Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

”This is bad...” Feeling the formation that had been limited to the third floor and core structure of the pagoda so far start expanding outwards visibly, Chu Yang wanted to turn around and run away before the formation had a chance to reach him-

Whoosh~

But before he even had the chance to take a single step, it was already too late, as the sheer speed at which the formation recovered back to its original size was far beyond anything he had encountered before. All he saw was the almost transparent edge of the barrier appearing through the ceiling above before he was swallowed up by the formation along with the seven others, who were of course in a similar panicked state when they realized what was happening.

The problem was none of them had any way to escape or fight back in the face of this Saint Grade Formation. Only able to watch as they were swallowed up like Chu Yang. The earlier excitement from improving their own understanding through simple observation of the Saint Grade Formation soon turned into horror as they had all managed to at least glimpse some of the Saint Grade Formations functions.

Rumble~

And not a second after these thoughts passed through their mind, did they feel the all too familiar sensation of being scanned by a formation. Only difference compared to formations they had encountered in the past being that this formation didn’t just scan them in a normal way, but directly scanned their souls, a measure clearly in place to prevent someone from manipulating or replacing the members of the ancient sect to gain access to their knowledge and techniques.

”Everyone, gather together before the initial scan ends!” Knowing that this might be the last opportunity they had to try and band together for whatever was to come after the formation finished making sure that they were not members of the ancient sect that had long since vanished in the river of time, one of the formation masters called out to everyone before rushing towards a somewhat central location from where they were all located on the first floor of the pagoda.

Seeing this, Chu Yang and the rest didn’t hesitate as they also rushed over. Hoping that they would be able to maybe survive by relying on their combined power that was made up of four Soul Ascension Realm cultivators, three Domain Lord Realm cultivators and one Initial Stage Dao Domain Lord Realm cultivator.

Although far from strong enough to resist a Saint Grade Formation, they had no idea about the actual state of the formation and hoped that the power it could generate for offensive means wouldn’t exceed the Soul Ascension Realm, though going all out, they should have the strength to resist someone in the Early Stage of the Dao Seed Realm for a short time by relying on the seven formation masters working together in using the Dao of Formations to construct a defensive formation using themselves as formation nodes.

Ruuumble~~!

However, the hope that the formation might have decayed and had no way to conjure forth a powerful enough offensive force to deal with them died almost the second the eight of them gathered to resist against the incoming attack, as powerful qi surged out from the core of the formation before being funneled into a relatively normal sized flying sword that had appeared before them at some at some unknown point in time.

Any hope they had at being able to successfully escape essentially died with the emergence of this small flying sword, as the presence it gave off after being infused with qi was beyond terrifying.

Even comparing the presence of the small flying sword to that of the Celestial Immortal Realm cultivators he had encountered in the past, Chu Yang realized that it was like comparing the dim light of a lantern to the stars above, there was simply no comparison.

Resisting with their strength wouldn’t make any difference in the face of this sword and the only thing Chu Yang could think about at this moment was his master and how it was perfect opportunity for him to show up and save them.

Unfortunately, unknown to Chu Yang, his master was still stuck inside the Verdant Abyss at this moment and would need at least another half hour before he would be able to get all the way to the Eastern Central Region and potentially even longer to track him down inside the ancient alchemy sect.

But that wasn’t to say that Chu Yang was entirely helpless in his current situation as the safety measure his master had left in place inside of him without his knowledge stirred to life after the terrifying flying sword was about to strike down towards him-

Whoosh~!

And before the sword struck, a phantom image constructed through an intricate soul imprint in the depth of Chu Yang’s soul materialized behind him and the group of fearful formation masters.

Although this was a similar soul imprint as the one, he had used in the past, with his cultivation realm becoming stronger and in turn his soul also growing far stronger, the phantom image materialized was far stronger than the one that had materialized back during Chun Hua’s escape.

Not just that, but the avatar that had essentially been formed would also be able to act as spatial node for his main body to lock onto and teleport towards.

Hm? I can’t connect to my main body?

However, as the phantom avatar materialized fully, Xuan Hao found himself shocked to discover that he couldn’t share his thoughts with his main body like he should normally have been able to. Not just that, but he couldn’t lock on to the exact location of his main body either. Only able to tell that it should be located somewhere in the Western Central Region.

Meaning, the avatar was the same as Xuan Hao before he entered the Verdant Abyss and ended up being cut off from the soul imprint of his disciple.

Still, the avatar formed by the soul imprint still had strength at the Middle Stage of the Sea Formation Realm and retained his comprehension of the Dao of Space. More than strong enough to assist his disciple in getting out of whatever trouble he might have ended being dragged into...

This... A Saint Grade Formation with spatial restrictions!?

At least those were the thoughts of this avatar before his divine sense had a chance to scan the surrounding environment and realized that it was currently trapped inside a Saint Grade Formation that not only had spatial restrictions built into it, but spatial restrictions of such quality that even his Perfection Realm Dao of Space could do little to shake them.

What in the world has Chu Yang been up to in the Eastern Central Region? Did he raid the treasury a major power...?

Not knowing what else to think as he looked towards his disciple filled with a hint of both amusement and frustration.

Although this avatar formed through the soul imprint was powerful, it was far from enough to help him escape from a Saint Grade Formation like this. Especially considering he had already noticed the attack prepared by the formation about to shoot out towards his disciple and the group of strangers around him.

The strength of this attack had already reached the Sea Formation Realm and if he was already strained on resources when it came to attempting to break free from this Saint Grade Formation, he would become even more strained after blocking this kind of attack.

But... At least compared to the past where he could only launch a single powerful attack, he could sustain this avatar for a little over a minute at his full strength before he had lost connection to his main body.

The problem was, a minute was far from long enough to break this kind of formation, even if his own comprehension of the Dao of Formations had reached the Large Success Realm, it was a far cry from the Saint Realm. Especially considering the complexity of this formation indicated that the creator was above a normal Third Heaven Saint.

”Hm? That is... Curious...”

However, as he continued observing the formation runes flickering to life all around him, he suddenly discovered that the formation was in a similar state to himself and seemed to also be running low on energy. Not able to endure a continued drawn-out battle. Almost instantly making it clear to him that he wasn’t in some treasury of a major sect, but instead some kind of ancient ruin with a barely running ancient formation.

In a sense, this did make far more sense, though he did feel curious about what kind of ruins his disciple had encountered for them to contain a formation this powerful. Even more so after realizing that the ancient formation was essentially running on whatever little strength was left in it, as the qi gathering formation that should have originally supplied it with an endless quantity of qi had been broken at some point in the past, either due lack of maintenance or when someone had attempted to break the formation in the past.