Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Looking through the interspatial rings that had been entirely filled up with rocks, Xuan Hao could not help second guessing his own actions. Questioning himself if it was truly a good idea to waste up all the space in his interspatial rings on floating rocks.

But after thinking things through for a bit, he felt like it wouldn’t do any harm. In case he ended up encountering some treasure or other valuable object that he wanted to take out of the ancient secret realm in the future, he could always throw out a few of the rocks. Not to mention, he had made sure to leave a bit of space in his primary interspatial ring for anything he might have to grab in the future without a chance to throw out floating rocks ahead of time.

The only troublesome thing about the current situation being that while interspatial rings could be stored inside other interspatial rings, that was only when the interspatial rings being stored had nothing inside them and were inactive. Now that he had filled up over a hundred interspatial rings, it meant he had to carry around the more than a hundred interspatial rings, something that ultimately resulted in him now carrying a simple bag that he had slung over his shoulder filled with interspatial rings.

Although the bag in question wouldn’t affect his strength, he still had to keep an eye on it to prevent it from potentially being destroyed during a clash with the demonic beasts. After all, though interspatial rings were among the more durable kind of spiritual artifacts, they wouldn’t be able to endure the direct attack of someone at the Celestial Immortal Realm, let alone a group of demon beasts close to the Venerable Realm.

Feeling somewhat uneasy as he thought about the strength of the demon beast he would soon have to face off against, he slowly glanced towards the formation around the true core of the holy lake that had remained completely isolated and unaffected by the dao fire that had swept through earlier. The fact that the formation had been able to endure without exerting any strength also confirmed to him that the strength of this formation was far beyond anything he could handle at his current level.

In other words, the second he stepped through it, it would be difficult for him to leave again on his own accord without dealing with the demon beasts like the formation spirit wanted him to.

Of course, he had already expected this to some extent and wasn’t too surprised, it was just that he didn’t entirely trust the formation spirit and ultimately still wanted to have a clear escape path in case the formation spirit turned against him.

Problem was, though he wanted an escape path, he understood from a glance that it would be impossible for him to escape on his own once he entered the core of the holy lake where the true core of the formation was located. The only potential path he saw being that he might be able to force the formation spirit’s attention entirely onto him, giving the guardian formation of the ancient secret realm an opportunity to strike.

After all, though he was still uncertain about how trustworthy the formation spirit was given his limited interaction with the other party, he was certain that the hostility between the formation spirit and the guardian formation of the ancient secret realm was realm.

Not because he had sensed what had happened outside the holy lake not long ago, but instead because the formation spirit would have had no reason to interact with him in the first place if it had been on the same side as the guardian formation of the ancient secret realm. Striking him down alongside the guardian formation would have been the first course of action following his appearance and the other party seeing through his strength.

Lost in his own thoughts for a few seconds as he thought about what to do, he ultimately still ended up going along with the original goal of helping the formation spirit, as doing that presented him with a clear opportunity to encounter the ancient residence of the Noble Li Clan…

[Side Quest: Search the Ancient Secret Realm of the Noble Li Clan] [Description: You have encountered the ancient secret realm belonging to an ancient noble clan that once stood at the pinnacle. Searching through the place might lead to finding something of immense value.] [Requirement: Find the ancient residence of the Noble Li Clan hidden inside the ancient secret realm.] [Reward: Heavenly Earth Vein Root (Heavenly Material)] And looking through the side quest, he only needed to find the ancient residence and didn’t need to enter it nor find something inside the ancient residence to complete the side quest from the system. Simple enough and a goal that he should be able to complete the second he passed through the formation in front of him, as the formation spirit had made it clear that the place the demon beast that it wanted him to deal with were attacking should be the ancient residence belonging to the branch of the Li Clan that had once been in control of the ancient secret realm.

Whoosh~

With that in mind, after hesitating for a bit longer, he ultimately took a step forward and passed through the formation leading to the true core of the holy lake. Soon enough, finding his surroundings shifting rapidly, he almost instantly realized that the space around him began rapidly twisting. Transporting him into a different realm that seemed to have been directly attached to the ancient secret realm with the formation he had just passed through serving as an anchor for this far smaller realm to attach itself to what should be the very core of the ancient secret realm.

Not daring to move around recklessly as he felt his surroundings shifting, Xuan Hao took his time to observe his surroundings.

Starting from the ground, he realized that he was now on top a small floating rock no more than a few hundred meters wide, while all around him was a sea of darkness with similar floating rocks moving through the dark space.

From time to time, he even spotted what should have once been ancient palaces floating around destroyed to the point where nothing of value had been left behind, though, from the fact that the side quest had not yet been completed, it was clear that these ruins floating around didn’t belong to the Noble Li Clan, but should have been from the subordinate forces that existed under the Noble Li Clan who had been granted the opportunity to establish themselves within the strange realm he now found himself inside of.

Of course, it wasn’t to say that he didn’t have any idea about where to go within this dark space to find the ancient residence of the Noble Li Clan, as there was a rather massive star at the very core of the dark space still shining brilliantly within the dark space. Exuding a pressure that left even someone like himself at the Land Creation Realm shivering in fear.

The reason why he hadn’t attempted to reach this towering star was the fact that around this massive star, countless smaller stars were present. All seemingly clashing violently against the massive star in what looked like a vain attempt to break the massive star.

Weak as these smaller stars were in comparison to the massive star, the pressure that exploded from them whenever they clashed with the massive star alongside the terrifying residual waves of power that swept outwards throughout the dark space made it clear to him that the strength of these smaller stars in the distance was not weak by any means, with most of them even being stronger than himself.

All this making it very clear that the identity of these smaller stars should be the demon beasts that the spirit of the formation wanted him to take care of.

Problem was that the sheer power of these small stars was far beyond anything he had encountered so far and wasn’t something he would have normally dared to think about dealing with in his current cultivation realm.

The only thing that gave him some confidence was the fact that the defense of these demon beasts shouldn’t be anywhere near comparable to the power they wielded while attacking the massive star.

But a very clear problem soon presented itself, as any attempt to approach this battlefield ended up in a failure, as anytime he attempted to sneak closer without being noticed, the shockwaves from the demon beasts clashing with the massive star would force him to retreat before he ended up revealing himself in an attempt to defend himself against the terrifying shockwaves.

After all, at the end of the day, the power wielded by some of these demon beasts were already close to the Venerable Realm and even the shockwaves alone were more than enough to force him back…