Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Exploring new methods to limit the damage that could be caused by a potential future traitor of the sect, Elder Song and the rest of the sect’s internal management elders also began looking towards new ways to help the sect grow that didn’t involve expanding into the nearby empires.

The main reason for this was not that the Star Shattering Sect was too weak to do so, but instead because of the Blue Sea Empire’s increased presence in the area keeping any local power in check and preventing them from causing any unnecessary trouble that could potentially give the demonic cultivators an opportunity to launch another attack and move closer to the Blue Sea Empire itself.

After all, even though the demonic cultivators hadn’t continued to increase the ferocity at which they attacked the smaller empires serving as the border between the Blue Sea Empire and the Frozen Wasteland, it didn’t mean that things would continue like this. Especially so when considering that almost every other border with the Frozen Wasteland had been getting more and more dangerous, with battle between Celestial Immortal Realm cultivators and Demon King Realm demonic cultivators becoming a regular sight.

Although these battles hadn’t caused any Celestial Immortal or Demon King to fall, the initial attack from the Frozen Wasteland had ended up resulting in two Celestial Immortal Realm cultivators falling… And if not for Xuan Hao’s earlier interference, it would most likely have been three!

With all of this in mind, the areas that the Star Shattering Sect could continue expanding were not that many. Only the chaotic region that had been left following the fall of the Sky Empire could be considered a suitable location, as the people from the Blue Sea Empire roaming that area didn’t seem to care that much about the territory as the Sky Empire had already been destroyed.

Outside of that, there was also the possibility of expanding the sect’s influence into the outer edges of the continent where resources were sparse and hard to come by. Potentially setting up a few smaller branch sects for the purpose of trying to find talented people that could be moved into one of the larger branch sects or the main sect if they were talented enough.

At the same time, Elder Dust Fairy could also start expanding the sect’s information network into the outer edges of the continent.

Although the information that could be gained around the outer edges of the continent wouldn’t be that useful, it would at least help alert the sect in case a powerful demon beast appeared from the endless ocean that surrounded the continent or a powerful cultivator fleeing from one of the major powers in the core of the continent appeared and could be recruited in a similar fashion as Pei Yang had been recruited.

Of course, there was one major problem when it came to expanding the Star Shattering Sect into the outer edges of the continent at the moment… And that was the fact that they would first have to go through the Frozen Wasteland before they could reach the outer edges of the continent, something that was easier said than done with the current state of the Frozen Wasteland.

For now, expanding into the outer edges of the continent would have to wait, as the only person capable of safely traversing through the Frozen Wasteland at the moment was Xuan Hao… And even he wasn’t entirely sure that he would be able to keep moving between the two places for long before he would end up catching the attention of the Demon King Realm demonic cultivators who should have noticed him the last time, he had passed through the Frozen Wasteland together with Yi Min.

Going around the Frozen Wasteland wasn’t really an option either, as that would involve having to pass through countless smaller empires and go through the borders of at least three powers at the same level as the Blue Sea Empire, who were currently engaging in battles with powerful demonic cultivators in the Demon King Realm from time to time.

Outside of this, there was a third option for the Star Shattering Sect to establish a presence in the outer edges of the continent and that was for the sect to construct a teleportation formation linking the two places together.

The only problem with this idea was the fact that there wasn’t anyone in the Star Shattering Sect skilled enough in the Dao of Formations and the Dao of Space to create a teleportation formation.

The one who was closest to accomplishing something like this was Xuan Hao, who had managed to reach the realm of Small Success in both the Dao of Space and the Dao of Formations.

Unfortunately for Elder Song and the management elders who wanted to convince Xuan Hao to learn how to construct a teleportation formation after learning about this, the sect didn’t really have any books on teleportation formations.

Maybe the book of formations that Xuan Hao had acquired from the old man from the Fallen Immortal Archipelago had teleportation formations inside of it, but after a quick look through the book, Xuan Hao still found it too complicated to understand in a short period of time.

With that in mind, if Xuan Hao wanted to try and create a teleportation formation, he would have to create one from scratch by trying to use the one in the Half Spirit Race’s old village as a guide… And considering that Xuan Hao was far more interested in increasing his own strength so he would have a chance in case a Celestial Immortal Realm Ancestor from the Blue Sea Empire decided to show up, he decided to ignore Elder Song and the rest of the management elders. Instead continuing to focus on comprehending the Dao of Space.

Although this was a bit discouraging for Elder Song and the rest, they didn’t give up looking for ways to continue strengthening the Star Shattering Sect and merely put the matter of expanding into the outer edges of the continent on hold for now.

In the end, after close to two weeks of deliberation on which direction the sect would expand in, Elder Song and the rest ultimately decided to focus on strengthening the already established branch sects inside the sect’s territory, while slowly beginning to look for resource rich areas inside the former Sky Empire that were close to the Iron Sky Kingdom where Yi Min was.

Working together with Yi Min and the people under her, it didn’t take long before Elder Song and the rest of the sect’s management elders set up a small outpost in an area close to the Iron Sky Kingdom where another empire at the same size as the Sky Empire was mining a large spirit stone mine… And before this empire even had a chance to respond, Yi Min and a group of elders from sect moved in to seize the mine. Marking the Star Shattering Sect’s first move into the chaotic region of the former Sky Empire.

Unfortunately for the empire that had ended up losing the spirit stone mine, they were originally far away from the chaotic region of the Sky Empire and weren’t really in a situation to send a force over to retake the spirit stone mine after it had fallen, as they themselves were busy dealing with the invasion of demonic cultivators.

The only reason why they had managed to keep the spirit stone mine under their control was due to the fact that many other empires that had taken advantage of the fall of the Sky Empire to seize its resources were similarly busy dealing with demonic cultivators invading their territories.

In a sense, the only people who had been left defending the spirit stone mine were a few Domain Lord Realm cultivators in charge of keeping any smaller powers or rouge cultivators from causing trouble.

When they were faced with a powerful Soul Ascension Realm cultivator like Yi Min, they simply stood no chance and were easily taken care of.

Of course, as the Star Shattering Sect wasn’t really in a position to dispatch Soul Ascension Realm cultivators to guard the newly seized spirit stone mine and only a few Domain Lord Realm cultivators were left defending the place, Elder Song made sure that Yi Min would be ready to act in case someone came to try and retake the spirit stone mine in the future.

Considering that she also got a part of the spirit stones that were mined, and it wasn’t that far away from the Iron Sky Kingdom, Yi Min ended up happily agreeing to this arrangement.

Following this, Elder Song and the rest of the management elders slowly began turning their focus to other similar resource rich area close to the Iron Sky Kingdom… And over the next few months, the Star Shattering Sect ended up establishing another five outposts in the chaotic region of the former Sky Empire. Vastly improving the number resources available to the disciples and elders of the sect. Further increasing the speed at which the strength of the sect increased.