Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

As the time for the meeting regarding the new sect alliance of the Sky Empire approached, Xuan Hao was spending his time teaching his three disciples, holding a few lectures for the rest of the disciples, increasing his expertise of the different profession he had learned, and most importantly… Getting closer and closer to fully merging his ice domain and sword domain fully together into a single domain!

Although he was only a single step away from succeeding at this point in time, this single step had caused him to stagnate for close to two months at this point in time!

To try and breakthrough this barrier that had appeared in front of him, Xuan Hao decided to focus on finding unique cultivation mantra. The reason for this was rather simple…

[Sect Quest: Gather Unique Cultivation Mantras for the Sect.]

[Description: The sect is lacking when it comes to the different cultivation mantras available for the disciples. Gather 10 unique cultivation mantras. Not one can be the same and all of them have to at least reach the Earth Rank.]

[Unique Cultivation Mantras: 9/10]

[Reward: Enter a State of Enlightenment for one hour]

The reward for completing the unique cultivation mantra gathering quest might be the key to overcoming the barrier that prevented him from merging his two domains together perfectly into a single domain.

Even if the state of enlightenment only lasted for a single hour, all he needed was a single push and he should be able to successfully merge his ice and sword domain together into a single unique domain.

"Only one more left and I will be able to complete it." Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao could not help remembering the reward he had gotten from completing the lecture sect quest just a few days ago.

Not only did he not manage to get his hand on a new unique cultivation mantra, but he didn't even get a good cultivation mantra!

Instead, what he ended up with was an exact copy of a cultivation mantra that already existed inside the Grand Library of the sect.

To be honest, Xuan Hao had not expected for something like that to happen… But then again, the Star Shattering Sect had gained a rather large collection of cultivation mantras of the Earth Rank, so it was inevitable that he would accidently end up getting a cultivation mantra that already existed.

Originally, he had planned to try and use the enlightenment to overcome the barrier that prevented his domain from advancing before he would have to leave for the capital of the Sky Empire in preparation for the sect alliance officially being established.

However, now that he had failed to gain the last unique cultivation mantra he required, this was no longer possible…

"Whether or not my ice and sword domain manage to merge together won't matter too much. After all, I will not be able to breakthrough to the Ninth Stage of the Domain Lord Realm and then the Soul Ascension Realm before reaching the Sky Empire…" Shaking his head as he said this to himself, Xuan Hao stood up before heading outside.

Even if he could not reach the Soul Ascension Realm before going to the capital of the Sky Empire, Xuan Hao did not worry too much about his safety.

After all, reading through the book that Yi Min had given him that would record what was happening in the Sky Empire, Xuan Hao understood just how chaotic the Sky Empire was getting over the past few years.

Not only had the plague god begun to slowly establish themselves as the fourth major religion of the Sky Empire, but the Followers of the Fire God and the Cult of the Scarlet Moon had failed in stopping them from doing this.

The main reason for this, was that these two religious organisations had fallen out with The Order of the Sky God, one of the three major religious groups already established in the Sky Empire… Because of this, every time the Followers of the Fire God and the Cult of the Scarlet Moon tried attacking the church of the plague god. Mysterious people would always appear to attack them from behind to assist the church of the plague god…

Although they already understood who these people belonged to, there was nothing they could do about it. After all, even if the Order of the Sky God had been severely weakened, their main supporting pillar, the cardinal, was still alive and well!

Having read about this, Xuan Hao was rather surprised that the church of the plague god had actually managed to establish themselves in the Sky Empire. However, the location that they had done so was nowhere near the Star Shattering Sect, so Xuan Hao didn't really care too much about it…

On the other hand, he was far more concerned about the increased appearance of demonic cultivators in the areas close to the Frozen Wastelands. Although the demonic cultivators appearing were at most comparable to Nascent Soul Realm cultivators, Xuan Hao still felt worried given how close the Star Shattering Sect was to the Frozen Wasteland.

The only good news about this, was that the demonic cultivators increased appearances was not only in the places close to the borders of the Sky Empire where the Star Shattering Sect was located, but also at the borders of other empires.

One particular empire was especially unlucky, as a demonic cultivator at the True Demon Realm had appeared. The True Demon Realm… This was the demonic cultivators name for a realm with the same strength as that of the Soul Ascension Realm!

It was easy to imagine just how terrifying the appearance of such a demonic cultivator had been to an empire…

Even with the Soul Ascension Realm Experts of the empire in question moving out the moment the demonic cultivator appeared, it still managed to destroy over a dozen kingdoms before they managed to make their way over.

The fight that ensued afterwards was even more devastating, as the fight ended up causing the destruction of close to a hundred kingdoms before the demonic cultivator was being forced to retreat back into the Frozen Wasteland.

If such a demonic cultivator appeared on the Sky Empire's border with the Frozen Wasteland where the Star shattering Sect was located, Xuan Hao could easily imagine how bad it would be for the Star Shattering Sect.

Even if the sect could survive by hiding inside the Chaotic Qi Formation, the formation itself might end up catching the attention of these Soul Ascension realm Experts.

Although Xuan Hao was confident in the Chaotic Qi Formation, he had no idea if it had the strength to deal with multiple Soul Ascension Realm Experts and if it could be avoided, he didn't want to find out either-

"Hm? Qing Yi? What are you doing here?"

"Master! I was looking for you!"

Seeing Qing Yi suddenly appearing in front of him with a haggard, yet energetic look on her face, Xuan Hao could not help feeling worried that something bad might have happened.

"What is it? Did you run into any problems with your cultivation? Maybe some questions regarding alchemy?"

"Yes and no… From what Chu Yang told me, I know that you helped him strengthen his foundation before he tried breaking through to the Nascent Soul Realm! Given that I already reached the Peak of the Core Formation Realm, I wanted to ask master if you could help me out with strengthening my foundation as well…"

Going from overly energetic to a quieter tone towards the end, Qing Yi turned nervous as she waited for Xuan Hao's response.

"Oh? It's just this? Of course, I will be more than happy to help you. Go rest for a few hours and we will start tomorrow morning."

"Thank you master, I will go rest now!"

Whoosh~

Hearing her master's positive response, Qing Yi sped off as she excitedly made her way back to her own room to rest.

"… How energetic…"

Not knowing what else to say when seeing how excited Qing Yi was, Xuan Hao could only shake his head before making his way outside the small palace.

During the past few months, Qing Yi was not the only one that had improved rapidly after focusing more on her cultivation due to Chu Yang's breakthrough to the Nascent Soul Realm, but Chu Yang and Bai Ning had also managed to improve.

Chu Yang had reached the Peak of the Nascent Soul realm and had grown familiar with his strength after practicing with the different Nascent Soul Realm Elders of the sect and his master. At this point he had already reached the Peak of the First Stage of the Nascent Soul Realm and was only one step away from reaching the Second Stage of the Nascent Soul Realm.

However… Among the three disciples of Xuan Hao, the one who improved the most was not Qing Yi or Chu Yang, but Bai Ning!

Over the short period of only a few months, he had managed to go all the way from the First Stage of the Foundation Establishment Realm to the Ninth Stage of the Foundation Establishment Realm!

Even compared to Chu Yang and Qing Yi, Bai Ning's speed of cultivation was by far the fastest, the only bad thing about his rapid improvement, was the fact that Bai Ning had not spent much of his time learning combat techniques or movement techniques.

Instead, spending most of his time improving his blacksmithing skills and chatting with the different elders from the Sea of a Thousand Furnaces, a place he had grown extremely fond of ever since moving to the Seventh Star Peak…