Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

[Welcome to the Nineteenth Floor]

[Current Floor: 19]

[Task: Find the Blood Devouring Formation and destroy it]

[Reward: 150.000 Ascension Coin, The Passage to the Twentieth Floor reveals itself]

Steeping onto the nineteenth floor, the first thing that met Xuan Hao outside of the familiar panel created by the ascension realm tower was a thick blood mist that engulfed him the second he stepped off the spiral staircase. Not only limiting his vision but also restricting his divine sense to some extent. Rendering any plans of using his divine sense to sweep through the place and get more familiar with it, useless.

It wasn’t that his divine sense was completely useless, it was just that it had been restricted to a few thousand meters, a distance that was too short for him to try and use his divine sense to get a better grasp over the nineteenth floor of the tower that would undoubtedly be several times larger than the floors he had explored so far.

Not to mention, given that the floor would likely involve forces at the Celestial Immortal or Profound Immortal Realm, it might not be the best idea to recklessly sweep through the floor with his divine sense, as there was a chance of it being noticed. Attracting the potential attention of the entire floor in the process.

While it might not have meant much in the past, it became increasingly dangerous now that the enemies he would face had reached the same realm as him. After all, for all he knew, the beings on the nineteenth floor might have some overpowered formation that allowed them to link their strength together and allow them to reach the Star Creation Realm.

Well… That might be a bit out there, but still, it was a consideration he had to consider in the future when moving further up the tower…

Smiling somewhat wryly at the thought of the local demon beasts forming some kind of overpowered formation that brought them all the way up to the Star Creation Realm, Xuan Hao slowly began moving through the thick blood mist that seemed to shroud the entire nineteenth floor of the tower.

So far, even with his divine sense extended as far as it could under the suppression of the blood mist, he hadn’t found any living creature outside himself. The only thing other than the blood mist and strange red soil that made up the ground of the nineteenth floor was a few lone trees with sparse red colored branches and not a single leaf growing on them.

Looking at the task for this floor, he guessed that the formation mentioned in the task might be related to the blood mist that covered everything in sight and after sensing the blood mist itself, he could sense that it was slowly being pulled in a specific direction. Making him guess that it might be the blood devouring formation in action devouring the blood mist.

The difficulty he had originally anticipated in having to search for something on a floor where his divine sese had been severely restricted seemed to be a worry that barely lasted a few seconds, as following the pull that affected the blood mist, he should be able to find the blood devouring formation with relative ease.

Even if it was a trap of some kind, he felt confident that he would be able to deal with it with his current strength. In the worst case scenario, he would just end up back at square one of having to slowly search through the thick blood mist for the blood devouring formation, a task that could take weeks depending on just how large the nineteenth floor of the tower was and if there would be any other clues helping him locate the blood devouring formation in case the blood mist being pulled in one direction wasn’t one such clue.

Whoosh~

Like this, Xuan Hao found himself slowly moving forward through the blood mist, curiously observing his rather boring surroundings that seemed to show no signs of changing outside of the increasingly rare trees.

The demon beasts or other creatures he had been expecting to run into while travelling through the blood mist was nowhere in sight, as he continued following the faint pull that was pulling on the blood mist for another three hours.

It was only after these three hours that something finally changed, as the pull on the blood mist that had been weak and barely noticeable before, become far more powerful. Reaching the point where he could now easily see the blood mist around him churning as it was pulled along by some unknown power.

A demon beast…? No… Something different…

At the same time, Xuan Hao also distinctively sensed the presence of what seemed to be a demon beast at first, but after a second of attempting to sense this presence, it became clear that it wasn’t a demon beast but something different.

What it was, he had no idea. All he could tell was that the presence he felt came from the same direction that the blood mist was being pulled in.

Given that the pull might originate from the blood devouring formation that he needed to find to move on to the next floor, it wasn’t that strange for the formation to have some kind of guardian.

As for the strength of this potential guardian… He had no idea but given that this was the first floor involving the Celestial Immortal Realm and Profound Immortal Realm, he guessed that the strength of the demon beasts or creatures found on the nineteenth floor wouldn’t be much stronger than the Early Stage of the Celestial Immortal Realm or the Early Stage of the Break Dawn Realm.

But even if the strength of the demon beast or other creatures he might encounter wouldn’t be too strong, he still guessed that they would be far more unique than an ordinary demon beast or cultivator of a similar cultivation realm. Mainly because most boss-like enemies he had encountered so far while ascending the tower had been unique and were generally stronger than someone at a similar realm.

In a way, outside of having a cautious approach to the current situation, he was also looking forward to seeing what he would end up encountering. Especially so give just how long he had spent wandering through the thick blood mist without running into anything of interest outside of a few unique looking trees.

At first, he had thought those trees might be special because of how they were the only thing growing within the thick blood mist, but after having inspected a few of them more closely, he had realized that there wasn’t anything special about them outside of the fact that they had absorbed a lot of the blood mist. Allowing the trees to survive by somehow absorbing nutrients and everything else they needed through the blood mist.

Of course, they couldn’t exactly absorb everything they needed and just barely managed to hang on, something that could be seen from their rather dilapidated state.

Trees aside, Xuan Hao soon enough found himself moving closer to the presence he had felt inside the blood mist. Ensuring that he remained cautious as he didn’t plan to end up being caught off guard by another attack like the one, he suffered in the past.

Weak as the opponent he would face might be compared to himself, he understood full well that a weaker opponent could take down a stronger one if caught off guard… And he didn’t plan to end up becoming one of those examples of a stronger cultivator losing to a weaker one because he was caught off guard.

Not just because it would hurt him spiritually to lose to a much weaker enemy, but also because he really didn’t want to walk all the way back through the blood mist a second time.

After all, because his divine sense was limited and he couldn’t exactly tell his current location through the blood mist, it was impossible for him to make proper use of the Dao of Space to move through the blood mist. Only walking normally through the blood mist would allow him to sense the direction he had to move in.

Even more so because the pull to the blood mist itself wasn’t always the same and origin of the pull itself was clearly not stationary and kept moving.

If he just returned to the same location, he would likely miss the lead he had been following so far and potentially be forced to waste even more time than if he just set off from the spiral staircase again.

Of course… All of this was only something to think about if he did end up being taken out in an ambush, something he didn’t plan to see happen, as he kept his attention fully focused on his surroundings to keep an eye out for any such ambushes as he slowly approached the origin of the pull to the blood mist and the location of the strange presence…