Cultivating Disciples To Breakthrough

by Stayrr

Within a quiet pavilion on top of a lonely mountain peak, Xuan Hao slowly opened his eyes with a bewildered look on his face, he had transmigrated into a cultivation world as an elder of the Flying Sword Sect. He was even an expert at the Nascent Soul Realm, who had the power to easily destory an entire city with a wave of his hand. Most importantly, he had a system that allowed h

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Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough #Chapter 161: The Splendor of The Great Plague God - Read Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough Chapter 161: The Splendor of The Great Plague God Online - All Page - Novel Bin

Chapter 161: The Splendor of The Great Plague God

While the Heavenly Sky Kingdom beginning to fight back against the plague outbreak, the Azure Sky Kingdom on the other hand were finally beginning to see the effects of the plague as it finally managed to reach a small town at the border of the central region.

The worry of the common people began to increase as unrest inside the Azure Sky Kingdom grew day by day, with each day bringing about more and more bad news of the plague. Completely overshadowing the recent victory at the border against the Heavenly Sky Kingdom, resulting in the borders of the Azure Sky Kingdom growing bigger than ever before.

But something like this did not mean much to the common people as they would be worried about the plague spreading throughout the kingdom, compared to the Heavenly Sky Kingdom, the Azure Sky Kingdom did not respond to the plague at all and instead chose to ignore it.

It was at this point, when the people were suffering under the plague not knowing what to do, that people calling themselves priests of the great plague god arrived with a way to cure them.

At first people hesitated but seeing as the Azure Sky Kingdom's higher-ups did nothing, they decided to try and were happily surprised upon finding out that the believers of the great plague god had indeed helped cure the plague they were suffering under.

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Like this, the splendor of the great plague god spread through the Azure Sky Kingdom.

Legend told about how the great plague god earned his name after curing countless plagues in both the mortal realm and the heavens above, something the common people of the Azure Sky Kingdom were more than happy to believe in after seeing the plague they were just suffering under disappear after a few blessings from the priests of the great plague god.

Other than that, the priests did not want anything from them after helping! They only asked that they thanked not them but the great plague god who allowed for them to help those who were in need.

"The great plague god ask not for any payment, all he asks for is a simple thank you…" Somewhere at the borders of the Azure Sky Kingdom inside the house of a small village that had been one of the first places hit by the plague, a tall middle-aged man dressed in a black robe with the crest of the plague god embroidered into it smiled kindly at the young woman kneeling down besides him with a small coin purse in her hands.

"B-but how can I ever repay you for this…? Without your help, my daughter would have…!" Trying her best not to cry when she thought about how her daughter had been suffering over the past week, the young woman did not know what to do and had ended up asking one of the priests that came from the recently popular church of the plague god. The initial posting of this chapter occurred via N0v3l.B11n.

Thinking back, the young woman realized that it had been the best decision she had ever made as the 'Great' Azure Sky Kingdom did not send any help to the common people… She had even heard rumours about people being blocked from entering the central region if they came from any of the areas the plague had spread through, even if they never visited the area for years!

Looking back up at the middle-aged man kindly smiling at her refusing to take her money, the young woman did not know what to do.

"You don't need to be so worried, put your faith in the plague god and thank him, not me. I'm merely a conduit for his great power." As he finished, the black robed man did not wait for any response before turning to leave the small room before the young woman managed to react.

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The young woman stared blindly in the direction the priest had left in for a short moment before going over to the bed to check up on her daughter that was looking like a normal young girl sleeping. Nothing compared to her deadly white face, high fever and constant coughing from earlier.

"Put your faith in the plague god…" Muttering this to herself, the young woman felt extremely thankful to this unknown plague god that had saved her daughter, so with all her heart, she silently thanked this unknown god.

Among the cities at the border areas, she was not alone as similar events happened in many places, with the priests of the plague god gaining an increasingly good reputation among the common people of the Azure Sky Kingdom.

The Azure Sky Kingdom did not pay too much attention to a few rumours among the common people about magical priests appearing at their border to cure the plague.

