Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

As news of the Blue Sea Empire’s fall reached the Star Shattering Sect, Elder Song didn’t feel the slightest bit relieved as the state of the Blue Sea Empire had only ended up becoming more chaotic after the fall of the Blue Sea Empire itself. The origin of said chaos being rather simple to guess, as the major powers involved didn’t put much effort into hiding themselves and their actions. Making it rather easy for Elder Song to guess that these major powers were doing this because they wanted to see the strength of the Star Shattering Sect. Essentially forcing the sect to appear even after the fall of the Blue Sea Empire if it wanted to uphold its reputation.

Although standing against the demonic cultivators of the Frozen Wastelands wasn’t exactly the best idea ever, they didn’t have to face off against the demonic cultivators for more than a few days before the time limit set down by the sect according to the rumors spread by those neutral factions.

Dangerous as it was, there were more than enough Land Creation Realm cultivators hidden throughout the Northern Central Region to keep the three demonic cultivators of similar strength at bay for a few days. Especially so considering that the Blood Sea Demon King had remained within the now destroyed capital city of the Blue Sea Empire. Showing no sign of appearing to help those three demonic cultivators stabilize the situation of the Blue Sea Empire.

The reason for this could be many, though the most popular one that Elder Song also believed in, was that the Blood Sea Demon King possessed a similar level of curiosity as the different major powers causing chaos and wanted to see how strong the person sent by the Star Shattering Sect was.

After all, now that the Blue Sea Empire had fallen, the position of the Star Shattering Sect had become increasingly isolated by the expansion of the Frozen Wasteland and the Blood Sea Demon King might be thinking about using the opportunity to probe the strength of the Star Shattering Sect to see if it might be possible for the Frozen Wastelands to take over the territory of the Star Shattering Sect now that the Blue Sea Empire had already fallen.

The reason why this might even be a consideration even with the risks and dangers involved with challenging and ancient hidden sect, was because the treasures, resources and ancient information stored inside an ancient hidden sect far exceeded the value of even the territory of the Blue Sea Empire. Making attacking one worth it even if the sect didn’t control any valuable territory.

To stop any of this from even being considered, the best option for the Star Shattering Sect would be to have a significantly intimidating display of strength to scare off anyone who might have those kinds of thoughts… And unfortunately for Elder Song, Xuan Hao, the only person who might be capable of something like that was still in seclusion inside the ascension secret realm with no sign of appearing any time soon.

The only real news he had about the state of Xuan Hao was the recent disturbance that had swept through the ascension secret realm after his breakthrough to the Land Creation Realm, though Elder Song himself had no way of knowing that this was him breaking through to the Land Creation Realm and only knew about the disturbance itself.

Still… From the scale of the disturbance alone, it wasn’t that difficult to guess that Xuan Hao had been the one behind it, as he was the only one powerful enough to cause that kind of large-scale disturbance inside the ascension secret realm.

Unless one of the elders in the Soul Ascension Realm currently inside the ascension secret realm, somehow, managed to break through to the Dao Seed Realm, but the chance of that happening without him knowing about it beforehand was low. Especially considering that the sect didn’t currently have someone at the Peak of the Soul Ascension Realm present inside the ascension secret realm.

Feeling increasingly uneasy as the day that the different major powers believed the Star Shattering Sect would step in to calm down the situation in the Blue Sea Empire approached, Elder Song couldn’t keep lingering around the sect in a state of unease any longer, as he decided to visit the ascension secret realm to try and see if he could find Xuan Hao inside the ascension secret realm.

This way, in case he was deep in meditation and couldn’t be interrupted, he would be able to wait beside him and inform him the second he exited his deep meditation and in case he wasn’t in deep meditation and noticed his presence, he would be able to notify him about the situation immediately and have him help deal with the current predicament that the sect had found itself in.

The problem was, after he got to the ascension secret realm, he had no idea how to find Xuan Hao and could essentially only follow the direction that the other elders inside the ascension secret realm had reported that the terrifying disturbance had come from. Hoping that it would lead him to the general location where Xuan Hao had decided to seclude himself inside the ascension secret realm.

Another unexpected problem that he only realized after entering the ascension secret realm was the fact that the size of the ascension secret realm was far beyond any secret realm he had ventured into in the past. Far surpassing any of the other secret realms that had fallen under the control of the Star Shattering Sect over the past few months thanks to the appearance of the ascension realm tower.

In fact, of the secret realms that were now being nurtured under the Star Shattering Sect, the ascension secret realm was the only secret realm whose size had yet to be determined. Not because the elders of the sect were unable to fully explore the ascension secret realm, but simply because it had been deemed unnecessary to explore the ascension secret realm that wasn’t being used for anything outside of providing a space for those attempting to break through to the Soul Ascension Realm or beyond it.

Not to mention the simple fact that it would likely also take a long time for someone in the Soul Ascension Realm to explore the entire ascension secret realm and most of the sect’s elders didn’t want to spend weeks travelling through the empty rocky realm that was the ascension secret realm for no reason. After all, this was time that could be used on something far more productive.

And so, Elder Song ended up becoming the first elder of the sect to explore the ascension secret realm in his search of where Xuan Hao had entered secluded cultivation. Taking his time, to also get a proper look around the ascension secret realm to see if there might be some other use for the large empty space that the ascension secret realm provided.

Unfortunately, from examining the rocky terrain, it became clear awfully fast that there was no way to use the large empty space for cultivating spiritual herbs. Especially some that would be able to endure the disturbances that would be caused by the elders who entered the ascension secret realm to breakthrough to higher realms.

However, even knowing this, he didn’t immediately give up entirely on utilizing the space provided by the ascension secret realm, as he continued to think about other potential uses the large space could provide for the sect.

In the end, as a day passed by with him travelling through the ascension secret realm, he finally came up with an idea for what the empty space of the ascension secret realm could be used for. However, before he could implement this idea and start testing it out, he would have to grab hold of one of the sect’s more skilled botanists along with Pei Yang to see if it would really be possible to make use of the ascension secret realm in the way he had thought about.

But before any of that, the sect’s current troublesome situation had to first be solved and to do that he needed Xuan Hao.

Luckily for Elder Song, as he thought about a way to make use of the large empty space that the ascension secret realm provided, he found the person he had entered the ascension secret realm looking for–or at least he saw the aftermath of the disturbance that the elders lingering around close to the entrance of the ascension secret realm had felt a few days earlier, as earth had split apart into numerous massive ravines alongside large craters that had been formed by large chunks of the ground that had been violently ripped up and flung into the air. Forming several small mountains wherever they had ended up landing.

Although he hadn’t seen Xuan Hao himself yet, he was certain that he was the only person who would be capable of causing this level of destruction inside the ascension secret realm…