"I see something up ahead! I think it might be ruins of whatever power controlled this secret realm in the past." Continuing the journey through the secret realm without encountering too many demon beasts along the way other than a few in the Core Formation Realm, Xuan Hao and Chi Hu soon came upon the first manmade structure in the secret realm.
Chi Hu did not wait in the slightest as he rushed over to see this ruin as Xuan Hao followed closely behind.
The ruin in question was a giant pagoda with nine floors, but by now it had decayed to the point that some of the walls had collapsed, causing it to look like it would collapse at any moment with even a tiny amount of force generated by the calm wind blowing through the ancient forest.𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖
Other than them, Xuan Hao also observed a few other cultivators having arrived at the scene before them excitedly searching through all the different floors of the pagoda, with most of them concentrated at the top of pagoda where the precious scrolls and techniques were normally stored as the Nascent Soul Realm Experts tried to comb over the large amount of information with the help of their divine sense.
Walking up to the pagoda, Xuan Hao and Chi Hu both stopped for a moment as they took in the sheer size of the pagoda as it towered up in front of them.
Xuan Hao and Chi Hu both let their divine sense spread out as they began to inspect the pagoda. The few Nascent Soul Realm Experts on the inside stopped their reading session as they felt the brand-new divine sense wash over them, but quickly went back to reading upon discovering that it was just another two cultivators and not some powerful demon beast showing up.
The interior of the pagoda was filled with rows upon rows of bookshelves filled with both books and scrolls. This continued on from the first all the way up to the ninth floor of the pagoda, just reading through this amount of information, even with the help of one's divine sense, would easily take several years.
This was also the reason why the Nascent Soul Realm Experts had made their way up to the Ninth floor of the pagoda where the most valuable things were usually stored, so they wouldn't waste any time on the lower quality techniques stored inside the pagoda.
Chi Hu also saw this and quickly rushed inside the pagoda and made his way to the top before joining the other Nascent Soul Realm cultivators as all of them quietly stayed together, recording all different techniques present on the ninth floor.
Xuan Hao saw this and decided not to join him as he instead decided to walk around the first floor to see if he could find any history related books that could give an idea as to where the secret realm came from and possible locations to other ruins inside the secret realm.
Given that Chi Hu had contacted him for help with the secret realm, Xuan Hao had already expected for him to join the Flying Sword Sect afterwards, so he was not really too worried about the techniques on the top floor as Chi Hu remembered them and could write them down when they made their way back to the Flying Sword Sect.
Why is he not worried about the different Nascent Soul Realm cultivators fighting each other over the cultivation techniques on the ninth floor?
Well, the reason was quite simple as the different Nascent Soul Realm cultivators would rather spend their time recording and remembering as many of the techniques as possible instead of wasting their time fighting for sole ownership of a technique…
Who knew how long they had before the different bigshots appeared and chased them out? More importantly, techniques were easy to just remember and copy down later as long as they were not from the higher end of the Heaven Rank and above.
Techniques at that rank normally contained a special sort of insight in them and copying them was not an option any longer, unless you managed to master said technique or cultivation method at the same level as the creator…
So, with nothing like that appearing, the Nascent Soul Realm cultivators along with Chi Hu on the Ninth floor could quietly read together as they minded their own business.
Entering the Pagoda, Xuan Hao began walking around the first floor and saw many interesting books scattered all over the place. From history books describing long forgotten wars of empires and huge sects fighting it out against each other, along with story books about all sorts of mythical creatures.
Seeing all these interesting books, Xuan Hao could not help himself from picking a few to take back to the sect to read at a later time.
"Hm? Journey of the Snow Phoenix?" Coming upon yet another book describing a mythical creature like a phoenix, Xuan Hao immediately felt something was different as he picked up the book and began closely inspecting it.
The book [Journey of the Snow Phoenix] was an interesting novel so to speak, describing the tale of a small phoenix being cast out from her clan at a young age due to being born different with an affinity for the ice element instead of the fire element that the phoenix clan was revered for and proudly displayed wherever they flew.
The young phoenix who was thrown out by her clan was later cast down into the mortal realm where she tried to survive but found it difficult as she had never learned any kind of cultivation techniques from the phoenix clan due her being viewed as an anomaly of the phoenix race due to her affinity for the ice element.
Like this, the young phoenix struggled for the first few years of her life until a kind elder from a mortal sect picked her up and taught her cultivation.
The story ended here as the book seemed to be the first part of a series, but all of this was not what caught Xuan Hao's attention about the book. No, it was the fact that the writing and words with which the story was written contained a chilling aura far superior to his own!
Xuan Hao could only barely feel this because he had established his own pseudo domain, without it, he would never have been able to feel the chilling aura hidden beneath the words of the story. The words in the story book were clearly written by someone using the power of their Domain!