For most of the higher-ups, it sounded more like the common people trying to cope with the fact that the plague was starting to go out of hand.

The thing they focused on at the moment was their war with the Heavenly Sky Kingdom and they already knew that a cure for the plague had appeared there, it was only a matter of time before they got their hands on it.

At that point the common people would be able to calm down again.

This was the thought of most people among the Azure Sky Kingdom's higher-ups, all oblivious to the fact that a certain bishop from church of the plague god had already considered the Azure Sky Kingdom to be its main target for conversion now that the cure had appeared and complicated things in the Heavenly Sky Kingdom.

It was at this moment that the Azure Sky Kingdom suddenly appeared, not caring about the common people, allowing the plague to spread freely without doing much to stop it.

Was this not a perfect opportunity for bishop to convert the common people to the church of the plague god?

With this, most of the bishop's resources and people began to focus on the Azure Sky Kingdom, with only a few of them remaining inside the Heavenly Sky Kingdom to find out where the cure came from.

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Chapter 162: Secret Realm?

With things returning back to a relatively calm state after the cure for the plague started circulating among the common people of the Heavenly Sky Kingdom, Xuan Hao and the rest of the Flying Sword Sect happily welcomed the two Wang brothers back from the border.

More than happy to send a few resources and artifacts to the Heavenly Sky Kingdom in return for not needing to have anyone from their side stationed at the new border indefinitely. Waiting until either the Azure Sky Kingdom decided to attack or chose to retreat.

"Maybe I should start participating in more things outside of just cultivating and teaching Qing Yi and Chu Yang every now and then…" Staring down at the two Wang brothers returning under the happy cheers of the surrounding disciples, Xuan Hao could not help but mutter a bit to himself as he thought about his current position within the sect.

For everyone except a few people, Xuan Hao was just a somewhat unknown Core Elder inside the Flying Sword Sect. Most thinking he was someone from the older generation who still upheld his youthful appearance, not believing the rumours that he was only 21 years old.

"I should begin participating more in some of the events Elder Song sets up all the time, I should at least show my face a bit more around the sect…" Smiling to himself as he decided to participate in some of the events set up by Elder Song. Maybe he could even give a few pointers to them and act like a proper elder…

"Hmph?" As Xuan Hao was thinking about spending a bit more time interacting with the other elders and disciples of the Flying Sword Sect, a message appeared on his communication talisman.

"Who? Ah, Chi Hu!" Not knowing who would contact him when he was already at the sect, Xuan Hao was pleasantly surprised when he found out the person in question was Chi Hu. The person who just recently managed to breakthrough to the Nascent Soul Realm at the Third Star Peak.

Back then, other than inviting him to join the Flying Sword Sect, Xuan Hao had also given him a way to contact him through his communication talisman as he was leaving. This way, he could ask if there was something he wanted to discuss further in regard to becoming a Core Elder of the Flying Sword Sect.

This way, he would also not have to personally come to the Flying Sword Sect and ask. After all, how would Chi Hu know whether the Flying Sword Sect would take kindly to him rejecting the offer to join them or just outright killing him to prevent any of the other sects from gaining another Nascent Soul Realm Expert?

"A secret realm!?" Reading through the message that Chi Hu had sent over, Xuan Hao could not help but let out a surprised voice as he read through the message.

Chi Hu noted that he had discovered the entrance to a secret realm when travelling around the Heavenly Sky Kingdom. Other than him, there was another dozen or so Nascent Soul Realm cultivators present, most of them being lone wandering cultivators like himself or from smaller sects inside the Heavenly Sky Kingdom with only one or maybe two Nascent Soul Realm Experts in the earlier stages of the Nascent Soul Realm in them.

The discovery of a secret realm would be something that would alert all the surroundings kingdoms and if not handled correctly, could spell disaster for the Heavenly Sky Kingdom. If the secret realm was powerful enough, it might even alert the Sky Empire into action! But something like that was highly unlikely.

