Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Ignoring the panicked screams from the people unfortunate enough to have ended up standing in his way, Xuan Hao focused his entire attention on the ancient concealment formation that he could now sense without much difficulty after it had been unearthed. Allowing him to also sense that the overall strength of the concealment formation itself exceeded his own understanding of the Dao of Formations by far more than he had originally anticipated.

Though the formation itself wasn’t specifically designed as a defensive formation and only served the purpose of concealing what he guessed to be some kind of ancient gateway leading to an ancient secret realm or mystic realm, the formation seemed to have evolved in an unexpected direction over the countless years that it had remained hidden underground.

Although this was somewhat unexpected, he had expected it to some extent considering that formations at the Saint Rank could nurture a formation spirit and said formation spirit would undoubtedly develop in a direction to ensure that the formation could keep functioning even after countless years without any maintenance or outside assistance.

But… Even though the ancient concealment formation before him should once have been home to such a formation spirit, it seemed like it had perished for some unknown reason over the years. Only leaving behind a few traces of the changes it had taken to the ancient concealment formation in a vain attempt to ensure that it could keep running indefinitely.

One of the changes being the fact that the ancient concealment formation caried some properties that made it similar to a defensive formation, while others seemed to give it some offensive capabilities.

Even though the adaptations were admirable and gave the ancient concealment formation that should have only served the singular purpose of concealing itself along with what was within it, it did also end up worsening the original ability of the ancient concealment formation.

In a way, without the adaptations that had been put in place by the formation spirit before it had mysteriously vanished, Xuan Hao felt that it might have been impossible for him to find this concealment formation even with his divine sense going full power through the border city it was located inside of several times.

As for the overall strength of the offensive and defensive measures of the ancient concealment formation… They weren’t bad. Allowing it to withstand someone at the Early Stage of the Sea Formation Realm for a few minutes.

But… For someone like him, it didn’t really pose much of a threat and could be easily bypassed without too much effort-

Rumble~!

And that was exactly what he did after fully uncovering the ancient concealment formation. Pushing down in a seemingly gentle motion towards the ancient concealment formation, causing a terrifying fluctuation followed by a large palm large enough to cover the hole he had dug out formed by his spiritual qi emerging before descending towards the ancient concealment formation.

Fwwwooosh~!

Unsurprisingly, this kind of hostile action instantly caused the defensive and offensive capabilities of the ancient concealment formation to rear their head in the form of a large turtle phantom silently retreating into its shell as it met the descending palm head on-

RUUUUMBLE-!

But… Though the phantom turtle easily twice the size of the descending palm was powerful and contained the combined power of both the defensive and offensive formations that existed within the ancient concealment formation, the overall strength of the phantom turtle barely reached the Middle Stage of the Sea Formation Realm and stood no chance in the face of an attack that carried the full might of someone at the Land Creation Realm.

And without much suspense, the phantom turtle that had manifested above the ancient concealment formation began to crumble apart as the palm continued descending before completely shattering the phantom turtle. Making direct contact with the ancient concealment formation the next second—

Craaack~

Something that unsurprisingly caused the ancient concealment formation to shatter, as it simply wasn’t designed to withstand a direct attack in the first place. Having been designed for the sole purpose of remaining hidden.

Having been revealed, it could already be considered to have failed at its original purpose. The little resistance it had put up could be considered a last desperate defense that might have been capable of dealing with most other Profound Immortal Realm cultivators throughout the Northern Central Region that might have stumbled on it by accident, as most of the Profound Immortal Realm cultivators that existed within the Northern Central Region were in the Breaking Dawn Realm and wouldn’t have been able to withstand the phantom turtle going on the offensive instead of the defensive stance it had been forced into.

Speaking of other people finding the ancient concealment formation by accident. After he destroyed the ancient concealment formation, Xuan Hao did notice several long-decayed corpses near the ancient concealment formation.

Most of them seemed to range between the Domain Lord Realm and Soul Ascension Realm, likely having belonged to the small empire that he found himself at the border of, but… Among the dead, he did also happen to find a still intact body whose lingering presence was no weaker than his own. Indicating that a Land Creation Realm cultivator had once fallen to the ancient concealment formation in the past.

Considering how impossible something like that would be with the strength that the ancient concealment formation had wielded against him, he guessed that whoever this unlucky fellow was, they might be the reason behind the missing formation spirit and current weakened state of the ancient concealment formation.

Part of him was able to imagine the deadly battle where this ancient cultivator had perished in battle with the formation spirit that had won by sacrificing itself.

Awesome as this kind of life and death battle might have been to witness firsthand, he knew that for an entire city to have been built in this place, the battle should have happened long ago before the small empire whose borders he found himself inside of even existed in the first place.

Not to mention, he was far more interested in what this ancient concealment formation had been hiding for so long, to the point where a Land Creation Realm cultivator had ended up dying to reach it.

But… The thing that appeared in front of him after his attention shifted away from the dead bodies was nothing more than a broken gate standing more than ten meters tall, or at least he guessed it had stood ten meters tall in the past before it had been broke and ended up shattered on the ground nearby.

From his original excitement of potentially discovering an ancient secret realm or maybe even a mystic realm that had once been used as the home for an ancient cultivation clan, Xuan Hao felt a sense of disappointment he hadn’t felt in a long time.

Although he already understood that this was the most likely outcome after he set off from the Li Clan, he was still disappointed when the reality of the situation stared him in the face.

”Hm?”

But as he was about to turn around and leave in disappointment after seeing the already destroyed gate that should have severed as a link to another similar gate inside an ancient secret realm or mystic realm, he noticed a faint flicker at the very base of the destroyed gate

Flickering out of existence for a brief second in the eyes of a few curious spectators looking down towards the ancient valley that the destroyed gate was located inside beneath the city. Appearing next to the gate the next second where he gently pulled out what looked like a small stone.

Although none of the people observing cautiously from above knew what this small stone was, Xuan Hao knew and couldn’t help smiling in joy.

The stone wasn’t just a normal stone, but one with a spatial attribute like the ones he had used to establish the sect’s teleportation network. The main difference being that the stone he was holding didn’t just possess the spatial attribute and could be considered a valuable spiritual stone on its own, but he also noticed that it still recorded the spatial coordinates of the place that the gate had once been connected to in the past.

Meaning, he would be able to use those spatial coordinates to reach wherever the destroyed gate had once been connected to in the past as long as whatever world or secret realm it had been connected to still existed.

In other words, he didn’t end up empty handed and would still be able to find out where the Li Clan had come from. The only problem he faced was the fact that he could innately sense that travelling to those spatial coordinates with his current comprehension of the Dao of Space would be far from simple without something like the destroyed gate to anchor him and chart a straight path.

Still… He felt that it should still be possible if he was careful.