Observing the giant formation pillar, both Xuan Hao and Chi Hu spent the next day uneventfully as both of them sat down quietly cultivating without any demon beasts or cultivators showing up to disturb them.
Boom!
A violent torrent of qi began to funnel in towards Chi Hu as his strength increased from the first stage to the second stage of the Nascent Soul Realm. After only a few weeks in the Nascent Soul Realm, he had already manged to breakthrough and reach the second stage and he still felt like his foundation was strengthened.
Xuan Hao looked over from the side and did not feel jealous, the formation pillar benefited him as well, but compared to a breakthrough in the realm, Xuan Hao's pseudo domain grew stronger as the foundation of his domain was strengthened.
"Sadly, the remnants of the creator's domain inside the pillar disappeared, it looks like the ability to comprehend the domain of the creator for a day was a reward of sorts for those who reached the pillars in the past… Maybe a part of the test that the ancient forest was a part of?" Coming to his own conclusion towards the reason for the remnants of the creator's domain left inside the pillar suddenly disappearing, Xuan Hao closed his eyes as he paid attention to the system staying inside his sea of consciousness.
Over the last few months, it had been staying quiet without doing much, but after the remanent power of the domain inside the pillar disappeared, it finally showed some sign of life again.
[Side Quest: Find the core of the Secret Realm Formation]
[Reward: ???]
The quest was bewildering to Xuan Hao, as it was the first quest, he had gotten from his system that did not involve his disciples. By this point he had almost gotten convinced that the system only had quest related for his disciples, but it seemed like that was not the case.
Back to what the quest was about, it wanted him to find the core of the secret realm formation.
Looking at the giant pillar in front of him, Xuan Hao already knew what formation the system was referring to as he began thinking about the possibility of finding the core of the secret realm formation before people above the Nascent Soul Realm began showing up and the chances of that was close to nothing, as the size of the secret realm was enormous and finding the core of the secret realm formation could take years if not decades!𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺
For all he knew, the core of the secret realm formation could be located at the entrance to the secret realm!
"Hah, this feels great, I didn't expect to reach the second stage of the Nascent Soul Realm so quickly!! We should go and see if we can get a chance to comprehend at the other pillars!" Chi Hu interrupted Xuan Hao's train of thought as the aura of a second stage Nascent Soul Realm cultivator spread out with him as the centre.
"I don't think we will gain anything from it as the formation pillar is part of the same formation as the other pillars… But we can try the closet one. After all, if I'm wrong and we just leave, we would miss out on a huge opportunity!" Nodding in agreement with Chi Hu, Xuan Hao threw the quest about finding the secret realms formation core to the back of his mind.
"Great let's get going then!" Excited to the extreme as he flexed his recently increased cultivation base, Chi Hu acted like a child that had gotten a new toy to play with, as Xuan Hao smirked upon seeing the elderly Chi Hu hoping up and down excitedly.
Adding him to the line-up of core elders in the Flying Sword Sect would at least be exciting for some of the disciples if he was as excited about teaching them as he was exploring the secret realm.
…
"Ahhh! There is nothing to comprehend here!" Falling to his knees in a dramatic way as he raised his hands towards the giant formation pillar with an almost begging look on his face, Xuan Hao had to look the other way as he began wondering how this old man had been when he wandered around from kingdom to kingdom beforehand.
"Don't worry so much about it, I'm sure we will be able to find something if we continue to go further into the secret realm. Who knows, there might even be more pillars like these with more opportunities waiting for us! But it will definitely get more dangerous from here…" Narrowing his eyes as he finished his sentence, Xuan Hao looked into the ancient forest beyond the formation pillars.
Nascent Soul Realm demon beasts would almost certainly begin appearing after they passed by the formation pillars and ventured deeper inside the ancient forest.
"True, but I fear that we won't be able to continue for much longer when Nascent Soul Realm demon beasts begin appearing… And if they grow stronger the deeper into the secret realm we go, like they have done so far, the ones at the area around the next pillars would be half a step into the Domain Lord Realm…" Chi Hu shook his head as he felt the difficulty of reaching the next circle of pillars was beyond something a second stage Nascent Soul Realm Expert like himself could archive.
"We can try and see how far we can make it, if it ever gets too dangerous for us, we can always retreat and leave." Seeing the hesitation on Chi Hu's face, Xuan Hao encouraged him a bit.
"Maybe there will be other ruins like the giant pagoda close by like the one at the entrance to the secret realm, we can try to see if we can find any and explore them." Hearing this, Chi Hu nodded his head in agreement.
"That might be the case and the demon beast around here should only be in the early stages of the Nascent Soul Realm, so with you here, we should be fine exploring the area close to the pillars without too much danger..." Thinking it over, Chi Hu agreed with exploring the area close to the pillars as they could always retreat back towards the pillars again if things grew too dangerous for them.
Hearing Chi Hu's agreement, Xuan Hao smiled to himself. Personally he wanted to explore the deeper regions of the secret realm together with Chi Hu and find the core of the resecret alm formation mentioned in the system quest, as he was the one who had invited him to come and explore the secret realm together with him.
But from the looks of things, he would have to part ways with Chi Hu later if he wanted to enter the more dangerous areas of the secret realm to explore.