Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Rustle~

Knowing the danger of the situation that it found itself in as Xuan Hao had turned out far more difficult to deal with than it had originally expected, the withered tree swayed anxiously from side to side as it continued fending off Xuan Hao wherever he appeared. One time, appearing no more than a hundred meters from its trunk. Forcing it to utilize its branches to deal with him, while another time appearing more than a dozen kilometers away. Making it difficult for its branches to reach and instead making it rely on its roots to fend him off.

As for the method used by Xuan Hao to attack it from over a dozen kilometers away… That was still the Void Sword Art, as at that distance, there weren’t enough spatial formations around to prevent his attacks from reaching the withered tree.

Dragging on for another three hours like this, the withered tree began growing increasingly frustrated with the situation that it had found itself in.

Unable to retreat, unable to hit its target and unable avoid the constant stream of sword attacks bombarding its trunk.

Durable as it was, it took an immense quantity of qi to keep up this kind of defense and though it was able to rapidly recover its spiritual qi, it was running on a constant loss and would inevitably end up running out.

The sole reason why the withered tree hadn’t yet begun to panic or try to find a way to escape was simply because of how vast its spiritual sea was. Even at the current terrifying consumption rate, it would take weeks before it began running into problems and it felt confident Xuan Hao would run into problems before it would. After all, outside of being a minor realm above Xuan Hao and having a larger spiritual sea, the withered tree was also a spiritual tree and had a far larger quantity of spiritual qi stored up inside its body that it could tap into.

In the eyes of the withered tree, time was on its side and all it needed to do was outlast Xuan Hao. After which, it would be able to consume his body and utilize his body as fertilizer when breaking through to the Land Creation Realm. Potentially leaping directly into the Middle Stage of the Land Creation Realm in a single step.

And so, with both sides fully intent on drawing things out until the other ended up running out of strength, time began to pass.

One day…Two days… Four days… One week… By the tenth day, since the battle began, the withered tree finally began sensing that something was wrong.

But…Already drawing on its qi reserves, it no longer had the chance to back down from the battle, as it continued to clash head on with Xuan Hao, who over the past ten days had become far more proficient in using the Void Sword Art. Even having taken the opportunity to test out a few of his other sword techniques from the Heaven Splitting Sword Art to the Rain Sword Art.

Surprisingly, it was during these small attempts to use different sword arts to fend off the branches and roots of the withered tree that he ended up evolving Rain Sword Art from the Peak of the Mortal Rank into a combat technique of High Earth Rank quality.

Although inferior to the Void Sword Art, the defensive power of the simple Rain Sword Art after evolving had reached a far higher level and would undoubtedly be useful to anyone below the Profound Immortal Realm.

One person he could think of immediately that would love this kind of sword technique was undoubtedly Feng Chen, as the sword technique that had essentially been completely remade by him during this battle with the withered tree contained parts of his own understanding of the Dao of the Sword at the Perfection Realm.

Of course, outside of the evolution of the Rain Sword Art, the sword art that benefited the most during this drawn-out battle was undoubtedly the Void Sword Art, as he had grown extremely familiar with it during these past ten days while at the same time also growing more proficient in utilizing the Dao of Space and the Dao of the Sword together.

But maybe the best thing he had gained from this battle with the withered tree was combat experience, as he really did lack experience when it came to facing off against opponents that he couldn’t finish off within a few moves.

At least now that he had fought the withered tree for over a week, he understood that battles at the Sea Formation Realm and above could drag on for a long time if both parties were close enough in strength.

In a sense, this also made him understand one of the potential reasons why the Blue Sea Empire and other major powers didn’t want to go all in when facing the demonic cultivators, as an all-out battle between the two sides would undoubtedly lead to the destruction of the Northern Central Region and their territory in the process.

As for the reason why, the demonic cultivators didn’t go all in… He could only guess that they had other things to worry about, as he doubted the reason why they didn’t utilize any demonic cultivators above the Early Stage of the Celestial Immortal Realm in strength was because they feared the damage it might do to the Northern Central Region.

One very clear worry for the demonic cultivators potentially being that causing too much damage to the Northern Central Region might end up drawing the attention of the stronger cultivators from the Southern Central Region. Potentially inviting an attack from these much stronger cultivators in the Southern Central Region, something that the demonic cultivators from the Frozen Wastelands undoubtedly wanted to avoid.

Another worry of theirs potentially being the monks from the Western Central Region, who would be more than happy to watch the demonic cultivators from the Frozen Wastelands and the major powers from the Northern Central Region clash with each other…