Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Giving up on continuing to pursue the strange disappearance of demonic cultivators any further than he had already done, Xuan Hao continued making his way deeper inside the Frozen Wastelands while keeping an eye out for any locations where the Dao of Ice was more present compared to others.

Unfortunately, even though he did find quite a few locations where the Dao of Ice was easier to comprehend, he didn’t end up finding any beyond the effects brought by him staying at the Second Star Peak to comprehend the Dao of Ice in seclusion. Meaning that those locations pretty much had no effect on him breaking through his bottleneck and reaching the Perfection Realm in the Dao of Ice in the short term.

However, as he continued to move deeper into the Frozen Wastelands, it became clear that it became easier and easier to find locations comparable to the conditions of the Second Star Peak.

Although he hadn’t found any locations beyond that at the moment, it had made him confident that he would be able to find a useful location for comprehending the Dao of Ice as long as he continued moving deeper into the Frozen Wastelands.

The problem with this was the fact that he had already started to notice a clear shift in the strength of the demonic cultivators wandering around him, with even the weakest among them having at least reached the True Demon Realm, a clear indication that he was getting closer to the core of the Frozen Wastelands where the demonic cultivators main power resided.

No matter how confident he was in his own strength, he understood full well that he couldn’t barge into the core region of the Frozen Wastelands without being noticed by the demonic cultivators. After all, the existence guarding an important location like that would undoubtedly have surpassed the few Demon King Realm demonic cultivators he had encountered so far.

More importantly than that, his presence might alert even stronger beings into action.

After all, he was currently inside the Frozen Wastelands and the restrictions that might have normally kept those powerful existences from moving wouldn’t be in place in their own home.

If they really were, he would start to doubt the power of the demonic cultivators and their courage in making a move on the core region of the continent…

”Hm? A Demon King Realm demonic cultivator…!”

Just as he was lost in his own thoughts while aimlessly moving deeper into the Frozen Wastelands in search of an opportunity to breakthrough the bottleneck to the Perfection Realm, Xuan Hao froze on the spot as he noticed the distinct presence of a Demon King Realm demonic cultivator entering the periphery of his divine sense.

Whoosh~!

Not wasting a second after sensing the presence of this demonic cultivator and ensuring that the other party had not yet noticed him, Xuan Hao rapidly moved in the opposite direction of the demonic cultivator. Avoiding the other party before he had a chance to even notice his presence.

Luckily the other party wasn’t a particularly strong demonic cultivator, allowing him to smoothly sidestep him without him even knowing about his presence in the first place.

However, the close encounter was a clear wakeup call, reminding him of just how deep he had ventured into the Frozen Wastelands and the danger that presented itself before him if he continued moving deeper.

Even then, the fact that he had still not managed to find the special location he had come in search of, made him unwilling to just turn around and stop moving deeper.

Just a little deeper and he felt like he would find what he was looking for…

”Haaa… No risk, no reward, I have to risk a little if I want to have a chance at successfully comprehending the Dao of Ice to the Perfection Realm over the next five years…” Narrowing both his eyes as he muttered this to himself while looking off in the direction that the demonic cultivator had disappeared in, Xuan Hao wasted no time as he continued moving deeper into the Frozen Wastelands. Unaware about whether he had already crossed over into the core region of the Frozen Wastelands or was still in the outer parts of the Frozen Wastelands.

Of course, now that he had personally almost run into a demonic cultivator in the Demon King Realm, he slowed down his speed significantly, becoming far more cautious as he continued moving deeper into the Frozen Wastelands. Wanting to ensure that he could react in time in case he ended up running into another demonic cultivator.

After all, he had no way to ensure that his divine sense was that much more superior to the demonic cultivators he encountered. The encounter just now could be considered rather lucky, as the demonic cultivator had already covered close to a third of the area covered by his divine sense without the other party even noticing him.

On one hand, it could have been an example of just how impressive his divine sense was, while on the other hand, it could also just be that the divine sense of the demonic cultivator was rather lacking, something that Xuan Hao felt more inclined to believe in considering that it was doubtful that his divine sense could be that much stronger than a demonic cultivator in the Demon King Realm.

Because of this, he had to remain far more cautious while moving forward for now. Ensuring that no such dangerous encounter will happen again in the future.

In the end, his caution proved to be well-founded, as he had over a dozen encounters with demonic cultivators in the Demon King Realm over the next few days, some of the demonic cultivators appearing several times, likely travelling between the core region of the Frozen Wastelands and the borders.

However, the important thing was that none of these demonic cultivators managed to notice his presence, allowing him to slowly push forward over these few days.

In turn, he had found several locations that were better than the Second Star Peak when it came to comprehending the Dao of Ice, though still not enough to satisfy him, thus continuing his journey deeper inside the Frozen Wastelands.

On a completely different note, his travel through the deeper parts of the Frozen Wastelands where other cultivators rarely ventured in the past had allowed him to collect countless rare spiritual herbs and other natural and heavenly treasures that demonic cultivators found useless and didn’t use.

In that regard alone, his journey to the Frozen Wastelands could be considered a success, as it would help the overall growth of the Star Shattering Sect, while at the same time expanding the spiritual herbs grown by the sect.

Although… The requirements for growing the majority of the spiritual herbs he had picked up were difficult to satisfy and could likely only be grown successfully on the Second Star Peak, a location that he had completely sealed off from the rest of the sect.

Though… For the growth of the different spiritual herbs, he was planning to bring back to the sect, he might have to allow access to the base of the Second Star Peak where the presence of the Dao of Ice was still extremely powerful.

Of course, he could always grow the spiritual herbs himself, but doing so would take a lot of time and reduce the time he had for other things, something he had learnt from watching the elders and disciples of the sect in charge of taking care of spiritual herbs.

After all, taking care of spiritual herbs was anything but simple. Especially when done on a large scale to supply spiritual herbs to an entire sect. Completely different from the few spiritual herbs that could naturally be found in the wild.

Formations could be used to help with growing and taking care of spiritual herbs, but the help was relatively limited when it came to the formations that the sect could currently produce, thus, most of the spiritual herbs were taken care of by a combination of elders, disciples and members of the servant quarters.

Shaking his head a bit as he thought about this while picking up a few Spirit Grade Spiritual herbs that had been growing in the middle of a frozen lake, Xuan Hao suddenly froze on the spot.

Not because another demonic cultivator had entered the range of his divine sense, but because he noticed something hidden beneath the frozen lake, something that exuded an extremely pure aura of the Dao of Ice.

Not just that, but he could clearly feel his comprehension of the Dao of Ice increasing as his divine sense met this pure presence.

How did I not discover this before!?

Filled with both excitement and disbelief over this sudden discovery, Xuan Hao quickly calmed down as he began analyzing the situation.

The thing hidden beneath the frozen lake was almost completely sealed off from the outside world, having managed to avoid his divine sense earlier and only revealing itself briefly because of him taking the spiritual herbs causing a slight disturbance.

In other words…

If not for the spiritual herbs just now, he would never have found out that there was something hidden beneath the frozen lake. Even more so that the thing hidden beneath was related to the Dao of Ice…