Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

It all happened suddenly and unexpectedly when he had made his way back into the knowledge hall of the small temple or the library so to speak, he didn’t do anything out of the ordinary in his eyes and only touched one of the scrolls that looked like they would be reduced to dust the second he touched them… And it was touching one of these seemingly fragile scrolls that caused a terrifying spatial power to suddenly erupt from said fragile scroll before it swallowed him up and sucked him inside. Giving him no chance to fight back even with his profound comprehension of the Dao of Space and Sea Formation Realm cultivation base.

The only thing he could do was allow the spatial power to pull him inside a strange new realm, a realm that looked the same as the small temple he had been inside just a second earlier- or at least that was what he wanted to say. However, even though his surroundings looked the exact same, they were different.

Different in the way that everything around him had grown thousands of times over, with the fragile scroll he had touched before being pulled into this strange realm having turned into a towering scroll more than a dozen kilometers long and hundreds of meters tall.

Everything had grown larger and he himself had become far smaller. Making even the small hall of knowledge seem like a small independent secret realm, a truly bewildering experience, but at the same time an enlightening one. After all, the sudden change in environment made him almost certain that he had managed to find what he had been looking for.

The goal of the celestial trial was almost certainly related to the strange realm he now found himself inside of. The main problem now was that he had no idea if there were any demon beasts lurking around inside this strange realm.

”Hm? That is… A demon beast…?”

However, as he began inspecting the now massive hall of knowledge in more detail, he soon spotted a demon beast standing menacingly at the entrance to the hall of knowledge. Blocking the path out of the hall of knowledge.

Not just that, but the demon beast in question stood hundreds of kilometers tall and didn’t seem to have shrunk in a similar way he had. Almost immediately making Xuan Hao realize that he might not have been pulled into another realm. Instead, having been shrunk through some unknown means after he touched the fragile looking scroll.

On a positive note, he could now see the demon beast that had been hidden from both his normal vision and his divine sense-

Grrr~

On the negative side, the demon beast in question seemed to have realized that he could now see it and didn’t take kindly to this fact. Already barring its fangs at him, a rather terrifying experience considering just how massive the demon beast was now that he had been shrunk down.

But after a quick fright, he quickly realized that his strength hadn’t been reduced in the slightest after being shrunk down. Even if he was now tiny compared to before, he was still someone at the Early Stage of the Sea Formation Realm, while the wolf demon beast looking like a mythical creature spanning the heavens and earth from his point of view was only at the Late Stage of the Dao Seed Realm.

Rumble-!

With that in mind, he wasted no time as he summoned his spiritual sea alongside his Dao of Light. Creating a massive river of light that rivaled the size of the wolf demon beast. Making it look like a heavenly river descending upon the mortal realm as it rushed towards the wolf demon beast with a terrifying might far beyond the Dao Seed Realm.

R-Roar!

Only now, realizing just how terrifying the seemingly tiny opponent was, the wolf demon beast tried to turn around and escape-

RUMBLE~~~!

However, it was far too late to escape, as the river of light soon washed over it, swallowing it completely before it could put up any form of meaningful resistance. An expected outcome for a Late Stage Dao Seed Realm demon beast facing off against someone in the Sea Formation Realm.

Although, it did look rather comical when considering the size difference between the two sides…

”But, what in the world was it that caused my size to shrink? I definitely felt the presence of the Dao of Space earlier… So, was it a lesser dao related to the Dao of Space? Or perhaps an aspect of the Dao of Space that I still haven’t comprehended yet?” Muttering this to himself as he began recalling the spatial powers that had engulfed him earlier and made him feel like he was pulled into some kind of secret realm, Xuan Hao could only reluctantly give up after realizing that he was unable to comprehend anything that had happened back then.

From the fact that he was unable to understand anything, it was clear that this shrinking situation either involved another Dao related to the Dao of Space or a far higher level of comprehension than the Perfection Realm. No matter which of the two it was, it wasn’t something he could understand in the short term.

