Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Unaware of the fact that Mui had already managed to break through to the Sixth Stage of the Nascent Soul Realm only a few weeks since he had left her to train by herself, Xuan Hao had managed to pick up the third fragment of the scroll of trials and was currently making his way towards the location of the final fragment.

On the way, he already started to seriously consider how to deal with the immortal mushroom when he ended up facing it later.

After all, he was still around three or so hours away from reaching it, while the immortal mushrooms he had encountered so far should be less than two hours away from reaching a realm comparable to the Middle Stage of the Dao Seed Realm. Meaning that it looked like he wouldn’t be able to avoid a fight with the immortal mushroom guarding the final fragment of the scroll of trials.

Of course, there was also the chance that the immortal mushrooms wouldn’t start attacking him after they reached a level of strength comparable to the Middle Stage of the Dao Seed Realm. Instead continuing to increase their strength without doing anything to stop him from getting the scroll of trials and completing the challenge of the celestial trial.

But the chance of that happening wasn’t really something he wanted to gamble on…

Whoosh~

So, with that in mind, a few hours quickly flew by before Xuan Hao found himself landing on top of a large mushroom a little over a dozen kilometers away from the fourth and final immortal mushroom that seemed to not notice him as it kept absorbing the strange energy from the surrounding mushroom forest to continue increasing its strength.

If not for the fact that he could clearly feel the aura of the immortal mushroom in front of him had already broken through to the Middle Stage of the Dao Seed Realm, he would have already rushed forward to take the final fragment needed for the scroll of trails.

But now that the immortal mushroom in front of him had already reached the Middle Stage of the Dao Seed Realm, he couldn’t do something that dangerous, as he would risk being ambushed by the immortal mushroom if he was not careful enough… And considering that he couldn’t really kill the immortal mushroom, it would just start a battle that would only end after he ran out of energy and died.

No matter what, he wanted to avoid a situation like that.

At least before he ended up locked in a fight with one of the immortal mushrooms, he wanted to get his hand on the final fragment so he could figure out how to complete the challenge of the celestial trail and get out of the mushroom forest as fast as possible.

However, to do so, he would have to teleport to the center of the immortal mushroom’s cap where the final stone slab was located, something that would put him directly inside the immortal mushroom’s range for a short period of time.

The main problem with this was that he still had absolutely no idea what kind of abilities the immortal mushrooms had nor what kind of dao they would use when fighting. Meaning he had no idea if they had the ability to lock up space and prevent him from teleporting away.

Well… It wasn’t entirely true, as he had sensed the Dao of Life when he tried killing one of the immortal mushrooms.

In that sense, the Dao of Life should be what kept them alive and made immortal below the Profound Immortal Realm according to what little was written on the stone slabs.

Making him guess that the immortal mushrooms should also have comprehended some kind of dao related to the soul to prevent them from being killed by soul-based attacks. At least giving him some clue as to what kind of attacks the immortal mushrooms might engage in.

Outside of that there was also-

”Ah…! I’m wasting time… No matter how hard I think about it, it won’t make much of a difference. On the other hand, the longer I hesitate, the stronger the immortal mushroom will grow!” Shaking his head as he stopped himself from continuing down the rabbit hole of figuring out any more ways to deal with immortal mushroom in front of him, Xuan Hao narrowed both his eyes as he took a step forward-

Whoosh-!

Disappearing and appearing rapidly as he closed the distance between himself and the immortal mushroom with the help of the drifting cloud steps. Soon arriving directly at the center of the immortal mushroom’s cap in less than a second. Not giving the immortal mushroom any time to react as he snatched the fragment of the scroll of trials away without any problems.

RUUUMBLE-!

However, just as he was about to take a step forward and leave the place, a loud rumbling sound echoed out from below him before the space all around him was sealed off by a strange power. Followed by the immortal mushroom below him releasing countless spores the size of a normal human head that began surging towards him with a terrifying speed.

Even having no clue what these spores did, Xuan Hao still inherently understood that it would be bad for him to get hit by them-

Swish-!

So, with that in mind, he executed the drifting cloud steps to the best of his abilities without the assistance of the Dao of Space to rapidly charge down from the cap of the immortal mushroom, while at the same time using his dao domain to destroy any spores that got too close.

However, the number of spores flying towards him continued to grow from ten thousand to a hundred thousand, from ten million to a hundred million and before long there were billions of them flying at him.

Even using his dao domain with all of his strength, he couldn’t stop the spores from slowly getting closer with each passing second, as they brute forced their way through his dao domain, something he had never expected to happen considering that the spores were relatively easy to destroy with his dao domain.

Unfortunately, easy didn’t mean that it didn’t require any effort, as his soul was already getting exhausted from him using his divine sense to keep an eye on billions of spores at the same time and ensure that none of them got through.

Even for the powerful soul of someone like himself at the Late Stage of the Dao Domain Lord Realm. Keeping his attention focused on so many different things at the same time was simply impossible, as one of the countless spores soon managed to get through his dao domain and reach him.

Boom!

And before he had time to do anything about it, it exploded into a cloud of brown mist that quickly engulfed him and began trying to forcibly enter his body.

Luckily, his physical body was in no way weak and could even be considered to be far above that of normal cultivators due to his still unweakened physique strengthening it to the point where it was no less powerful than a demon beast at the Middle Stage of the Dao Seed Realm.

If not for that, the brown mist might have been able to get into his body and even if it didn’t do much damage, it would cause him to lose focus for a short moment. Giving the billions of similar spores outside a chance to breakthrough his dao domain and reach him.

Even then, Xuan Hao wasn’t unharmed, a part of his skin had been corroded by the brown mist before it had dispersed. Showing just how dangerous these spores were.

”I have to get out of here as fast as possible…” Muttering this to himself as he now found himself trapped on top of the immortal mushroom, unable to continue moving forward due to the constant onslaught of spores, Xuan Hao inevitably turned to look down at the soft flesh like outer skin of the mushroom cap below him-

Swish-!

Ptsh!

And without a second thought, he directly used his Dao of Ice and Dao of the Sword together to cut a hole big enough for him to fit through, as he soon found himself falling.

Not being able to kill the immortal mushroom didn’t mean that he wouldn’t be able to cut through it… And it just so happened that the only way he saw out of his current situation was to cut through the immortal mushroom cap and hopefully make use of gravity to reach the ground below and escape before the spores could catch him.

Whoosh~! Whoosh~! Whoosh~!

”Huh? This-!?”

However, as he was planning his escape after falling through the cap of the immortal mushroom that was close to five hundred meters thick, Xuan Hao suddenly felt a strange tickling sensation as countless tentacle like stems sprouted from the side of the hole he had created, some trying to repair the damage, while others flew towards him in an attempt to grab hold of him.