "If you are seeing this, then either you are a genius with great luck, or a person who has fallen far deeper than they understand."

His voice was hoarse with age, yet there was a strange warmth within it. It carried the calmness of someone who had already accepted countless things and no longer needed to prove himself to anyone.

Lin Mu remained silent as the old man continued. "Regardless of what kind of fate you hold, the fact that you are holding this and have uncovered everything means that you are worthy of knowing the truth about me."

Lin Mu’s brows rose slightly. "The truth about himself?"

He listened carefully as the old man seemed to pause.

Even though this was a recording, the formation had preserved the man’s small mannerisms. His eyes shifted slightly, his brows tightened and his fingers moved against his robe as though he were organizing his thoughts.

"First of all, let me introduce myself." The old man looked directly ahead. "I am Junior Elder Zhenyu of the Wild Peak."

Lin Mu’s expression immediately became serious. "Junior Elder Zhenyu?"

He began searching through his memories.

The Wild Peak had existed for a very long time. Lin Mu had met several elders, heard the names of others and learned portions of the peak’s history through various records as well as the members boasting about their past and present members.

Yet the name Zhenyu did not immediately connect to anyone he knew.

He frowned. "It isn’t as though I know every elder who has ever served the Wild Peak."

The possibility that this person belonged to an older or even an ancient generation became increasingly likely.

The old man continued speaking. "Or at least, I once was."

Lin Mu’s eyes narrowed as there was something about that sentence that carried far more weight than the words themselves.

The old man looked toward the distance for a few moments before continuing. "By the time you are watching this, it has likely been thousands of years, if not longer. I entered the Mad Demon Depths in the era of Patriarch Wei Tian."

Lin Mu’s expression stiffened as the name immediately caught his attention. "Patriarch Wei Tian?"

That placed the recording into an era far older than Lin Mu had initially expected. And while Lin Mu did not know the exact era in which the Former Patriarch of the Heavenly Stream Guardian Sect existed, it was certainly long enough for most to have forgotten about him.

The old man continued. "And I have been here for seven thousand years already."

Lin Mu stared at the recording as he repeated the words in his mind. ’Seven thousand years.’

The number alone was staggering.

He had already encountered the chief of the forest settlement, a prisoner who had survived for forty-eight pools of time, roughly twelve hundred years by their crude method of measurement. Lin Mu had considered that an extraordinarily long period.

But this man had survived for seven thousand years. The difference was immense. Lin Mu’s gaze sharpened as countless questions began forming in his mind.

How had Junior Elder Zhenyu survived? Why had he entered the Mad Demon Depths? Was he imprisoned? Had he come here voluntarily? What had happened to him afterward?

And most importantly, what connection did he have to the mysterious formation and the hidden space?