Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Effortlessly moving through the intact spatial passage, Xuan Hao didn’t dare let his guard down. Understanding that the situation inside the celestial gate was constantly changing and a moment of carelessness could very well end up costing him his life. Even if the spatial passage was intact for now, he had no clue about the state of the celestial trial he was going to be taking on.

For all he knew, he might end up inside a broken space not much different from the independent space where the Tower of Secrets was located. In which case, he could only pray that there would still be a way for him to complete the celestial trial…

Luckily, the situation didn’t end up turning out like that, as he soon found himself surrounded by trees tall enough to pierce the clouds above and distant howls of demon beasts that alerted him to the fact that he wasn’t alone.

As for using his divine sense to gauge the general situation of his surroundings… He found that it was impossible to sense the situation more than a few hundred meters around himself.

Not because his divine sense was being suppressed, but instead because the faint mist lingering throughout the forest absorbed his divine sense.

He could overcome this by focusing his divine sense in one location, but doing so would be less helpful than just flying up to have a look around-

Whoosh~

And without any hesitation, this was just what he did, as he soon found himself ascended thousands of meters into the sky before breaking through the tall treetops that towered far above the clouds that now seemed to form a sea of white below the sea of green above. Hiding the forest floor completely in the process, as only a few branches attached to the towering trees seemed capable of peeking above the sea of clouds.

As for the treetops themselves… They were nothing short of amazing, as they seemed to have formed their own independent ecosystem separate from the forest below. Housing all kinds of unique demon beasts that had seemingly created small kingdoms of their own amidst the treetops.

Different from the ferocious beasts of the eighth celestial trial, the demon beasts in the ninth celestial trial were clearly intelligent.

Given the presence of Celestial Immortal Realm demon beasts amidst the treetops, it was understandable that the different kingdoms that had formed amidst the treetops weren’t so different from that of human kingdoms outside the mystic realm. Albeit a bit more unique considering their special location.

Overall, Xuan Hao was surprised to see that the ninth celestial trial seemed to be going in a completely different direction from that of past celestial trial, as it included intelligent life not in the form of a guardian.

Although this was a rather surprising development, Xuan Hao did not let this affect him, as he picked a smaller kingdom amidst the treetops. Using his domain to seamlessly blend in and remain unnoticed as he began investigating the history of these demon beast kingdoms.

Not only because he hoped that the history recorded in these demon beast kingdoms might allow him to find out the goal of the celestial trial, but also because he was genuinely curious about these demon beasts, as it was the first kind of demon beast civilization that he had encountered so far.

And by far, the most surprising thing wasn’t that they had managed to construct kingdoms of their own, but instead that the intelligence of almost all the demon beasts inside the different kingdoms seemed to have reached a level no different from that of normal humans, be they at the Qi Condensation Realm or the Core Formation Realm.

The normal requirement of reaching the Nascent Soul Realm to reach human levels of intelligence seemed to have disappeared completely inside these demon beast kingdoms.

However, as he began diving into the history of these demon beast kingdoms, it didn’t take long for him to discover that there wasn’t anything of interest- or more importantly, there wasn’t anything at all.

The history of the demon beast kingdoms was nonexistent even though history books existed inside their libraries.

To ensure that this wasn’t just a problem with a single kingdom, he went through a dozen others. Searching through their historical records… And without fail ended up finding nothing but countless blank pages where tales of the past should have existed.

”How can there be nothing at all…? Even if they didn’t have the habit of recording their history, why fill their libraries with blank history books?” Not understanding the current situation at all, Xuan Hao could only look down at the blank pages of the book in his hand with a confused expression on his face.

No matter how hard he thought about it, he couldn’t think of any reason why the demon beast kingdoms would fill their libraries with blank books where history books should have existed.

Even more confusing, he had already witnessed several demon beasts using their claws to pick up the blank books before starting to read them with an almost spellbound expression on their faces.

Using the Dao of Illusions on a few of these demon beasts, he had tried to get information out of them after they had finished reading the blank books.

Of course, even if he didn’t speak their language, it was still possible for him to transfer his intentions through his divine sense. Allowing them to understand what he wanted from them, but in the end, he only ever got a confused expression from the demon beast, seemingly not understanding his question.

Even weirder was when he tried to confront one of the Celestial Immortal Realm demon beasts, as the other party directly ignored him like he didn’t even exist.

Having decided to test out if the other party could really continue ignoring him, Xuan Hao decided to summon his sword intent before using it to slash down towards the other party… And to his surprise, the demon beast in the Celestial Immortal Realm didn’t react in the slightest even as it ended up losing one of its limbs to the sword intent. Continuing onwards like nothing had happened.

After this, Xuan Hao didn’t bother hiding his presence any longer, as he realized that the demon beasts living amidst the treetops didn’t care the slightest bit about his presence even if he attacked them.

Now, his main worry was figuring out what the goal of the celestial trial was, as even after spending a day searching through the different demon beast kingdoms living in the treetops far above the ground, he hadn’t managed to find a single clue as to what the celestial trial was about. The only thing he had managed to understand for certain was the fact that the demon beasts would ignore his presence no matter what he did.

Even if he ended up destroying one of the kingdoms, there wasn’t any reaction from the demon beasts as they just continued like nothing had happened.

However, he did notice something after destroying one of the demon beast kingdoms and that was the fact that the demon beast kingdoms who had been trading with said kingdom continued to trade with the now gone demon beast kingdom. Arriving and unloading their goods and wares. Selling them to no one. Picking up empty air before ultimately leaving the kingdom like they had just gone through a major trade and were returning home with a windfall.

Weird wasn’t enough to describe this kind of situation, as the demon beasts all seemed to exist in a completely different reality from himself, one where the demon beast kingdom he had destroyed was still around and thriving.

”Perhaps… This is related to the goal of this celestial trial? If I figure out the origin of the illusion that seems to have trapped these demon beasts, I might be able to complete the celestial trial…” Muttering this to himself as he watched what looked like a large crocodile demon beast in the role of a merchant fall through a hole in a bridge leading to the kingdom he had destroyed before disappearing into the sea of clouds below, Xuan Hao realized that there was a high likelihood that the goal of the celestial trial was related to the strange state of the demon beasts.

The only problem was that even if he understood that the goal of the celestial trial might be related to the strange state of the demon beasts, he had no way to figure out the origin of this strange state, as there seemed to be nothing linking all the different demon beast kingdoms together, outside of-

”The trees…” Narrowing both his eyes as this realization hit him, Xuan Hao looked down at the large tree branch directly beneath his feet-

Whoosh-!

And without wasting any time, the full might of his divine sense swept out before bearing down on the tree branch. Beginning to analyze every part of it in excruciating detail…