881 Mysterious Hole

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"W-what in the world is this mess?!" Not able to stop himself from exclaiming as he was met with what could only be described as a mess, Xuan Hao suddenly understood why something called the Sky Watcher's notes had come in the form of a book instead of a large stack of notes.

Given that he had already expected the book to be difficult to understand, Xuan Hao had already prepared himself for the extended period of time that would be required to understand it… But when he looked down on the first page of the book, he understood that he would be spending far longer than he had first expected if he wanted to understand it...

From the first page, it was rather obvious that the book was not something that the Sky Watcher had made to gather his notes together in a single place. Instead, it was a mess made from stuffing all of the Sky Watcher's notes together into a single book without any order to them!

Even if he could understand the language in the book itself, it might as well have been written in a different language with how messed up the different notes were. First of all, it looked like he would have to spend some time sorting out the notes after returning to the sect.

"Haaa… I really hope there is something useful in this book…" Knowing that he would not be able to gain anything from the book containing the messed-up notes of the Sky Watcher in the short term, Xuan Hao carefully put it away in his interspatial ring together with large gem before jumping into the air in the direction of the temple ruins that were located a short distance away from his current location.

Although a part of him really wanted to read through the book containing the notes of the Sky Watcher, he also understood that it was something that could wait. For now, his objective was to properly explore the Main Star Peak and figure out if there was anything dangerous like the temple still hiding somewhere on it…

Not long after, Xuan Hao arrived back at the ruins of the temple. Nothing changed and the only thing that came into view was the rubble of what had once been the temple itself and the surrounding buildings. Any of the artifacts or other precious treasures that might have been hidden inside having already been destroyed by the clash between the blue flame formed by the blue divine energy and the remnant consciousness.

Whoosh~!

However, just to make sure he didn't end up missing something, Xuan Hao still decided to thoroughly search the ruins of the temple with his divine sense.

"Nothing survived…" 

However, after searching through the ruins for close to an hour, he could only let out a regretful sigh and conclude that nothing of value had managed to survive the clash between the two powers above the Soul Ascension Realm.

In a sense, it was already good that he could get his hands on the gem that the remnant soul had used to hide inside of. Even if it was a demonic artifact that could produce pure yin qi and wouldn't have much use for himself, he never knew if he would end up getting a disciple that could make use of it.

"Well… before that, I will first have to start accepting more disciples…" Shaking his head as he realized this, Xuan Hao soon left the temple ruins to continue exploring the Main Star Peak. Not intending to leave before he had managed to explore the entire Main Star Peak.

…

Over the next few days Xuan Hao searched through the rest of the Main Star Peak without encountering anything of interest. At most he had managed to encounter a Domain Lord Realm demon beast that was hiding inside a small pond when he had tried to explore it. Outside of this, he did not encounter anything that could even come close to the same level as the remnant consciousness hidden inside the temple.

As for spiritual herbs and artifacts? He did not manage to encounter anything special outside of a sword that had been hidden beneath a large stone in a corner of the Main Star Peak, but… Even if the sword was a decent artifact, it was still inferior to the silver sword he had been given by Yi Min…

"Looks like there is only one place left for me to explore…"

Coming to a stop in front of what could only be described as a hole in the ground, Xuan Hao could not help narrowing both of his eyes as he stared down into the hole leading straight down.

Outside of the temple with the remnant consciousness hiding inside of it, the hole in front of him was by far the most mysterious thing he had encountered on the Main Star Peak. Not because of the fact that it was the only path leading into the mountain that he had found so far, but because his divine sense disappeared for some unknown reason the moment it entered the hole. 

Even with his current cultivation base in the Initial Stage of the Dao Domain Lord Realm, he had no way to properly gauge just what was hidden inside the mysterious hole in the ground. Making him hesitate on whether to enter the hole and explore it or not.

Just at this moment as he was hesitating on whether to enter the mysterious hole in the ground or not, the system panel appeared in front of him with a brand-new main quest- 

[Main Quest: Enter the Mysterious Hole on the Main Star Peak and find out what it's hiding]

[Description: There is a mysterious hole on the Main Star Peak that renders divine sense useless, enter it and find out what might be hiding away inside it.]

[Reward: Organization of the book containing the Sky Watcher's notes] 

But after looking through the new main quest, Xuan Hao could not help silently cursing at the system. For some reason, he felt that the system was deliberately annoying him with the reward this time around.

"Whatever, I was planning to enter the hole anyway. At least this will save me few months of trying to sort out the notes by myself…" Shaking his head as he muttered this to himself, Xuan Hao didn't bother complaining too much as he dove headfirst into the mysterious hole in the ground. Prepared to fight in case there was some kind of demon beast or other threat inside.

…

At the same time Xuan Hao made his way down into the mysterious hole on the Main Star Peak, Chu Yang and Qing Yi had finally managed to make it through the underground cave part of the mystic realm that they had ended up in after entering the mystic realm through the entrance located beneath their master's old pavilion in the Flying Sword Sect.

"So, this is the what the mystic realm looks like outside of that cave… To be honest, if not for the fact that I know we are inside a mystic realm, I would have thought we were still in the outside world!"

"Indeed, this is amazing, I never thought a mystic realm would look the same as the world outside…" 

What appeared in front of them was a large and expansive world with no end in sight. Even the sun hanging in the sky above them looked the same as the one they had seen outside the mystic realm. Making them doubt whether they were still inside a mystic realm.

ROOOOOAAARRR-!

However, this only lasted for a moment before the loud roaring sound of demon beast echoed out in the distance.

"Indeed, a mystic realm is filled with demon beast, just like master told us… And from the looks of it, they are far stronger than the few Foundation Establishment Realm and Qi Condensation Realm demon beast we encountered so far…" Letting out a sigh filled with amazement as she said this, Qing Yi could not help feeling a sense of awe when looking at the massive forest that covered most of what they could see of the mystic realm.

"Yeah… It looks like we will have to be more careful from now on. Not to mention stronger, I already sensed a demon beast above the Third Stage of the Nascent Soul Realm not too far away from our current location!" Nodding his head in agreement with what Qing Yi said, Chu Yang pointed towards a large snake demon beast lazily sleeping on a stone no more than a few hundred meters away from their current location.

"Ah… Indeed, it looks like we will have to be far more carful from now on…" Seeing the snake demon beast Chu Yang pointed towards, Qing Yi could not help feeling shocked that such a powerful demon beast was right next to them.

"Yes… From now on, our exploration of the mystic realm will truly begin!" Smiling excitedly as he said this, Chu Yang didn't bother waiting for Qing Yi-

Swish-!

"Ah! Wait up!"

As he directly dashed towards the snake demon beast.