Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

[Welcome to the Thirteenth Floor]

[Current Floor: 13]

[Task: Kill 3 Soul Ascension Realm Demon Beasts]

[Reward: 15.000 Ascension Coin, The Passage to the Fourteenth Floor reveals itself]

Stepping onto the thirteenth floor without any issues, Xuan Hao found himself rather bewildered by the task this time around because of how simple it was compared to the one from the twelfth floor that had essentially required him to not just kill ninety different Soul Ascension Realm slime creatures ranging between the First and Second Tribulation of the Soul Ascension Realm with widely different abilities depending on their colors and powerful survival abilities far beyond that of a normal Soul Ascension Realm cultivator or demon beast.

In comparison, killing three demon beasts in the Soul Ascension Realm seemed like a joke. Especially so because he could already sense a few demon beasts around him that had reached the First Tribulation of the Soul Ascension Realm.

Whoosh~

With that in mind, he didn’t bother wasting any time and directly killed the three Soul Ascension Realm demon beasts from afar before… Nothing… The task wasn’t completed.

”Hm?” Feeling a bit surprised at this development, Xuan Hao decided to pull over the corpses of the three demon beasts he had just killed… And through an extensive divine sense inspection of the three dead bodies, he came to the realization that the three demon beasts he had just killed, was in fact not demon beasts. Instead, they were some kind of primal humans that had the ability to transform into demon beasts.

The transformation itself was so complete and perfect that even he couldn’t sense anything wrong with his powerful divine sense as a Sea Formation Realm cultivator. Only after inspecting the dead bodies in depth, did he realize that the three he had just killed weren’t demon beasts, but instead primal humans.

Shocking as this realization was, it also made him realize that no floor after the tenth floor seemed to be simple.

This time around, it seemed like he had to find out where the three demon beasts were hidden, a challenge for anyone who took on this floor with strength in the Soul Ascension. But for him, he could flip the board if he wanted and just destroy the entire floor. Although… After what had happened on the ninth floor, he felt cautious about doing something like that again, as he feared that another sudden spike in difficulty might end up becoming rather discouraging for the sect elders and disciples who would come after him.

For this reason, he decided to go through the floors normally even if it did take a bit longer than normal. Also, just because it was an enjoyable experience to wander through the different unique environments on each of the floors, while at the same time giving him ways to help his disciples in the future when they inevitably found themselves stuck on a specific floor.

Take the thirteenth floor as an example, it not only had three different regions ranging from a tropical jungle to a savanna and finally a desolate frozen tundra that reminded him of the Frozen Wastelands. All with different and unique demon beasts that were in fact primal humans who had formed a one of kind society in each of the regions, but also rare and unique spiritual herbs that he freely pulled into his interspatial ring.

As for the three demon beasts… They were rather simple to find, as they were worshiped by the local primal humans, with one demon beast ruling over each of the three regions. The strength of these demon beasts having reached the Fifth Tribulation of the Soul Ascension Realm. Making them difficult enough to kill on their own without the countless primal human worshippers that constantly followed them around.

By his own calculation, it would be difficult to kill these demon beasts even for someone at the Peak of the Soul Ascension Realm.

But for him, the floor was cleared with ease, though he ended up spending longer than he had originally anticipated on the thirteenth floor searching for spiritual herbs. Only after making sure he had scoured the place for any valuable spiritual herbs before he reluctantly ascended the spiral staircase leading up to the fourteenth floor of the tower.

However, the fourteenth floor wasn’t anywhere as interesting as the thirteenth floor outside of the floor boss that turned out to be some kind of living tree that had been infecting the local inhabitants of the floor and controlling them secretly behind the scenes.

With the strength at the Peak of the Soul Ascension Realm and an endless army of mind-controlled humans and demon beasts ranging anywhere from the Qi Condensation Realm to the Soul Ascension Realm, it was indeed a challenging opponent that could even pose a problem to someone in the Dao Seed Realm, but in the end, he made relatively short work of it before moving on to the fifteenth floor.

And it was upon stepping onto the fifteenth floor that he realized that he had officially left the domain that belonged to the Soul Ascension Realm and reached the Dao Seed Realm part of the tower.

But as much as he wanted to continue forward and move higher to see when the floors would start posing a challenge to him, he held himself back and decided to take a small break to check out the shop back down at the ground floor. Not just because he was curious, but because he distinctly remembered that the Soul Ascension Realm was the first realm where cultivators began to truly be able to create secret realms.

Even if it was possible at the Domain Lord Realm, there was hardly anyone who had the resources to do so at the Domain Lord Realm and if they did it, it would at most result in a half-baked product. Only from the Soul Ascension Realm and onwards would secret realms be something that counted as useful beyond a place to leave an inheritance or hide away.

Given the current development of the Star Shattering Sect and the intense requirement for cultivation resources, it was given that the sect should set up a few secret realms for not just production of cultivation resources, but also for training and other things. The reason why such secret realms had been delayed was rather simple. The resources required to create a secret realm that would be fitting for the current Star Shattering Sect was simply immense and not something the sect could afford without taking a significant hit that Elder Song was not willing to see happen because of how this would affect the sect.

Because of this, from the second he learnt about the existence of the shop at the ground floor, he had been hoping to see something there that would be able to help him- or more accurately, the sect, solve the resources problem that came along with setting up massive secret realms…

Whoosh~

And so, without even glancing at the panel that appeared when he reached the fifteenth floor, Xuan Hao stepped through the teleportation formation that took him back down to the ground floor of the tower.

”Aaah! I died again! Why are those Qi Condensation Realm demon beasts so powerful!?”

”Haha, how did you die? You are at the Foundation Establishment Realm! Even if you just broke through, how did you get overwhelmed by a few demon beasts in the Qi Condensation Realm?”

”Hmph! What do you know?! The second I attacked one of them, they all came swarming over. Not giving me a chance to rest…”

”Hahaha!”

Reaching the ground floor again after a few hours of ascending the tower, Xuan Hao was met with a bustling scene of both elders and disciples moving around the reception area. Overhearing two younger disciples chatting with each other over one of the two’s unfortunate end at the hands- or claws of the Qi Condensation Realm demon beasts from the first floor of the tower.

Fun as it was to listen to the chatter of these younger disciples chatting animatedly with each other, Xuan Hao didn’t linger around the teleportation formation section of the reception section of the ground floor for long and began heading towards the shopping section of the ground floor.

Along the way, he not only heard about the unfortunate fate of several other disciples who had ended up being swarmed by the Qi Condensation Realm demon beasts after causing too much of a commotion during their fight, but he also learnt about what Elder Song had been up to after he put him in charge of managing the disciples and elders access to the ascension realm tower.

Unsurprisingly, entering cost contribution points, but for the first time it was free for them to enter. The main reason why there were so many younger disciples only at the Qi Condensation Realm or Foundation Establishment Realm currently wandering around inside the tower. Unwilling to surrender or give up before they could clear the first floor.

The reason for this being the things found in the shop that could only be bought with these ascension coins.