Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Entering Bright Stone City openly without making themselves look suspicious, the group easily found themselves blending in with the surrounding wandering cultivators who similarly avoided revealing their true appearance. A best-case scenario, as they had no intention of alerting the Star Shattering Sect to their presence.

Not just because it would be detrimental to them, but also because their strength was far from strong enough to escape in case the Star Shattering Sect had any hostile intentions towards them. In a way, outside of being sent to investigate the Star Shattering Sect, a not overtly stated intention with their presence was also to gauge how hostile the Star Shattering Sect was to outside forces entering their borders when they would inevitably have to start trying to establish contact with the Star Shattering Sect.

Unknown to these few investigators, the force behind them had dealt with more than just a single ancient hidden sect in the past and understood how some of these ancient sects were extremely hostile to any forces that dared step inside their borders while others would remain neutral and ignore you as long as you didn’t provoke them, with the latter being far easier to establish cooperation or potential trade with.

But this had nothing to do with the investigators who were completely unaware of the secondary purpose their later visit to the Star Shattering Sect would serve, as they began to slowly and methodically comb through Bright Stone City. First splitting up to get a grasp of the outer edges of the city before grouping up to investigate the core of the city where the few shops under the Star Shattering Sect was located.

”This really is nothing more than some normal free city run by wandering cultivators. Only a bit more orderly thanks to the presence of the Star Shattering Sect...” And unsurprisingly, the group of investigators were far from impressed with this city that looked ordinary if one ignored the fact that it was under the Star Shattering Sect.

The only hope they had in finding something of interest within this city was at the core where they wouldn’t just find the shops under the Star Shattering Sect, but also the disciples of the sect who visited Bright Stone City, as most of those disciples tended to gather around the core of the city with only a rare few found wandering around the outer edges of the city.

Not that they hadn’t attempted to converse with those lone disciples when encountering them, it was just that these disciples who decided to mingle with the different wandering cultivators were far more alert and harder to get information from compared to those at the center of the city and while it might be possible to use their experience to probe for information, it just wasn’t worth the effort when they could just find a far easier to fool disciple at the center of the city.

Following the one who had just complained about how normal Bright Stone City was, the group of cloaked individuals soon enough found themselves within the core of the city.

And...

They found nothing shocking or unique within the core of the city. The only thing that did evoke a bit of interest was the clear lack of the Explorer Union’s presence within the city. Having essentially been replaced by an exchange hall run directly by the Star Shattering Sect, but then again, this was hardly surprising given this was how most cities run under ancient hidden sects worked. Never allowing others to establish any kind of branch that was that close to them without some kind of special trade relationship or another sort of agreement in place.

”How disappointing...” having partly been hoping to find something unique that would count as valuable information for them to take back, the group was obviously a bit disappointed with this outcome, though they didn’t allow it to slow them down. Soon enough splitting up again after sharing the things they had encountered during their exploration of the outer part of Bright Stone City.

Knowing that it would be difficult for them to approach a disciple of the Star Shattering Sect without arousing any suspicion if they walked up together. After all, though the younger disciples of the sect might not be that cautious, they would still find it suspicious if a group numbering a little over ten suddenly walked up on them. At the same time, it would also allow them to blend in better and to better sell this identity, they also decided to split up into groups of two or three people. Making them seem more like they were just a small group of wandering cultivators or a pair of friends that had just arrived at Bright Stone City for the first time.

This way, it would also be far easier for them to try and gather information through the younger disciples of the Star Shattering Sect, as they could mask their probing questions with the identity of someone who had just arrived and wanted to learn about Bright Stone City. Of course, at the same time also showing an obvious interest in the Star Shattering Sect that stood behind Bright Stone City.

Surprisingly enough, they soon enough realized that the effort put into blending in with the crowd to try and slowly extract information from the younger disciples of the Star Shattering Sect present within Bright Stone City was a complete waste of time.

Not because these younger disciples were incredibly shrewd and saw through their disguises as wandering cultivators the second they stood before them, but instead because it was far easier than they had originally anticipated to obtain information about the Star Shattering Sect from these younger disciples. Nothing like what they had expected when they had first learnt about this task of secretly investigating an ancient hidden sect in the first place.

To mention one specific encounter, the one who had complained about the city’s low quality earlier had ended up deciding to carry out this task on his own and ended up running into a disciple from the Star Shattering Sect who had just reached the Core Formation Realm and had left the sect for the first time. Clearly excited about taking on a demon beast extermination task issued by his sect.

Because of this, all he needed to do was offer a bit of advice for travelling outside and the young disciple was more than happy to answer his questions regarding the Star Shattering Sect.

Although a young disciple was bound to not know much about the full strength of the Star Shattering Sect nor the true extent of its hidden resources, it was ultimately still someone part of the Star Shattering Sect. Allowing a general picture of the Star Shattering Sect to take shape when it came to the Star Shattering Sect’s treatment of its younger disciples and through that, it wasn’t that difficult to get a glimpse of the true strength of the Star Shattering Sect.

But no matter how prepared the investigator, sneakily trying to learn more about the Star Shattering Sect had prepared himself, he was rendered speechless when this young disciple truly started talking about the Star Shattering Sect.

Not because the information fell below expectations, but instead because a large part of the information the younger disciple shared with him about the Star Shattering Sect was something he couldn’t comprehend nor even start to understand.

For one, he learnt about the apparent true name of the Earth Immortal Realm, that this disciple referred to as the Dao Seed Realm and at the same time he also learnt that even a simple disciple at the Core Formation had knowledge far beyond what was normal for someone at the Core Formation Realm when it came to the cultivation realms above the Core Formation Realm.

Not to mention the cultivation realms he knew about, this young disciple also ended up unknowingly revealing the cultivation environment and different resources he enjoyed as a disciple of the Star Shattering Sect... And to say he was jealous would be an understatement, as he realized this young disciple who had only just reached the Core Formation Realm had a better cultivation environment than someone like himself.

While he might not be someone at the Earth Immortal Realm- or rather Dao Seed Realm as the young disciple referred to the realm as, he was still someone at the Soul Ascension Realm.

And yet...

He now found himself feeling inferior to a mere core formation realm disciple.

The shock of this reality was so great that he froze for a good few seconds as the younger disciple of the Star Shattering Sect turned around to leave. Forcing him to seek out another young disciple of the Star Shattering Sect, part of him hoping that the other disciple had lied to him just now.

Unfortunately, even as he found himself questioning more disciples of the Star Shattering Sect, it soon enough became clear that he was indeed being treated worse than someone in the Core Formation Realm.

Worse yet, it was just a normal disciple, not some carefully nurtured elite...