Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

At the same time the Star Shattering Sect began experiencing an upheaval due to Elder Song’s new insight into the Dao of Order, back in the mystic realm, Xuan Hao quietly opened his eyes as the terrifying that had been spreading out around him slowly retracted before completely disappearing.

”I wonder how strong I am now…” Muttering this to himself as he felt the seemingly endless power of the spiritual sea in his dantian, Xuan Hao could not help curiously waving his hand as a projection of his spiritual sea manifested along the trajectory of his hand’s movement. Tearing into the very fabric of the space along its path.

After breaking through to the Sea Formation Realm, this manifestation of his spiritual sea into the world around him with nothing more than a single wave of his hand was the main indicator of someone reaching the Sea Formation Realm, as every move from someone in the Sea Formation Realm would carry with it the might of their entire spiritual sea. Bringing about a terrifying amplification in power to everything they did without any significant cost on their side.

In a sense, it was because of this terrifying amplification brought by their spiritual sea that someone in the Sea Formation Realm could no longer be handled by someone in the Early- or Middle Stage of the Celestial Immortal Realm, as the sheer power of the spiritual sea alone would crush them.

Only someone in the Late Stage or at the very Peak of the Celestial Immortal Realm had the ability to somewhat resist the terrifying might of a Sea Formation Realm Profound Immortal’s spiritual sea.

Not to mention, that was only resisting against someone in the Sea Formation Realm, when it came to overall strength, a Celestial Immortal Realm cultivator was still inferior to someone in the Sea Formation Realm. Especially when the Sea Formation Realm Profound Immortal advanced beyond the Early Stage of the Sea Formation Realm and the strength of their spiritual sea increased.

In the face of someone at the Peak of the Sea Formation Realm, a Peak Celestial Immortal Realm cultivator would have no way to fight back and could at most ensure their own safety by escaping if they had comprehended a Dao like the Dao of Space or the Dao of Light that were good for escaping.

Of course, Xuan Hao had no idea about how strong he had become after breaking through to the Sea Formation Realm and only thought about testing out his new strength now that he had finally broken through to the Profound Immortal Realm after what had felt like an eternity of being stuck in the Dao Domain Lord Realm.

Luckily for him, there was the perfect opportunity ready for him to test out his new strength in the form of the celestial trials.

After all, the celestial trials adjusted their difficulty according to the strength of the participant… And with his increase in strength, the celestial trial he would face after entering a celestial gate would undoubtedly be far more difficult and terrifying than the ones he had experienced so far.

Even if he was a bit worried about facing a celestial trial for the Sea Formation Realm when he essentially had no experience when it came to fighting in the Sea Formation Realm, he was also confident in his ability to stay alive with the help of his Dao of Space.

After all, even if he had no idea how his spiritual sea compared to others upon reaching the Sea Formation Realm, he was almost certain that the lotus floating in the middle of his dantian along with his comprehension of different Daos far exceeded that of others his realm.

Meaning that he was confident that he should be stronger than others in the Early Stage of the Sea Formation Realm, even if he hadn’t gathered enough information on the Profound Immortal Realm for the system to calculate how his strength compared to others.

The only way for him to get any clue about his current strength outside of getting information from the Tower of Secrets was through the three remaining celestial gates or by leaving the mystic realm and paying one of the major powers in the Northern Central Region a visit.

And… Among the two choices, the first seemed like a far safer option compared to the latter one. After all, he had no clue how accurate the information he had managed to gather on the power of the different major powers were.

Even if only a thousand years had passed since the old founder of the Flying Sword Sect had recorded the data, he had no way to guess whether one of the Star Formation Realm Profound Immortals that he wanted to test his strength out against happened to have found an opportunity to break through to the Land Creation Realm.

Although confident in his own strength, he had no plan of attempting to fight someone a Profound Immortal Realm cultivator in the Land Creation Realm.

The main reason for this was that his information of the realm itself was severely lacking, and he only knew that someone in the Land Creation Realm had completely surpassed the Celestial Immortal Realm in terms of strength.

So… With all of that in mind, it wasn’t much of a choice as he wasted no time pulling out the celestial compass before moving in the direction of the closest celestial gate that he had yet to visit.

Of course, his reason for wanting to complete the three remaining celestial trials also had to do with the fact that he wanted more information on the Profound Immortal Realm from the Tower of Secrets and at the same time wanted to complete the quest from the system.

In any case, Elder Song, Feng Chen or his disciples hadn’t contacted him so far, so he assumed that the situation back in the sect was fine and nothing for him to worry about. Not that he really expected something to happen in the few short weeks he had been gone from the sect.

If anything, he would have been surprised if something really did end up happening, as both the demonic cultivators and the Blue Sea Empire were currently busy fighting with each other and didn’t really have the time to care about the Star Shattering Sect.

Well… The demonic cultivators did have the power to do so, as they weren’t just locked in battle with the Blue Sea Empire at the moment but several other major powers bordering the Frozen Wastelands.

Instead, the reason for the Frozen Wastelands inaction against the Star Shattering Sect, more so had to do with the ruler of the Frozen Wastelands past mistake of attacking an ancient hidden sect making him paranoid about attacking another hidden ancient sect. Especially considering that the Star Shattering Sect wasn’t really doing much to fight back the demonic cultivators. Only really keeping their own borders safe with a few weaker disciples and elders in place.

In the eyes of the demonic cultivators of the Frozen Wastelands, though it was a bit annoying to have the Star Shattering Sect block an entry point into the Northern Central Region, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t that important and didn’t really affect the overall plan much, as they still had more than enough space to launch an attack on the Blue Sea Empire.

Not to mention, by avoiding the Star Shattering Sect, they avoided getting involved with a potentially far more terrifying existence than the Blue Sea Empire.

Even if the Star Shattering Sect wasn’t as strong as they might have believed, the foundation of an ancient hidden sect was still nothing to scoff at and could easily inflict serious damage to the demonic cultivators of the Frozen Wastelands.

In a sense, it was also because of this seemingly peaceful existence that the Star Shattering Sect enjoyed compared to surrounding major powers that allowed them to solidify their status as an ancient hidden sect in the eyes of everyone around them.

After all, only a true ancient hidden sect had the ability to make the demonic cultivators back off and not dare launch a serious attack against them.

All of them were completely unaware of the current ruler of the Frozen Wastelands past experience with ancient hidden sects and how much he ended up fearing running into such a situation again.

If they did know about this, they might have taken more proactive steps in probing the Star Shattering Sect and might have even been able to learn that it wasn’t an ancient hidden sect at all.

Unfortunately, none of this ended up happening and the Star Shattering Sect managed to keep the up the shield of being an ancient hidden sect and thus avoid any serious retaliation from the surrounding major powers, while the slowly growing strength of the disciples and elders appearing outside the sect only looked like an ancient hidden sect slowly starting the process of integrating the surrounding territory into its domain by allowing the younger generation to first try their hand before letting more senior members take over and help train the younger generation in how to do things properly.

In fact, because of Elder Song’s recent comprehension of the Dao of Order and the rapid improvements and changes taking place throughout the territory of the Star Shattering Sect following his insight into the Dao of Order and the more frequent appearance of both Soul Ascension Realm and Dao Seed Realm Elders outside the sect, it really did look like the seniors of the sect starting to show up to teach their juniors how to properly manage the sect’s territory…