Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Taking advantage of the opportunity to practice his Dao of Fire for the first time in a long time, Xuan Hao watched as the sea of fire spread outwards centered around him. Ignoring the fact that it was underwater as it continued to spread before turning the entire lakebed once covered with flowers and demon beasts into a sea of fire.

Although there were a few demon beasts who discovered the sea of fire in time before it reached them and tried to escape it, there was nowhere for them to run, as the formation ensured that they wouldn’t escape and could at most survive for a bit longer knowing that they would soon enough be swallowed up by the sea of fire.

Of course, there were a few who also decided to try and attack the sea of fire in an attempt to push it back, but that kind of resistance was utterly meaningless, as it only cut open a small path through the sea of fire that would soon close back up as the fire around the gap surged forth. The only real way to stop the sea of fire would be to reach the one behind it, but to do that, the demon beasts would have to brave through the sea of fire and search for him, something that was far from simple considering how weak the demon beasts were if one set aside their terrifying combat power.

Not to mention surviving within the sea of fire, the second it got to close, some of the weaker demon beasts would end up dying from the heat alone, as the dao fire didn’t just target the physical body, but also burned the soul. Ensuring that escape by leaving behind the physical body would be impossible.

Not that he expected the demon beasts to pull that kind of trick, but one could never be too cautious and it didn’t exactly consume any extra energy on his side to ensure that the dao fire also affected the soul of the demon beasts.

Fwoosh-!

In a short time, the cleanup that should have normally taken a few days to carry out was reduced to a few hours, as the sea of flames ensured that no underwater flower could remerge in the future. Not because all the underwater flowers were eliminated at the same time, but instead because the sea of fire engulfed everything within the core of the holy lake outside of the true core that was sealed off by another layer of formations. Turning what should have been underwater into a sea of fire that directly vaporized the lake water and forced the steam up above the surface of the holy lake where it soon surged upwards.

Drawing attention from the group of cultivators observing the lake from the shoreline alongside the guardian formation of the ancient secret realm, who manifested directly above the lake in an attempt to discern what was happening inside the formation covering the holy lake.

Unfortunately, though the guardian formation of the ancient secret realm was powerful, it couldn’t see through the formation below and was left in a state of bewilderment.

Not able to discern what was happening, as the original belief that it had to do with the formation covering the core of the lake dedicating strength to deal with the trouble inside of it was thrown out of the window the second an attempt to discreetly force its way through was blocked with full force.

In the end, it could only linger around for a bit before the countless ancient formation symbols in the sky above the lake slowly vanished.

Even if the guardian formation of the ancient secret realm wanted to investigate the situation closer, it was also clear that it was in a similar situation as the formation Xuan Hao found himself inside of. Unable to shift its attention elsewhere for too long as it had something else to deal with.

As for what that something was… It had to do with a certain someone attempting to force their way inside the ancient secret realm not too long ago followed by a spatial storm now raging outside the ancient secret realm.

Although a spatial storm like this could be ignored under normal circumstances as long as one didn’t attempt to use the Dao of Space for travel, the sheer scale of the spatial storm had reached a level where it began affecting the material world to some extent and that included the ancient secret realm, thus forcing the guardian formation of the ancient secret realm to dedicate some of its attention towards resisting the spatial storm outside.

Of course, Xuan Hao was unaware of any of this, as he began retracting the sea of fire after making sure that all the demon beasts and underwater flowers had been dealt with. Feeling immensely satisfied with how simple it had been to clear out the weaker demon beasts and flowers by relying on the Dao of Fire, while at the same time also feeling that his surroundings had become a bit odd now that the water was gone.

Not so much because of the lack of water so to speak, but more so because of how the ruins that he guessed had been floating in the water were still floating without any clear formation symbols or other special engravings that might cause them to float around on their own.

Growing a bit curious faced with this anomaly and wanting to recover his strength fully before he took the next step and faced off against the terrifying demon beasts who were the source behind the trouble that the formation spirit was facing, he directly broke apart one of the floating rocks to see if he could uncover some kind of hidden formation by doing so-

Bang~ Crack!

Hm? No formation symbols…?

However, contrary to his expectations, the destroyed floating bricks didn’t fall to the ground, nor did they reveal any hidden formation symbols that allowed them to float around on their own without drawing any spiritual qi from the air.

This not only didn’t lessen his curiosity, but instead made him far more interested in these strange floating rocks as he began destroying a few more repeatedly, while also digging up the ones that had been submerged in the ground to see if they floated as well… And surprisingly they did and the ones he destroyed continued floating no matter how many times he destroyed them or how small they became because of this destruction.

But outside of this, one surprising aspect was the sheer strength of these rocks, as they were powerful enough to resist the attack of someone at the Breaking Dawn Realm of the Profound Immortal Realm on their own without being strengthened by any formations.

Without doubt, these rocks were undoubtedly top-quality building material that had been used by the Noble Li Clan in the past and along with the inherent ability of the material to float on its own, it wouldn’t be surprising if it had been used to construct some kind of floating palace or city in the past that the ancient residence of the Noble Li Clan had once been located on.

In fact, as he began learning more about the properties of these unique floating rocks, he felt that the idea that these rocks had once been part of some kind of enormous floating city made sense, with the formation that the formation spirit oversaw being split into two distinct layers. One that guarded the outer part of the city and one that guarded the core where the Li Clan Branch was located.

Imagining how glorious that kind of city would have been in the past, Xuan Hao couldn’t help feeling a sense of longing, as he wished the Star Shattering Sect would be able to construct that kind of floating city in the future.

Not to mention, outside of a floating city, it would also be a good way to use up the space within the Shattered Star Peaks, as the mountains themselves took up a relatively small portion of the Shattered Star Peaks, with the valleys between the mountains taking up most of the area within the Shattered Star Peaks covered by the chaotic qi formation.

The only real problem with carrying out this kind of plan was the fact that these mysterious floating rocks perfect for building floating structures weren’t something he had heard about or encountered before. Meaning there was a good chance that they belonged to a time before the divine world had been shattered and couldn’t be obtained any longer.

Whoosh~!

Maybe because of this, Xuan Hao decided that he couldn’t allow any of the floating rocks to go to waste, as he began sweeping through the now barren core of the holy lake. Picking up any floating rock he encountered while making sure to search for any that might have ended up below the surface. Filling up several spatial rings in the process before ultimately running out of space after sweeping through 70% of the place. Filling up a grand total of 137 interspatial rings, he unfortunately found that he didn’t have any more spare ones on him. Having left most of the interspatial rings he had created over the years with the sect, as he saw no reason to carry around thousands of interspatial rings when they could be used within the sect…