Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

During the time since the establishment of Bright Stone City at the base of the Third Star Peak, a lot of changes had begun to take place throughout the Star Shattering Sect. The most important of which being the expansion of the main sect itself, as the overall size of the main sect on the Seventh Star Peak had been expanded to accommodate close to double the number of disciples compared to before the spiritual water flood that had been caused by Mui and Song Jia.

Of course, the Seventh Star Peak itself wouldn’t be able to accommodate so many new disciple abodes. Instead, it was the base of the mountain itself that ended up becoming the location for new disciples to reside. Generally centralized around the different waterfalls created by the excess spiritual water from the qi spring lake. After all, the area surrounding the spiritually rich water was generally better for cultivation.

However, even with this recent expansion of the main sect, there had hardly been any new disciples over the past year, as the sect hadn’t been actively recruiting new disciples for the main sect yet. Allowing only a few of the most talented from the different branch sects to make their way into the main sect so far.

The main reason behind this being that Feng Chen himself was planning on holding a larger event to recruit a large number of disciples from the different branch sects at the same time, though the event in question was still a few months off, causing the sect to remain relatively empty compared to how much it had grown over this past year.

Outside of that, the Star Shattering Sect had remained mostly the same over the past year, with the only other notable thing taking place inside the sect being a sudden lack of spiritual fruits, as the demonic cultivators had managed to push far deeper into the core region. Cutting off many of the locations that the Explorer Union used to gather spiritual fruits.

Although this might not affect the normal wandering cultivator, for a major power like the Star Shattering Sect that had barely begun its own production of spiritual fruits, this decrease in supply from the Explorer Union was something that could be felt immediately, as it even spurred Mui, who was normally unaware of the sect’s situation, into action.

Not because she wanted to help the sect overcome this crisis, as it wasn’t really crisis so to speak. Given that spiritual fruits themselves weren’t all too important to the sect and mostly just served as a snack for most of the sect’s disciples.

Instead, it was because she was the one to end up most heavily impacted by the sudden lack of spiritual fruits. Ultimately causing her to spend close to a year outside the sect working together with Song Jia to solve this problem and ensure that she would never end up lacking spiritual fruits in the future.

The only person aware of this happening outside of Song Jia who had joined her in this endeavor being the two wandering cultivators who had accidentally run into them and her master.

Although she didn’t know about the latter and believed that she had managed to successfully avoid arousing any suspicion about what she was up to while inside the sect. Unaware that her master had long since realized what she was up to after noticing her odd behavior and deciding to use his divine sense to follow her in secret to see if she was up to something dangerous.

But… Even if nothing much happened inside the territory of the Star Shattering Sect outside of the Bright Stone City that attracted wandering cultivators to visit the territory, the same could not be said for the different kingdoms and empires bordering the Star Shattering Sect’s territory.

Without a question, over the past year, every single one of them not supported by a major power like the Blue Sea Empire had already ended up falling to the demonic cultivators, causing the borders of the Star Shattering Sect’s territory to become far more contested and difficult to get through, as the sect itself had been forced to dispatch a large number of both elders and disciples to ensure that demonic cultivators didn’t end up entering the sect’s territory.

In a sense, the only real connection the Star Shattering Sect had with the rest of the continent was through the Iron Sky Kingdom that connected to the old territory of the Great Sky Empire that had already been partially integrated into becoming part of the Star Shattering Sect’s territory.

Connections did exist through some of the smaller kingdoms and empires supported by different major powers to serve as buffering zones between them and the demonic cultivators from the Frozen Wastelands, but those chaotic locations were far from easy to travel through, as even someone at the Soul Ascension Realm might end up losing their lives if they were careless.

The sheer destruction brought upon by the battle between the demonic cultivators and those from the central region had already turned the still intact territory of the Star Shattering Sect into a small paradise in the eyes of those fleeing from the surrounding kingdoms and empires.

After all, the destruction brought by two Domain Lord Realm cultivators fighting each other was already enough to shape the land around them, let alone someone in Celestial Immortal Realm fighting a demonic cultivator in the Demon King Realm. The damage caused by such battles had long since turned the kingdoms and empire bordering the Frozen Wastelands into wastelands themselves, as they became the main battleground between the major powers trying to fend off the demonic cultivators attempting to reach the Northern Core Region.

The true purpose of the different smaller empires and kingdoms as buffer zones being fully utilized, as the real territory of these different major powers remained relatively intact so far during the war with the demonic cultivators. The only exception being the Blue Sea Empire, who not only had to deal with demonic cultivators attacking from the front but also had to deal with Xuan Gui who remained relentless in doing as much damage as possible on the inside.

Although Xuan Hao had already offered to help her get out in case, she found herself in a deadly situation and had expected her to need his help, the second the Blue Sea Empire became serious about dealing with her, she had somehow managed to evade the detection of the Blue Sea Empire’s strongest cultivators.

Not just someone in the Early Stage of the Celestial Immortal Realm, like their battles with the demonic cultivators had been restrained too, but instead the full strength of the Blue Sea Empire.

Given the sheer difference in strength, Xuan Hao began to seriously wonder if she had somehow managed to break through to the Demon King Realm during the chaos she caused throughout the Blue Sea Empire, but there had been no real way for him to confirm it yet.

Maybe I should make a trip to the Blue Sea Empire after I finish the main sect quest.

Opening his eyes inside his cultivation room as he thought about the rather unique demonic cultivator that had become a headache for the Blue Sea Empire and ultimately also one of the main reasons why the Blue Sea Empire had no energy to spare on the Star Shattering Sect, Xuan Hao felt it might be a good idea to pay her a visit after he finished the main sect quest.

Speaking of which… The progress for the Star Shattering Sect when it came to the strength of the disciples and elders themselves had improved far more than Xuan Hao had originally believed it would thanks to the addition of the high grade qi spring.

However, the main problem with the sect quest now was that the last push needed to complete it would take time, as there were no more guest elders around close to reaching the Soul Ascension Realm and those breaking through to the realm would have to come from the sect’s original elders.

The original two years he expected it to take to complete the sect quest wasn’t that realistic and even with the favorable environment of the Star Shattering Sect. Instead, he felt 5 or maybe 10 years would be a more realistic timeframe. After all, cultivation wasn’t something fast and even he himself found his cultivation speed starting to slow down now that he had reached the Profound Immortal Realm.

With that in mind, after using his divine sense to check up on his disciples with his divine sense, he returned to meditation. Focusing his attention on comprehending the Dao again, as his foundation had begun to show signs of instability again after the rapid growth of his spiritual sea over the past year.

Now that the problem with the ancient daos seals had been solved for the immediate future, he could afford to throw himself entirely into cultivation and teaching his disciples.

ignore chapter title, temporary, still kinda split between timeskip being 5 or 10 years.