Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Stepping inside the largest library hidden away within the palace at the very core of the capital without encountering any problems along the way, Xuan Hao didn’t waste much time lingering around the outer parts of the library and directly moved towards the deeper sections where the most valuable information would be stored…. And soon enough, he found himself running into a rather unique formation that should have been created in the past when there had once been a skilled formation master amongst those following traditional immortal cultivation.

The only reason why he didn’t think it had been constructed by one of the Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators currently within the capital city being that he could clearly sense that the creator of the formation had at least reached the Core Formation Realm when the formation had been created. Impressive by the standards of the ancient secret realm where the limit of cultivation was the Nascent Soul Realm.

But maybe more impressive than that was the formation itself, as it didn’t draw upon spiritual qi for strength, but instead seemed capable of drawing strength from a unique energy formed by those following the martial arts cultivation path.

Of course, to operate this formation, a crystalized form of this power was needed and after a quick investigation, he found one of the formation nodes where the crystalized form of this power was stored. Allowing him to grasp the fact that the requirement for creating the crystals used to power the formation needed someone to reach a level comparable to the Core Formation Realm, or in other words, only the dozen strongest figures within the capital had the power to provide the formation with the power it required to run normally.

Maybe because of this, though the formation should normally be capable of blocking even someone in the Nascent Soul Realm when operating at full strength, it was kept in some kind of low maintenance mode that required far less power to run, but at the same time also lowered the power of the formation down to the Core Formation Realm in terms of strength.

In a way, it was also because of this fact that he had been able to easily get through the formation without triggering it by accident.

If it had operated at full strength, though he might be able to force his way through it, it might be impossible for him to get through it without attracting any attention.

At least without him relying on the Dao of Formations, as doing that risked drawing unwanted attention from the guardian formation of the ancient secret realm, so, if possible, he wanted to avoid doing anything beyond the Nascent Soul Realm if possible.

Still, though the formation posed little danger and he could easily move through it without needing to stop, the uniqueness of this small formation was valuable in its own way, as it directly aided his comprehension of the Dao of Formations to study this small formation and its unique utilization of this foreign energy that wasn’t spiritual qi to operate like a normal formation.

In the end, he found himself deeply immersed in the uniqueness of the small formation for a little over two hours before he felt like he fully understood the general principles behind the small formation and felt confident in putting those principles to use in his own formations in the future. Allowing the usage of formations that didn’t just rely on spiritual qi to function. Expanding further on it, he began imagining alternate sources of power that might be used in the operation of formations and even if it was possible to take in these normally foreign energies and use them in a way to further concentrate and enrich the spiritual qi within the Shattered Star Peaks in the future.

But that was for the future, for now, his attention shifted back towards the body refining cultivation path called martial arts that was widespread throughout the ancient secret realm… And without much difficulty, he soon found a book within the section of the library guarded by the formation that mentioned martial arts and the different realms of martial arts alongside the relatively scarce information that seemed to be present regarding traditional immortal cultivation.

First off was the martial disciple realm; the first realm focused on strengthening the body without much difference from a normal mortal. The strength of this realm was generally stronger than someone at the First Stage of the Qi Condensation Realm, as the Qi Condensation Realm itself wasn’t about strengthening the body and didn’t possess that much combat strength compared to the Foundation Establishment Realm.

Still, if someone at the Qi Condensation Realm learnt even a single spell, those in the martial arts disciple realm stood no chance.

Even the realm that followed after, the warrior realm, didn’t stand much of a chance against someone in the Qi Condensation Realm, as they similarly only focused on strength their body further through a process called blood refinement.

Only after reaching the martial arts master realm or simply the master realm, did someone following the martial arts path of body refining start to stand a chance against someone in the Qi Condensation Realm who had learnt spells, as it was at this realm that their bodies began to give birth to a unique energy generally referred to as inner qi. Allowing them to wield their own kind of spells that utilize this inner qi.

Although far less effective than the spiritual qi of a normal immortal cultivator, their powerful bodies made up for the lack of quality in that regard and allowed them to obtain a level of strength comparable to the Later Stages and even Peak of the Qi Condensation Realm.

But this wasn’t the end of the martial arts path, as beyond the master realm was the grandmaster realm. At which point the martial artists would possess strength close to the Foundation Establishment Realm after reaching the realm and even growing to the point where they could be comparable to someone at the Middel Stages of the Foundation Establishment Realm towards the later stages.

Although… Individuals that powerful were rare, something that had become clear from his earlier sweep through the capital city, as only around a hundred people seemed to have reached this grandmaster realm, while less than ten percent of them had reached what could be considered the later stages or the peak of this realm.

Above even that was the martial lord realm, a realm that started somewhere between the Foundation Establishment Realm and the Core Formation Realm and seemed to reach into the Core Formation Realm towards the later stages of the realm.

The rarity of individuals who reached this realm was clear, as only a dozen had reached it within the entire capital city, with most of those individuals being concentrated around the palace at the very core of the capital city. Making it clear who held control over this place from a simple glance.

Originally, Xuan Hao hadn’t thought much about this unique little cultivation path, but as he continued reading through the book that detailed the martial arts realms, he realized that the martial lord realm wasn’t the peak of this path like he had originally expected, as there existed to realms beyond it.

First, being a realm known as the martial king realm and beyond that the martial emperor realm.

How strong these two realms were, he had no idea, as no one inside the capital city had reached any of these two realms.

However, with the restrictions in place around the ancient secret realm, he had a feeling that the strength of the two missing cultivation realms should fill the gap between the Later stages of the Core Formation Realm and the Peak of the Nascent Soul Realm that was the limit of the ancient secret realm.

Even more surprising was the fact that the book directly recorded that there once existed more realms beyond the martial emperor realm, but the information on those realms had gone missing in the past, something Xuan Hao had a feeling might be related to the limitations put in place by the ancient guardian formation.

After all, while Martial King Realm and Martial Emperor Realm experts might be able to emerge, anyone beyond that might get erased by the ancient guardian formation the second they broke through… And if even he found himself fearful of provoking the ancient guardian formation with his strength at the Land Creation realm, it was easy to guess how a martial emperor realm martial artist breaking through to a realm that might barely have Domain Lord Realm level strength might feel when faced with the ancient guardian formation.

To be honest, it was surprising that there was even information remaining on the presence of realms beyond the martial emperor realm, but at the same time, it also made him wonder if this unique cultivation path might be the immense fortune that the side quest had mentioned.