Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Pushing aside his worries about what he might end up finding himself running into after he got to the end of the hallway, Xuan Hao took his time to observe the surrounding walls and decorations along the way. Hoping he would be able to gleam some information about the lord of the place along with potential challenges that might await him once he found himself joining the fight for the inheritance.

And walking through the hallway, he did indeed soon enough find several clues along the way, though the clues didn’t point to the potential challenge he would have to go through to obtain the inheritance. Instead, they were traces left behind by what should be the Void Integration Realm cultivators that had passed through this place before him.

After all, the traces left behind weren’t exactly ancient and seemed to have been left behind only a few hours earlier. Meaning he wasn’t that far behind the group of Void Integration Realm cultivators that should have come chasing behind the city lord of Desolate River City.

The only one with a real advantage in the struggle should be the city lord himself. Although, how much of an advantage he had managed to secure for himself was difficult to ascertain without even seeing the potential challenge he had to overcome to successfully obtain said inheritance.

Shaking his head as he thought about this, he soon finished getting a proper read of the bits of information that the void Integration Realm cultivators had unknowingly left behind when they rushed through the hallway a few hours earlier.

For one, he could tell that there were far more Void Integration Realm cultivators than he had originally predicted. At the very least seven without counting the city lord. Second, the Void Integration Realm cultivators hadn’t all passed through the hallway at the same time and seemed to have instead come through between fifteen to twenty minutes of one another and close to half having passed through alone while the other half was a group that should be chasing after the city lord.

When it came to strength, these Void Integration Realm cultivators weren’t exactly anything he was afraid of and the only one that caused him some surprise was the presence of the last who had passed through the hallway only two hours before him, as the presence left behind by that individual was far stronger than any of the other and even gave him a slight feeling that he was facing someone in the Star Creation Realm- and not just a normal Star Creation Realm cultivator.

Without a doubt, this person was undoubtedly someone who had reached the Peak of the Void Integration Realm or was at the very least extremely close to reaching the Peak of the Void Integration Realm.

From the looks of it, the emergence of the ancient city center had already drawn out a powerful individual who surpassed the city lord himself, something that would become far more common over the next few days and following weeks as the information about the emergence of the ancient city center spread throughout t0he fragmented continent.

Looks like I’m running out of time if I want to try and stand a chance at obtaining anything from this place...

Silently thinking this to himself as he realized it was only a matter of time before more powerful figures like this showed up and alongside even stronger beings at the Void God Realm, Xuan Hao increased his speed a bit as he didn’t dare to waste too much time examining the hallway and the countless intricate decorations and stories depicted through paintings and other similar mediums that seemed entirely focused on showcasing the splendor of the lord in charge of the palace.

Because of this, though he did manage to sweep through everything with his divine sense, he didn’t have the time to properly examine the different things he saw along the way and could only throw it to the back of his mind for now and try to examine the things he saw along the way later. Especially the different paintings that seemed to have been infused with a powerful dao intent that allowed one to more easily comprehend the Dao observing them.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to bring along those paintings that would undoubtedly be of immense value to the sect, but they were integrated into the palace itself and couldn’t be taken away without him triggering the formation guarding the place, something that wouldn’t end well for him considering how the formation guarding the palace was also connected to the main guardian formation that encompassed the entire ancient city center.

Even if he somehow managed to survive in the face of the formation guarding the palace, when the large formation kicked into gear and took over, he would not stand a chance with his current strength still at the Late Stage of the Land Creation Realm...

Arriving at the end of the hallway after travelling for what felt like hours, Xuan Hao couldn’t help looking back at the way he had come with a visible frown on his face upon noticing the gate into the palace still visible from where he was standing.

At first, he hadn’t noticed anything wrong, but as he continued to move along the hallway without seeing an end in sight, he began growing suspicious and after close to ten minutes of travelling with no end in sight, he finally realized he had been thrown into some kind of spatial trap without his knowledge that kept him running in circles endlessly.

Knowing was one thing. Breaking free was another.

Even with his comprehension of the Dao of Space, it had ended up taking him close to an hour to find a way out of the spatial maze he had found himself trapped inside. The entire situation making him realize that his mastery of the Dao of Space wasn’t all encompassing and was still far from covering every subject governed by the Dao of Space. His mastery focusing more on the outright destruction of space and spatial movement. Spatial entrapment and the construction of spatial mazes was far from his specialty. At the very least, this made him feel a bit better knowing from the presence left behind by those Void Integration Realm cultivators that they hadn’t struggled anywhere near as much as he had passing through the spatial maze.

In a sense, those Void Integration Realm cultivators who had already started to partly merge with the space around them were downright terrifying when it came to finding the way through this kind of spatial trap, as from what he could tell. Only one of them seemed to have paused somewhere for a few short minutes while the rest all passed through the spatial maze like nothing had happened, something that had ultimately given him the illusion that there wasn’t anything wrong with the hallway.

Still, everything had its downsides and while they might be more sensitive the shifts in the surrounding spatial environment compared to someone like himself, their divine sense and soul strength were pitifully weak compared to his. Making things like soul-based attacks immensely useful and even the barbaric act of forcing divine sense into the dantian and using it to pressure their soul and potential outright crush it a possibility.

Of course, he wasn’t planning to try something that dangerous even if he knew it had a chance of working, as attempting to forcibly invade someone’s dantian would also result in him having to expose his own soul outside his body.

Instead of something so troublesome, it would be far more effective to just rely on his sword soul to do the job and damage their souls during battle.

Rumble~!

Lost in thought for a moment as he was partly coping with the fact that he had been completely left in the dust by the locals when it came to getting through a spatial maze, the loud sound of what should undoubtedly be a large-scale battel taking place erupted beyond the gate at the end of the hallway, causing Xuan Hao’s slowly recovering confidence to take another hit.

They... They started the final battle without me!? I wasn’t that slow...

After all, he realized from the sound of battle that the final struggle for the inheritance should have just broken out without him because of just how long he had ended up finding himself trapped within the spatial maze.

Even though this was a good thing for him as he would now arrive when everyone else was busy fighting one another, he couldn’t help feeling a bit uncomfortable knowing he had missed out on becoming a part of this undoubtedly epic battle.

To be honest with himself, part of him had looked forward to joining the battle for the inheritance. After all, it wasn’t every day he would get a chance to join a battle with so many powerful cultivators involved that were more than capable of posing a challenge to him...