703 Tenth Floor of the Tower
Making their way up to the second floor of the tower, both Bai Ning and Hui Ying frowned upon seeing that the second floor of the tower was similarly filled with still intact books.
If the rest of the floors in the tower were in a similar condition, it would likely take them months, if not years, to fully look through all of the books inside of the tower… And even then, they might not be able to find a map or something similar that could get them out of the jungle safely!
"Let's go to the next floor and see if there is something different up there…" Scanning over the second floor of the tower, Bai Ning quickly began making his way up the spiral staircase towards the third floor of the tower after seeing that there was nothing other than books on the second floor of the tower.
"Yeah…"
Following closely behind Bai Ning as he made his way up the spiral staircase towards the third floor of the tower, Hui Ying could not help feeling a headache after looking over the books that filled up the second floor of the tower.
If possible, she wanted to avoid having to read through all of these books. Especially after spending the last few days reading through these ancient books which were mostly written in some kind of ancient language, she didn't understand.
For this reason, Hui Ying sincerely hoped that they would be able to find something that would be able to find something like a large still intact map of the jungle on of the remaining floors of the tower that were still intact…
Not much different from the first and second floor of the tower, the third floor was also filled with books. The only difference was that there was a large hole in the side of the tower from where they could see the outside the tower. At the same time, there was also a massive hole in the ceiling of the third floor. Allowing them to see up into the fourth floor above them, which was similarly only filled with books without anything of interest like a still intact map.
The Fifth floor… Sixth floor… Seventh, eighth and ninth floor were the same!
"There is only one floor left…"
As Bai Ning and Hui Ying slowly started losing hope in finding something that would be useful for them when it came to finding a way out of the jungle without having to spend the next few months looking through the books and hoping to find something inside them that would be of help, they both began making their way up towards the final tenth floor of the tower.
If they could really not find anything on the last floor of the tower, they would be forced to either look through the books still intact inside the tower, something that would likely end up taking them months… Of course, this was only considering that they would be able to survive for that long.
After all, although they could survive for a longer period without food and water compared to normal mortals, they could still not completely survive off the qi between heaven and earth as someone in the Foundation Establishment Realm!
…
"A door!?"
Walking up the spiral staircase towards the tenth floor of the tower, both Bai Ning and Hui Ying were taken aback upon seeing that their path forward was blocked by a door.
However, this surprise only lasted for a short moment before both of them grew excited.
This was the first floor inside the tower that was different compared to the rest of the floors they had visited so far. For this reason alone, Bai Ning and Hui Ying grew excited as they felt hopeful of finding something that would be able to get them out of their current predicament.
Creak~
Slowly opening the old door leading into the tenth floor of the tower, both Bai Ning and Hui Ying held their breath as they nervously looked inside. Hoping that they would not be met with the familiar scene of a room filled with only ancient books and nothing more...
"A MAP! There really is a map in here!"
Being the first to react, Hui Ying could not help exclaiming loudly as she was the first to spot a large map hanging on the wall not too far away from the door leading into the tenth floor of the tower.
Hearing Hui Ying's exclamation, Bai Ning also focused his full attention on the massive map on the wall of the tenth floor.
"Indeed… And from the looks of it, the map seems to cover not only the underground part of the jungle that we are currently inside of, but it also covers the jungle above!" Inspecting the map more closely, Bai Ning could not help smiling as he felt a wave of relief wash over him.
With the map of not only the underground of the jungle, but also the surface, Bai Ning understood that they would not have to waste the next few months looking through the hundreds of thousands of books inside the tower for a way out of the jungle.
Although they had still ended up wasting a few days looking through the books without gaining anything more than the name of the ancient sect that should have constructed the tower in the past, both Bai Ning and Hui Ying did not care about this.
Even if they had wasted a bit of the little food they had on them due to this, it was nothing to worry about now that they had a map that could be used to find a way out of the jungle and back to the territory of the Azure Sky Kingdom.
"Let's see if we can find out where we are first."
Calming down, Bai Ning took the lead as he stepped inside the tenth floor of the tower before making his way towards the map to inspect it more closely to find out where they were and if there were any exits noted down on the map itself.
"This… Might be a bit harder to understand than I first thought…" Muttering this to himself as he looked over the map, Bai Ning could not help frowning while looking over the different ancient looking letters on the map. The map itself and the locations on the map were all written in the same ancient language as the books, a language that both Bai Ning and Hui Ying could not understand…
However, even if what was written on the map was not something that Bai Ning and Hui Ying could understand, they were lucky enough that there were also different symbols beneath the different ancient words. Allowing them to at least make a guess as to what the different locations might be hiding.
For example, it did not take them long to find what they thought to be the tower on the map, being the only place symbolized by a small tower and a book on the underground part of the map.
…
"The exits out of this place should be the different portal like things on the map…"
Having spent the last few hours trying their best to understand the map, Bai Ning and Hui Ying ended up determining that the small portals that were placed all over the map should be ways out of the jungle… And at the same time they also managed to determine which of the different portals they should have entered the jungle through.
The only problem… Was that there was no way out of the underground part of the jungle that was anywhere close to the portal that they had originally entered the jungle through.
In the end, this left them with two choices…
One, try to make their way back towards the portal they had originally entered the jungle through or… Second, try to make their way towards the closest of the portals to get out of the dangerous jungle as quickly as possible!
No matter what choice they took, they each had their own benefits and drawbacks.
Going to the closest of the portals could get them out faster, but they might end up in a far more dangerous location after passing through the unknown portal.
The place they had originally entered the jungle through on the other hand was far safer, the danger with going to that place, was that they would have to spend a longer period of time inside the jungle.
Given just how dangerous the jungle was, they would end up increasing their chances of encountering another demon beast in the Core Formation Realm during the journey back towards they had originally entered the jungle through.
"Hah… Let's not think about this for now, we should first make our way towards the closest path out of this underground cave network…"
Shaking his head as he understood the risks involved in both of the options, Bai Ning carefully stored the massive map away inside his storage ring before both him and Hui Ying began making their way out of the tower.
Outside of taking a few of the books from each of the ten floors with them to hand over to the sect when they returned, there wasn't really anything else of value inside the large tower.
