Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Standing in front of a towering mountain with a cave carved out on the side, Xuan Hao felt a shiver running down his spine after he felt the remnant present left behind from the demon beast that should have lived in the mountain cave. The only thing that made him feel somewhat reassured was the fact that it was now clearer than ever that the demon beast that should have lived in the territory wasn’t just in secluded cultivation but was truly gone.

Although he had no idea if the demon beast in question was dead or had just left its territory, he at least knew that there shouldn’t be anything too dangerous inside the territory, and he should be able to take his time making his way through it.

But... Leaving immediately without exploring the unguarded demon beast nest would be a waste...

Narrowing both his eyes as this thought emerged while looking towards the entrance of the unguarded mountain cave, Xuan Hao couldn’t help feeling tempted. After all, demon beasts were well known to center their territory and nest around some kind of precious spiritual herb, tree or other natural treasure that they would carefully guard or even nurture until it reached maturation and could be consumed for their own benefit.

Realistically, exploring an abandoned mountain cave wouldn’t take him more than a few seconds-

Swish~

So, with that in mind, he didn’t hesitate for long before redirecting his path to move past the towering mountain that the mountain cave was located at. Soon enough, diving straight into the mountain cave together with Huo Fen and Meng Jie, who had no idea what was happening and used their limited ability to move around to observe the interior of the mountain with amazement.

The reason for this amazement being that the walls of the cave had been decorated with all kinds of spiritual metals that glow softly and helped light up the increasingly dark mountain cave, an innovative use of spiritual metal by a demon beast that should have had no other way to use the spiritual metal.

However, Xuan Hao was not the slightest bit interested in the spiritual metal that covered the walls of the mountain cave. Instead, his gaze focused onto a small green plant located in the deepest part of the mountain cave.

Although he couldn’t recognize the plant, the terrifying vitality that hid just beneath the surface and the potent aura of life that seemed to form a gentle mist around it was more than enough for him to understand just how valuable this small unknown green plant was... And so, with no hesitation, he directly rushed forward and carefully uprooted the small green plant without damaging it before placing it inside a special storage item for spiritual herbs and then his interspatial ring.

Only when the unknown spiritual herb was placed inside his interspatial ring did he release the breath he had unknowingly been holding when he spotted the unknown spiritual herb.

Even though there had been no danger so far, his inherent understanding of powerful spiritual herbs found in the wild always having some kind of powerful guardian demon beast had made him uneasy even with the knowledge that the demon beast that should have been guarding the spiritual herb and the mountain wasn’t around.

No... Even if it isn’t around now, if it isn’t dead, it could return at any time! Before that happens, it would be best to get out of the Verdant Abyss. After all, from the powerful presence left behind, the demon beast that originally lived in this place shouldn’t simply just be one at the Early Stage of the Land Creation Realm, but one stronger than that. Not at the level of that annoying spiritual tree, but close to it...

Glancing around at the countless spiritual metals that covered every part of the mountain cave’s walls as he thought this to himself, Xuan Hao quickly shook his head before decisively giving up on trying to mine the spiritual metal before leaving.

Though it wasn’t certain that the demon beast that originally lived in the mountain cave was still alive nor when it would return, he decided to be on the safe side of things now that he had managed to get his hands on an unknown spiritual herb that should be far more precious than all the spiritual metal inside the mountain cave combined.

Of course, even though all of this seemed to take a long time, to someone like Meng Jie at the Nascent Soul Realm, everything happened in an instant, one second, she was admiring the shiny spiritual metal covering the mountain cave walls and the next second, she was back out in the open again. Even Huo Fen, who had a significantly higher cultivation at most sensed a bit more of the mountain cave before they had left.

In the end, neither of them thought much of the situation and just believed they had passed through a mountain tunnel of some kind along the way. Nothing more, as neither had time to even sense that they had moved out of the mountain cave the same way they had entered...

Roar!?

At the same time, a short distance away from the mountain cave that Xuan Hao found the unknown spiritual herb inside, the towering demon beast that was carrying the already half dead demon beast in one of its massive paws suddenly let out a somewhat surprised roaring sound as both its eyes, easily mistaken for two smaller suns from a mortals perspective, turned to look in the direction of the towering mountain in question. Anger and killing intent clearly visible as the surrounding air seemed to tremble in response.

Roar...

Seeing its companion’s sudden change, the smaller demon beast that was easily the size of a small hill itself, attempted to calm it down, clearly worried that its companion would do something reckless in its current injured state-

ROOOOAR-!

But this didn’t seem to have any effect, as it instead made the towering demon beast the size of a small mountain even more angry. Roaring loudly enough for the demon beasts in the nearby territories to hear it. Making them understand clearly that someone had truly angered this local overlord.

Curious as they might be as to who was bold enough to do something like that, they decided to restrain themselves. Understanding very well that it was best not to get involved when the local overlord went on a rampage.

If it was a weaker demon beast that was behind this and killing it wasn’t enough to satiate the anger of this local overlord, they might get dragged in and beaten up... And if it turned out to be a challenger wanting to overthrow this local overlord and become the new one, the battle would be dragged on for a long time.

Meaning, the safest option was to wait for a bit and avoid being beaten up by their enraged neighbor.

Even then, the sudden enraged roar had already drawn the attention of all the surrounding demon beasts, as several Land Creation Realm demon beasts were already paying close attention to see how the situation developed...

”Huh...?”

Different from these demon beasts who had a clear wait and see attitude regarding their enraged neighbor, Xuan Hao didn’t have this kind of luxury, as he clearly felt the roar filled with killing intent was directed towards him.

Not just that, but only a few seconds later, he felt the terrifying yet familiar presence belonging to what should be the owner of the mountain cave he had just... Borrowed a small spiritual herb from... Rushing directly towards him at a terrifying speed that could only belong to a demon beast in the Land Creation Realm.

Even worse, this powerful demon beast had already noticed him and happened to be coming from the direction he was moving towards.

Meaning it would be impossible for him to simply avoid this confrontation and move in another direction, as that would only cause him to rush into the territory of another demon beast... And with the loud roar just now alerting everyone in the vicinity, those demon beasts would undoubtedly be paying close attention to this territory and would discover him the second he got too close.

One positive was that it was clear that the surrounding demon beast had no idea he was a human cultivator yet and should at most think of him as another demon beast that had done something to anger this local overlord.

How did he know this? It was rather simple, the demon beast inside the Verdant Abyss wouldn’t hesitate to work together to kill any humans they encountered, something he had personally experienced when he had first entered the Verdant Abyss and had been forced to protect Huo Fen and Meng Jie from being killed.

A negative to this was that he would have to face the enraged demon beast the size of a small mountain rushing towards him head on...