Fang Hao flew to his residence and landed with a satisfied nod. His shiny new golden robes established his status as a Junior Core Disciple. His residence was shaped like a large single storey mansion. Grasping the residence token which he had already bound with blood, Fang Hao had a pretty good idea about the layout and features of his residence. The residence was roughly shaped as a circle, with an inner cloister. The cloister surrounded what seemed to be a garden.

There was also a cultivation cave underneath the mansion, with a had an hidden entrance near the bottom of the hill. During his exploration Fang Hao also found a tasteful statue in the mansion. It was tasteful because the sculpture denoted a trident wielding female naga with a bare upper body and scaled lower body. Fang Hao wasn't sure whether the sculpture was originally present or the previous resident had placed it here. He scanned the area with his spiritual sense, but he didn't detect any entrance or remnant of a formation fragment.

Fang Hao felt that the placement of the statue was a bit odd, and was preparing to move the statue manually. Just as he placed his hands below the waist of the statue and grabbed it, he felt a particular scale near the ass of the statue was slightly protruded. He gently rubbed it, and heard a click. There was a creaking groaning sound and the statue flipped outwards. Like a sliding door, a portion of the solid wall slid sideways revealing a roughly hewn passage. He explored the passage and it ended up in the cultivation cave.

The entrance to the cultivation cave from his passage was similarly hidden behind a solid flat wall. Fang Hao groped around a bit and found an oddly shaped rock fragment near the bottom wall. He lightly pressed it with his feet, and the solid flat wall slid inwards revealing the cultivation cave. The cultivation cave looked pretty standard and barren. It had stone floors, stone walls and a stone ceiling along with a stone bench and a stone bed. Fang Hao explored both the mansion and the connected cultivation cave for almost a couple of weeks, searching for secrets; but his diligence wasn't rewarded any further.

'This secret entrance from behind the statue is quite innovative. My spiritual sense is obstructed in the walls of the mansion and boundaries of the cultivation cave. So just a sweep through with spiritual sense detects nothing out of the order. But who knew that a purely mechanical mechanism is used to conceal an alternate entrance? I doubt it could consistently fool a Core Formation Cultivator's detailed spiritual sense observation, but it's pretty innovative.'

'So spiritual sense isn't as omniscient as it appears to be eh. Forget about those advanced formations and restrictions which can fool/obstruct spiritual sense; sometimes a cleverly disguised purely mechanical mechanism can easily fool spiritual sense. I wonder what the background of the previous resident was in his mortal days? He arranged quite an intricate additional entrance to this cultivation cave. I bet there are more unexplored hidden areas around. Either I need to sharpen my spiritual sense to detect the slightest abnormality; Or I need to develop some sort of acute secret hunter sense eh.'

Sharpening Spiritual Sense was not an easy feat; there were very few methods to do so. Increasing one's Qi Cultivation Base was the primary method to do so. From what Fang Hao knew, Body Refining didn't grant any extras like spiritual sense / ability to fly up to the equivalent of the Core Formation Stage. But it was an entirely different matter after a Body Cultivator reached the Equivalent of the Nascent Spirit Stage; and Fang Hao had absolutely no idea about it.

As a Junior Core Disciple; Fang Hao could opt to keep a few retainers in his mansion for the daily mundane maintenance tasks. The retainers had to be male and Janitorial Disciples of Qi Gathering stage. Fang Hao wasn't too keen on doing so, as the formations in place did a good job of keeping everything clean and livable. And furthermore, he was wary of inviting unknown cultivators in his residence even if their cultivation base was pitiful compared to him. Who knew which of them wasn't a mind controlled puppet looking for an opportunity to screw him over. The Tantric Yang Codex had clearly opened his already paranoid mind to even more paranoid possibilities.

Fang Hao had inquired about the previous resident of his residential mansion. With his status as a Hall Master Zhu's personal disciple; it wasn't too big of a deal to dig out the info. In a few days, he had received reasonably detailed information on the previous resident. He was a cultivator with average talent for cultivation; but was apparently very crafty and tricky in the formations and restrictions he used. Unfortunately, he had died almost two decades back while competing for merit points and star points in an intersect competition.

Apparently, this particular intersect competition was held every thirty years or so. It comprised of collecting special resources in a mystic realm. Only cultivators with Foundation Establishment Cultivation or below could enter the mystic realm, and the mystic realm opened every thirty years or so. When the mystic realm was discovered, many sects tried to fight and monopolize it. But after a lot of bloodshed and a lengthy battle of attrition, each of the participating sects had a quota on the number of disciples they could send.

Of course, if the participating disciples choose to slaughter their rivals and loot their resources instead of actually collecting the special resources the hard way; it was the merit of the sect that they nurtured a ruthless disciple who could reap such rewards efficiently. That isn't to say that the offended parties wouldn't take action. While they couldn't immediately slaughter the offending disciple under the mutual restraints of the elders present, many of them were old monsters who could patiently wait decades, or even centuries to get even.

This competitive mystic realm expedition was necessary for those who wanted to acquire quick merits for the resources necessary for progressing to the Core Formation Stage. And the next intersect competition would be nine to fifteen years later. While the mystic realm opened only once every thirty years, it wasn't an exact date. Fang Hao assumed that some sophisticated divination could determine when the Mystic Realm would exactly open; and it got more accurate the closer the date approached. At least, that was what he gathered from the fragments of information available to him.