Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

The minor problem of the sect that had come following the appearance of the ascension secret realm taken care of by Feng Chen, Xuan Hao once again found himself free to focus on his cultivation. Hoping that he wouldn’t end up being interrupted again a few days later, a wish that was granted, as time slowly began to pass with Feng Chen in charge instead of Elder Song. Continuing until a month had passed and Elder Song returned to the sect after having finished setting up a cooperative trade relationship with the different neutral factions located within the neutral territory between the Blue Sea Empire and the Onyx Empire.

Large quantities of resources that would normally have to first go through the Explorer Union now directly bypassed them. Allowing the sect to not just get everything far cheaper as there wasn’t some middleman involved in the trade but also allowed the sect to sell a large quantity of the resources that they didn’t need or produced in excess to the different neutral factions. Off setting most of the cost of the trade with resources of their own, though, there were still quite a few spirit stones involved in the trades taking place, as the Star Shattering Sect’s overall need for resources was far larger than those relatively smaller neutral factions by comparison.

And that was without counting the extra cultivation resources that the sect didn’t originally need, but Elder Song decided to start storing for the future in case the sect ended up losing access to these different neutral factions and the cultivation resources they provided in the future. Another reason of course also being in anticipation of future growth for the sect.

Overall, the senior figure from the Explorer Union who was now staying in Bright Stone City after having grown bored of staying in Falling Star City, had been completely forgotten about.

Well… Maybe not forgotten about, but Elder Song had firmly decided to ignore this fellow. Knowing that nothing good would come from talking to someone that had deliberately shown up to cause trouble for the sect. Especially so considering that this fellow’s actions had ended up hurting the sect to some extent as he had to silently move around different cultivation resources to ensure there was enough for the sect to operate normally without any changes outside a lack of some rare and unique cultivation resources not found within the territory of the Star Shattering Sect.

Everything had gone well and there hadn’t been much of a reaction from the elders or disciples of the sect, as it had become rather well known that the Explorer Union had cut off trade with the sect. Making these rare and unique cultivation resources unavailable.

But outside of a mild nuisance for those who might have needed those rare and unique cultivation resources, it hadn’t affected the overall state of the sect, and everything had continued running smoothly without anyone aware of the fact that the sect had started burning through its reserves the day that the Explorer Union had cut off trade relations.

Only now that a new trade line had been established through the different neutral factions in the neutral territory between the Blue Sea Empire and the Onyx Empire could the sect be considered to have escaped from this crisis.

But Elder Song understood that this was still only a temporary solution to the problem. For the sect to be truly secure against the threat that the Explorer Unions trade sanctions had caused, it had to be capable of producing the cultivation resources needed on its own… And for something like that, the secret realm seeds, that could nurture secret realms without much in terms of resource investment from the sect.

The only problem was the high cost in ascension coins. Making it close to impossible for anyone other than the few Dao Seed Realm Elders in the sect to earn enough to buy them.

Even then, Elder Song didn’t worry about this, as he had already made prior arrangements with the sect’s upper echelon about the situation and negotiated a suitable reward. The only one who wasn’t that interested in a reward being Pei Yang, who had been among the first to jump in to challenge the ascension realm tower after learning about the spiritual herb realm. The secret realm specially for nurturing all sorts of unique spiritual herbs.

As for the rest who had been promised a reward by him… They hadn’t originally been as excited about the ascension realm tower as the younger disciples and sect elders, but after seeing some of the things on the tenth floor of the tower, they quickly changed their tune and even began feeling a bit regretful about the agreement they had with Elder Song, as it essentially meant that their first one hundred thousand ascension coins had to be used to buy a secret realm seed for the sect.

But thinking about the reward that had been promised to them in return, they quickly threw these thoughts all the way to the back of their mind.

As for the reward Elder Song had promised them… It was of course personal guidance from none other than Xuan Hao, the only person that these Dao Seed Realm Elders knew about that had exceeded the Dao Seed Realm and broken through to the Profound Immortal Realm and at the same time also the one person who would be able to provide them with guidance for them at their current cultivation realm.

Because of this, a few weeks after Elder Song had returned to the sect and taken back control from Feng Chen who was more than happy to rush back home to study the improved Rain Sword Art, Xuan Hao found his secluded cultivation being interrupted by a group of overeager elders ready to redeem the reward that had been promised to them by Elder Song.

To be honest, Xuan Hao wasn’t against this, as it would at most take him a few days to personally give some beneficial guidance to each of them. The problem was, Elder Song had forgotten to inform him about the situation beforehand, causing him to unknowingly make a few of those who had been the fastest to complete the task wait outside his home nervously for a few hours before Zhi Ruo noticed them and rushed in to inform him.

Luckily, after Zhi Ruo informed him, the situation was taken care of and after a few weeks personally guiding Pei Yang and the rest of the sect’s Dao Seed Realm cultivators who trickled in one by one, Xuan Hao once again returned to his secluded cultivation. This time around making absolutely sure that there wouldn’t be anything that would end up interrupting his cultivation this time around.

To be on the safe side, he even decided to pay Mui a visit to see what she was up to and if there was a chance that she might end up flooding his home while he was in seclusion.

Fortunately, she wasn’t working on anything dangerous and was just trying to make a friend for Baobao. Not something that should cause any problems unless she ended up creating something that wasn’t friendly, but in that case, Feng Chen, who had personally experienced the new might of the chaotic qi formation by accident would be able to step in and use the formation to suppress whatever she ended up creating.

Speaking of that… Unfortunate situation he had found himself in, Xuan Hao could not help silently apologizing to Feng Chen. Having already promised the old sect master not to mention the little incident to anyone, as he had been able to escape the embarrassment due to how secluded the location where he had been pinned to the ground had been.

Even then, it had been an eye opener for Xuan Hao when he had realized what had happened to him during a short break he had taken shortly after having cleared the twenty-third floor. After all, Feng Chen had already been stuck to the ground for days at that point.

Although it wasn’t much of a problem for a cultivator at his realm, it was still an embarrassing situation. The only upside was that everyone had been far too busy with the ascension realm tower to even notice the poor old sect master collapsed on the ground behind a few barrels that had been used to store and dried spiritual herbs.

If he had been found by some younger disciple during this time, Xuan Hao could easily imagine Feng Chen coming after him in some way in the future, as he had kind of been the reason for him ending up in that situation in the first place.

But everything went well and he was safely extracted and granted the same authority he had before over the chaotic qi formation. Only leaving behind a human shaped imprint on the ground where he had been pinned to the ground by the chaotic qi formation for the past few days, a hole he decided to discreetly fill up and fix on his own before it was noticed by anyone…