Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Along with Xuan Hao going back to cultivating, time continued to pass. The main change in the Star Shattering Sect itself in following year being the sudden addition of a strange spiritual tree capable of easily solving the sect’s lack of spiritual fruits. Earning Mui a lot of respect for those in the sect who enjoyed snacking on spiritual fruits like herself. After all, even though most of the spiritual fruits weren’t useful to anyone beyond the Core Formation Realm, they were by far the most delicious treat one could find inside the Star Shattering Sect.

Because of this, the overall price of spiritual fruits inside the sect was far higher compared to equivalent cultivation resources, causing spiritual fruits themselves to mainly end up as snacks for those stronger cultivators in the sect who could afford them.

Bad as this might seem on the surface for the sect’s disciples still at the Core Formation Realm or below, it was actually great. After all, with the somewhat inflated price of spiritual fruits inside the sect, any spiritual fruit that they managed to bring back from adventuring outside the sect was far more valuable and could be exchanged for far more contribution points. Allowing them to exchange for far more cultivation resources or other things.

Useful as spiritual fruits were for cultivation, it wasn’t hard for the sect’s disciples to find something equally as useful through the sect’s own exchange hall located inside the Grand Mission Pavilion or even in the marketplace that had been established at Bright Stone City for wandering cultivators. Speaking of which, since the establishment of Bright Stone City, it had not only attracted wandering cultivators, but it also attracted a lot of the sect’s disciples.

Not because the cultivation environment of Bright Stone City was anywhere near comparable to the Shattered Star Peaks, but instead because these younger disciples realized that they would be able to get cultivation resources from the wandering cultivators far cheaper than if they exchanged for them through the exchange hall of the sect.

Of course, the quantity and rarity of cultivation resources offered up by these wandering cultivators was nowhere near comparable to what the sect could offer and a lot of the cultivation resources normally available through the sect’s own exchange hall simply couldn’t be found in Bright Stone City.

Even then, if they could save a few contribution points by using spirit stones to exchange with the wandering cultivators, they were more than willing to make a quick trip to Bright Stone City. After all, the city itself wasn’t exactly located far from the Star Shattering Sect itself, with a path between Falling Star City at the base of the Ninth Star Peak and Bright Stone City already having been constructed.

In a way, Bright Stone City became popular among the younger disciples not just because they would be able to buy some cultivation resources for cheap there, but also because it became the first interaction some of these disciples had with the world outside the sect.

The main reason for this being that Bright Stone City was considered to be close enough to the sect and had several elders permanently stationed there to oversee the city along with several senior disciples, causing the sect to also allow some of the weaker disciples who normally wouldn’t be able to travel beyond Falling Star City to also travel to Bright Stone City. The only restriction being that these younger disciples had to be accompanied by a senior disciple in the Core Formation Realm when going, something that ended up causing several small groups of younger disciples to place escort missions looking for senior disciples to escort them at the grand mission pavilion.

Considering that these senior disciples had already been planning on visiting Bright Stone City in the first place, it was rather simple for the younger disciples who wanted to visit Bright Stone City to find someone to escort them.

After all, to the senior disciples, helping their junior was not only something that made them feel proud at having reached a level where a group of younger disciples respectfully addressed them as senior brother or senior sister, but also a way to earn a few extra contribution points.

In turn, because of the large number of disciples from the Star Shattering Sect that were almost always present throughout Bright Stone City and the fact that they would always have a lot of spirit stones to spend, Bright Stone City became famous among not just wandering cultivators, but also merchants who had a difficult time entering Falling Star City.

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Slowly causing Bright Stone City to turn into a place for merchants and wandering cultivators throughout the Star Shattering Sect’s territory to gather alike to sell whatever they had managed to gather through their adventurers.

Choosing Bright Stone City over the local Explorer Union Branches not just because of the good cultivation environment of Bright Stone City, but also because the prices that the Star Shattering Sect disciples thought to be favorable to themselves was in fact more than what these wandering cultivators or merchants would have gotten if they sold their things to the Explorer Union.

Not just the Explorer Union, but also the exchange hall that had been established by the Star Shattering Sect itself inside Bright Stone City, as there was no real reason to offer any more than the Explorer Union.

The reason why the sect’s younger disciples offered more and thought they were winning out was simply because Elder Song had made sure that the sect increases the prices a bit when selling things back to the sect’s disciples. Essentially acting as a middleman.

This was not done out of malice, but simply because transporting cultivation resources still had some costs involved. The sect’s disciples getting the cultivation resources themselves was something Elder Song and the rest of the sect’s elders were more than happy to see, as it saved the sect the trouble of finding cultivation resources for them themselves.

Although it did still ultimately cost the sect spirit stones, spirit stones were by far the easiest thing to gather, and the current Star Shattering Sect had no lack of spirit stones because Xuan Hao had handed over twenty thousand top grade spirit stones over to Elder Song after returning to the sect from the ancient alchemy sect ruins in the Eastern Central Region.

All things considered, the sect benefited in the end, the only potential problem being that some of the disciples ended up being scammed by some of the more experienced and daring wandering cultivators, but in a way, this was also an important learning experience for these younger disciples.

After all, it was preferable for these younger disciples to be scammed when they were still young and only had a few low-quality spirit stones to their name than them being scammed when they were older and could lose far more than a few low-quality spirit stones.

Because of this, Elder Song decided not to directly use the influence of the Star Shattering Sect to crack down on those wandering cultivators daring enough to scam the younger disciples of the sect. Keeping interference to the minimum and deciding to only get involved in case the scamming wandering cultivators grew in numbers.

In a sense, the second year since the establishment of Bright Stone City could be considered the golden era for those wandering cultivators skilled in scamming before they grew too bold in the third year. Finally, drawing the ire of Elder Song who ended up personally paying Bright Stone City a visit to deal with the situation, causing several prominent wandering cultivators skilled at scamming the sect’s younger disciples to end up being blacklisted from the city while also being forced to hand over their belongings in the process.

Although ruthless in the eyes of those punished, in the eyes of the rest of the wandering cultivators, the Star Shattering Sect was being incredibly gracious by letting these scammers walk away alive and helped cement the reputation of the Star Shattering Sect in the eyes of the wandering cultivators.

Not to mention, the Star Shattering Sect didn’t directly cripple the cultivation of those scammers. Meaning that it would be simple enough for them to recover with enough time. The only real punishment being that they would be unable to enter Bright Stone City in the future.

Even then… With the current state of the Star Shattering Sect’s territory, it was simple enough for this group of scammers, mostly between the Foundation Establishment Realm and the Core Formation Realm, to find somewhere to settle down.

As for those scammers who hadn’t been as bold as those who had been expelled… They all understood that this was also a subtle warning to them from the Star Shattering Sect. Letting them know that if they kept up what they were doing, they would end up losing access to Bright Stone City in the future, something that no wandering cultivator who had visited Bright Stone City wanted to happen. Especially given how difficult, if not impossible, it would be to find an equally good cultivation environment in the future.