Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Feeling a sense of wonder regarding the martial arts that he had learnt about, he did attempt to try and see if he could practice it alongside the immortal cultivation path that he had already stepped on to, but found out rather fast that it was impossible for him to cultivate martial arts alongside the traditional immortal cultivation path.

Well… Not entirely impossible, as he should be able to train up the Martial King Realm where one would manifest something called martial will that was similar to divine sense, but beyond that was impossible.

Not because he lacked talent or anything along that line, but instead because to reach the Martial Emperor Realm that came after the Martial King Realm, one would nurture a martial soul that wasn’t much different from a nascent soul, and he couldn’t exactly create a new nascent soul. After all, his soul wasn’t exactly a nascent soul any longer but was contained within the lotus at the core of his dantian floating above the landmass like the center of the world.

Creating a material soul wasn’t impossible, so to say, but it would essentially require him to cripple his own cultivation in the process, something he wasn’t exactly willing to do.

Interested as he might be in martial arts, it was ultimately an unknown cultivation path with no clear path for him to follow beyond a realm that was only comparable to the Nascent Soul Realm.

Maybe if he found information on the realms that came after the Martial Emperor Realm, he might take a second glance, but for now, the martial arts cultivation path or rather body refining cultivation path didn’t garner much interest. After all, the Nascent Soul Realm wasn’t exactly considered strong within the current Star Shattering Sect and bringing a cultivation path with such a low ceiling back to the sect might end up doing more damage than good in the long term.

Having managed to obtain the information on the body refining path that he had come for, Xuan Hao didn’t leave immediately, as he instead turned his attention towards some of the historical records that had been stored within the deepest parts of the library alongside the information on the martial arts realms.

Searching for anything that might hint at a potential location that the Noble Li Clan had once considered their base of operations within the ancient secret realm.

”Death Marsh… Dread Woods… Giant’s Valley and… Mountain Hall? A mountain cave of some sort?” Soon enough, finding four locations of interest where ruins of the Noble Li Clan could potentially be found.

Outside of these locations, he also found snippets of information regarding the past of the ancient secret realm.

Overall, much of what he found was considered ancient and inaccurate, but it did paint a clear picture of how the ancient secret realm had ended up in its current state where the cultivation limit had been pushed all the way down to the Nascent Soul Realm or for the locals, the Martial Emperor Realm.

According to the information, spiritual qi had once been far more abundant than it was, with both Nascent Soul Realm cultivators and Martial Emperor Realm Experts present in large numbers, there was even a mention of beings exceeding the Martial Emperor Realm referred to as Martial Saints, beings of immense power that Xuan Hao himself guessed to be the realm that came after the Martial Emperor Realm.

Everything changed when outsiders from beyond invaded the ancient secret realm. Devouring everything and everyone that tried to resist them. In the end, it was only by everyone combining their strength that the enemy was ultimately banished and forever sealed away that the battle came to an end, but by that point, the damage had been done and the spiritual qi that was normally abundant throughout the world faded.

After this, the ancient text went into detail describing the descent of countless heavenly gates and the later migration of the remaining powerful cultivators and martial artists from the ancient secret realm through these heavenly gates. Leaving behind only the weaker cultivators and martial artists who found themselves unable to reach the heavenly gates floating above.

In the end, the author of the ancient text went on to describe his yearning for those heavenly gates throughout his life and how he wished to one day leave the now barren and desolate world he found himself in like those who had left ahead of him, something that he ultimately succeeded in according to the last few lines left within the ancient text, as he was lucky enough to find a flying artifact capable of carrying him up into the sky and through one of those heavenly gates hanging in the air above.

Continuing to read through other old and ancient texts regarding this ancient event known as the descent of the gates of heaven, he found out that the heavenly gates didn’t just appear one day and disappeared a short time later. Instead, they had remained in the sky above the ancient secret realm for over two thousand years. Allowing anyone who managed to grow strong enough or find a flying artifact during that time to leave the ancient secret realm through them.

The only odd thing about these heavenly gates that were most likely spatial passages connecting the ancient secret realm to the Ewaria continent or maybe even beyond it, was that no one ever came back through the heavenly gates during this long period of time. Leading to a large number of people fearing the heavenly gates.

Still… Faced with the declining spiritual qi and worsening environment of the secret realm, those who could leave through the heavenly gates all chose to do so in the end.

All until one day, the heavenly gates began collapsing one by one over a period of only a few months.

And with there being thousands of these heavenly gates and their locations being centered around large cities, their fall caused widespread destruction and panic. Heralding the age of chaos that the ancient secret realm had just recently managed to dig itself out from, with the establishment of several smaller dynasties or empires like the one he found himself inside of.

The history of the ancient secret realm was… Interesting but led to more questions than answers. The most obvious one being what had happened to all those spatial passages, while a second was how long it had been since those spatial passages had collapsed.

After all, though time was well recorded before the fall of the heavenly gates and the age of chaos, after the age of chaos began, no one had kept records of the past. For all he knew, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years might have passed since the fall of the heavenly gates.

The only real way to find out might be to find the Noble Li Clan’s ruins, as they had been the ones in control of the ancient secret realm according to the description of the side quest.

He might even get a chance to gain partial control over the ancient guardian formation protecting the ancient secret realm. In which case he would be able to sue his divine sense sweep through the entire ancient secret realm at full strength. Making it difficult for anything to remain hidden.

One thing that did worry him about the information on the past of the ancient secret realm was the description of the outside enemy that the ancient secret realm had faced and ultimately won against at the cost of the secret realm suffering some kind of fundamental damage.

His worry not having anything to do with the power of someone strong enough to invade the ancient secret realm that clearly possessed a guardian formation with power far beyond the Land Creation Realm even to this day, but instead the fact that he found the descriptions of this outside enemy familiar.

Not in the sense that he had encountered the other party before, but instead that the bits and pieces of combat with this outside enemy that was described reminded him of the Dao of Corruption, or more specifically, the beings born through the Dao of Corruption.

In other words, he began considering that the outside enemy that the ancient secret realm might have faced were beings that had been born through the Dao of Corruption or powerful cultivators wielding the Dao of Corruption.

Either of the two meant that his exploration of the ancient secret realm had to be done far more cautiously, as he clearly remembered the notes about the enemy being sealed away forever. Not destroyed. In those ancient texts about the past.

Even if he wanted to find the ancient residence of the Noble Li Clan hidden inside the ancient secret realm as the side quest had stipulated, he also knew full well that dealing with beings created through the Dao of Corruption with his strength limited to the Nascent Soul Realm, was impossible.