The distance to the cave where the Former Adviser Chu built the teleportation formation array to escape the wandering sinkhole was about a kilometer away. Lin Mu could feel the suction force getting a bit turbulent the closer he got to it.
He also realized that the 'Tunnel' was slightly below the cave. Lin Mu reached it after about ten minutes and saw what looked like a vortex below it. There was not just one, but eighteen such tunnels joining it.
"So many… does this spread all across the plane?" Lin Mu said upon seeing it.
The vortex spun at a constant pace and the spirit Qi from the tunnels kept on getting condensed within it. Lin Mu did not know how this was formed, but he was sure that it was certainly not natural.
Lin Mu then rose up and appeared on the surface. He looked around and saw that there were a few glowing crystals in the cave that illuminated it. The light was dim, but for Lin Mu, it was still enough to see everything clearly.
There was a lot to process here, and there were many things in the cave.
"This… just how many formation arrays is this even controlling?" Lin Mu questioned.
"Hmm… this looks like a rudimentary formation Nexus… it's basically an artificial version of a world nexus." Xukong answered.
"Huh? So this controls this entire Minor plane?" Lin Mu asked.
"Possibly… or perhaps it was supposed to. Looking at it, this seems to be incomplete." Xukong replied.
Lin Mu nodded his head and decided to take a look around. The cave itself was rather large, being at least a hundred meters tall and around five hundred meters wide. Though Lin Mu doubted if this was just one of the rooms or if there were more.
There were old ruins and structures in the cave, on which many runes were carved. It was certain that they were part of an array, but they were either damaged or just incomplete.
Lin Mu continued to look around and soon found what looked like a stone door disguised as a wall at the side.
"Hmm… this is certainly suspicious…" Lin Mu muttered and pushed it.
~RUMBLE~
As if the door had gained a life of itself, it moved and revealed a passageway. It was dark, unlike the hall, and Lin Mu lit up a flame on his hand to provide some light. With the fire elemental spirit Qi he had, it was a piece of cake for him to do something like this.
He walked through the passage while being alert and careful. He did not know if there were any traps set here or not. Soon, he reached the other end of the passage and appeared in another room.
"This should be the actual entrance of the cave." Lin Mu said.
He looked to the side and soon found what looked like ten stone pillars that were carved with old runes written in Dao script. The pillars were thin and were only five inches in thickness. But they were about three meters tall in height.
Inside the center of the ten pillars, Lin Mu could see the formation that was inscribed on the ground. There was also a small altar set up made out of some kind of a metal that seemed familiar to Lin Mu.
"Isn't this… made from Void Star metal?" Lin Mu identified.
"It actually is, yes." Xukong agreed.
Lin Mu got closer and checked the altar with his spirit sense. He could sense the remnants of spatial Qi inside the void star metal, but most of it had been depleted. Lin Mu read the inscriptions on the altar and could tell that it was a teleportation formation.
"This must be the formation that Adviser Chu made to escape the sinkhole." Lin Mu spoke.
"I doubt that," Xukong suddenly said.
"Huh? But he said that himself." Lin Mu replied.
"Not that part about the formation itself, but rather that he made it." Xukong explained.
"What do you mean, senior?" Lin Mu questioned.
"Look at the stone pillars and the altar as well. Those runes look far older than just two hundred years." Xukong replied.
Lin Mu got closer and touched the inscriptions, observing them in detail. The inscriptions certainly seemed far more aged than just two hundred years to him.
"Hmm… that's strange. But why would adviser Chu lie?" Lin Mu stated.
"Rather than lying, I think it was more of him just forgetting it." Xukong replied.
"Him forgetting? Would that be possible?" Lin Mu asked.
"More than possible. Don't forget that you managing to awaken him was already enough of a miracle. I wouldn't be shocked if his memories were still muddled. And with his condition, he would not even be able to tell that they were mixed up." Xukong answered.
"Then what could be that actually happened." Lin Mu wondered.
"From his other stories and what we've seen so far, it seems like this formation wasn't actually made by him, but some of its components were gathered by him. For example, the runes written on the ground seem newer and are probably made by him.
But the pillars and the altar were certainly made by someone else. They are far more complex than the other runes. They were definitely made by someone that had a mastery in formations and runes.
It would need someone on the level of Jing Luo or Jing Wei to make something like this. I doubt a man who became a Nascent soul realm cultivator just because of luck would be able to do something like this." Xukong explained.
"Hmm… perhaps it really is like that. He did mention that there were other people that get lost here and made their attempts to escape. Perhaps this place is the combined effort of all those people." Lin Mu stated.
"That could be it. But the inner hall you appeared in… that place cannot be made by anyone that came here. A formation nexus like that is… something that would need an Immoral Ascension realm cultivator to make.." Xukong revealed.