Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Finding himself moving through the cloud plaza in search of a useful saint grade artifacts, what should have originally been something simple ended up taking far longer than he had originally thought. Forcing him to stop buying up some of the cheaper things he found while wandering through the cloud plaza. After all, while spending a few tens of thousands of ascension coins wasn’t much compared to what he had, with time, it quickly added up and started seriously lowering his chances of being able to buy the saint grade artifact he had been searching for when it emerged.

In the end, by the time a useable saint grade artifact finally emerged, it had already been a little over a week since he had successfully absorbed the heavenly treasure from the Heavens Faith Sect.

A fact that made him lament the future of the sect’s elders and disciples, who would find themselves in a similar situation to him in the future when the average strength of the sect increased. Only compared to him, they would also be competing amongst each other.

Future troubles aside, Xuan Hao shifted his attention back towards the useable saint grade artifact in question…

[Flowing Silver]

[Grade: High Grade, Saint]

[Description: A simple sword made almost entirely of mystical silver with a tiny portion of flowing cloud silver mixed in. The overall quality of materials is below standard for a high-grade saint artifact, the only reason it reached the high grade is because the creator infused part of their sword intent into the sword during the forging process. Allowing what should have been a mid-grade saint artifact to reach the high grade.]

[Price: 5.500.000 Ascension Coins]

Looking at this sword that had essentially been branded as low quality for its grade, Xuan Hao already felt convinced that this was the artifact he had been looking for. Not just because he could potentially deepen his understanding of the Dao of the Sword through the sword intent within the sword, but also because he doubted he would be able to find another high-grade saint artifact for such a low price again. Having already grown familiar with the general price of saint grade artifacts over the past week.

Generally, low-grade artifacts were around 1 or 2 million ascension coins, while the mid-grade artifacts were around 4 million ascension coins and high-grade artifacts were scarcely below 10 million ascension coins. Finding a high-grade artifact that wasn’t uniquely used for something that wasn’t combat related below 10 million ascension coins was difficult, as this was only the second time, he had encountered such an artifact so far.

Unfortunately, the one other such artifact he had encountered was a bow that didn’t exactly fit his fighting style.

[Thank you for your purchase, 5.500.000 Ascension Coins have been deducted]

Shaking his head as he thought about this, he didn’t hesitate any longer and directly bought the sword that had fittingly been named flowing silver.

Whether this was because of the material used in its creation or its appearance, he had no clue but given that he didn’t have any reason to change the name of the sword, he decided to keep it. Admiring the sword for a few minutes before binding it and placing it within his internal world where it began the process of slowly being branded by his sword soul to ensure he would be able to make full use of the sword when fighting in the future.

Although he wanted to start comprehending the sword intent within the sword immediately, he decided to wait for now, as he had a lot of other things to do. From exploring the twenty eighth floor to returning to the twenty seventh floor to see if he could gather enough heavenly treasure to break through to the Late Stage of the Land Creation Realm by repeatedly challenging the floor.

Important as furthering his comprehension of the Dao of the Sword was, it was ultimately far less important than an opportunity to reach the Late Stage of the Land Creation Realm. Especially given how the sect would find itself having to interact with the different powers from the Southern Central Region at some point in the not-so-distant future.

Speaking of the sect, he had taken some time to return and hand over the good things he obtained for the sect on the cloud plaza, as waiting around for everything to refresh wasn’t exactly exiting after he began to just sweep through everything to see whether what he was looking for had appeared.

In the process, he also ended up learning about the general state of the sect during the time he had been busy challenging the ascension realm tower. Learning that outside of a few new young geniuses emerging and the troublemaker Mui started some kind of large-scale project that had made a certain someone especially worried, nothing much had changed.

The only thing of note in his eyes was the fact that Li Chi had managed to advance to the Eighth Stage of the Core Formation with the assistance of the incarnation he had left behind to teach him and Lu Dongli, while Lu Dongli had successfully reached Ninth Stage of the Qi Condensation Realm.

While Lu Dongli could have broken through to the Foundation Establishment Realm, she had learnt about the existence of the Tenth Stage of the Qi Condensation Realm also known as the Perfect Qi Condensation Realm and was aiming to reach this realm before breaking through to the Foundation Establishment Realm to ensure her foundation was perfect and she could advance through the Foundation Establishment Realm and latter cultivation realms faster.

Of course, though she wanted to reach this legendary realm, he had not forgotten to inform her that she would have to break through to the Foundation Establishment Realm if she began feeling her physique began becoming difficult to resist, something she had readily agreed with before wholeheartedly focusing on reaching the Tenth Stage of the Qi Condensation Realm.

”I really do hope she ends up succeeding…” Connecting to his incarnation all the way back in the sect for a brief instant as he saw Lu Dongli sitting deep in meditation alongside Li Chi while his incarnation watched over the two of them and helped guide their cultivation from the side, Xuan Hao did a final sweep of the cloud plaza. Spending until he barely had a few thousand ascension coins left to his name before he made his way to the teleportation formation next to the spiral staircase within the cloud plaza.

First descending to the ground floor where he handed off the things that had been intended for the sect before hesitating for a moment between the twenty seventh and twenty eighth floor of the tower before ultimately deciding on the twenty seventh floor of the tower. Not because he was afraid of the enemy he had to defeat to complete the twenty eighth floor of the tower, but instead because he simply couldn’t sit still knowing there was a path leading directly to the Late Stage of the Land Creation Realm before him.

Even if the overall reward in terms of ascension coins might not be great. If he could obtain even one heavenly treasure every time he swept through the twenty seventh floor of the tower, everything would be worth it. Not to mention, now that he was somewhat familiar with the Heavens Faith Sect, he could take advantage of the vast quantity of cultivation resources gathered by the world spanning sect to rapidly fill to storage of the Star Shattering Sect and ensure the sect wouldn’t run out of cultivation resources anytime soon even with multiple people breaking through to the Celestial Immortal Realm and the Profound Immortal Realm in the future...

[Current Floor: 27]

[Task: Ascend the immortal ascension spiral staircase.]

[Progress: Not Complete]

[Time limit: 3 days before the ascension ceremony starts.]

[Reward: 250.000 Ascension Coin]

”Huh…?”

However, contrary to what he had expected to encounter after returning to the twenty seventh floor of the tower, he instead found himself faced with a completely different world from the small world he had originally encountered in the past.

Not only had the task he had to face changed, but the place he ended up stepping out of the teleportation formation taking him back to the twenty seventh floor of the tower wasn’t some desolate place with only mortals and a few weaker cultivators around. Instead, it was in the middle of a vast city that spread as far as the eye could see.

The only thing that made him certain he was still in the same small world that should have been the twenty seventh floor was the fact that he recognized some of the mountains within the vast city as having once been part of a mountain range.

Difference being that those mountains that should have been standing amidst a vast primeval forest had been swallowed up by a vast city.

But more shocking than that was the fact that he could clearly sense a presence above the Land Creation Realm from one of those mountains, causing him to rapidly retract his divine sense out of fear that he might accidentally disturb the owner of that terrifying presence.

”What in the world happened to the twenty seventh floor…?” In the end, he could only silently whisper this to himself as he continued looking around himself with a sense of disbelief. Not understanding how the floor he should have been familiar with had suddenly changed nor how this change that should be related to him had not ended up with him receiving a reward like the last time he had ended up changing a floor of the tower by accident.