Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

As he slowly began calming down the spiritual sea, stabilizing his cultivation base in the now rather independent space inside the mystic realm, the situation outside the mystic realm where the battle between the Blue Sea Empire and the demonic cultivators were still in full swing ended up becoming increasingly unfavorable for the Blue Sea Empire.

The reason for this had nothing to do with the demonic cultivators sending more powerful demonic cultivators over to participate in the battle but instead had to do with Xuan Gui.

After she had destroyed one of the Blue Sea Empire’s resources depots successfully and caused no small amount of damage to the Blue Sea Empire, she had ended up with several powerful cultivators in the Celestial Immortal Realm scouring all over the Blue Sea Empire for her. Forcing her to lay low for a bit until things calmed down.

However, what she did after this was what ended up causing the Blue Sea Empire’s current unfavorable situation in the face of the demonic cultivators, as she realized that she herself would never be able to cause enough damage to the Blue Sea Empire on her own without losing her life.

So, with that in mind, she set out to build an organization for those wronged by the Blue Sea Empire’s nobles or other higher-ups in the past and started a small rebellion inside the borders of the Blue Sea Empire.

Of course, this kind of rebellion wouldn’t realistically be capable of doing anything to a major power like the Blue Sea Empire under normal circumstances, but… Given that the Blue Sea Empire was busy dealing with the demonic cultivators at the borders of their territory, it had presented a unique opportunity for Xuan Gui’s little rebellion to stay alive and grow.

Not that the little rebellion didn’t face attacks from the Celestial Immortals of the Blue Sea Empire who were out searching for Xuan Gui, but the sheer number of people unsatisfied with the Blue Sea Empire allowed it to stay alive even with a constant loss of people.

In a sense, it was the consequence of the Blue Sea Empire’s own past actions that had given birth to such a rebellion inside its own borders when it was busy dealing with outside threats.

And…

Because of this, the Blue Sea Empire now found itself in a difficult situation, as it had to deal with constant sabotage from behind, while having to face the overwhelming pressure of the demonic cultivators trying to push past their borders.

In the end, they quickly found themselves losing kingdom after kingdom, as the demonic cultivators rapidly began closing in on the true borders of the Blue Sea Empire, something that had been unimaginable before Xuan Gui’s little rebellion kicked into action.

On another note, the situation of the Blue Sea Empire wasn’t ignored by the surrounding major powers, as several reforms were put in place to prevent a similar situation from happening inside their own territories.

Some of the major powers who were already fighting with the demonic cultivators of the Frozen Wastelands even went and directly punished the people who had been bullying the civilians and weaker cultivators inside their territories. Fearing that they might learn about what happened in the Blue Sea Empire and get some ideas of their own.

After all, even if most major powers were more than capable of easily squashing any rebellion that might emerge inside their own territories due to their power, it was also true that doing so would take time and would be far more difficult when also having to deal with demonic cultivators trying to break through their borders at the same time.

For this reason, even if only temporary, the different major powers chose to restrain themselves a bit in how they normally went about their daily dealings with civilians and cultivators living inside their borders.

Unexpectedly, the small rebellion created by Xuan Gui, outside of causing a headache for the Blue Sea Empire, also caused the quality of life for everyone living inside the territory of a major power in the Northern Central Region to improve significantly. Turning the so-called demonic cultivator into a valiant heroine fighting against the tyrannical rule of far greater power in the eyes of countless ordinary civilians and wandering cultivators.

At the same time, taking advantage of the Blue Sea Empire being far busier with the demonic cultivators than they had originally expected, Elder Song slowly began directing efforts towards initial probing into the old territory of the Sky Empire. Mapping out the region for future expansion.

After all, even if the Star Shattering Sect had been somewhat restricted in its growth direction and had been limited to the outer region of the northern region of the continent, he also understood that it would only be a matter of time before the Star Shattering Sect began expanding into the Northern Central Region, something that only became clearer with the rapid growth of the sect.

Although the resource demand of the current Star Shattering Sect could still be met by the outer regions because they had been lucky enough to discover two extremely precious high quality spiritual metal mines and had the Ninth Star Peak for producing a large supply of spiritual herbs that were normally close to impossible to grow in an environment like the outer region where the spiritual qi was far thinner compared to the central region, it wouldn’t be able to keep up with the demand forever. Especially when the cultivation of the elders and disciples became stronger and a need for special locations to comprehend the dao arose.

The Dao Enlightenment Monument worked fine for now as the comprehension of most elders and disciples were limited to the Elementary Realm or below, but as stronger elders and disciples emerged, there would be a need for the sect to have suitable locations for them to cultivate.

Of course, having them leave the sect to explore the world on their own was always an option and something that was encouraged by the different major powers when their younger generation reached a certain level, but it was still of utmost importance that the sect had some locations for comprehending the Dao beyond the Elementary Realm under their control.

The main problem was that special locations for comprehending the Dao were hard to find or had long since fallen under the control of different major powers.

The only real location where the Star Shattering Sect had any hope of finding such locations was in the Frozen Wastelands or the territory of the now fallen Sky Empire located partially inside the Northern Central Region.

The Frozen Wastelands was out of the question, as even Elder Song understood that it would be unrealistic for the Star Shattering Sect to expand into that god forsaken wasteland filled with nothing but demonic cultivators any time soon.

And so… The obvious choice would be the territory of the late Sky Empire, causing Elder Song to start preparing early on to ensure that the sect would be able to smoothly expand and incorporate the territory into its sphere of influence without any issues.

Luckily, the people now living in the rather chaotic region of the former Sky Empire were already open to the Star Shattering Sect and its potential expansion into the region. The main issue came from the Blue Sea Empire that might see it as the Star Shattering Sect encroaching on its borders.

In fact, it was for this reason alone that Elder Song hadn’t seriously begun expansion into the old territory of the Sky Empire. Not daring to take such an action without first getting Xuan Hao’s approval, as he was the only one who could realistically assist the sect in the potential pressure, they might face from the Blue Sea Empire by taking such an action…

”Ah…! Speaking of resistance, it does seem like some of the kingdoms that managed to survive after the fall of the Sky Empire might be against the sect’s expansion into the region. From what Elder Dust Fairy managed to gather, most of them seem to be acting as an extension of the Blue Sea Empire focused on keeping an eye on us…”

Standing in the middle of his office as he looked over several documents regarding the different powers inside the territory of the old Sky Empire, Elder Song could not help narrowing his eyes slightly upon looking over the information of the few kingdoms from the old Sky Empire that had managed to remain intact.

Almost all of them were now working directly with the Blue Sea Empire as an early warning system that had been set up to keep an eye on the Star Shattering Sect and ensure that it didn’t act out of line so to speak.

Not just that, but almost 90% of the spies that had been caught by the sect over the years came from these leftover kingdoms.

To say they were annoying would be an understatement, as Elder Song really couldn’t wait to get rid of them…