Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Arriving at the entrance to the Explorer Union branch located in the city, Xuan Hao made his way inside without any hesitation before walking up to one of the counters to ask about information on the different Soul Ascension Realm cultivators and above present in the Dragon Tooth Mountain City and the Dragon Tooth Mountain itself.

Considering that he wasn’t the only person who wanted to get information on the different powerful cultivators present in the city and on the mountain itself, the staff member behind the counter showed no change in expression as he was handed over a small booklet that recorded the information of most of the Soul Ascension Realm cultivators and above currently present.

Of course, the information itself was highly inaccurate compared to buying detailed information on the different Soul Ascension Realm or stronger cultivators, as some of the people might not be present in the city any longer, while everyone mentioned was not thoroughly analyzed and had just been roughly estimated as either Soul Ascension Realm or Earth Immortal Realm without anything more detailed.

Not to mention, it was clear from a glance that the booklet did not contain information on all the Soul Ascension Realm cultivators or higher inside of the city, as those belonging to the Crimson Dragon Empire were excluded and those who had not yet revealed their strength in public were amongst the most obvious cultivators not part of the booklet.

One such example would be the few Soul Ascension Realm cultivators who had lined up with him to enter the city.

Following them entering the city closely behind him, neither of them had deliberately shown off their cultivation base. Instead, they went about their own business with the clear intent of avoiding drawing any attention to themselves.

For this reason, the information in the booklet could at most be relied on as a form of help for weaker cultivators so they would know who to offend or not. After all, to a Domain Lord Realm cultivator, it didn’t matter if the other party was a Soul Ascension Realm cultivator who had just passed through the second tribulation or someone who stood at the pinnacle of the realm.

No matter which of the two they offended, the fate of a normal Domain Lord Realm when faced with someone in the Soul Ascension Realm would normally be death.

It was also for this reason that the clerk behind the counter didn’t find anything odd about Xuan Hao asking for this kind of information, as he was currently still disguised as someone in the Domain Lord Realm.

So… So many Soul Ascension Realm cultivators…!

Of course, Xuan Hao’s mind wasn’t the slightest bit concerned about the thoughts of the clerk or the original purpose of the booklet, as he was wholeheartedly focused on the sheer number of Soul Ascension Realm cultivators recorded inside of the small booklet.

Just the ones that had been recorded down numbered a little over 70 Soul Ascension Realm cultivators and 6 Dao Seed Realm cultivators.

Counting those who had decided to not reveal their cultivation base as they went about their own business without trying to attract too much attention to themselves, Xuan Hao guessed that he should be able to complete the main difficult part of the main sect quest that involved increasing the number of powerful elders inside of the sect if he managed to recruit all of the wandering cultivators present inside of the Dragon Tooth Mountain City.

Then again… He also understood that this was unrealistic, as there was no way that it would be easy to convince these wandering cultivators to join his sect.

If they had been so easy to recruit, he doubted that a power like the Crimson Dragon Empire wouldn’t already have done so. After all, while a Domain Lord Realm cultivator and below was not of much value to a power at the level of the Crimson Dragon Empire, someone in the Soul Ascension Realm still held some value in guarding their vast territory. Even more so the Dao Seed Realm wandering cultivators.

The problem with recruiting them likely came with the fact that they were too strong and recruiting someone at that level of strength required a certain sacrifice when it came to their own benefits. Especially so for the Dao Seed Realm cultivators, as there was no way that the Dao Seed Realm cultivators, already part of the Crimson Dragon Empire, would simply give up part of their own cultivation resources.

Expanding the territory of the Crimson Dragon Empire was a way to solve this kind of problem and allow new Dao Seed Realm cultivators to take over new territory where new cultivation resources could be found.

Unfortunately, to expand their territory on the already fully divided continent, the strength of a Dao Seed Realm cultivator was far from enough, as the Crimson Dragon Empire would need to give birth to another Celestial Immortal Realm cultivator if they wanted to expand their territory further.

The reason why a still small sect like the Star Shattering Sect could accommodate an entire clan like the Zhang Clan mainly had to do with the fact that the Star Shattering Sect was in control of a massive quantity of spiritual metals through their two spiritual metal mines in the Iron Sky Kingdom and the Azure Sky Kingdom.

That and the presence of the alchemy hall with Pei Yang at the helm, that would be able to produce the pills and potions needed for cultivation and safety.

Not to mention the Zhang Clan and their cultivators, the current Star Shattering Sect should be able to accommodate a little over two hundred Soul Ascension Realm cultivators without any major problems according to what Elder Song had told him about the sect’s current situation before he left.

The problem for the Star Shattering Sect mainly came from the lack of spirit stones, as the sect currently didn’t really control any major spirit stone mines and the ones that the sect was in control of mostly produced low grade spirit stones, with some higher quality ones every now and then.

For now, this problem has been alleviated through trade with the Explorer Union and the current supply of spirit stones was more than enough, but it would be good to find a solution to this problem in the future.

Unfortunately, any higher quality spirit stone mines could only be found closer to the center of the continent and were likely already under the control of the different major powers. Out of grasp for the current Star Shattering Sect.

Feeling a bit troubled as he thought about this, Xuan Hao soon shook his head and decided not to think too much about problems that would only start to show themselves when the Star Shattering Sect had more than two hundred Soul Ascension Realm elders around.

When that time came, he should have broken through to the Profound Immortal Realm and these kinds of issues would resolve themselves.

As for the question of how many Dao Seed Realm cultivators the current Star Shattering Sect could accommodate? That question had never come up in his conversation with Elder Song.

The reason being rather simple, as both understood that it would be hard to recruit someone who had managed to reach the Dao Seed Realm as a wandering cultivator.

Anyone that could be recruited would be a blessing for the current Star Shattering Sect, as it would help significantly increase the strength of the sect while also helping the Star Shattering Sect keep its carefully crafted image as an ancient hidden sect intact.

With that in mind, Xuan Hao didn’t go to find one of the Soul Ascension Realm cultivators on the booklet but instead went out to search for one of the Dao Seed Realm cultivators. Hoping that he will be able to recruit at least one of the six people listed in the booklet.

Scratch that, from the little information in the booklet, two of them have strange hobbies and should be avoided if possible while a third was a well-known con artist that even dared to scam the Dao Seed Realm cultivators from the Crimson Dragon Empire.

In the end, he was left with three potential future elders in the Dao Seed Realm.

Now, the main problem that stood between him and recruiting these Dao Seed Realm elders to join his sect was figuring out where they were, as the booklet didn’t really contain any information about where they were. Only that they had been in the city within the past month.

For all he knew about the three, they might have already left the Dragon Tooth Mountain City discreetly.

One way he could find out with some certainty was buy more detailed information from the Explorer Union, but… Asking the clerk offhandedly about the price for information on the location of someone in the Dao Seed Realm, he quickly realized that it would be better for him to first look around the city himself and see if he could find anything.

The error he had caused in the guardian formation of the Dragon Tooth Mountain City not long ago fell completely to the back of his mind as he left the Explorer Union to search for the three Dao Seed Realm cultivators who had the potential to become elders of the sect.

This was not completely his fault, as he did ask the clerk about the formation and specifically maintenance of the formation. Using his identity as a pretext to feign curiosity for the inner workings of the massive and complex formation- Well… Not entirely him feigning curiosity, as he was indeed interested in the formation and how it worked.

In the end, he learnt that the formation went through yearly safety checks and the next one was still a few months away. Leading him to fully believe that he would be safe for the next few months without anyone noticing a small error that had taken place in the formation before being quickly fixed a second later by the formation itself.