Sticking to the cracks and crevices that had formed along the sides, Hao Xuan made his way down at a steady pace.

20 minutes later he had hit bottom and was hiding above what looked like containers, looking around for clues.

The first thing he noticed was that most of the people walking around and lugging various materials were all natives. They were malnourished to such a degree that Hao Xuan could see their bones. There were little to no muscles anywhere on their bodies.

They looked haggard with deep black circles around their eyes indicating a severe lack of sleep. At first glance it would be easy to mistake them for zombies. Actually, even zombies would look better than these people.

The smell of rotting flesh and excrement drifted into Hao Xuan's nose, making him gag. Covering his nose with the sleeve of his shirt, Hao Xuan glanced towards the source of the smell which was coming from behind him.

There were ditches formed along the entire outer edge of the pit and upon getting closer he could see dozens of bodies floating in putrid waste materials. They looked the same as the people walking about just a few meters away, starved and hollow in more ways than one.

The ditch went around the entire pit, making a full circle. And it was probably filled with the same things all the way.

Hao Xuan had to look away to keep himself from throwing up. He backed up several steps and ordered Baracus to shut off his olfactory system to keep the smell from imprinting in his brain.

"What the fuck are these people doing?!" he muttered through gritted teeth in a low voice, talking to himself.

Taking a few minutes to calm down, he went back up to the containers once again.

Almost 90% of the people here were the starving natives, while the other 10% looked like cultivators.

Hao Xuan could feel their Qi quite clearly, along with a tinge of bloodlust mixed with killing intent that resembled a red hue. For most normal people it would exert itself as a suffocating and oppressive sensation that someone was trying to smother them but to people like Hao Xuan that were more spiritually aware, it showed as a vague color around their bodies.

It looked like they were in charge of the natives, lazily overseeing them from the back of various mounts while eating or drinking.

They had savage and cruel looks in their eyes while heartlessly surveying the natives that were little more than walking skeletons at this point.

Some of them poured water onto the ground and dropped chunks of food on purpose and laughed as the natives licked their dry and bloody lips. Yet none of the natives dared to stop even for a second.

How long must they have been in these conditions, beaten and abused like slaves, like mere insects that they resembled the dead more than the living?

And what made Hao Xuan truly angry was that there were even children here. Shackled to one another like cattle, they carried chunks of rocks in their laps that were too big for them.

When one of them collapsed, a nearby cultivator would come up and whip them until they passed at which point someone would drag them away.

Hao Xuan couldn't believe his eyes. What kind of animals would do this? And he soon got his answer.

From inside the gate walked out a party of 10-15 people. They were all well dressed, well mannered, and handsome individuals.

Hao Xuan recognized several of them. The one that stood out the most was a striking young man that had been at the back of Hao Xuan's mind since before he arrived on this planet.

With a smile that could take a maiden's breath away and the charisma to be the center of attention no matter where he went, Dai Zhi stood out like a sore thumb.

He was talking to another individual that everyone else seemed to be taking special care off. He was wearing a black shirt with a single button holding it together, showing off his near-perfect body that looked like it was chiseled out of stone.

From his overbearing demeanor to how he conducted himself, it was pretty easy for Hao Xuan to make an educated guess about his identity from the information Ensis had given him.

This was Tian Zheng.

Both the First protectors of the Hall and the Academy were here, talking to each with such beaming smiles that one would think they were old friends seeing each other for the first time in years.

All the anger and fury that was bubbling inside of Hao Xuan ready to blow was forced down by this newfound curiosity. Why were these two princes that represented their respective institutes which were mortal enemies now being so chummy with one another?

Did they set up this whole operation together?

Followed by their entourage, they walked out of the gate with their hands behind their backs, talked for a few more minutes with each other before getting on their respective mounts.

Dai Zhi's mount looked like a gentle sparrow, dark blue, and red in color. Tian Zheng's mount was a horned black leopard with two pairs of wings.

They gave a few words of advice to the five or so people that were staying and the rest flew off into the night, vanishing from view within seconds.

Hao Xuan watched till the end, with even more questions than the ones he first arrived with.

The more he thought about it, the worse this feeling that something else was up got.

For all intents and purposes, the Hall and the Academy had irreconcilable differences. They had always been at each other's throats so what changed now?

And what was this place? Why were they using mere mortals to do manual labor when Cultivators could do all that and more in a fraction of the time?

And most importantly, how much did they know about the prison?

But he wouldn't be able to get the answers to such questions from these people here.

Hao Xuan saw the five people that remained all scatter in different directions.. He chose the one that looked the weakest and slowly followed after him from the sides.

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