Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Looking towards the corpse of the silverback gorilla demon beast that had managed to forcefully break the control of the parasitic mushroom colony before dragging the last bit of the parasitic mushroom colony down with it before the strength that had been forcibly awakened within the corpse of the silverback gorilla demon beast ran out, Xuan Hao couldn’t help showing a somewhat surprised look on his face. After all, in that last second before the strength within the corpse dispersed, he had clearly sensed a minute and close to impossible to detect soul fluctuation.

From this, he guessed that when the parasitic mushroom colony forcibly awakened the dormant power within the dead body of the silverback gorilla demon beast, they also awakened some lingering fragments of the demon beasts once powerful soul.

Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t mean much, as the parasitic mushroom colony itself was far from weak and was more than strong enough to suppress this small soul fragment that had been awakened within the dead body, but, with the parasitic mushroom colony itself suffering catastrophic damage, it had no longer been able to suppress this soul fragment. Giving the lingering will within the body a chance to wrest back control before using said control to end the parasitic mushroom colony.

No matter what, the outcome at the end was the death of the parasitic mushroom colony that had once controlled the corpse of the silverback gorilla demon beast. Completing the task that had been assigned to him by the ascension tower once he had stepped onto this floor of the tower.

Still, to make sure he had ended up killing the current enemy, he still decided to check with the task progress, as he hadn’t heard any loud commotion with the passage to the next floor of the tower revealing itself, though that could also just be because the location of the staircase leading to the twenty ninth floor of the tower was located far away from the edge of the small world and was instead at the very center of the small world where the four major regions that made up this small world intersected with each other. In which case it made sense why he hadn’t sensed anything upon completing the task from the ascension tower...

[Current Floor: 28]

[Task: Kill the lord of the devil forest]

[Progress: 1/1 (Complete)]

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

And indeed, as he checked the progress of the task from the ascension tower, it had indeed been successfully completed.

Although... Part of him wasn’t entirely sure if the lord of the devil forest was the parasitic mushroom colony or the last remnants of the silverback gorilla demon beast’s soul that had extinguished alongside the death of the parasitic mushroom colony.

Thinking about it, the silverback gorilla should have once been the original lord of the devil forest, so he did feel more inclined to it being the lord of the devil forest, though he wouldn’t know for sure unless he attempted to go through the twenty eighth floor again and ended up with the exact same task. Only worth far less ascension coins now that he had officially completed the twenty eighth floor.

Speaking of which, the twenty eighth floor should be the last floor within the Land Creation Realm part of the ascension tower, so something interesting might emerge at the shop found on the ground floor. If the twenty ninth floor of the ascension tower proved to be far too difficult to handle with his current strength, he would pay a quick visit and see what new things had appeared within the shop before leaving the ascension tower...

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Momentarily lost in his own thoughts now that the battle with the parasitic mushroom colony had come to an end, he found his attention suddenly drawn towards the large battle currently playing out at the core of the devil forest. Not because the battle itself interested him, but more so because the battle itself was clearly spreading towards his location with a few demon beasts at the Land Creation Realm having already split off from the battle to rush over towards him.

Using his divine sense to get a better look at the current state of the battle before those demon beasts rushing towards him could get to him, Xuan Hao found his initial interest in the battle replaced by a look of embarrassment upon listening to the valiant roars and exclamations of those cultivators from the cultivator alliance locked in a deadly battle with the demon beast of the devil forest.

”Hold on for just a bit longer! That senior should be close to winning the battle against the lord of the devil forest!”

”Even if you have to sacrifice yourself, don’t let those ferocious demon beasts meddle in senior’s battle with the lord of the devil forest!”

”Just a bit longer, the presence of the lord of the devil forest clearly weakened and shouldn’t be able to hold on for long against the senior! We can’t let the senior’s sacrifice be in vain, we have to give everything we have and ensure those demon beasts don’t meddle in his battle with the lord of the devil forest!”

Just listening to their ferocious battle cries as they gave everything, they had to hold back the demon beasts from breaking off and rushing towards him made him feel his face reddening a bit. Understanding that these cultivators from the cultivator alliance had somehow misunderstood him as being some kind of ancient senior cultivator that had awakened and was currently burning the last embers of his life to take down the lord of the devil forest with them.

In fact, the embarrassment he felt over the situation even made him reconsider his original plan of finishing off these cultivators from the cultivator alliance alongside the now leaderless demon beasts and seizing everything of value he could from them.

Although... Part of it also had to do with the fact that these cultivators from the cultivator alliance had little to nothing of value to their name after he emptied their treasury and what little they had left had already been burnt during their struggle against the demon beasts. Meaning he wouldn’t be able to obtain much of anything even if he killed all of them.

The only thing of value left within the devil forest was the demon beasts themselves, though he wasn’t exactly lacking demon beast corpses since he had come to the ascension tower and neither was the sect. After all, it was limited what the current Star Shattering Sect could use those dead demon beasts for, as it required someone of high enough rank as an alchemist to use their blood or a powerful enough blacksmith to use their bones in artifact creation.

And the current Star Shattering Sect didn’t exactly have anyone capable of making use of the bones of a Land Creation Realm demon beast, as even he didn’t have a high enough understanding of the Dao of Blacksmithing to make use of such high quality materials without dedicating a significant amount of time to researching the bones and what use they might have. Time, he felt was better spent on improving his own strength.

Because of this, after a quick sweep over the battlefield, he decided to ignore it and silently slip away using the Dao of Space heading towards the center of the small world where the staircase leading to the twenty ninth floor of the tower should have already appeared.

Whoosh~

Of course, while he could ignore the Land Creation Realm demon beast corpses, he couldn’t ignore the silverback gorilla demon beast corpse the size of a small mountain. That was, after all, the corpse of a Star Creation Realm demon beast- and not a weak one, but one close to the Venerable Realm.

Even in the future when he began his ascent further up the ascension tower, he doubted it would be easy to encounter this kind of powerful demon beast again. After all, outside of the difficulty involved in taking down a demon beast this powerful, there was also a very real chance that the enemy he encountered at the end of the Star Creation Realm section of the ascension tower wouldn’t even be a demon beast.

Because of this, the value of the silverback gorilla demon beast went without saying.

...

”The demon beasts are returning- Ah! The battle ended!”

”Not just that, the lord of the devil forest is nowhere to be seen! The senior succeeded, the lord of the devil forest is dead!”

”Haha, even if this cost us everything in our treasury, it’s worth it. At most we will have to send a few people to rewrite some of the cultivation techniques, combat techniques and records we remember.

As for what was lost... Consider it the price of taking down the lord of the devil forest.”

And only a few seconds after Xuan Hao left, the demon beasts rushing towards him discovered that the lord of the devil forest had already disappeared and returned to the main battlefield. Allowing the cultivators from the cultivator alliance to realize that the lord of the devil forest was gone.

Even if some of them wanted to stay and fight, they had ultimately fought far beyond what they could handle and were forced into a retreat a few minutes later to avoid perishing alongside the demon beast of the devil forest. Unaware of how the battle with the lord of the devil forest had ended and what ultimately happened to the senior who had fought the lord of the devil forest.