Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Having reached his limit of how far he could go within the ascension realm tower for now and returned to his cultivation room and resumed his cultivation, it didn’t take long for him to start seeing clear improvements to his spiritual sea, as the battles inside the ascension realm tower seemed to have been far more useful for helping solidify his foundation than he had originally expected. Not just helping him improve his combat techniques and overall usefulness when it came to fighting but also helping fully refine his spiritual sea during the extended battle with the withered tree, as his spiritual sea was almost completely drained in the process. Placing far more strain on it compared to anything he had done before.

Because of this, his progress in expanding his spiritual sea also became far smoother than it had been in the past. Allowing him to see hope for reaching the Peak of the Sea Formation Realm without having to spend any more time strengthening his foundation through the comprehension of the Dao or other ways to strengthen his dantian. His only real restriction for reaching the Peak of the Sea Formation Realm, as he had more than enough resources on hand to help him break through to the Peak of the Sea Formation Realm.

The limit factor having always been that his spiritual sea would grow unstable at a certain point if he continued recklessly growing it.

As for what came after his spiritual sea expanded enough for him to reach the Peak of the Sea Formation Realm… He had no idea, as he hadn’t found any information about further progress after reaching the Peak of the Sea Formation Realm, as it seemed like those able to reach the Peak of the Sea Formation Realm would almost certainly break through to the Land Creation Realm shortly after reaching the realm. Likely because one’s spiritual sea wouldn’t be able to expand much more after reaching the level required for the Peak of the Sea Formation Realm.

Not just because it would become incredibly difficult and time consuming to improve one’s foundation any further, but also because the overall size of ones dantian wouldn’t be much bigger than the space required for a spiritual sea to reach the size required for the Peak of the Sea Formation Realm. Even Xuan Hao’s own dantian could at most considered a bit larger than normal. Potentially allowing his spiritual sea to expand a bit more than normal after he broke through to the Peak of the Sea Formation Realm.

But… Anything beyond that, like reaching some mystical realm above the Peak of the Sea Formation Realm was impossible without increasing the size of his dantian several times, something that wasn’t doable no matter how hard he thought about it. After all, the thought of continuing to expand his spiritual sea after he broke through to the Peak of the Sea Formation Realm had been at the back of his mind, but no matter how he thought about it, he couldn’t see any realistic way to expand his spiritual sea any more after reaching the boundaries of his spiritual sea.

Not to mention, he wasn’t exactly sure if he even wanted to continue expanding his spiritual sea after he broke through to the Peak of the Sea Formation Realm. Not just because it was an unsure path that might end up with his spiritual sea growing out control and potentially killing him, but also because he didn’t see a need to continue expanding his spiritual sea beyond the Sea Formation Realm.

His foundation might become stronger, but without making any significant breakthrough like finding or creating a new unique realm like the Dao Domain Lord Realm, it would be detrimental to his progress to remain in the Sea Formation Realm.

The main reason being that his comprehension speed would be far slower at the Sea Formation Realm compared to the Land Creation Realm, as it was well established that a stronger soul increased one’s comprehension. Meaning that a breakthrough to the Land Creation Realm that would simultaneously enhance the strength of his soul significantly, would also increase his comprehension speed.

And it was for this reason that Xuan Hao’s current decision regarding what to do after reaching the Peak of the Sea Formation Realm was to expand his spiritual sea as much as possible within his dantian before breaking through to the Land Creation Realm.

Another reason was of course also the fact that he wanted to improve his strength beyond the Sea Formation Realm so he would be able to potentially deal with the problems that was in the near future of the Star Shattering Sect.

Not just threats from the Blue Sea Empire or the demonic cultivators from the Frozen Wastelands, but also the ancient dao seals that might break at any moment and the Star Creation Relam and potentially stronger cultivators that might be lurking in the Southern Central Region.

Not to mention the Land Creation Realm, to ensure his own safety and that of his sect and disciples in the future, he would most likely have to breakthrough the Profound Immortal Realm and reach the Venerable Realm that came after it.

The main problem with this was the fact that he only had around a hundred years to do so before the ancient dao seals started failing.

Fast as his progress had been so far, he understood full well that his cultivation speed had slowed significantly since he had broken through to the Sea Formation Realm. Just take the time at which he had remained stuck on the Sea Formation Realm compared to any previous major realms.

Even if he could smoothly progress to the Peak of the Sea Formation Realm this time around without having to further strengthen his foundation, it would still take him another two or three years before he reached the point where he would be able to confidently step into the Land Creation Realm.

As for how long it would take him to progress through the Land Creation and the Star Creation Realm beyond that. He had no idea, but he had a feeling that it would take more than ten years… And that was without mentioning breaking through to the Venerable Realm, as he still had close to no information about the realm to date outside of its name. Only able to guess that breaking through from the Profound Immortal Realm to the Venerable Realm likely involved some kind of heavenly tribulation like the ones he had encountered when breaking through major realms in the past.

But to figure out more, he would either have to find more information inside the mystic realm of the Mirage Sect or set out in search of similar ancient realms or ruins, something he had a feeling couldn’t be found outside a place like the Southern Central Region where most of the power on the continent was concentrated.

However, before doing anything that dangerous, he would first have to break through to the Land Creation Realm, as he honestly didn’t feel that confident in escaping from someone in the Star Creation Realm even with his comprehension of the Dao of Space having reached the Perfection Realm…

Like this, Xuan Hao entered a state of secluded cultivation. Not bothering with anything else as he focused entirely on expanding his spiritual sea and breaking through to the Peak of the Sea Formation Realm.

Luckily for his disciples, they were busy with their own things during this time and didn’t need to come seek out their master’s assistance.

Mui finding herself busy together with Song Jia, creating a new friend for Baobao with the unique things they had managed to gather inside the ascension realm tower, while Qing Yi and Chun Hua were busy trying to work together to clear the thirteenth floor of the ascension realm tower, though, with their strength, they spent most of their time searching for spiritual herbs and not on trying to clear the floor itself.

On the other hand, Chu Yang had taken a brief break from the ascension realm tower after having encountered a bottleneck in the Dao of Blood. Taking the chance to consolidate his gains from his battles so far before he would head back inside to continue challenging the demon beasts on the thirteenth floor of the tower. After all, different from Chun Hua and Qing Yi who couldn’t take on the three demon beasts lording over the thirteenth floor, Chu Yang was more than strong enough to do so, but found himself troubled by the large number of subordinates that these three powerful demon beasts could command.

Lastly was Bai Ning, who still wandered the twelfth floor of the tower in search of spiritual metals.

Compared to the rest, he wasn’t strong enough to clear the twelfth floor of the tower even if he wanted to, as though he could deal with the slimes with a special artifact he had created similar to the one Mui had made, he had no way to make something capable of countering the nine tribulations he would have to pass through to complete the task of the twelfth floor.