Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Faced with the mushroom forest that had sprouted around the mushroom infested demon beast corpse hammering away at the world barrier of the small world and replaced the originally serene forest, Xuan Hao didn’t move to attack immediately but instead decided to observe the mushroom colony from afar in an attempt to try and learn more about this unique lifeform he found himself facing off against. Attempting to see if it had any visible weakness that he would be able to take advantage of during a battle.

Originally, the best way was to engage in a direct confrontation with the mushroom colony and use different Daos and methods to test out the strength of the mushroom colony directly using his own strength. The problem with this was the fact that he would lose any potential initiative to launch a devastating blow from the start before the mushroom colony could mount a proper defense... And with the strength outwardly displayed by the mushroom colony having reached the Star Creation Realm, he knew that victory wasn’t certain.

Because of this, his method of finding the strengths and weaknesses of the mushroom colony didn’t come from attacking the mushroom colony himself. Instead, it came from observing the countless demon beasts, spiritual plants and other living beings that were inevitably trapped within the mushroom forest following its sudden expansion. Stuck fighting for their survival, as the mushroom forest was far from hospitable to these different beings.

From the thin purplish red miasma floating throughout the mushroom forest that caused the living being within to hallucinate to the countless toxic and poisonous fumes and spores drifting amidst the thin miasma, within the first few seconds, every single living being below the Domain Lord Realm had perished. Leaving behind only a few wandering demon beasts at the Domain Lord Realm and a single spiritual tree at the Soul Ascension Realm.

Continuing to watch through his divine sense as these last remaining embers of life not part of the newly established mushroom forest slowly disappeared, Xuan Hao not only learnt about the deadly nature of the mushroom forest, but also learnt about different strengths and weaknesses that had become obvious during the last struggle of these last few demon beasts.

First among them being the fact that fire, that he had originally believed to be useful for burning down the mushroom forest and fighting the mushroom colony proved not just to be useless but even seemed to improve the strength of the mushrooms engulfed by the flames.

Next up, several other Daos were similarly proven to have little to no effect on the mushroom forest until finally a few weaknesses became apparent thanks to one of the last remaining demon beasts and the spiritual tree that remained the strongest living thing within the mushroom forest outside the mushroom colony itself.

The weakness shown by the demon beast being the Dao of Ice, while the weakness revealed by the spiritual tree was surprisingly the Dao of Life, a Dao he himself hadn’t mastered beyond the Small Success Realm but had at least comprehended.

Out of the two weaknesses, it was clear that the Dao of Life was the one the mushroom colony feared the most, as the second the Soul Ascension Realm spiritual tree began using its powerful life domain to resist the mushroom forest, the mushrooms around it went into a seemingly berserk state and switched from a passive offensive into an active one. Destroying the spiritual tree before the demon beast using an ice domain perished.

Unfortunately, even though he would have loved to use the Dao of Life to fight the mushroom colony, he also understood that his current comprehension of the Dao of Life wasn’t up to par. Not to mention, he didn’t have any attack methods using the Dao of Life and would only be able to improvise.

The Dao of Ice on the other hand was a Dao he was familiar with and one he had already reached the Perfection Realm in. Although it wouldn’t be anywhere near as useful as the Dao of Life, it would at the very least prove to be incredibly useful in battle against the mushroom colony.

”Now... To deal with the mushroom forest first and create a clear path to the silverback gorilla that the core of the colony is parasitizing...” Narrowing his eyes somewhat as he quietly muttered this to himself while staring towards the silverback gorilla still busy hammering away at the world barrier of the small world, Xuan Hao silently made a decision on his next course of action.

Knowing that it was impossible to rely on the Dao of Space to close the distance between himself and the parasitic mushroom colony, he decided to first crush the environmental advantage created by the parasitic mushroom colony.

Whooosh~

Starting the battle by directly using the Dao of Ice to summon a towering wave more than five hundred meters tall stretching far beyond the area covered by the mushroom forest-

Rumble~!

Before motioning with his hand for the tsunami of crushed ice and snow imbued with the terrifying power of the Dao of Ice to wash over the mushroom forest. Watching as the avalanche like wave of crushed ice and snow effortlessly washed over and crushed the mushroom forest that the mushroom colony had erected as a clear line of defense against him.

ROOOAR-!

But then again, this mushroom forest wasn’t an actual real defense and more so functioned as a warning from the mushroom colony, as the second the tsunami made of crushed ice and snow washed over it, the Star Creation Realm demon beast corpse that the main colony was located on turned around before roaring loudly, as a cloud of purple and yellow spores erupted from its back. Surging forward to meet the incoming tsunami of crushed ice and snow.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The collision of the spores and the tsunami of ice instantly caused a violent reaction as the two forces seemed to be natural enemies, like water and fire.

However, even as the spore cloud seemed to be holding back the tsunami of crushed ice and snow, Xuan Hao infused more spiritual qi into the tsunami, causing it to forcibly push through the cloud of spores saturating the sky above the silverback gorilla demon beast corpse-

BAAAAANG!

Crashing headfirst into the demon beast corpse where the main colony of parasitic mushrooms were located-

Ruuumble!

But of course, Xuan Hao wasn’t naïve enough to believe that this would be enough to deal with such a powerful opponent, as the second the tsunami of crushed ice and snow crashed into the silverback gorilla demon beast corpse, he forced the entirety of the spore cloud to collapse and forced the crushed ice and snow from everywhere else to rapidly gather towards the silverback gorilla demon beast corpse.

Not wasting any time as he directly compressed the crushed ice and snow around the silverback gorilla corpse. Increasing the concentration and power of the Dao of Ice assaulting the parasitic mushroom colony within the block of solid ice that had now formed around the towering demon beast corpse. Turning it into a mountain shaped ice cube.

Still, within this towering ice cube that had now taken the place of the mushroom forest, it could clearly be seen that the mushroom colony was struggling wildly in an attempt to break out.

Unfortunately for these parasitic mushrooms, Xuan Hao had no intention of giving them any time to escape. Continuously adding on new layers of ice to keep the parasitic mushroom colony sealed, while at the same time also mobilizing the terrifying cold qi flowing within the ice cube to assault the parasitic mushroom colony.

For the next thirty minutes, this struggle continued, as the landscape was forcibly altered by Xuan Hao into a frozen wasteland to better accommodate the growing ice cube that sealed the parasitic mushroom colony.

Finally sensing the parasitic mushroom colony that had been fighting with no signs of slowing down, weakening-

Rumble~

But before he could feel happy about this turn of events, the silverback gorilla demon beast corpse that had mostly been swinging its arms wildly to try and dig out of the ice cube to no avail, erupted with a strength far beyond anything it had used so far and in only a few short seconds reached the very edge of the ice cube-

CRAAAAAACK- BAAANG!

Forcibly tearing through it before he could do anything to stop it.

”This- It stimulated the corpse to unleash strength comparable to when it was alive!?” Seeing through what was happening almost immediately, Xuan Hao couldn’t help panicking a bit.

After all, even if this kind of rapid strength increase should be temporary, the parasitic mushroom colony currently had strength comparable to that of the Late Stage and maybe even Peak of the Star Creation Realm.

Strong as he was, this wasn’t something he could contend against with his current strength at the Late Stage of the Land Creation Realm...