What was a secret realm even in the first place? This question had once been on Xuan Hao's mind when he overheard the Sect Master talking about the appearance of a new secret realm in a kingdom outside the borders of the Sky Empire resulting in the destruction of said kingdom almost overnight.

Back then, Xuan Hao had been curious about why the appearance of a secret realm could cause the destruction of an entire kingdom.

What he found out was quite astonishing, a secret realm was an independent space of sorts created by an extremely powerful Domain Lord close to reaching an even higher realm or in rare cases like the kingdom, someone above the Domain Lord Realm!

The independent space was normally not referred to as a secret realm and was only referred to as a secret realm after the past owner either passed away of left the independent space.

Manipulating space was something all Domain Lords learned about upon reaching the Domain Lord Realm and was a requirement to fly, but opening an independent space was not something any Domain Lord was cable of doing! Only those at the peak of the realm was cable of this and that was without considering the large quantity of rare and precious resources required to set up an independent space in the first place being large enough to even cause large empires like the Sky Empire to feel pain.

What miraculous use did an independent space have that made these Pinnacle Experts want to spend the time, effort and resource to set up one in the first place? This was something Xuan Hao did not know, as the few books he read never mentioned anything about the use an independent space would bring to a cultivator.

All the things written about secret realms was mostly about the countless treasures and opportunities hidden within, along with the many dangers. Ranging from traps and deadly formations to demon beasts that had lived in there for countless years.

Thinking about both the danger and opportunity that the secret realm could bring; Xuan Hao felt a bit troubled on how to deal with it.

On one hand, part of him wanted to go and explore the secret realm that Chi Hu had found, and the other part felt that it would be too dangerous and staying back at the sect to quietly cultivate would be a way better option for him. NvεlB¡n: Inspiring Minds, Illuminating Souls.

"Hah… I can't keep just sitting around quietly all the time, I have to at least take some risk from time to time or I won't ever be able to truly reach the peak in the future without any form of struggle…" Coming to a decision, Xuan Hao informed his two disciples about him leaving for a few days before using his sword to fly in direction of the secret realm mentioned by Chi Hu.

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Chapter 163: The Secret Realm Opens

The location of the secret realm was at the border of the Flying Sword Sects northern territory, close to the area controlled by the Black Rose Sect.

The entrance to the secret realm was located in a small isolated valley, with the shape of the entrance being a giant gate with nothing special to it other than its enormous size reaching close to 20 meters in height.

"Ah! When will this damn secret realm open? If it does not open soon, we will never have a chance to enter when those strong ones find out…!" At this moment, the group of people gathered in the small valley had exceed more than a hundred people. All of them being experts at the peak of the Core Formation Realm or earlier stages of the Nascent Soul Realm.

The nervousness and fear at the fact that the secret realm had yet to open yet even though it had already surfaced for several days caused most to feel like time was running out with the chances of the information about a secret realm appearing leaking growing more and more.

Chi Hu was among the people waiting for the secret realm to open as he stared nervously down at the communication talisman in his hands. At first, he did not want to ask for Elder Xuan's help as they barely knew each other, but with the number of Nascent Soul Realm Experts stronger than him growing every hour, Chi Hu decided to contact Xuan Hao and ask for help.

Even if he knew there was a chance that he would not get anything from doing this, Chi Hu still decided to do it. At the very least from what he could gather over the past few weeks, the Flying Sword Sect had a positive reputation outside their Vice Sect Master who seemed to have quite a temper.

Other than that, Elder Xuan had been kind and friendly to him even before he broke through to the Nascent Soul Realm.

"I will just consider it me being bad at judging people if I'm wrong…" Shaking his head when he thought about it, Chi Hu decided to trust his instincts and trust that Elder Xuan would not be someone with evil intentions. The initial instance of this chapter being available happened at N0v3l.Bin.

Rumble~

Just as Chi Hu was lost in thought, a large earthquake shook the surroundings as the ground began to shake more and more violently.

