Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Successfully killing the mountain sized demon beast after spending far longer than originally expected wearing down its terrifying vitality, Xuan Hao found himself breathing a sigh of relief looking down towards the massive dead body below. Hoping that the next demon beast at the Celestial Lord Realm he ran into wouldn’t be as troublesome to deal with as this mountain sized demon beast.

At the very least, though the second Celestial Lord Realm demon beast he had encountered so far could be considered stronger thanks to its ability to forcibly increase its strength through the use of some kind of unique bloodline ability that directly sacrificed part of its lifespan and foundation, it was far faster and easier to deal with. Essentially, only requiring him to go on the defensive for a bit until it ran out of steam before striking it down when it exhausted its foundation and lifespan.

Still, the prolonged battle had been beneficial when it came to increasing his combat experience for the Land Creation Realm and at the same time also gave him a chance to test out a few of his other Daos during the battle, some turning out less useful than others in the face of the mountain sized demon beast.

But with the task for the twenty sixth floor requiring him to kill three demon beasts at the Celestial Lord Realm before he could advance to the twenty seventh floor, he still needed to find one more demon beast before he could continue moving upwards to the next floor of the tower where the demon beasts or other hostile entities that might be living there would be able to provide a bit of a challenge compared to those he had faced so far on the twenty sixth floor of the tower.

After all, though the mountain sized demon beast had been difficult to deal with, it hadn’t exactly been much of an opponent and only took a long time to kill because of its downright terrifying vitality.

And while the flying demon beast did threaten him to some extent after having forcibly increased its strength to the Late Stage of the Celestial Lord Realm, it wasn’t exactly life threatening considering how he could beat it by simply using his ice lotus technique to shield himself for a few minutes until it ran out of steam and burnt through its remaining lifespan.

Only when the strength of these demon beast reached the Late Stage of the Celestial Lord Realm or even the Peak Stage of the Celestial Lord Realm did he feel like he might start to find himself in a dangerous position where losing his life was a very real possibility, something he had originally only expected to be the case when encountering an enemy at the Star Creation Realm before stepping inside the ascension realm tower this time around.

The main reason behind this being the fact that he only now realized just how powerful some of these demon beasts inside the tower could be, as the two he had encountered so far each had special unique abilities or traits related to their bloodline. Ensuring that they were far stronger than any cultivator of a similar cultivation realm he had encountered outside the ascension realm tower.

Unexpected as this turn of events was, he personally felt like this might be for the best as he doubted every person at the Land Creation Realm or the Celestial Lord Realm he encountered in the future would be of a similar level as the ones in the Northern Central Region or the Eastern Central Region he had encountered so far.

That aside, before thinking about taking on more powerful demon beasts, he first had to clear the task for the twenty sixth floor, a task that still required him to find and kill another demon beast at the Celestial Lord Realm.

A demon beast that part of him had hoped would be attracted by the commotion caused by his battle with the mountain sized demon beast like the flying demon beast had been.

Unfortunately for him, it looked like he would have to search through the rather desolate plains only broken up by a small mountain range here and there for the last remaining Celestial Lord Realm demon beast, something that soon enough proved to be far harder than he had originally anticipated.

Not because the demon beasts were difficult to find so to say, but instead because the demon beasts he encountered at the Celestial Lord Realm all turned to flee in the opposite direction the second they spotted him approaching.

A clear sign that it wasn’t that they hadn’t discovered his battle with the mountain sized demon beast and the flying demon beast earlier, but instead that they had sensed and maybe even directly watched the battle from afar and ended up too scared to face him.

Originally, this wouldn’t have been a problem as there was no way a few demon beasts would be able to run away from him with his current comprehension of the Dao of Space, but the almost solid space of the twenty sixth floor had essentially rendered this advantage of speed useless. Forcing him to rely on the Illusory Light Steps he had developed for just this kind of situation.

But while the Illusory Light Steps did give him the ability to catch up with the escaping demon beasts, he discovered to his dismay that these demon beasts all possessed some sort of unique ability specifically designed for escaping.

One able to bend light into a maze-like illusion that allowed it to slip away while he was trapped, while another was capable of directly ignoring the restrictions of space and moving through the thick and almost solid space like a fish swimming through water.

In the end, what should have ended within a few hours turned into a weeklong hunt until he finally managed to corner one of the escaping demon beasts at the Celestial Lord Realm and cut it down before it had the chance to pull some other mystical ability out its sleeve.

Of course, though this weeklong chase wasn’t how he had expected to finally complete the task for the twenty sixth floor of the ascension realm tower, he wasn’t entirely unsatisfied with how everything had ended up playing out as the countless unique abilities displayed by the different demon beasts at the Celestial Lord Realm allowed him to gain new insights on how to utilize some of the Daos he had already comprehended. Pushing some of his Daos at the Large Success Realm closer to the Perfection Realm while at the same time also allowing those already at the Perfection Realm to show clear progress towards the Origin Realm. Progress that might under normal circumstances have taken months if not years.

In the process, one of his less developed Daos, the Dao of Wind, managed to progress from the Elementary Realm to the Small Success Realm thanks to demon beast that ultimately ended up dead at his hands utilizing this Dao during its escape in a unique manner that allowed him a moment of enlightenment shortly after killing it.

If not for the fact that his surroundings seemingly shifted away from the desolate terrain that was the twenty sixth floor of the ascension realm tower and placed him on top what could only be described as a floating stone platform above said desolate landscape, he would have loved to continue hunting down the remaining demon beasts to see if he could use their unique manipulation and usage of different Daos to enhance his own comprehension of said Daos. Especially the demon beast that had been utilizing the Dao of Space.

Unfortunately, outside of just the floating stone platform that he was sure hadn’t existed before above the desolate landscape that he now found himself on top of, there was also a spiral staircase leading upwards towards what he assumed to be the twenty seventh floor of the ascension realm tower at the very core of the floating stone platform.

But of course, if that was it, it wouldn’t have been enough for him to stop himself from turning around and start chasing down the demon beasts that had escaped from him earlier.

Instead… What caused him to remain in place was the massive creature that had snaked its way around the spiral staircase and was currently staring down towards him from above with a killing intent that was hard to ignore.

Although this… Snake demon beast gave off a presence similar to that of the mountain sized demon beast at the Middle Stage of the Celestial Lord Realm, it was clear to him from a simple glance that this demon beast was going to be far harder to deal with compared to the mountain sized demon beast from earlier…

[Current Floor: 26]

[Task: Kill 3 Celestial Lord Realm Demon Beasts]

[Progress: 3/3 (Complete)]

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

Disappointingly, though the task for the current floor had already been cleared, no new task to take on this demon beast that was so clearly the boss for this floor had appeared. Meaning even taking it down wouldn’t reward him with some extra benefit like part of him had originally hoped upon seeing how it had appeared before him blocking the path to the next floor.