Not knowing how to react to the golem collapsing in front of him all of a sudden, Xuan Hao remained frozen on the spot for a few seconds before a helpless expression appeared on his face. Even if he had somewhat expected this outcome given the state of the golem, he had at least hoped that it would be able to give him an introduction as to how the Exchange Hall functioned. Unfortunately, it looked like he would have to figure this out by himself.
I was expecting far too much from this broken golem…
Shaking his head as he thought about this, Xuan Hao slowly began to approach the large pair of wooden doors. Part of him was silently praying that the pair of wooden doors weren't sealed by some sort of ancient formation that required the help of the two broken golems on either side of the large pair of doors.
Creeeaaak~
Lucky, when he tried pushing open the large pair of doors, there was no resistance. However, the sight that met him on the other side of was not anything like he had expected-
"The ceiling of the Exchange Hall collapsed!?"
Instead, what Xuan Hao was met with was a barely intact room that had mostly been buried beneath the sand. From what he could see with the help of his divine sense, it looked like none of the things that had been buried beneath the sand had managed to survive the passage of time without the protection afforded to them by the formation of the Exchange Hall and the preservation golems.
Wait! The formation should have been created for the sole purpose of protecting the Exchange Hall. If the formation is still around, there should not have been a chance for the formation to still exist, as it would have to be destroyed before the ceiling of the Exchange Hall would have a chance to collapse…
Feeling that the current situation in front of him didn't make any sense, Xuan Hao could not help narrowing his eyes before focusing his divine sense on the place where the ceiling collapsed.
The place was big enough to cover around two thirds of the now buried Exchange Hall, but with his current divine sense, it was not too difficult to examine the entire thing.
"Huh?"
However, after covering the entire collapsed part of the ceiling with his divine sense, Xuan Hao could not stop a surprised sound from escaping his lips followed by a hint of disbelief appearing in his eyes.
"This… The ceiling didn't cave in due the constant stress put on it by the sand from the outside, but because someone destroyed the ceiling with brute force!" Muttering this to himself in shock at this revelation, Xuan Hao felt a shiver run down his spine.
Given the power of the formation in place surpassing even the strength of the cloud demon beast that he had encountered back in the sea of clouds, Xuan Hao could not imagine how strong someone would have to be to breakthrough the formation and destroy the most important part of the Exchange Hall. Even if it was someone in the Earth Immortal Realm, he doubted that it would be possible to do anything to the ancient formation guarding the Exchange Hall.
Someone above the Earth Immortal Realm…?
As this thought occurred to him, Xuan Hao turned his attention towards the rest of the Exchange Hall that had been buried beneath the sand. Looking at it again, it seemed like every single one of the secret techniques that the preservation golem had told him about had ended up being destroyed by the attack back then.
The person who did this should have been one of the Mirage Sect's enemies. Maybe even one of the people behind the destruction of the Mirage Sect…
Guessing the identity of the person who had caused the destruction of all the Exchange Hall's secret technique, Xuan Hao did not continue to search through the sand. Understanding very well that there was no way that any of the secret techniques would have been able to survive the attack of an existence who possibly exceeded the Earth Immortal Realm.
Even if some of the secret techniques had ended up miraculously surviving the attack, there was also the fact that they would have to survive beneath the sand for thousands of years without any form of protection.
Feeling a sense of disappointment welling up inside of him as he glanced over the large pile of sand covering everything inside the Exchange Hall except a small area around the wooden doors, Xuan Hao turned around and made his way back into the hallway.
Hopefully there is more to this place than just this single room. Maybe the person who attacked this place didn't get to destroy everything. After all, the formation is still active- Meaning that the core of the formation should still be intact…
"Hm… Maybe I should try and see if I can find the preservation golem from earlier and see if it can help me find the gate out of this trial space. At least it seemed like it had more than enough energy to hold a conversation." Muttering this to himself as he remembered the preservation golem that he had encountered when first entering the Exchange Hall, Xuan Hao could not help feeling a bit more hopeful.
Given how big the underground structure that the Exchange Hall was located inside of was, there was no way that it would only contain a single room filled with secret techniques. If he was not wrong, there should be far more rooms like the one buried in sand.
The only problem was that he had no idea if these rooms had ended up encountering a similar attack and ended up getting destroyed… But then again, there was no way to figure this out before looking for himself. Not to mention, he still had to find the gate leading out of the trial space!