For now, he had to focus on the rather odd situation of having shrunk in size, or more importantly, the fact that he could now see things that he had been unable to see before he had been shrunk down to his current size. The things in question being the demon beast he had just killed off.

Following that line of thinking, he guessed that he should also be able to see the other demon beasts hidden throughout the small temple. Giving him an opportunity to fully confirm the strength of these demon beasts.

If they were only in the Dao Seed Realm like the one, he had just killed, there would be no problem for him to be bolder in moving around, but if the demon beasts were stronger, he would have to be more cautious.

At least for now, he decided to do his best to keep himself hidden as he began floating up and out of the now massive knowledge hall, something that was far easier to do with his current small size essentially being invisible to the naked eye.

The only real problem he foresaw in the short term was that his clash with the wolf demon beast just now would almost certainly attract attention from the other demon beasts hidden throughout the small temple.

After all, even if he kept the impact of the clash between him and the wolf demon beast limited to the extreme and avoided damaging the small temple, he still unleashed an attack to kill the wolf demon beast, something that anyone in the Celestial Immortal Realm and maybe even the Dao Seed Realm should have been able to easily notice at such a close distance…

Rumble~

And indeed, no more than a second after the death of the wolf demon beast, over a dozen massive demon beasts rushed into the hall of knowledge.

However, having already predicted this outcome the movement he decided to kill the wolf demon beast, Xuan Hao had long since used the Drifting Cloud Steps to seamlessly sneak away without being noticed. Leveraging his small size to escape undetected, while at the same time taking the opportunity to observe the strength of the different demon beasts that had been hidden throughout the small temple.

”Two in the Middle Stage of the Celestial Immortal Realm, three in the Early Stage of the Celestial Immortal Realm and over a dozen in the Dao Seed Realm…” Narrowing both his eyes as he counted every single one of the demon beasts, Xuan Hao could not help feeling a bit uneasy.

Not because he feared the five demon beasts in the Celestial Immortal Realm with his current strength, but instead because he realized that the world outside the small temple was likely just as dangerous as he suspected after realizing that there were demon beasts capable of hiding from his divine sense present inside the small temple.

”So… So many demon beasts…”

Indeed, the second he stepped outside the small temple to gauge the situation of the rest of the trial space after gaining the ability to see through the invisibility of the demon beasts who had been able to hide from his eyes and divine sense beforehand, Xuan Hao discovered that the tenth celestial trial was far more terrifying than it seemed on the surface when he had first arrived in front of the small temple.

Not only did he easily spot over a hundred Celestial Immortal Realm demon beasts inside the range of his divine sense, but among these demon beasts, over half had surpassed the Early Stage of the Celestial Immortal Realm, with more than a dozen at the Late Stage and five reaching the Peak of the Celestial Immortal Realm.

Even compared to the eighth celestial trial’s sea of lightning, there were far more demon beasts in the Celestial Immortal Realm inside the tenth celestial trial.

Worse yet, as he looked far off into the distance, he seemed to sense some kind of connection between himself and something had been formed.

If he wasn’t wrong, the objective of the celestial trial seemed to be to reach the location that the strange connection stemmed from.

And the reason for his small size seemed to be so it would be easier for him to hide himself, as simply rushing forward with so many demon beasts around would mean certain death.

Even if he wanted to use the Dao of Space to teleport himself closer to the location that the strange connection stemmed from, it was clear that his small size also meant it would be far harder for him to travel through space, as it essentially placed some kind of restriction on him that made it a thousand times harder to teleport beyond a certain distance.

This restriction shouldn’t have come just from having his size reduced but should be something different that had been placed on his body when he had been shrunk down to his current size.

Maybe the spatial fluctuations he had felt weren’t behind his reduced size but was instead the restriction that had been placed on his ability to do longer distance teleportation.

Thinking about it, this did make a bit more sense to him, though, he could never be too certain, as the Dao of Space did also include things like shrinking and enlarging space, something one would comprehend at the very start of comprehending the Dao of Space as it was a fundamental requirement to understand this if one wanted to attempt creating a secret realm.

Building on that concept, it did seem possible to apply it to shrinking someone…