Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

At the same time Elder Green Willow put her communication talisman away and put her full focus on getting back to the Myriad Treasure Hall back in the Southern Central Region, all the way back in the Southern Central Region, the elder who had been informed by her about what she had experienced during her time in the Star Shattering Sect along with the meeting she had gone through, turned to another elder standing behind him. ”What do you think about the situation of this newly emerged sect?” Questioning the other party who had been listening in to the conversation from the side without joining. Curious if she had managed to pick up anything he might have missed.

”I don’t know, I can’t tell what category of ancient hidden sect the Star Shattering Sect belongs to. On one side, it needs new blood to fill the ranks, but at the same time it doesn’t seem to be expanding at the same pace other ancient hidden sects wanting to rapidly fill their ranks with new blood does. On the contrary, their expansion is relatively limited and still isolated to the northern region of the continent.” Shaking her head as she said this, the elder turned to look towards a nearby shelf that contained ancient records on the more important ancient hidden sects they had encountered so far and traded with over the years. ”I have long since read through our records, but none of the ancient hidden sects we have encountered so far seem to align with this Star Shattering Sect.”

”I see, looks like it might be a bit more difficult to figure out anything about the Star Shattering Sect, let alone predict their next course of action.” Nodding his head in response to her analysis that aligned with his own thoughts regarding this newly emerged ancient hidden sect, the elder who had communicated with Elder Green Willow turned to look in the direction of a third more senior elder who had just shown up and happened to overhear their discussion. ”So, senior, what do you think about this new ancient hidden sect?”

”Hm? That I wouldn’t know, after all, our knowledge about this ancient hidden sect should be severely lacking from what you two have been saying, but... One thing is for certain, this ancient hidden sect is powerful, thus it shouldn’t be too hard to find information on it. After all, it might change its name, but some things can’t be hidden. Look at everything from the cultivation environment of the sect to the clothes their elders and disciples wear, with that, you should generally be able to figure out what sect this Star Shattering Sect was in the past.

Ah, but I must stress, you need to be cautious in how you do this, as some ancient hidden sects are sensitive to their past identity and might view you looking into them as a hostile action. Looking up ancient records is fine, but a direct investigation is a not allowed or the treasure hall might end up with a powerful enemy.”

”That... Thank you for your guidance senior, I will just look into the information we have on hand and won’t do something that reckless.” Hearing the suggestion and cautionary warning from his senior, the elder who had spoken with Elder Green Willow quickly nodded his head in understanding before dragging the female elder next to him deeper into the ancient record hall to investigate the past sects and try to figure out which of them the Star Shattering Sect might have been.

”Huh? Wha-!?” Of course, the female elder in question had no time to protest as she was dragged into the investigation of the Star Shattering Sect.

Complain as she wanted to about being dragged into this kind of troublesome and undoubtedly difficult investigation of an ancient hidden sect and its identity before it had become an ancient hidden sect, she also understood this kind of job was one of the most rewarding within the Myriad Treasure Hall, thus she couldn’t get herself to resist as she was dragged along. Knowing that if they really managed to uncover something, the reward they received would be second only to Elder Green Willow who had successfully managed to establish a trade agreement with the Star Shattering Sect involving an incomplete dao rune blueprint.

Although the trade in question had yet to go through, leaning on past experience, it was understood that an ancient hidden sect wouldn’t go back on an already established trade agreement unless they were unable to provide what they asked for in return.

And although the phoenix feathers, they had asked for were difficult to obtain under normal circumstances, the current chaos spreading throughout the Southern Central Region would make those keeping them for study on their own more willing to sell them off for some immediate benefits that would be able to help them stay safe during the growing chaos of the region.

In fact, while the Myriad Treasure Hall had also been impacted negatively by the spreading chaos at the start, as the elders and seniors of the Myriad Treasure Hall stabilized the situation, they had slowly managed to reestablish themselves as a place for those with treasures of questionable origin to dump these treasures and avoid potential danger from carrying these potentially stolen treasures around.

Even if the original owners of these treasures or cultivation resources realized they had been sold off to the Myriad Treasure Hall, there was nothing they could do about it other than buy it back reluctantly. After all, while the Myriad Treasure Hall wasn’t the strongest power within the Southern Central Region, it was amongst the true upper echelons of power.

But more importantly than that, the Myriad Treasure Hall acted as a neutral faction that only served to buy and sell rare cultivation resources, those whose things ended up being sold off to them against their will could only lament helplessly about the situation as they themselves also ended up taking advantage of this questionable market set up by the Myriad Treasure Hall.

Of course, most of the time, the stolen things sold to the Myriad Treasure Hall wouldn’t just appear before the owner but would generally appear in an auction far away from the original location where the item had been sold. Unknown to the original owner.

Most of the time, people whose things ended up being stolen merely suspected they had been sold off to the Myriad Treasure Hall.

Maybe because of this, the Myriad Treasure Hall’s branches throughout the Southern Central Region ended up becoming one of the rare few safe locations still bustling with life even as the chaos continued to spread.

Tempting as it might be to attack a branch of the Myriad Treasure Hall, the ones with anything of value in them would generally have someone at the Star Creation Realm stationed to safeguard the auction house in question. Leaving little chance for those who wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to score it rich by raiding the Myriad Treasure Hall.

Not to mention, becoming enemies with one of the riches major powers wasn’t the best of ideas, as their resources reached into every nook and cranny of the Southern Central Region.

Of course, that was without mentioning their far scarier relationship with the countless hidden ancient sects that they were known to trade with.

In fact, the Myriad Treasure Hall’s relationship with ancient hidden sects was the main deterrence against most larger powers who wanted to make a move against this fat lamb.

After all, they had no idea if harming the Myriad Treasure Hall would potentially anger these ancient hidden sects who had established trade relationships with the Myriad Treasure Hall, something that had happened in the past when someone had attempted to rob one of the Myriad Treasure Hall’s branches that just so happened to be the main connection point between it and an ancient hidden sect that had been rather pissed off by having their goods stolen. Taking their anger out on the poor thieves that had barely managed to get away before the seniors from the Myriad Treasure Hall appeared.

Understandably, the greatest intimidation factor in the hands of the Myriad Treasure Hall was the simple fact that no one could say for certain if the branch they planned on attacking was one of the branches working together with an ancient hidden sect, as the Myriad Treasure Hall understandably kept this kind of information hidden from outsiders.

Truly, burrowing the fearsome reputation of ancient hidden sects to guard itself against outsiders was the greatest achievement of the Myriad Treasure Hall and the main reason behind its success over the years, as only with this layer of defense brought by cooperating with so many ancient hidden sects had it been able to smoothly develop and expand to its current size and strength.

Without it, this kind of auction house conglomerate would have been impossible to establish in a deadly place like the Southern Central Region.