Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

”Hm? Is there anything I can help with?” Seeing Xuan Hao walking up to her and not recognizing him due to the fact that he had already hidden his strength and changed his appearance. Looking no different from a normal elder in the Nascent Soul Realm, Sheng Mei only felt a bit confused upon seeing the unknown elder in front of her.

Considering the fact that the Star Shattering Sect had been expanding quite a bit and added a lot of new elders over the past few years, it wasn’t that uncommon for the Nascent Soul Realm Elders of the sect to not know each other. Especially for a newer elder like Sheng Mei, who often just kept to herself and didn’t interact much with the rest of the elders of the sect.

”Hello, Elder Sheng, I just happened to hear that you were knowledgeable on the ancient language and wanted to know if you had time to talk about it, as I myself am quite interested in learning about the ancient language and I’m sure both of us would benefit.” Knowing this, Xuan Hao directly laid out his cards and invited her for a conversation around the ancient language.

”Huh? You are interested in the ancient language as well!? How rare… Of course, I would love to have conversation with you…”

”Ah, you can just call Elder Stone Deer.”

”Elder Stone Deer? Hehe, what a unique title. Okay then, let’s just sit over here, there aren’t any disciples around to disturb in this part of the library anyway. After all, most of those young ones spent most of their time in the combat technique section searching for powerful combat arts.” Nodding her head in response to Xuan Hao’s newest attempt at coming up with a new identity for himself, Elder Sheng Mei didn’t seem to mind the rather unique name he had come up with as she signaled for him to sit down together with her.

Although the Daoist title of Stone Deer was a rather unique one, it wasn’t among the most outrageous ones that could be found in the Star Shattering Sect and could even be considered quite tame. Especially when compared to a certain elder who had taken on the Daoist title of all devouring demon hand.

Given the fact that this elder was a pacifist by nature and didn’t do anything other than dedicate himself to teaching the disciples of the sect, it was a wonder how he had come up with a Daoist title like this that would normally be reserved for demonic cultivators.

Though, there was a chance that this title didn’t come about through this elder’s own ideas, but instead due to his teaching methods and what the disciples ended up calling him as a result. In the many Daoist titles were created like this and wasn’t in the control of the one with the title most of the time.

So, although Sheng Mei might be a bit curious about how the unknown elder in front of her had ended up with the title of Stone Deer, she decided not to ask about it as she sat down together with him.

More than anything else, she felt curious about his expertise in the ancient language that she herself had spent a good part of her life researching. After all, there weren’t that many people who tried to understand the ancient language.

The reason for this was rather simple, as it was extremely difficult to understand and took a long time to even partly understand. Time that other cultivators felt would be better spent on more productive things like increasing their cultivation realm or furthering themselves in a specific profession…

”Well then, should we get started? I’m curious how far your understanding of the ancient language goes. After all there is quite a difference between just understanding a few words and being capable of actually reading through the ancient language itself and…” As Xuan Hao followed behind Sheng Mei and sat down across from her, Sheng Mei didn’t waste any time as she began passionately talking about the ancient language.

Soon enough, Xuan Hao was dragged into the conversation and both of them began sharing the different things they had learnt about the ancient language and how far both of them had gone when it came to understanding it and its history.

As time passed, Sheng Mei only became more passionate, as she came to understand that the Elder Stone Deer in front of her was far more knowledgeable on the ancient language than she had first expected.

Although not on the same level as her who had spent most of her life researching and trying to understand the ancient language, he wasn’t that far off from her and only seemed to have veered off in some strange directions along the way due to a lack of a proper teacher or path to follow when trying to understand the ancient language.

In turn, as she realized this, Sheng Mei became certain that the person in front of her was incredibly passionate about the ancient language. After all, to reach his current level of understanding of the ancient language in the Nascent Soul Realm, he would have had to have spent a long time researching it.

After all, different from her, who had Lord Kubera to teach her in the earlier stages and point her in the right direction, Elder Stone Deer in front of her didn’t have this kind of help and would have had to go through everything blindly on his own.

Knowing this, Sheng Mei decided to also share some of the things she had learnt from Lord Kubera in the past about the ancient language.

Among the things she had learnt, by far, one of the most important was the fact that the ancient language could be split into two parts. Pre-collapse ancient language and post-collapse ancient language.

One before the disaster that had broken the ancient world and one that had emerged after the collapse of the ancient world.

Though both of them shared similarities, they were in a sense different language, with the post-collapse ancient language being far easier to understand as their current language had evolved from it, while the pre-collapse ancient language was far harder to understand as it was, in simple terms, older.

Hearing about this, Xuan Hao could not help feeling a bit surprised, not just because of the new knowledge on the ancient language that he had received, but also because she had mentioned Lord Kubera on her own during the conversation without him needing to try and find a way to bring it up.

”Lord Kubera, who is that? Is he the one that taught you about the ancient language? If he is, I would love to meet him in person.”

Of course, Xuan Hao didn’t intend to show that his main goal had been to find out more about this mysterious Lord Kubera, as he just casually brought it up out a curiosity born from wanting to learn more about the ancient language.

”Haaa… Unfortunately, that won’t be possible… The last time I saw Lord Kubera was when I had just been promoted to Elder of the Flame Sky Kingdom. The only thing I know about the Lord’s whereabouts is the fact that he seemed to be heading towards the central part of the continent.

Even though I did want to follow him back then, I was far too weak to do so, as he said that I would at least have to reach the Profound Immortal Realm if I wanted to follow. Although, now that I learnt that this realm is something comparable to the Celestial Immortal Realm, I believe that it might indeed have been good for me to not go if it was that dangerous…” Shaking her head as she said this, Sheng Mei looked down at the few papers on ancient languages still on the table in front of her with a somewhat sad expression on her face.

”Now that I think about it, I didn’t really know a lot about Lord Kubera and what he was doing. After all, he seemed far too strong to be lingering around a small kingdom like the Flame Sky Kingdom…” Muttering this to herself, Sheng Mei abruptly stood up. ”Well, I have been taking quite a bit of your time and I still have something to do before it gets too late, so I will take my leave first.”

Whoosh-!

And so, with Xuan Hao just kindly waving her off after connecting to her communication talisman so they could keep in contact in the future, Sheng Mei left the library. Leaving Xuan Hao behind at the small, isolated table with a thoughtful expression on his face.

From what he had managed to learn about Lord Kubera through the conversation, he had to first and foremost reevaluate the strength of this mysterious cultivator who now very well could be someone at the Profound Immortal Realm instead of just someone in the Domain Lord Realm…