Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Along with roots that had originally been far too deep below ground for him to sense through his divine sense slowly emerging as he pulled on the small tree, Xuan Hao also clearly sensed the danger from below being pulled up alongside the roots. Indicating to him that the dangerous feeling he felt either came from the deeper parts of the roots or something that the roots had attached themselves to.

No matter what it was, the truth would soon enough reveal itself as the small tree had no strength to resist against him. The difference in strength essentially rendering any resistance useless. Doing more harm to itself in the process as the roots attempting to attack him were cut apart by the sword qi lingering around him in a spherical domain protecting him from any attacks that the small tree used.

Even then, the small tree didn’t show any signs of stopping as it continued to try and use its roots to stop him from pulling it out of the ground. Even starting to manipulate the surrounding blood mist to form several blood red phantom roots that joined the original roots in attacking him. Unfortunately, even with more roots around, it didn’t make much of a difference, as the overall strength of the small tree was still limited to the Early Stage of the Celestial Immortal Realm.

The threat being so negligible to Xuan Hao that he wasn’t even looking towards the small tree, but had his entire attention focused on the threat he felt from below. Essentially allowing the sword qi to passively defend him without doing anything himself, something that the sword qi was more than capable of with his current comprehension of the Dao of the Sword.

In the end, the helpless struggle of the small tree continued for another two minutes without it making any progress before the thing below was pulled into the area covered by Xuan Hao’s divine sense. Allowing him to get a proper look at the thing that had caused even him to feel a sense of danger.

”A heart…?” But when he finally saw the thing that had made him feel this sense of danger tangled up in the roots of the small tree, he couldn’t help quietly exclaiming to himself with a somewhat surprised expression on his face. Not having expected the thing that gave him this distinct sense of danger to have been a heart- or more specifically, a wooden heart that seemed to have been created by the small tree through the blood mist.

The wooden heart wasn’t dead and was beating softly along with the continuous flow of blood mist being fed to it through the roots of the small tree, but… No matter how he looked at this wooden heart filled to the brim with blood mist that had been refined into a kind of blood qi, he couldn’t understand where the sense of danger he felt came from.

After all, though this wooden heart was rather unique, it didn’t poses any ability to harm him nor even fight back in the first place, as it more so seemed to be some kind of special material that had been created by the small flower tree in an attempt to improve its own strength by merging together with said wooden heart.

But… If that was the case, the danger should have come from the small tree, as it might pose a threat after forcibly merging with this wooden heart.

But it didn’t. The threat he felt came from the wooden heart itself. Not the flower tree that had by now been pulled entirely out of the ground by him alongside the wooden heart that was now directly exposed to the blood mist as it dangled a few meters above the ground.

Whoosh~!

About to inspect this wooden heart more closely with his divine sense to figure out why he still felt a threat from it, Xuan Hao suddenly felt an impending sense of danger washing over him and without hesitation, he let go of both the small tree and the wooden heart before retreating rapidly until the tree and the wooden heart was barely at the edge of his divine sense-

Rumble~

And this was not a second too late, as the next second, the wooden heart seemingly opened from the center before countless blood red tendrils shot out towards where he had been standing only a second earlier. The overall strength of those blood red tendrils far surpassing what he had expected to be possible for this floor of the ascension realm tower, as it contained all the accumulated strength from absorbing the blood mist over an unknown number of years.

The single attack had long since surpassed the Celestial Immortal Realm in terms of strength and had already reached the Early Stage of the Land Creation Realm, a level strength that undoubtedly had the power to kill him if he was caught off guard. Only because he had remained cautious and escaped the second he sensed something off, did he barely manage to escape the attack from the wooden heart.

Had he been a second too late, those tendrils would have forcibly torn through the defensive domain formed by his sword qi and pierced into his body. After which, he had a feeling that the tendrils would forcibly extract his blood, qi and every bit of strength inside his body for itself.

However, having missed their target, the tendrils could only flail around helplessly for a few seconds before dropping to the ground alongside the wooden heart that had used up all its accumulated strength for that single attack.

Only the small tree still had some strength left, as it scrambled wildly trying to escape-

Rumble~! BANG!

But there was no way he would allow it to escape, as he directly rushed forward again after feeling the sense of danger from earlier disappearing completely. Making a simple move to once again capture the escaping little tree that was attempting to bury itself deep underground. Killing it once and for all. Reducing it to nothing more than a few bits of spiritual wood, as he placed everything, including the roots filled with blood qi inside one of his interspatial rings. The wooden heart, though it had used all the blood qi stored inside itself, could potentially still be of some value for demonic cultivators. So, he decided to take it as well.

Over all, the small tree didn’t really bring much value, but it did give him a reminder of just how dangerous the ascension realm tower could be, as even a small tree that barely had strength at the Early Stage of the Celestial Immortal Realm somehow possessed a trump card that allowed it to unleash an attack comparable to someone at the Early Stage of the Land Creation Realm.

In the future, when he reached a floor with demon beasts and other creatures comparable to the Sea Formation Realm, he would likely have to watch out for anyone who might be able to pull out a trump card capable of unleashing an attack at the Star Creation Realm.

After all, while he had managed to avoid the danger this time around due to his cautious approach and the fact that it was strange for him to feel any sense of danger from a small tree that had barely reached the Early Stage of the Celestial Immortal Realm. The same wouldn’t be the case when faced with an enemy that already posed some degree of threat to him.

Not to mention, he hadn’t been locked in battle with the other party and had been able to freely retreat without worrying about the other party, potentially using the opportunity while he ran to launch an attack.

Along with the strange environment making it difficult to make proper use of the Dao of Space, Xuan Hao found himself inevitably growing more cautious of the floors he would have to face in the future after the nineteenth floor.

Of course, it also made him look forward to what was to come, as he truly didn’t have much combat experience when it came to fighting someone of a similar level of strength as himself and the ascension realm tower was essentially the only way he would be able to get any real combat experience outside of him deciding to make trip to the nearby Blue Sea Empire and start tearing apart the place until the ancestor of the Blue Sea Empire appeared to stop him.

That or maybe the Frozen Wastelands, though the danger that lurked within the Frozen Wastelands still made him somewhat hesitant about stirring up too much trouble in that place.

Now with the ascension realm tower, he didn’t have to worry, as he would undoubtedly reach a floor he wouldn’t be able to beat with his current strength and end up experiencing the wonderful feeling of being beaten up by a stronger opponent, a feeling he hadn’t felt in a long time…