Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Taking the time to observe his surroundings with far more focus compared to the first time around after noticing the clear lack of anything living inside what should have been a lively forest with insects and other animals around even if there wasn’t any demon beasts, it didn’t take long before he noticed other odd things about the forest that he now found himself inside of.

The trees looked like badly copy-pasted versions of each other, with several easy to spot irregularities that made them stand out. An example being a branch that looked far too large for the tree it was attached to or a root being attached above ground as part of a tree’s canopy.

Outside the obvious to spot oddities of the trees, there were also weird circles on the ground where small saplings grew in what looked like patches of sand. The saplings themselves being far more noticeable after he spotted the first few of them at the edge of his divine sense, as the patches of sand they grew in stood out quite a bit in what should have been a forest.

What is this place? Why is it so... Strange?

Unable to stop himself from thinking this as he looked at the oddities of the forest, he found himself in, he decided to take a closer look at these strange oddities before daring to try and walk around. Understanding that there was a very real chance of these strange oddities being the result of some kind of formation or special environment.

Although... Considering that he hadn’t sensed any formation even with his current strength, he leaned more towards it being some kind of special environment that had ben created by someone in the past. After all, if it was a formation, he should have triggered some kind of reaction from it by now that would have allowed him to at the very least sense its presence.

Of course, there was a chance that the formation was simply far too high level for him to even sense its presence but considering his current strength and understanding of the Dao of Formations, he found it unlikely that he was inside some kind of formation already.

Feeling himself growing more curious about where it was, he had ended up while at the same time also becoming more cautious when interacting with his surroundings, Xuan Hao soon found himself wandering away from where he had originally ended up landing after having used the random teleportation talisman and found himself making his way through the strange forest. Albeit at a relatively slow pace to not end up wandering into some kind of unexpected or dangerous situation.

Along the way, he ended up becoming far more aware of just how strange the forest was, as it only seemed to become stranger the further away, he got from the original location he had ended up landing in. Making him believe that he was either moving deeper into whatever strange place he had ended up in or found himself moving closer to something that might be influencing and causing the strange state of the forest.

The reason why he thought this was rather simple, as he began to sense a very clear energy flowing through the oddities he encountered along the way and though he couldn’t be clear what Dao this power belonged to, he felt certain that it was behind the strangeness of the forest... Or at least he would have liked to believe this, but after finding himself walking out of the strange forest a few minutes later without encountering anything, he couldn’t help starting to doubt himself.

The simple cause being that after leaving the forest, he was truly outside the forest and the strangeness ceased completely.

Not just that, but as he turned around to backtrack to figure out what had just happened, he realized that the forest that should have been just behind him had disappeared. Instead, it was replaced by a calm mountain range filled with life. In other a normal mountain range.

What in the world... Is this some kind of illusion? But my comprehension of the Dao of Illusion has reached the Large Success Realm, and my cultivation is at the Sea Formation Realm, while my divine soul can be considered stronger than normal. For an illusion to be capable of affecting me without me sensing anything...

Feeling utterly bewildered at what had just happened, Xuan Hao could only foolishly look around himself while his divine sense began to rapidly spread outwards to analyze his current situation properly. Understanding that continued caution in his current situation might be far more dangerous than just using his full strength to try and analyze his current situation and what had just happened.

Whoosh~

Unfortunately, even as his divine sense spread out and covered an area hundreds of kilometers around himself. Scanning every little thing within this radius, he didn’t find any sign of the strange forest that had seemingly disappeared into thin air.

Instead of that, he found what could be considered a normal part of the Western Central Region, with a few small villages and a single slightly larger town within the area covered by his divine sense.

The only thing that stood out being the few abandoned temples scattered around, though that could be considered normal for the Western Central Region from what he had learnt about the region in the past, as abandoned temples like that normally served as temporary resting spots for mortals to camp at night while travelling.

In fact, a third of the abandoned temples in question weren’t exactly abandoned and had a few monks secretly watching over them, though... The strength of these few monks was nothing major for a central region, with most of them being in the Nascent Soul Realm or below.

The thing that stood out about them was that all of them seemed to be close to the end of their life. Meaning they had likely come to these smaller temples to live out their lives peacefully while watching out for the mortals that passed through, something admirable and highly unusual for the cultivation world that was far from kind to mortals in most circumstances.

In this way, the monks of the Western Central Region seemed to be far better to live under compared to the different empires or churches that ruled the rest of the continent.

At least for mortals, for cultivators, the Western Central Region was far from easy to live in, as the entire region was essentially under the complete control of the different temples that stood united against outsiders. Meaning that it was by far the worst region for a wandering cultivator to journey through looking for opportunities.

Because of this, the presence of the Explorer Union that was spread throughout the continent could be considered the scarce in the Western Central Region, as they only really had branches in a few important trade hubs located throughout the region. Not gone from the region, but far more passive in their existence compared to the Northern Central Region where they essentially had branch in every small kingdom that had even a single Nascent Soul Realm cultivator in it...

Shaking his head as he thought about this while observing his new surroundings through his divine sense, it didn’t take long for him to determine his general location within the Western Central Region through conversation between the few monks living in seclusion... And the result was not good or bad.

His current location was in the southern part of the Western Central Region. Located close to the edge of the Western Central Region and close to the border between the Western Central Region and the Southern Central Region.

The location itself was not dangerous in any way and was peaceful without any dangers from what he could tell... If he didn’t think about the strange forest that had disappeared into thin air after he had left, it...

The main problem with his current location was simply how far away from the Star Shattering Sect he now found himself.

Even if he made use of his Dao of Space, it would still take him a few days to get back to the sect again... And that was not even considering that he would have to dodge any forbidden zones along the way. Forbidden zones that he knew undoubtedly existed in a central region like the Western Central Region but had absolutely no clue about where they were located.

With that in mind, his first goal before he would begin his journey back to the sect would be to find somewhere to gather information on the different forbidden zones in the Western Central Region. Potentially also learning about the strange forest he had first found himself in after he had used the random teleportation talisman.

For that reason, he decided to head to the nearest trading hub where he could find a branch of the Explorer Union and buy information on the different forbidden zones. After all, no matter what the region, the Explorer Union would almost always be the ones with the best and most accurate information on forbidden zones and regions.