Dinner was eaten quickly and as a servant took away the empty plates, Zhen Mang entered the room. He quickly glanced at the Xiao Feng who stood up, saluted, and disappeared into his room.

After that, Zhen Mang slowly made the signs operating the runes in the room, and only when the table was isolated from the outside world he started speaking

"The first one was a miss, the mine indeed existed and a ventilation channel was easily found. But it caved in dozens of years ago and there is no way to look for the tunnel.

We found some signs at the other four locations and we even managed to locate the doors leading into the respective ventilation channels. Regretfully we could not open the doors as they appear to be rune-enchanted. Master Chen decided to return to the caved-in mine and try to sense its location and direction. He will attempt to create a new entrance on the tunnel path, as forcefully breaking through any would alert the enemies. And you? Any clues to the entrance inside the city?"

Hearing this question, Old Rui took some notes he had inside his robe pockets and started

"We found that there were extensive tunnels below the city center, but they were either closed or destroyed. This document claims that the biggest underground room or tunnel was cut from the network and converted into the Manor's basement. Some other documents, especially the construction ones sometimes mention tunnels that were either filled in or converted into basements and storage rooms. Judging from this, the entire underground system located in the city center was sealed, converted or filled in.

There were tunnels in the city center and no mentions of them in any other district, not even near the walls. The stone for the wall upgrades was the biggest and heaviest, so why would one make it take such a roundabout path as reaching the center and then be moved on the surface to the wall?

If they were also sealed or filled in it would be easily findable inside the documents. It is not though, so I think the tunnels near the walls were decided to be used for something, and this was kept secret. We haven't found anything that could point us at a location"

Wu Guang was silently listening to Old Rui, although he already knew everything, somehow listening to it again made a strange theory form up and surface in his mind. Noticing that he was deep in thought, Zhen Mang didn't ask anything of him and in place decided to wait.

An incense stick of time later, Wu Guang opened his eyes and shared his thoughts

"Even if there are no entrances and exits, the tunnels themselves have to pass under the walls and most of the city anyway. Judging from the documents, the tunnels were not very deep. And as they were located inside the city, maybe the basement of this tower was part of them?"

"That seems probable"

"Should we attempt to search the basement?"

"We will, for now, go take a bath and look around. You can take Xiao Feng with you as well, tell him about the possible access but do not explain why you are searching for it. I will hear the reports from my men and then we will come down. We will also close both basement floors to make a full search" After this Zhen Mang deactivated the runes he had used for isolating themselves.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Wu Guang accompanied by Xiao Feng and Old Rui went to the bath where Xiao Feng was brought up to date about the tunnels. Adding that this was a task they received from Palace Master Chen and Head Enforcer Zhen, Xiao Feng accepted the explanation and earnestly joined them into a heated discussion of the location for either a concealed entrance or a sealed one.

After bathing, they dressed up and continuing their discussion started observing every wall in the Bath and Dressing rooms. Zhen Mang arrived about the same time they had checked both walls in the Dressing room and were about to start with the ones in the Bath. He informed them that the basement was now sealed by the enforcers, and they would take care of checking the kitchen and storage areas, while he will help here on the second basement.

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It took them an hour to carefully examine every wall, Zhen Mang also used his intermediate Soul cultivator consciousness to scan every possible spot, but with no luck.

Wu Guang, whose intuition told him that this tower could not have been built without access to the tunnels suddenly asked the group

"Everyone, when did this tower became the Sect's tower?"

"About thirty-five years ago, when the official alliance between the island powers and cities was established" Old Rui quickly informed

"I see, so in case someone knew or even used the tunnels, he would not want to share such with outsiders, right? Especially as even mentions of them were hard to find. Not to mention that even the City Lord does not know about them.

Parting from this, as I wondered before, why there is a Bath with such things as a hot pool inside an old military tower? There were no mentions of anything like that in any documents, and all the basements were designated as storage when we checked them, didn't they, Old Rui?"

"Yes, you are correct. Wait, do you mean that the people who control or knew about the tunnels decided to hide them with something that the Sect would only be happy about? After all, between a storage and a rich bath like this..."

"Yes, Head Enforcer, can you try and sense below and behind the bath?"

"Let me try, when I scanned the room I did not feel anything strange, but if they wanted to hide the access, it would be logical to either use runes or special materials" Zhen Mang nodded and closed to the pool, closing his eyes and extending his consciousness he remained standing there for some moments.

"Hmm, I can't sense anything except the walls of the pool. But that's not right, there should be either another wall or some open space after it. The tubes that fill the pool are visible, but where is the drainage? Runes can reheat and clean it, but water has to be drained, especially when it's not in use..."

Mumbling like that, Zhen Mang opened his eyes and started walking towards the rear wall.

As he reached it he seemingly felt something. After covering himself with qi, he jumped into the water with a quick leap.

A brief moment later, he appeared on the surface. Quickly leaving the bath while dry thanks to the cover, he said

"One of the slabs on the rear wall has holes as if to let water escape. The strange thing is that the slab is about 5 square feet, a bit too big. Plus I noticed some kind of extra runes on it apart from the simple ones that should be used for controlling the water flow. Xiao Feng, in the rune plate that is near the right corner, find and activate the rune marked as 'Empty'. That should drain all the water. We will have a look after it drains. My intuition tells me that the slab is the answer"

Xiao Feng followed the order, and after the rune panel flashed, the pool started to empty at a slow pace. Very slow if compared to the size of the drain that Zhen Mang described. After the pool emptied by a tenth, Old Rui with a surprised expression pointed at the left corner

"Didn't you say that the drain is on the rear? Why the water current seems to go to this corner?"

"You are right. I think we have found our entrance to the tunnel system. And it seems that it's still operable, or why would iy have runes to block the water from passing through? Xiao Feng, go and call the Fang brothers here, ask the rest of the enforcers to fully seal the basements, including rune talisman sealing"

Although it was supposed to be a quick task, it actually took enough time for the pool to empty almost by half. Zhen Mang did not know what happened and decided to go investigate himself, after all, the enforcers up there were his men and he was sure they would not discard his commands. But as he started moving towards the door, Xiao Feng entered the Bath, accompanied by only one person.

Zhen Mang, Old Rui, and Wu Guang were surprised to see that Elder Chen was the one who arrived with him, and not the enforcers. But the surprise was pleasant, so they greeted the Elder first, and only then Zhen Mang asked

"Palace Master, why did you not send a glyph to notify of your return? And why aren't my men with you?"