Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Having been chased around by the spiritual tree for over four days, Xuan Hao had long since become aware of the local powers banding up together to try and get rid of the spiritual tree that was chasing after him along with himself if they got the opportunity. After all, the damage that had been caused by the spiritual tree was enormous during these few days, as it would almost always rampage after discovering he had already disappeared when it showed up. In turn dooming whoever was unfortunate enough to be on the path of the spiritual tree, which in most cases ended up being the cultivators belonging to one of the four major powers fighting for control over the Eastern Central Region.

In turn, causing these powers to start banding together to deal with him and the spiritual tree once and for all, as continuing to ignore them only ended up causing more damage to themselves over the long run if things continued.

As for how he had even managed to learn about any of this while being fully focused on escaping from the spiritual tree or chomping down on spiritual fruits? That was due to none of the four major powers trying to hide the fact that they were banding together to deal with him and the spiritual tree. Allowing him to learn about it from conversations between cultivators when he did a quick sweep with his divine sense upon landing in a new location.

The reason for them not bothering to hide the information and instead deciding on spreading it far and wide so everyone knew about it made it clear that these different major powers were silently hoping that he and the spiritual tree would learn about it and leave on their own without any conflict. After all, every single one of the four major powers fighting for control over the Eastern Central Region had a powerful figure at the Land Creation Realm backing them.

Facing four Land Creation Realm cultivators at the same time, everyone else would have decided to run away, but Xuan Hao didn’t really have much of a choice in continuing his stay in the Eastern Central Region, as leaving would either place him in the Northern Central Region where he could implicate the Star Shattering Sect in the current chase or the Southern Central Region where he ran the risk of drawing the attention of some powerful existence above the Land Creation Realm. Even faced with four Land Creation Realm cultivators, Xuan Hao chose to remain in the Eastern Central Region, as he felt that it was the best option available to him.

Not to mention, he felt confident in being able to escape without being caught by the four Land Creation Realm cultivators due to the simple fact that the only way for them to track him was by following the destruction left behind by the spiritual tree following close behind.

In another way, staying in the Eastern Central Region could potentially allow him to deal with the spiritual tree, chasing him by having the different major powers deal with it for him.

This way, he wouldn’t have to worry about the spiritual tree using some kind of artifact to trace him through the spatial energies left behind when travelling using the Dao of Space. After all, even if they couldn’t kill off the spiritual tree, they would at the very least be able to delay for a bit. Allowing the faint spatial waves he left behind to fade and return to their previous undisturbed state. Making it impossible for the spiritual tree to chase him through this kind of method.

Of course, for that to work out, he would also have to finish absorbing all the spiritual fruits and ensure that the spiritual tree couldn’t resume its chase by tracking those spiritual fruits.

On that side of things, he had already gone through three of the spiritual fruits by now. Expanding his spiritual sea all the way from 37 kilometers to 71 kilometers.

Although the two he had consumed after the first had only expanded his spiritual sea by 17 kilometers, essentially the same as the first one, that was not because the effectiveness of the spiritual fruits was weakening, but instead because as the circumference of the spiritual sea increased, there would be more for the spiritual qi to fill in. Making it harder to expand the overall size of the spiritual sea the larger it became, a clear reason why most people in the past likely ended up giving up on breaking through to the Peak of the Sea Formation Realm.

After all, just breaking through to the Late Stage or Turbulent Sea Realm of the Sea Formation Realm, a tremendous amount of spiritual qi that would under normal circumstances take thousands, potentially tens of thousands of years to gather, was needed. The requirements for breaking through to the Peak or Chaotic Sea Realm were simply unimaginable.

Even without breaking through to the Late Stage of the Sea Formation Relam himself, he could easily imagine the kind of horrifying wall he would soon find himself faced with when trying to reach the Peak of the Sea Formation Realm in the future.

At the same time, he also began to understand the importance of cultivation resources like the spiritual fruits he had been lucky enough to grab from the spiritual tree, as they had already saved him thousands of years of cultivation time that would have been spent on slowly expanding his spiritual sea.

”No use thinking about any of this for now, I first need to shake of that spiritual tree before thinking of other ways to expand my spiritual sea...” Shaking his head to himself as he silently muttered this while glancing around his new surroundings, Xuan Hao didn’t hesitate in the slightest as he picked up one of the two remaining spiritual fruits and directly swallowed it whole. Wasting no time as he rapidly refined it and allowed the vast quantity of pure spiritual qi stored inside of it to flow into his dantian before rushing down into his spiritual sea like a heavenly river descending into the mortal realm.

RUMBLE~!

Of course, this kind of rapid absorption of spiritual qi caused his recently stabilized spiritual sea to once again surge chaotically. Forcing him to dedicate his full attention towards stabilizing the situation before it could grow out of control. Placing him in a rare vulnerable position that anyone would be able to easily take advantage of.

Luckily, he had already prepared himself for anything beforehand and was certain that his surroundings were safe before he even decided on swallowing the spiritual fruit in the first place.

And so... His spiritual sea rapidly expanded from the original 71 kilometers all the way to 77 kilometers. Increasing by a grand total of 6 kilometers in size.

Although the size increase was smaller with each spiritual fruit he ended up refining, the increase in power for his spiritual sea was the same, as his cultivation was drawing closer to the Late Stage of the Sea Formation Realm that he had already understood to be at the hundred kilometer mark, where his spiritual sea would undergo some kind of transformation- or at least he hoped it would do so...

Whoosh-!

However, just as the situation inside his dantian had fallen under his control and the expansion of the spiritual sea had come to a stop, he noticed something rapidly approaching his current location-

Riiiip-!

And without a single hint of hesitation, he directly disregarded the potential consequences to the stability of his spiritual sea, as he tore through space and left-

BOOOOM-!

Just barely in time to dodge a terrifying spear that descended pierced into the spot he had been standing in just moments ago. Destroying everything within a two-kilometer radius of the spot.

Swish~

Only a short time after the spear had landed, a tall middle-aged man emerged to grab hold of the spear that had pierced into the ground before picking up.

”So fast... Indeed, worthy of someone having reached the Perfection Realm in the Dao of Space. No wonder that spiritual tree can’t catch this person even though its in the Land Creation Realm...” Almost whispering this to himself as he looked in the direction Xuan Hao had disappeared in, it was impossible to hide the clear look of admiration and fear in his eyes upon mentioning the Dao of Space.

Famous as it was for its ability to escape, the Dao of Space was a nightmare for anyone to deal with. Especially so if that someone had managed to reach the Perfection Realm where even someone in the Land Creation Realm would find it hard to catch them without ample preparation.

In a sense, because of this, most major powers with Land Creation level power behind them would much rather offend someone in the Land Creation Realm compared to someone who had reached the Perfection Realm in the Dao of Space, as the latter was far more troublesome to deal with and could do untold amounts of damage to their empire or clan without them being able to do much in response...