The Azure Sky Palace had a rather unusual layout. All the ordinary people lived around the outer edges of the mountain range, where they had built cities and towns. The outside was bustling, but none of those people could be seen within.
Inside the mountain range, Earth Grade experts lived atop individual peaks, while Heaven Grade experts gathered in the central hall. The other disciples, who had yet to reach Earth Grade, lived throughout the surrounding mountains.
The Azure Sky Palace placed little importance on these ordinary disciples, so their surroundings had no particularly strong protection. In the palace's eyes, only those who reached Earth Grade qualified as true members. Anyone below that level was no different from an ordinary person. Perhaps that was precisely why the ordinary disciples here actually got along quite well with the ordinary people outside.
The true upper ranks were different. They stood high above everyone else and could dictate whether those ordinary people lived or died.
Only the mountaintops had powerful formations protecting them. The formation Huo Hai had just passed through, which covered the entire mountain range, was not a Sect-Guardian Grand Formation, but a formation used for surveillance. Its actual protective power was not particularly strong.
The strongest defenses guarded the central hall. Those on the other peaks could, at most, withstand attacks from Spirit Emperor Realm experts, while the ordinary disciples had no protection at all. Huo Hai examined the central hall's defenses. Even a peak Spirit Saint probably could not force their way through this Spirit Formation head-on in a short time. It was simply too solid.
Rather than head straight into the hall, Huo Hai first slipped secretly onto the other peaks. After making a circuit, however, he was disappointed. "Honestly, these neglected places really don't have anything good."