Chapter 1291 Strange Mountain

Leaving through the spatial passage after going through the remaining ruins floating around inside the almost empty space, Xuan Hao glanced back in the direction of the Tower of Secrets one last time. Promising himself that he would return the moment he got the one- two celestial coins required to buy the scroll that had the information on the Dao Domain Lord Realm.

At the very least, from the celestial coins he had been given so far, it seemed that he got at least two celestial coins for completing a celestial trial with one of them giving him 3 celestial coins.

Of course, there was always a chance that completing a celestial trial only rewarded a single celestial coin, while anything more than that would be rewarded whenever someone preformed beyond the expected level required to complete the trial.

If that was the case, he would have to try and do his best to complete whatever trial he ended up inside of without holding back.

Not that it mattered that much which of these two guesses were correct regarding the number of celestial coins rewarded from completing a celestial trial, as he intended to do his best at completing the celestial trials anyway. After all, the celestial trials were far too dangerous for him to not use all of his strength. Especially now that his strength had increased to the Late Stage of the Dao Domain Lord Realm and the difficulty of the trial should have increased compared to the past when he had gone through the celestial trial at the Intermediate Stage of the Dao Domain Lord Realm.

Whoosh~

Safely coming out on the other side of the spatial passage, Xuan Hao didn't wait around as he looked down at the celestial compass and left the place in the direction that it was pointing. Intending on completing the closest celestial trial as fast as possible so he could return to the space of the third exchange hall and exchange for the scroll containing information on the Dao Domain Lord Realm.

Luckily for him, he didn't have to head deeper inside the mystic realm where he didn't have any idea of the situation, but instead somewhere towards the outer parts of the mystic realm according to the celestial compass.

Even if it could still be hidden in a place similar to the first three celestial gates he had found, he didn't feel like he would end up encountering anything too dangerous in the outer parts of the mystic realm.

At the very least, he didn't think he would end up running into something that would pose a threat to him outside of the trial inside of the celestial gate itself.

After all, if any demon beast above the Soul Ascension Realm appeared, the guardian formation of the mystic realm would activate to kill it.

Although… Remembering the last time the guardian formation had activated to kill the cloud demon beast, he had a feeling that the most dangerous thing would be finding himself too close to a Dao Seed Realm demon beast when the guardian formation activated, as he was certain that the power behind its attack was more than strong enough to kill someone in the Profound Immortal Realm, let alone someone who had yet to reach the Profound Immortal Realm like himself…

Shaking his head as he thought about this, Xuan Hao silently decided that he would teleport as far away as possible the moment he spotted a Dao Seed Realm demon beast. Planning to avoid any chance of him getting caught up in the aftermath of the guardian formation activating.

Ching~

However, just at this moment, Xuan Hao heard a quiet sound echoing out from the celestial compass, as he discovered that the compass turned around and pointed at a small mountain just behind him. Signaling that he had already arrived at the location of the fourth celestial gate.

"Hm? I'm already here?"

Not having expected the fourth celestial gate to be so close, Xuan Hao could not help showing a somewhat surprised expression on his face as he looked over at the small, secluded mountain that the dial of the compass was now pointing towards.

The mountain in question was small and secluded. Looking like nothing out the ordinary if one didn't consider that the attack from the guardian formation had essentially vaporized the landscape around the small mountain. Leaving it standing out amidst the charred landscape.

Even if it could normally be ignored, it was rather hard to do so when it was the only thing that had been left standing in the wake of the destruction brought by the guardian formations attack to kill the cloud demon beast.

The reason why he hadn't discovered it was simply because he had been teleporting forward following the celestial compass and didn't pay much attention to his surroundings before the celestial compass had reminded him that he had reached the location of the fourth celestial gate.

And now that he saw the weird, secluded mountain in the middle of the scorched land created by the attack of the guardian formation understood that there was more to it than what met the eye.

I guess the mountain is protected by some kind of formation that allowed it to survive the attack from the guardian formation. Not just that, but a quite strong formation considering that it managed to survive the residual power of that terrifying attack.

Narrowing both his eyes as he thought about this, Xuan Hao used his divine sense spread to spread out and envelope the small mountain in an attempt to try and find the location of the fourth celestial gate… And to his surprise, he soon discovered the fourth celestial gate inside a cave just big enough to fit it close to the peak of the mountain.

The formation he had expected to block his divine sense or create some kind of illusion to confuse it, didn't happen. Instead, he had managed to smoothly find the fourth celestial gate without any problems.

This is far too easy…

Still, feeling cautious about how the small mountain had managed to survive while everything around it had perished, Xuan Hao didn't immediately descend to investigate the situation of the fourth celestial gate.

Instead, he decided to carefully approach while using his divine sense and dao domain in combination to carefully investigate the base of the mountain without making his way off the scorched ground.

Hm? This is…

And just like he had expected, as he used the combined power of his divine sense and his dao domain to investigate the area around the mountain, he managed to discover a faint layer of qi that seemed to envelope the entire mountain.

Thin to the point that he hadn't even noticed it when his divine sense first swept through the mountain in search of the fourth celestial gate.

However, even if he could sense this faint layer of qi that enveloped the small mountain, he still couldn't figure out what kind of purpose it had, as the thin layer of qi essentially had no power. Not much different from normal.

The only thing that seemed to give away that this thin layer of qi wasn't normal was the fact that some kind of strange ancient looking symbols seemed to form through the thin layer of qi every now and then.

Although he didn't know any of these symbols and had never seen them before, his comprehension of the Dao of Formation allowed him to at least understand that these symbols were related to some kind of formation.

Not just that but given that he couldn't understand these symbols even when he had comprehended the Dao of Formations, it was obvious that the formation formed by the thin layer of qi was far more complicated than what first met the eye.

Whoosh~

Thud!

Casually throwing out a small ice spear formed by his Dao of Ice to test out the formation, Xuan Hao could not help narrowing both his eyes, as he watched the entire mountain shimmer briefly before allowing the ice spear to pass straight through it and pierce into the scorched ground a few thousand meters away.

"So… This was how it managed to avoid being affected by the attack from the guardian formations…" Muttering this to himself as he looked at the small mountain, Xuan Hao could not help feeling a bit relived that the formation protecting the small mountain didn't seem to be an offensive one, but instead a more unique defensive formation.

At least he didn't feel that worried about the formation, as he should be able to freely test it out and try to comprehend it without facing the risk of being attacked by it.

After understanding the formation and whether or not it would try and imprison him the moment he entered it, he would be able to figure out how to best reach the fourth celestial gate without anything to worry about.

Even if it might take a few days of trial and error, Xuan Hao didn't mind it that much, as he had more than enough time at hand and the scroll with information on the Dao Domain Lord Realm wasn't going anywhere.