Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Chapter 1980  Payment (2)

Having put away the formation symbol that had been gifted to him by the Ancestor of the Wei Empire in return for the guidance he had provided to the other party, Xuan Hao knew that it was best for him to leave before others showed up to potentially ask him for help in a similar manner. After all, there were without a doubt other people that would jump at the opportunity to learn something from someone in the Star Creation Realm and the request from the Ancestor of the Wei Empire wasn't exactly hidden and should have been overheard by those observing from a distance.

Before any of those people had the chance to show up and potentially ask him something he had no clue about, Xuan Hao once again tore open a spatial rift and left in the same way he had arrived. The main difference this time around being that he wasn't heading to some other location within the boundaries of the Blue Sea Empire's territory. Instead, he was making his way back towards the Star Shattering Sect.

The reason why he didn't take care of the remaining trouble that had broken out in other locations within the territory of the Blue Sea Empire was the simple fact that the three demonic cultivators comparable to the Land Creation Realm had already turned their attention towards dealing with these other troublemakers below the Land Creation Realm. Meaning there was no reason for him to handle it personally.

In the first place, the only real problem for the demonic cultivators when it came to stabilizing the territory of the Blue Sea Empire were those Land Creation Realm cultivators who pinned down the stronger demonic cultivators and prevented them from going to deal with the trouble that had emerged throughout the territory of the Blue Sea Empire thanks to the silent manipulation of the different major powers.

Of course, the Blood Sea Demon King would have been more than capable of handling this kind of situation on his own, but because of the injuries he had suffered, he had decided to ignore it and leave it to the remaining three powerful demonic cultivators. Having relied on the Star Shattering Sect and the relationship between them to essentially have Xuan Hao help clean up the situation on his behalf.

This did come with the risk of offending Xuan Hao, but the Blood Sea Demon King had ended up judging the situation correctly in the end and managed to have Xuan Hao unknowingly help him clean up the Blue Sea Empire without exposing how grave his injuries after toppling the Blue Sea Empire truly were.

In the eyes of the different major powers, they just believed that the demonic cultivators and specifically the Blood Sea Demon King had already known about what the Star Shattering Sect was going to do ahead of time and had thus lured them into causing trouble in their attempt to gauge the strength of the Star Shattering Sect. Ultimately ending with two Land Creation Realm cultivators perishing to the senior from the Star Shattering Sect.

Speaking of the two Land Creation Realm cultivators who had ended up perishing… Given the overall strength of the Northern Central Region being on the lower end compared to the Western Central Region and only a bit ahead of the Eastern Central Region in terms of overall strength, the loss of both the Blue Sea Empire and these two Land Creation Realm cultivators had caused the overall strength of the Northern Central Region to plummet to the bottom among the different central regions.

The only major power ensuring that the Northern Central Region was still considered above the Eastern Central Region being the Wei Empire that hadn't suffered any damage and the existence of an active hidden ancient sect like the Star Shattering Sect.

After all, though the number of Land Creation Realm within the Northern Central Region was now below that of the Eastern Central Region with the two surviving Land Creation Realm cultivators from the Blue Sea Empire having already fled towards the Southern Central Region to avoid anyone taking advantage of their current situation, the fact that a hidden ancient sect with a Star Creation Realm cultivator was currently active and still in the process of slowly expanding and establishing themselves made it difficult for the Western Central Region to do anything to the Northern Central Region.

Passive and uninvolved as a hidden ancient sect was under normal circumstances, it was still well known that when a hidden ancient sect emerged, they would be at their most active before they had established their borders… And during this time, it wasn't weird to encounter those from said ancient hidden sect outside their borders doing everything from geological surveys to examining their surroundings and getting to know the different major powers.

Even though this could be considered normal behavior for a major power, it didn't last long for a hidden ancient sect and generally after a hundred years, the activity of the hidden ancient sect would die down completely as they retreated behind their newly established borders. Rarely emerging after that point unless carelessly offended by someone wandering into their territory and causing chaos.

In such cases, the ancient hidden sect might send out someone to erase the major power behind the offending party, something that had contributed to the territory established by ancient hidden sects turning into forbidden territory in most cases.

The one other ancient hidden sect that was known within the Northern Central Region was also one such case, as the territory of this ancient hidden sect had long since turned into a forbidden territory that no one dared approach… And in the future, it was likely that the territory of the Star Shattering Sect would follow a similar path and become a forbidden territory in the eyes of the different major powers within the Northern Central Region after they began slowly sealing themselves off from the outside world after establishing their borders.

Of course, the Star Shattering Sect wasn't a true ancient hidden sect and Xuan Hao along with Elder Song had no plans of shutting off the Star Shattering Sect for the rest of the world, as doing so would not just severely impact the trade of the sect, but would also make it impossible for the sect to continue expanding.

The problem with this was that continuing to stay active would undoubtedly end up drawing unwanted attention. Not from the different major powers within the Northern Central Region, as they were now too weak to pose a threat to the current Star Shattering Sect after Xuan Hao broke through to the Land Creation Realm. Instead, the threat would come from the different major powers that existed in the Southern Central Region.

Luckily, the Southern Central Region shouldn't be a problem for the next hundred or so years, around the same time that the ancient dao seals could stay up for. Meaning that the sect still had a hundred years to develop to the point where those major powers within the Southern Central Region couldn't threaten it any longer… And to be honest, the only path Xuan Hao saw towards something like that being possible was for him to break through to the Venerable Realm within these hundred years, something that would undoubtedly be impossible for him to accomplish even with his comprehension and cultivation speed.

The only thing he could rely on to accomplish this task of breaking through from the Profound Immortal Realm to the Venerable Realm in that short time would be the system.

Problem was, even after he had broken through to the Land Creation Realm, the system hadn't exactly been helpful and had remained mostly inactive after he had completed the main sect quest that had helped upgrade the chaotic qi formation guarding the sect and establish the ascension realm tower.

Although the reason for this might have to do with the fact that he hadn't spent much time teaching his disciples while he had been focused on breaking through to the Land Creation Realm, he also had a feeling that just normal teaching wouldn't be enough.

For him to trigger another quest from the system, he would almost certainly have to help his disciples either breakthrough beyond the Dao Domain Lord Realm, something that wasn't going to happen anytime soon–or he might have to look for another disciple to train.

In the past, he had thought about taking on another disciple. Especially now that his disciples were more than capable of taking care of themselves.

But… Taking on another disciple was far from simple, as he had come to realize that it was far more difficult to find a disciple than he had originally anticipated. Not because there was a lack of talented youths to pick from, but more so because he felt that none of the ones he had found so far were suitable.

Sighing internally to himself as he thought about this on his way back towards the sect, Xuan Hao believed it might be about time for him to start seriously looking into taking another disciple.