Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Faced with a seemingly endless number of ancient cultivation resources that the Myriad Treasure Hall wanted, Xuan Hao could only silently nod along as he listened to Elder Green Willow. Having absolutely no clue about most of the cultivation resources she brought up. After all, the Star Shattering Sect wasn’t an ancient hidden sect and didn’t have the ability to produce most of the ancient cultivation resources she brought up.

Still, as luck would have it, the sect did have the ability to produce some of the lower quality ancient spiritual herbs that he and some of the sect elders and disciples had managed to obtain from the ascension realm tower.

Along that same line, some of the other cultivation resources brought up by Elder Green willow had also been obtained by the sect through the ascension realm tower. Allowing him to at the very least bring out a few of them to show off and get her confirmation that those were the cultivation resources she was looking for. In a way, using the opportunity to further solidify the Star Shattering Sect as an ancient hidden sect in the eyes of this elder from the Myriad Treasure Hall.

Of course, the main reason why she became increasingly confident in the Star Shattering Sect had to do with the fact that even amongst ancient hidden sects, bringing out three or four of the countless ancient cultivation resources she brought up for trade was the norm, as most of those ancient cultivation resources were already scarce in the current day and age and wouldn’t normally be traded with outsiders.

Yet... Xuan Hao brought out over a dozen different ancient cultivation resources that were close to impossible to find in the current day and age. Showing a clear willingness to trade them in the process.

Not only did this increase her confidence in Xuan Hao and in turn also the Star Shattering Sect behind him, but it also made her realize just how beneficial a trade relationship with the Star Shattering Sect could be for her Myriad Treasure Hall.

Even without getting their hands on the dao rune blueprints that was the main goal of her Myriad Treasure Hall when it came to trading with ancient hidden sects, what the Star Shattering Sect offered up for trade in return was more than enough to make up for this.

Still, as the conversation continued, Elder Green Willow slowly realized that Xuan Hao hadn’t mentioned anything his sect wanted from her Myriad Treasure Hall, something that was highly troubling given how she still had no clue what kind of cultivation resources or things the Star Shattering Sect might want from her Myriad Treasure Hall in return for those ancient cultivation resources he had just shown off to her.

As for the Star Shattering Sect not needing anything? She didn’t believe that in the slightest, as the sect wouldn’t have bothered to meet the delegation and later even allowed this meeting to take place if there wasn’t something they wanted from her Myriad Treasure Hall.

The only reason for Xuan Hao to not bring up something while allowing her to list everything the Myriad Treasure Hall wanted from the Star Shattering Sect, had to be because what the Star Shattering Sect wanted from her Myriad Treasure Hall wasn’t something simple and they planned to assess everything her Myriad Treasure Hall wanted to see if they could potentially bundle together several things her Myriad Treasure Hall wanted to trade for it.

And while she might have originally felt a bit uneasy knowing this, it also made her feel a sense of growing anticipation. Knowing that only when the Star Shattering Sect Elder before her brought up an especially valuable item could she smoothly mention the dao rune blueprints that her Myriad Treasure Hall wanted.

”... And finally, the last thing we are looking for when it comes to ancient cultivation resources your sect might have are dried phoenix flowers...” However, as she finished listing every ancient cultivation resource she could think of that her Myriad Treasure Hall needed, Xuan Hao didn’t open his mouth to speak out immediately as she had expected. Instead, he silently observed her deep in thought. Making her feel nervous to say the least as she understood this elder should be evaluating everything, she had said and pondering whether to proceed with laying out what his sect wanted or list some nonessential cultivation resources to first test the waters.

Although she understood that this would normally be how things went, she still felt a sense of immense pressure faced with Xuan Hao’s silence as he went over everything, she had said...

This... What in the world am I supposed to ask this elder from the Myriad Treasure Hall for? If I ask something far too common and seemingly useless to an ancient hidden sect, it won’t just invite suspicion, but could also cause the Myriad Treasure Hall to back out of trade and according to Elder Song, it would be best if we could establish proper trade ties with them so we aren’t as reliant on the Explorer Union for the bulk of our trade...

Of course, unaware of how nervous Elder Green Willow was feeling about his silence, Xuan Hao was just as nervous about the current situation, as he truly had no idea what he should ask the Myriad Treasure Hall for in return for the ancient cultivation resources his sect could offer.

Originally, he had wanted to ask for cultivation resources that would be helpful for those cultivators in the Soul Ascension Realm and Domain Lord Realm, but looking at the situation now, he realized just how odd it would be for him to ask about such low-level resources. Not just that, but even normal cultivation resources would be odd for him to ask for, as only rare and unique cultivation resources seemed to fit what an ancient hidden sect might need. Especially with the current identity established by the Star Shattering Sect as an ancient hidden sect that had emerged to recruit new disciples instead of one emerging due to its cultivation resources starting to run out.

But the question was, what could he ask for in return? And not just something random like precious cultivation resources that had only emerged recently, as the simple fact that the Star Shattering Sect agreed to the meeting showed that the sect wanted some specific from the Myriad Treasure Hall. Meaning he should be able to convey something the sect wanted that would make sense and wasn’t just something random.

A difficult task indeed. After all, he had no clue what an ancient hidden sect might want to obtain from a force like the Myriad Treasure Hall. Special cultivation resources were the only thing he could think of outside of information, but asking for information was a bit odd given the fact the Myriad Treasure Hall wasn’t exactly an information broker known for gathering information.

In fact, there existed specialized information gathering organizations within the Southern Central Region that would make more sense to contact compared to a place like the Myriad Treasure Hall in case he wanted information.

The Myriad Treasure Hall specialized in things like rare artifacts, ancient manuscripts and cultivation techniques, precious and hard to find cultivation resources and so on.

Amongst those, he couldn’t really come up with anything valuable enough that would be fitting for an ancient hidden sect like the Star Shattering Sect to go out of its way to establish contact with the Myriad Treasure Hall.

In the end, as his mind went over everything, he slowly remembered the phoenix feathers he had obtained in the past that had then ended up merging together into the small flame imprint between his brows.

Although not much had changed since it had taken shape, he had a feeling it had to do with it needing more of those phoenix feathers to grow... And while uneasy about seeing it grow, he felt confident in his own strength and couldn’t say no to the clear benefits the growth of that little flame brought him.

”There is one thing my sect has been looking for, and we were wondering if your Myriad Treasure Hall might have something like it...”

Whoosh~

Thinking this would make a good object to ask for from the Myriad Treasure Hall, Xuan Hao slowly dragged out his words before motioning with one hand to create an illusion of one of the phoenix feathers, he had picked up in the past. Showing it to Elder Green Willow who narrowed her eyes curiously upon seeing the unique feather.

”This is a phoenix feather, I wonder if your Myriad Treasure Hall has something like it?” Drawing out things for a bit before introducing the feather and what it was to Elder Green Willow, who in turn froze on the spot upon hearing the introduction to what she was looking at before silently mumbling something incoherent to herself as she pulled out what looked like an ancient looking list that she quickly began looking through.