Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Spending the rest of the day getting familiar with the palace Gong Cheng had given them to stay in during their stay, Xuan Hao and Yi Min also took the chance to explore the capital of the Blue Shore Kingdom. During which both of them discovered that there were far more powerful cultivators present than they had first expected. Having been hidden away by a formation that covered the capital city and the area a few thousand meters around it.

Not to mention Domain Lord Realm Experts and Soul Ascension Realm Experts, there were around three other Earth Immortal Realm Experts outside Gong Cheng present in the capital of the Blue Shore Kingdom. Making it rather obvious that Gong Cheng wasn't the only person who had chosen to hide away from the different major powers at the edge of the continent.

Even though it wasn't easy to gauge the strength of the three Earth Immortal Realm Experts as they seemed to be trying their best to hide themselves inside a few of the smaller palaces located around the one Gong Cheng had disappeared inside of, Xuan Hao still managed to gauge their strength to some extent… And although they were not as strong as Gong Cheng, they were still a bit stronger than someone who had just broken through to the Earth Immortal Realm.

On the other hand, Yi Min focused her attention on the different Soul Ascension Realm Experts inside the capital city. After all, she herself was in the Soul Ascension Realm at the moment and felt shocked at suddenly encountering so many Soul Ascension Realm Experts in such a remote location where the qi between heaven and earth was far from enough to allow someone to reach the Soul Ascension Realm.

In the end, both Xuan Hao and Yi Min found out that all of the people in the Domain Lord Relam and above were people who had fled from the core region of the continent after falling out with one of the major powers or some of the vassals attached to these major powers.

By talking to some of the Domain Lord and Soul Ascension Realm Experts, they also managed to learn that the Blue Shore Kingdom had existed for far longer than they had first thought. Having existed for over a hundred thousand years before Gong Cheng took control of the kingdom and the ancient formations that protected it a little over ten thousand years ago.

Thinking about it, this also made more sense, as the formations ensuring the dense qi inside the kingdom seemed far more complicated the more Xuan Hao and Yi Min tried to analyze it.

According to Yi Min who was already at the Master Realm in terms of formations, the formation that gathered the qi and guarded the capital city of the kingdom should be above the Grandmaster Realm. Meaning that it should at least be in the Pseudo Saint Realm. Maybe even the Saint Realm. Far beyond what someone like Gong Cheng, who wasn't even a formation master, could create.

Even if there happened to be a formation master at the Grandmaster Realm among the cultivators hiding in the Blue Shore Kingdom, it was unlikely that one of them was behind the formations.

Because of all this, Xuan Hao, and Yi Min both ended up becoming even more interested in the qi gathering formation covering the Blue Shore Kingdom and where the dense qi had come from. In the end, this led to them finding out that the qi gathering formation not only covered the Blue Shore Kingdom, but actually stretched over ten thousand meters out into the ocean. Resulting in both of them guessing that the qi inside the kingdom came from somewhere in the depths of the ocean that the qi gathering formation covered.

Of course, given the dangers that might be lurking beneath the surface, neither of them intended to go in and try to find out about the source of the qi for now.

Even though it was only a little over ten thousand meters off the shore of the continent, the little information both of them had learnt about the demon beasts lurking in the ocean stopped them.

Not to mention, the ocean itself was also special and made it hard for one's divine sense to penetrate too far below the surface, as an example, Yi Min could go a little over a hundred meters below the surface with her divine sense, while Xuan Hao could go close to two thousand meters down.

Although Xuan Hao could see the bottom of the ocean with his divine sense for the first few thousand meters off the shore, the ocean floor suddenly dropped off a cliff and went straight down beyond what he could see with his divine sense after reaching the eight-thousand-meter mark.

Looking at the steep drop and the seemingly endless ocean beyond it, Xuan Hao guessed that the ocean truly began at that point… And it would be far less safe compared to the relatively shallow part of the ocean close to the continent. After all, in the shallow part of the ocean, he could at least see everything swimming around, something that became impossible beyond the eighth-thousand-meter mark with his current strength.

…

Following Xuan Hao and Yi Min spending a day getting familiar with the Blue Shore Kingdom and some of the more powerful cultivators who resided there, it was soon time for them to meet up with Gong Cheng again-

"Haha, I see that both of you have already managed to settle down, I hope both of you are prepared for the next two months."

And as predicted, Gong Cheng appeared in front of them the moment the sun rose, and the first few rays of light hit the ground.

"Yes! Please guide me well senior!"

Answering the question with excitement, Yi Min respectfully bowed her head as a sign of respect.

Following her learning about the fact that Gong Cheng was close to reaching the realm of perfection in the Dao of Blacksmithing, she understood that the next two months might be a chance for her to reach the Grandmaster Realm in Blacksmithing.

After all, the main requirement to reach the Grandmaster Realm was to take the first step in comprehending the Dao of Blacksmithing, thus reaching the Elementary Realm in the Dao of Blacksmithing.

Of course, with Gong Cheng's comprehension of the Dao of Blacksmithing, he should have long since surpassed the Grandmaster Realm, but the method to reach the Pseudo Saint Realm was still unknown to anyone outside of the major powers, thus leaving him stuck at the Grandmaster Realm.

The reason why he had mentioned reaching the Saint Realm before the Pseudo Saint Realm during their first meeting, was due to the fact that there was a rumor among different professions on the continent that one would be able to reach the Saint Realm without breaking through to the Pseudo Saint Realm if one managed to comprehend the dao of one's profession to the realm of perfection… And given that he was close to reaching the realm of perfection and had still not managed to find out how to reach the Pseudo Saint Realm, it was obvious he would think about reaching the Saint Realm and skip over the Pseudo Saint Realm.

In fact, Xuan Hao and Yi Min had learnt that there were many others like Gong Cheng spread around the continent who refused to work for the different major powers and thus ended up stuck in the Grandmaster Realm trying to purse the realm of perfection and become a saint without the need for the major powers support.

Naturally, with so many trying to reach the Saint Realm, there had been someone in the past who had ended up succeeding. Lending some validity to the rumor, but that person ended up being killed by a Celestial Immortal Realm Expert from one of the major powers shortly after news of this spread out.

As a result, to this day, there wasn't a single known Saint Realm Expert on the continent. Although, there might be some hiding inside the core territory of the different major powers or at the edges of the continent. Afraid to end up dead in case the major powers found out about their existence…

"Thank you for taking your time to teach both of us."

Following Yi Min's example, Xuan Hao also decided to bow his head as a sign of respect to the old man. After all, he was his senior when it came to the Dao of Blacksmithing and his age was enough for him to have existed far longer than most powers on the continent, outside of the different major powers. The knowledge he should have gathered during such a long period of time was priceless and something Xuan Hao had already begun thinking about possibly using to help out the Star Shattering Sect.

After all, if Pei Yang could be recruited, couldn't the old man in front of him be recruited as well…?