Ashton didn't find anything useful on the island.
He's been exploring these past few days, he never saw anything that would help him reach the base of this landmass faster. This left him with his only option which was to go down the hard way.
In hindsight though, the demons he fought at least gave him more battle experience. It also progressed his quest and earned him some loot.
Ashton also reached Practitioner lv.5 (5th Refinement). This made him a hell of a lot stronger than before. It feels rather crazy to him that his cultivation speed was skyrocketing despite being outside of humanity's territory but somehow, that also made sense.