Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Having restricted the strength of the Land Creation Realm demon beast so it wouldn’t be able to cause any problems when it woke up, Xuan Hao turned his focus towards Huo Fen who was now working on his own with all five alchemy artifacts. Although Meng Jie no longer assisted him, it hardly had much of an effect on the refinement process and even seemed to have increased the overall efficiency, as someone like Meng Jie who had only reached the Nascent Soul Realm could barely use one of the five alchemy artifacts. Unable to unleash their full potential like Huo Fen was able to accomplish with his higher cultivation realm.

After all, the usage of the five alchemy artifacts didn’t rely on the user’s comprehension of the Dao of Alchemy, but more so their control over spiritual qi. Meaning that those with a higher cultivation realm would be able to control and use the five alchemy artifacts with far greater accuracy compared to someone with a lower cultivation realm.

Of course, using these kinds of specialized artifacts couldn’t be done with no knowledge on the Dao of Alchemy, but the overall requirement wasn’t high and should be easily accomplished by anyone who had dabbled in the Dao of Alchemy for even a little bit.

At the end of the day, the five artifacts were ultimately not created as tools for higher level alchemists but had instead been created to help train the younger generation of alchemists from the ancient alchemy sect. Taken to the extreme, even someone in the Foundation Establishment Realm would be able to use those five alchemy artifacts to refine Saint Grade Pills.

The only drawback being that it would take months- if not years to accomplish, as the spiritual qi requirements for the alchemy artifacts was by no means low...

Shaking his head slightly as he imagined a Foundation Establishment cultivator pouring his qi into the five alchemy artifacts for years without break to refine a Saint Grade, he understood that he would definitely have to ensure that there was some kind of cultivation restriction in place on those five alchemy artifacts when he brought them back to the sect in the future so that kind of scenario didn’t happen.

Even if it was unlikely to happen considering the requirements for contribution points and spiritual herbs that would be put in place to use them, he didn’t doubt that some genius capable of gathering all the required things to use it at the Foundation Establishment Realm would emerge at some point, causing the five alchemy artifacts to be occupied for years on end...

Poke~ Poke~

As he was pondering over the future of the five alchemy artifacts in the Star Shattering Sect, a somewhat familiar sound echoed out behind him, causing him to turn around towards the unconscious demon beast and Meng Jie.

”Huh...?”

Only to see that the Land Creation Realm demon beast that he had expected to take at least another few hours to wake up, had already opened its eyes.

However, that was not what drew his attention. Instead, it was Meng Jie, who had taken advantage of the demon beast, whose strength had already been sealed by him, to bully the demon beast by poking it with a large stick like what he had done when he had first checked if the demon beast had fallen unconscious. The main difference being that Meng Jie was nowhere near as cautious as he had been back then. Having directly picked up the stick before poking the head of the now awake demon beast curiously.

In turn, the demon beast that had just woken up from its slumber was completely taken aback by the strange situation it found itself in. Unable to stop itself from lifting one of its front claws to sweep the annoying stick aside while at the same time also getting rid of the weak human who was poking it so carelessly-

Swish~

Thud~!

R-Roar...?

However, different from what the demon beast had expected to happen, its normally powerful claw was completely useless in the face of the poking stick, being unable to do more than leave a small scratch on the stick in question.

Roar!?

The sudden loss of strength caused no small amount of panic in the demon beast, who only now seemed to remember what had happened before it had lost consciousness, causing it to soon realize that the person that it had seen before it had fallen unconscious was standing only a short distance away from the human who had been poking it earlier.

Putting two and two together, it wasn’t that hard for it to realize that the reason why it had suddenly ended up losing its strength had to do with this person!

Roooar-!

And so, without any regard for its own safety, it launched itself forward in a fierce charge towards Xuan Hao. Intending to take Xuan Hao down in a surprise attack and restore its strength-

Bang!

A plan that ended in failure before it had even started, as Meng Jie acted before Xuan Hao could. Knocking down the weakened demon beast down mid jump.

That... Was unexpected...

Seeing this, Xuan Hao had no idea what to say. Not having expected Meng Jie to step forward to deal with the demon beast before it even had a chance to reach him. Taking full advantage of this opportunity to beat up a demon beast that was far stronger than herself...

”Hmph! What an unruly demon beast! You better behave from now on or this big sister will use the stick to beat you again!”

R-Roar!

”Hmph! Good! Listen well in the future and I will make sure to reward you.”

Roar!

Even more surprising, she seemed to have taken over what should have been his job and began bossing around the demon beast that would easily have been able to squash her if it hadn’t been restricted by him before it had woken up.

More surprising than that was that the demon beast was listening to her. Not out of fear, but instead because Meng Jie had skillfully brought out a few Saint Grade Healing Pills and given them to the demon beast in the form of a reward for listening to what she said.

In the span of only a few seconds, the hostile demon beast that had been moving to kill Meng Jie had turned into a loyal servant due to the presence of the Saint Grade Healing Pills.

Considering that the demon beast was still far from fully recovering and would need more than what he had given it, he could understand the mindset of this demon beast, but still... This kind of sudden shift in behavior was far too fast.

But then again, this demon beast had been locked up on its own for potentially tens of thousands of years and with the intelligence of a demon beast at the Land Creation Realm being no less than that of a human, it was understandable that it might have developed some kind of mental problems during the long isolation.

After all, he understood all too well what kind of mental problems could pop up from being locked up for an extended period of time because of the trial he had experienced after reading through the sky watcher’s notes on celestial bodies.

Without a sufficiently powerful will, problems would inevitably emerge and in the worst-case scenario even give birth to an inner demon.

Although the demon beast didn’t seem to have given birth to an inner demon, it was clear that the long time spent in isolation did have some kind of impact on it that had ultimately made it submit so easily to someone like Meng Jie.

That or it really didn’t care about the difference in strength and wanted to do everything in its power to get its hands on the Saint Grade Healing Pills that would be able to help it recover. Even if that meant lowering its head to someone weak like Meng Jie.

No matter what it was, Xuan Hao decided to suspend his original plans for getting the demon beast to become an ancestor of the Star Shattering Sect for now and instead focus on observing it for a bit to see just what it was planning to do. After all, it was already completely under his control and there wouldn’t be much difference in it joining the Star Shattering Sect now or a few hours later.

Not to mention, he felt it was rather interesting to watch the interaction between Meng Jie and the demon beast. At least, it would give him something to do while he was waiting for Huo Fen to finish up the pill or elixir he was crafting with the five alchemy artifacts.

If not for the fact that the crafting process he engaged in did require some knowledge of the pill or elixir he was creating, he unfortunately couldn’t help him much in speeding up the process, as doing so might ruin the process altogether.