Travelling through the underground world, Xuan Hao saw many different unique plants growing along the ground as he flew above it. There were even a few rare spiritual herbs that he recognized after recently gaining a lot of knowledge about alchemy and spiritual herbs earlier on.
The spiritual plants themselves did not really have much use in his hands, but Xuan Hao decided to gather them as he had more than enough space in his interspatial ring. After all, he could still give them to his disciple or the alchemy hall when he returned to the Flying Sword Sect.
Spiritual herbs and plants were not the only thing that Xuan Hao met through his journey through the underground world as several demon beast had also shown up on the ground below him.
Luckily, most of the demon beasts were only at the Nascent Soul Realm and none of them had the ability to fly as there was no flying demon beast in the underground world… At least from what Xuan Hao had seen so far.
So, his journey through the underground world went smoothly as Xuan Hao was not disturbed in the slightest as he flew through the air a few hundred meters above the ground below. The ceiling covered in thick roots only a few dozen meters above him.
"Is that a… Formation pillar?" Flying undisturbed through the underground world, Xuan Hao soon came to a stop as he looked at the pillar piercing through the underground world from above.
The formation pillar in question was piercing deep into the underground world from above as the thick roots from the cave ceiling were circling around it as they seemed to stop the formation pillar from descending any further into the underground world. Leaving the formation pillar just a few dozen meters above the ground of the underground cave.
Xuan Hao felt that this looked quite weird as it almost seemed like the roots were trying their best to stop the formation pillar from descending any further.
Looking over in the distance, Xuan Hao soon discovered that other formation pillars were the same as they had each descended either more or less than the formation pillar in front of Xuan Hao, but never closer than 10 meters from the ground.
"This should be the formation pillars between the Nascent Soul Realm Area and the Core Formation Realm Area…" Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao glanced ahead and saw several demon beasts at the Nascent Soul Realm wandering around freely in what was supposed to be the Core Formation Area!
"Looks like I will have to be even more careful going forward…" Moving ahead, Xuan Hao no longer dared to fly openly like he did before and instead began moving on the ground as he used his pseudo sword domain to conceal himself from the different demon beasts wandering along the ground of the underground world.
As he was moving closer and closer to the place where the secret realm was located, Xuan Hao also discovered that the ceiling above was slowly getting further and further away from him.
This was not obvious at first, but Xuan Hao soon discovered that the space between him and the cave ceiling had increased from a few hundred meters to several thousand meters!
But this did not make any sense, as Xuan Hao was clearly close to the surface when the root had pulled him into this underground cave world…
"Unless…" Thinking about it, Xuan Hao suddenly thought about the possibility of the entrance to the secret realm being located at the top of a tall mountain peak, Xuan Hao inevitably shook his head and felt like he understood less and less about the secret realm with each passing minute. It had never felt like he was on top of a mountain in the first place and descending down towards the base of a mountain…
Maybe it had something to do with the formation he was inside? Or maybe it was just something with how a secret realm was created in the first place…
Xuan Hao had no idea and suddenly felt his curiosity about the secret realm grow the longer he travelled around the underground world of the secret realm.
"Well… There is only one way to find out…" Looking over the formation pillars covered in the roots, Xuan Hao inspected them for a short time before turning to look in the direction of the secret realm's entrance and continuing his journey deeper into the underground world of the secret realm.
The underground world was in itself not so different from the ancient forest above. The ancient trees were just replaced by large stone formations and pillars sticking up from the ground as they covered the entire underground world.
Walking through the underground world, Xuan Hao also managed to discover the first ruin since being forced down there.
The ruin itself was nothing too extravagant like an underground palace or an ancient hiding place for past treasure or that sort of thing but was instead a small crude looking stone hut cut into one of the large stones that covered the entire surface of the underground world. The front entrance blocked by a large stone acting as a door of sorts for the stone hut.
If it was not for the fact that there were no traces of any other people ever being in the underground world before, Xuan Hao would most likely not have bothered with the crude looking stone hut and instead just continued on his way after quickly sweeping through it with his divine sense.
But the fact that his divine sense had failed to discover the hole beneath the small ancient tree earlier on had left a mark on him and Xuan Hao no longer felt so certain about the current strength of his divine sense…
Who knew if something inside the crude looking stone hut would be able to escape his divine sense as well…?
Pushing aside the large stone in front of the crude looking stone hut, Xuan Hao cautiously made his way inside of the stone hut.