Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Having to ascend the tower, Xuan Hao first went over what he remembered about the twenty sixth floor that he managed to get through last time around where the overall strength of the demon beasts and living beings he ran into officially reached the Land Creation Realm.

Overall, he didn’t know much more than this, but still, the fact that the difficulty of the twenty sixth floor of the tower had reached the Land Creation Realm gave him hope that heavenly and earthly treasures could be found from that floor and onwards. After all, these kinds of unique cultivation resources only started to become useful from the Land Creation Realm. Below that, he found it difficult to imagine these kinds of rare cultivation resources being used for anything other than potential material for a formation or some powerful artifact. Reason being, those below the Land Creation Realm wouldn’t be able to handle the terrifying power inherent within these unique treasures for cultivation.

Even for someone at the Land Creation Realm, it would still take some effort and time for most to successfully absorb a heavenly material like the Heavenly Earth Vein Root that he had used to breakthrough to the Middle Stage of the Land Creation Realm back in the ancient secret realm.

Hopefully, he would be able to find another heavenly material similar to the Heavenly Earth Vein Root on the twenty sixth floor, but even in the case that he didn’t end up finding one, there was still the twenty seventh floor that came after that also had a similar potential to contain a heavenly material useful for his cultivation.

Given his current strength at the Middle Stag of the Land Creation Realm and the fact that he had already managed to successfully create an inner world inside his dantian even before breaking through to the Late Stage of the Land Creation Realm, he felt confident in fighting someone at the Late Stage and even the Peak Stage of the Land Creation Realm.

Only really someone at the Star Creation Realm possessed any real threat to him with his current strength. Meaning that he should be able to make it through the Land Creation Realm portion of the ascension realm tower with his current strength.

Of course, there was always the chance that the Land Creation Realm opponent he found himself facing towards the end of the Land Creation Realm section of the tower was a unique one whose overall strength exceeded that of the Land Creation Realm, but in that situation, he guessed he would just have to take it as it came and try his best to handle the situation.

In a way, part of him was hoping that before he had to face the last floor for the Land Creation Realm, he would be able to gather enough heavenly materials or similar earthly treasures to successfully break through to the Late Stage of the Land Creation Realm, something he felt would be very possible if he could indeed obtain these cultivation resources from the different floors designated for those in the Land Creation Realm to challenge.

It was with this in mind that Xuan Hao officially stepped onto the twenty sixth floor of the ascension realm tower with the intent to successfully clear the floor and continue upwards while also taking the opportunity to search for cultivation resources in the process…

[Current Floor: 26]

[Task: Kill 3 Celestial Lord Realm Demon Beasts]

[Progress: 0/3]

[Reward: 2.500.000 Ascension Coin, the passage to the twenty-seventh floor reveals itself]

Finding himself faced with the quest or rather challenge that he had only briefly looked through back when he had first stepped onto the twenty sixth floor of the tower before retreating.

At the same time, he also felt a sense of growing excitement knowing that this would be his first encounter with someone at the Celestial Lord Realm, the Celestial Immortal cultivation path’s equivalent of the Land Creation Realm. Even if the other party wasn’t a cultivator but instead a demon beast who wouldn’t be able to share any of its insights of the Celestial Lord Realm with him.

After all, from his experience with the ascension realm tower so far, he could tell that no matter how strong the demon beasts he encountered, it was clear that they lacked the intelligence that they would have normally obtained through their cultivation outside the ascension realm tower.

That or the demon beasts inside the ascension realm tower were more like demonic beasts or ferocious beasts that didn’t develop much in terms of intelligence no matter how strong they ended up becoming.

Still, as he was about to set out searching for heavenly materials and earthly treasures useful for his cultivation and the Celestial Lord Realm Demon Beasts that he needed to clear the challenge and continue his ascend of the tower, he realized from a single sweep of his divine sense that this task was going to be far harder than he had originally anticipated.

Not because the twenty sixth floor of the tower was significantly larger than the twenty fifth floor, but instead because space itself on the twenty sixth floor was far more solid and difficult to move through compared to the previous floor.

This in turn not only made it more difficult to move through spatial movement but also made it more difficult to fly and move around normally. Even his divine sense was somewhat limited by the almost solid space.

Another effect that space on the twenty sixth floor would have on him was of course the fact that the damage he could cause to the environment had significantly lessened compared to previous floors.

But more importantly than all of that, he realized that searching through the floor itself was going to take far longer than he had originally anticipated. At the very least, he was looking at timeframe anywhere between a few months to a year to search through the twenty sixth floor.

Given that he had just taken on two new disciples, it wasn’t exactly optimal for him to go missing for such a long time. Especially when it came to Lu Dongli, who had just recently stepped into the Qi Condensation Realm and still needed guidance and close supervision until she at the very least got to the Core Formation Realm and began walking her own path and could take care of her own cultivation like the rest of his disciples were doing. Only coming to him for help whenever they ran into a problem they couldn’t solve on their own.

However, though he didn’t plan to leave Li Chi and Lu Dongli on their own, it didn’t mean he intended to leave the ascension realm tower that potentially had a way for him to obtain the cultivation resources he needed to break through to the Late Stage of the Land Creation Realm.

Instead, he decided to split a tiny portion of his soul off and store it inside a spirit stone that had already been emptied out. Using the Dao of Formations to carve a simple formation around it to create a small soul body using this tiny portion of his soul that would be able to continue teaching the two new disciples even while he wasn’t there with his true body.

A rather overcomplicated clone or avatar technique, as he hadn’t exactly trained any avatar or clone techniques yet.

Still… It worked just fine and wouldn’t be something that his disciples nor the rest of the sect would be able to see through in the first place, though had more to do with the fact that he also borrowed part of the chaotic qi formation to ensure the operation of the overcomplicated soul body formation.

In the process of creating this small yet complicated formation to ensure he could continue teaching his disciples while his true body was busy inside the ascension realm tower, he also remembered the ancient formation spirit that he had managed to secure inside the ancient secret realm.

To be honest, he had no idea what to do with this formation spirit, as he didn’t think the current sect was in possession of a formation strong enough to handle this kind of powerful ancient formation spirit.

Well… There was the chaotic qi formation, but he had no intention of allowing the formation spirit to take over such a critical formation with the little to no interaction he had with it. After all, if it turned out to be hostile, it could very well wipe out the entire sect with the current strength of the chaotic qi formation. Even he himself would likely not stand a chance against the current chaotic qi formation guarding the Shattered Star Peaks.

But keeping it locked up inside an interspatial ring forever wasn’t that great of an idea either, so he ultimately decided to hand it over to Elder Song and see if he could figure something out or have some idea about where to place it.

Everything settled for the foreseeable future; he officially began his exploration of the twenty sixth floor of the ascension realm tower.