Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Different from Elder Song and the large majority of the sect’s elders and disciples who found themselves busy over the past few weeks, Xuan Hao’s two disciple still left inside the sect found themselves lazing around more than usual, as Mui had managed to drag her senior brother Bai Ning out of the forge to assist her and Song Jia in taking care of Baobao.

Under normal circumstances, Bai Ning would have never wanted to leave the forge and focus his attention on something that didn’t help improve his blacksmithing. However, Mui and Song Jia found a way to convince him by showing off Baobao’s abilities.

The ability to increase the quality of spiritual qi was not interesting to Bai Ning because it made cultivation easier, but instead because he saw a very real use for Baobao in helping ensure a perfect environment rich in spiritual qi while crafting, something that would increase the overall quality of the artifact he was refining.

For this reason alone, Bai Ning was more than eager to help take care of Baobao. After all, even if Baobao was limited to the qi spring lake for now, it might have the opportunity to leave the qi spring lake in the future… And when that time came, he would have established a relationship with it and should be able to get it to join him in forge.

The main reason for his confidence in making Baobao stay in the same location didn’t just come from establishing a friendship early on, but also came from the fact that it had recently been discovered by Song Jia that Baobao enjoyed eating different kinds of spiritual metal and if there was anything he had a lot of, it was spiritual metal…

Mui and Song Jia already knew about Bai Ning’s thoughts, but neither of them cared, as they were just happy to have someone to help them out in taking care of Baobao together with them. Especially so because they discovered that shortly after their master left the sect, Baobao became far more difficult to take care of.

At first, it was just roaming around the qi spring lake without causing any problems, but the moment elders and disciples showed up, it would chase after them and do its best to push them out of the qi spring lake that it now considered to be its territory.

Of course, with its slow flying speed, Mui and Song Jia managed to catch it before Baobao before it could do anything. Finding out about the situation through Elder Song, who detailed how an elder had contacted him after spotting a small, cute ball shaped creature floating towards him with what should have been a menacing expression, but just made it look cuter than anything else.

The elders who visited the qi spring lake with disciples every now and then already knew about Baobao and had long since been told to inform Elder Song if anything happened or they spotted the cute floating ball that lived in the qi spring lake.

Because of this, whenever Baobao was about to cause any problems, Mui and Song Jia were always there in a few minutes to resolve the situation and prevent Baobao from doing anything to the elders and disciples who came to cultivate in the qi spring lake.

In the end, it was this troublesome behavior from Baobao that caused Mui to seek out her senior brother and get him to help in looking out for Baobao.

At the same time, the appearance of Baobao also ended up attracting a lot of attention from the disciples who were lucky enough to see Baobao before Mui, Song Jia or Bai Ning could appear to pull it away. Especially so the female disciples, who were all won over by Baobao’s cute appearance…

Along with the growing popularity of Baobao, it also became increasingly difficult for the three caretakers to keep Baobao away from the curious disciples. Resulting in information about Baobao’s unique abilities becoming well known among the sect’s disciples.

Normally, this would have awoken greed in some individuals due to just how useful it was to have Baobao next to them while cultivating, but instead, it ended up causing a portion of the sect’s female disciples and a few male disciples to become extremely protective of Baobao. Preventing anyone from approaching Baobao, be they elders or disciples.

Only Mui, Song Jia and Bai Ning were able to approach Baobao without running into any problems with this growing Baobao fan club, as they were already known to be the ones in charge of taking care of Baobao.

Another positive change that took place alongside the establishment of the Baobao fan club, was that Baobao stopped being territorial and returned to how it had lived before Xuan Hao had left the sect in search of an opportunity to reach the Profound Immortal Realm.

From observations made by the Bai Ning, the reason for this was that Baobao was now viewing the newly created fan club’s members as its own and was under the impression that it no longer needed to defend its territory as there were others to do it now.

Ironically, Bai Ning had concluded that the reason why Baobao had come to this conclusion should be because it saw how the disciples and elders who entered the qi spring lake left shortly after they had entered the qi spring lake and somehow connected it to the fan club members chasing them out of its territory...

”I never imagined a floating ball to be this territorial.” Muttering this to himself as he watched a group of over eager disciples chasing away another group of disciples who had been trying to stay longer than allowed inside the qi spring lake to cultivate while Baobao watched the situation from afar with an expression of what looked like satisfaction, Bai Ning could not help shaking his head.

Never had he imagined that a small fluff ball like Baobao could be as territorial as it was, nor the fact that it considered the entire qi spring lake to be its territory.

Speaking of the entire qi spring lake being considered Baobao’s territory in its own eyes, it had ended up clashing with Zu Fei and her lotus farm, as it was also located at the qi spring lake itself.

Luckily, the problem was rather easy to resolve compared to the disciples and elders, as Zu Fei just had to hand over a single water lotus to be allowed to continue staying around.

The water lotus in question was not for eating like a certain blue deer treated the water lotuses.

Instead, it was used as a hat.

Even now, Baobao floated around the qi spring lake with the water lotus planted firmly on top of its small body.

”Oh well… As long as I can get it to visit my forge in the future and assist me in forging, it doesn’t matter what it decides to wear…” Turning his attention away from the small ball floating a few meters away from him, Bai Ning turned his attention back towards the blacksmithing blueprint he had been working on during the time he was in charge of keeping an eye on Baobao.

All things considered, he didn’t really waste that much time looking after Baobao, as he could continue working on blueprints while doing so.

Given the slow speed of Baobao, even if he became fully absorbed in a blueprint for half a day, Baobao wouldn’t have moved more than a dozen or so meters.

…

Outside of the situation that had taken place at the qi spring lake following Baobao becoming more well known among both the elders and disciples of the sect, the sect’s elders in the Domain Lord Realm were slowly becoming more skilled under the guidance of the Soul Ascension Realm wandering cultivators, now guest elders or deacons, guidance.

In turn, it resulted in the overall influence of the Star Shattering Sect inside of its own territory growing.

After all, the ordinary powers and wandering cultivators that lived inside the sect’s borders wouldn’t normally interact with the sect’s Soul Ascension Realm and Dao Seed Realm cultivators and would most often interact with the sect’s Domain Lord Realm elders who oversaw the different branch sects and important locations under the sect’s direct control.

The increase in strength from these Domain Lord Realm cultivators thus increased the sect’s overall influence throughout its territory. Even stretching beyond the sect’s borders, as the increased display of strength from the Star Shattering Sect made surrounding powers both excited and uneasy.

Excited because some wanted the Star Shattering Sect to expand further so they themselves could come under the Star Shattering Sect’s sphere of influence and enjoy its protection from the surging tide of demonic cultivators from the Frozen Wastelands.

Uneasy because it hinted at the fact that the Star Shattering Sect wasn’t planning to just remain in a single location like other hidden ancient sects that had come before it.

Although… This unease mostly came from the different major powers, as only they were strong enough to realistically worry about the Star Shattering Sect’s expanding influence.

For different kingdoms and powers that at most had a few Soul Ascension Realm cultivators backing them up, it didn’t matter if they were under a major power like the Blue Sea Empire or the Star Shattering Sect.

No… To some extent, it looked to be more favorable to be under the Star Shattering Sect, as it would allow them to more easily come into contact with information of realms that came after the Soul Ascension Realm and at the same time also allowed them to grow their own power without worrying about the Star Shattering Sect potentially retaliating.