Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

[Current Floor: 28]

[Task: Kill the lord of the devil forest]

[Progress: 0/1]

[Reward: 5.000.000 Ascension Coin, the passage to the twenty-ninth floor reveals itself]

Returning back to the twenty eighth floor of the tower, Xuan Hao once again found himself looking at the task for the twenty eighth floor of the tower. Feeling somewhat confused about the fact that the strength of the lord of the devil forest mentioned in the task wasn’t directly stated like demon beasts or enemies he had to face off against in the past.

Unsurprisingly, it reminded him of the task from the previous twenty seventh floor. Making him think that this lord of the devil forest might be an enemy no less troublesome than the demigod from the Heavens Faith Sect that he had to deal with to successfully clear the twenty seventh floor of the tower the first time around.

Still... A clear difference compared to the previous floor of the tower was the fact that the goal this time around wasn’t to wipe out a massive force in control of an entire small world with a demigod sitting at the very top of said force. Instead, it was just to kill the lord of some forest, something that seemed far simpler than the earlier task on the surface.

Of course, with this being the twenty eighth floor of the tower, there was a very real possibility that the task this time around was going to be even more difficult than the previous floor of the tower where he had essentially forced his way through by taking on the demigod of the Heavens Faith Sect without weakening the other party in the slightest like the original goal of the task might have been about.

Shaking his head as he thought about this, he didn’t linger around the entrance to the twenty eighth floor for long and soon enough began exploring this floor with the goal of first finding out more about this devil forest and its lord before making plans of how to deal with this lord after finding out just how strong he was.

If it was truly someone who was in the Land Creation Realm and not some overpowered demigod like the one in charge of the Heavens Faith Sect, he was confident that it wouldn’t be difficult for him to kill of the other party with his current strength at the Late Stage of the Land Creation Realm.

The only real problem with this floor of the tower that slowly began to set in after he began exploring the twenty eighth floor of the tower, was the fact that the size covered by the floor had clearly increased once again. Meaning he would have to spend even more time searching.

At least, compared to the previous floor, this floor didn’t have any signs of life outside of a bit of wildlife roaming through the forests and mountains passing by below him with only a rare few demon beasts at the Qi Condensation Realm or Foundation Establishment Realm appearing now and again, though from past experience, he also had a feeling that the lack of demon beasts and cultivators along his path had to do with him still being at the edge of the world that the twenty eighth floor was situated on.

In turn, because of this, he decided to fully expand his divine sense without any restraints. Allowing it to sweep through his surroundings at a terrifying speed before enveloping an area close to a quarter of the now fallen Blue Sea Empire.

This kind of sweep was far from hidden, as even someone at the Dao Seed Realm would be able to sense it, but as things turned out, his earlier speculations of this being somewhere on the edge of the small world that the twenty eighth floor of the tower was located on was proven correct, as he saw the familiar trend of demon beasts and even the spiritual qi density of the atmosphere growing denser following one specific direction.

At the very edge of his divine sense, he even managed to pick up the very first signs of life that didn’t belong to any demon beasts, though from the looks of things, it was just ruins, it still signaled to him that some kind of cultivator existed within this small world.

As for the strength of the demon beasts his divine sense swept through... Their strength was still far below anything worth his attention, as the strongest among them had barely reached the Domain Lord Realm, with that demon beast having turned the ruins of what should once have been a sizable city home to at least fifty thousand people into its new home.

The reason why it would make a city ruin its home was because one of the formations that once covered the small city remained active, gathering and concentrating spiritual qi within the small city. Making it a far better place for cultivation compared to outside the city ruins.

How this one formation had managed to survive the destruction of the city was a mystery, but through this one remaining formation still circulating, gathering and concentrating spiritual qi, he could at least get an idea of the strength of the cultivators who had once created this city. Judging that they should have been somewhere within the Soul Ascension Realm with the formations that should have guarded the city, being more than capable of fending off someone at the Soul Ascension Realm.

In other words, the little demon beast at the Domain Lord Realm wasn’t the culprit behind this small city’s destruction but had only taken over the small city ruins after realizing that the cultivation environment there was far better than its old mountain cave.

Truly, benefiting from the fall of others, this little demon beast had even started to build up a small power of its own. Recruiting subordinate demon beasts from the surrounding forest and turning itself into a small local king of demon beasts that stood at the very peak amongst local demon beasts thanks to the still functioning spiritual qi gathering formation. Having reached the Seventh Stage of the Domain Lord Realm while the strongest amongst the other nearby demon beasts had only just barely reached the Fourth Stage of the Domain Lord Realm.

Of course, Xuan Hao himself didn’t care that much about this little local king who was only at the Domian Lord Realm and after investigating the ruins without the other parties knowledge, he found a lot of useful information within the manor at the very core of the small city that the little local boss had turned into its nest. Finding a largely intact map inside what should have been the office of the city lord once in control of this small city.

From this map, he learned that the place he currently found himself within inside this small world was known as the outer wilderness and by continuing forward in the direction he was travelling, he would soon reach the true wilderness where stronger demon beasts could be found.

As for what could be found beyond this wilderness that he found himself at the edge of... He had no idea, as the rest of the map had been destroyed alongside any other information, he might have been able to piece together from the home library next to the office.

The one positive thing about the almost destroyed map was the fact that it clearly showed several other cities within the wilderness he was about to enter. Making him confident that he could find the information he was looking for by visiting these cities.

Even if these cities had suffered a similar fate and had been destroyed, he doubted that none of them would have a more complete map. After all, it could also be seen from the half-destroyed map that the size of these cities was larger compared to the small city he currently found himself in.

Following the annotations that were left next to the different cities, he could understand that they were split into three different tiers, with the one he currently found himself in being a third-tier city, the smallest and weakest, with first-tier cities being the largest and strongest.

Of course, though he had learnt about this, the cities present on the not destroyed part of the map were all the third or second tier with not even one of them having reached the first tier that he now hoping to run into.

Still, he at least had a goal now compared to just randomly searching for the devil forest. Hoping sincerely that finding one of these higher tier cities would allow him to gain a better understanding of the small world he found himself in along with information on the devil forest and the lord of the devil forest that he needed to kill off to successfully clear the task for this floor of the tower and proceed onwards to the twenty ninth floor of the tower.