The other ancient forest beyond the giant formation pillars was almost the same with the exception of a change in the foliage going from a normal forest floor into one filled with more colours and spiritual herbs above the Earth Rank appearing more and more often.
Not that they were useful for Xuan Hao or Chi Hu, as both of them ignored the different herbs on the ground outside a few rare ones that could be useful to take back and cultivate.
Like this, both of them continued further into the ancient forest without encountering a single demon beast along the way, causing both of them to feel a bit bewildered as this was not something either of them had been expecting.
Far outside the idea of Nascent Soul Realm demon beasts attacking them the moment they passed by the giant formation pillars. Not a single demon beast appeared even after walking for over an hour!
"I see something up ahead!" Pointing ahead, Xuan Hao called out to Chi Hu as he kept surveying the area around them for any potential demon beasts coming to attack them when their guard was down.
"A demon beast?!" Hearing the voice of Xuan call out, Chi Hu immediately focused his attention on the direction that Xuan Hao pointed in.
"No, I think this is another ruin like the giant pagoda we encountered close to the entrance of the secret realm." Shaking his head, Xuan Hao began walking over towards the ruins hidden beneath the tall trees of the ancient forest, closely followed by Chi Hu.
"We are most likely the first people to reach this place, so there should be some treasures, artifacts, pills or maybe even high-rank qi techniques or cultivation mantras!" Following behind Xuan Hao as they walked, Chi Hu's eyes began to shine brightly as he looked at the giant ruin in front of them. Forgetting everything about being cautious and looking out for any Nascent Soul Realm demon beasts that might be hiding nearby.
The ruin in front of the two of them was a giant temple stretching on for miles as several parts of the? temple had broken off from the temple and broken down, resulting in large parts of the temple being hidden beneath the rich foliage of the ancient forest.
One of the only parts that still retained some resemblance of once had been, was the main part of the temple that towered up in front of Xuan Hao and Chi Hu. If it was not for the fact that the ground beneath it had caved in swallowing a large part of the temple, it would surely have pierced far into the sky and stand tall above the towering trees of the ancient forest.
Sadly, this could not happen as a large area of the main part of the temple had been swallowed by the ground.
"How could such a large area suddenly collapse!? Perhaps there was a giant underground space beneath the temple that collapsed in the past and thus caused the main part of the temple to sink into the ground?" Observing the ruins of the temple, Xuan Hao walked up to the main part of the temple and inspected the ground around the place where the temple had sunk into the ground.
"That is the most likely scenario, many temples like this normally have a large underground area used for religious ceremonies, I once saw one similar to this when I visited a kingdom in the past, but why would it be here? It seems completely out of place for a secret realm likely used by an ancient sect to train and test disciples, to have a religious temple inside of it." Wearing a confused expression on his face, Chi Hu put on a thoughtful expression as he seemed to have forgotten about the possible treasures inside after reaching the temple ruins.
"Maybe the secret realm switched ownership at some point? It could also be part of the test; they might have made a temple to train their disciples in familiarising themselves with fighting in the environment of one? The past owner of the secret realm could have been locked in a war with a religious order and prepared their disciples for it…" Thinking over it, Xuan Hao could not really come up with any other ideas as to why a temple had suddenly appeared inside of the secret realm.
All they could do to find out about it was to enter and explore it…
…
"Hm… Seems like I am indeed the first one to arrive at this secret realm outside a few Nascent Soul Realm cultivators, but those can be ignored as entering the core area of a secret realm would not be possible with their cultivation!" Standing at the entrance to the secret realm, the wanderer who had just entered the secret realm looked around as his divine sense spread out and easily covered the first few ruins of the secret realm.
"Guess I will start looking into the ruins around here and see if they can point towards the location of the core area." Muttering this to himself, the wanderer soon disappeared from the entrance to the secret realm as he soon appeared above one of the ruins located close by.
The ruin in question was not the same pagoda that Xuan Hao and Chi Hu encountered earlier, instead it was a decaying pavilion located besides a small lake.
When the wanderer in question arrived, a few other cultivators were already browsing through all the different scrolls and books as they searched for anything useful in them.
"Looks like this place used to be a test area of sorts before it was abandoned… Hm… A few of the neutral sects use the same kind of training ground, so finding the core area should not be too difficult as long as I find the core of the formation keeping the test area running." Smiling upon seeing the decaying pavilion, a formation suddenly appeared where the pavilion was in the eyes of the wanderer as countless lines connected to it and spread far into all directions.
Through the lines connecting the formation around the pavilion to the formation keeping the test ground running, the wanderer sensed first-hand the massive scale of the formation.
"Ahhh… What bastard set up such a giant formation! Did they not have to worry about resources when building it? And how long will it take to find the core area if the formation is so large? Don't tell me the entire secret realm was used for this formation?!" Scratching his head in frustration upon sensing the sheer size of the formation, the wanderer knew that he would have no chance of breaking it and could only hope that he would be able to find the core area before others like himself began appearing.
"I will try checking with the first layer of the formation and see if I can find out something that might help me…" Glancing over in the direction that the formation pillars were located, the wanderer soon disappeared from the decaying pavilion. Unbeknownst to any of the cultivators quietly reading through the scrolls and books inside.