Swoosh~

With the sound of a violent wind coming from above as the earthquake intensified. The qi between heaven and earth descended into the giant gate before several mythical phenomena of true dragons and phoenixes manifested in the air above the gate.

"The secret realm is finally opening!"

"Ah, I will finally have a chance to reach the Nascent Soul Realm!"

"Hurry inside when the gate opens! This large disturbance will surely have alerted people within a few thousand miles radius!" As the giant gate located at the bottom of the valley began shining in all kinds of colours, as true dragons and phoenixes made out of qi manifested and floated around the gate. The surrounding cultivators all got excited as they prepared to rush into the secret realm the moment it opened up.

Boom!

With a large explosion, the qi within the surrounding hundred-mile radius was instantly drawn towards the giant as it slowly began to open, revealing a large ancient forest hidden inside.

"It's open, everyone, let's go before those bigshots show up and force us all away!" Upon hearing the voice of one excited wandering cultivator, the rest of the people present were all excited as they all began to rush towards the entrance into the secret realm.

"How dumb… Don't they know that entering a new secret realm first is one of the most dangerous things…?" Shaking his head, a bit when he saw the bunch of over eager people rushing into the world hidden behind the gate, Chi Hu found a place to sit down and wait for Xuan Hao to show up.

ROAR!

"Argh, help me!" Chi Hu's prediction was right as only a few moments after the first people entered the secret realm, the roar of a demon beast could be heard followed by the terrified scream of a male cultivator.

This scream stopped the few people just about to enter as they saw the person excitedly calling for them to enter earlier torn to shreds by a giant lion demon beast at the peak of the Core Formation Realm, but this hesitation to enter only lasted for a moment before they charged inside. The benefit and chance a secret realm could bring them was not something they could give up on just from seeing someone dying in front of them! This represented a chance to reach the Domain Lord Realm!

"Roar!" The lion demon beast had just finished the cultivator off and was about to enjoy a well-deserved meal, when a few dozen people at the Peak of the Core Formation Realm and a few at the Nascent Soul Realm suddenly appeared and launched a barrage of attacks towards it.

"Roaaaar?" Letting out a pitiful roar, the lion demon beast at the peak of the Core Formation Realm died under the attack of the large group of cultivators. Not knowing why so many humans had suddenly appeared out of the blue to attack him.

The group of cultivators did not stay together for long as they quickly split up into their own small groups or went alone to explore the secret realm after the death of the lion demon beast.

"Hah… Seems like I was a bit too slow to inform Elder Xuan…" Smiling a bit wryly as he saw that only he himself and a few others remained outside the gate, waiting for their friends to explore the secret realm, Chi Hu regrated that he did not inform Elder Xuan at an earlier point in time.

"Oh, I think I arrived just on time!" As Chi Hu was lamenting to himself about not informing Xuan Hao earlier, a familiar voice echoed out behind him.

"Elder Xuan!" Turning around, Chi Hu excitedly called out as he saw Xuan Hao standing a few meters behind him dressed in a plain white robe. Looking like a normal wandering cultivator that just happened to pass by.

Chi Hu did not think this was weird as the treasures inside a secret realm was not something that the current Flying Sword Sect could bear to obtain without incurring a sect destroying catastrophe. Staying lowkey and anonymous was the best idea, so coming dressed as an elder of the Flying Sword Sect would just draw unwanted attention and future trouble to the sect.

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Chapter 164: Entering the Secret Realm

A few minutes before Xuan Hao arrived at the valley where the secret realm was located, he was flying as fast as he could when a large earthquake suddenly appeared and shook the surroundings. The earthquake in itself was not anything to scuff at as the few villages nearby saw a few houses collapsing under the sudden earthquake.

"Is the entrance to the secret realm opening already?" Looking in the direction that the earthquake stemmed from, Xuan Hao quickly found out that it was the same location as the entrance to the secret realm that Chi Hu had told him about.

Whoosh~

The sound of a violent wind could be heard as the qi between heaven and earth suddenly began in a hundred-mile radius around the secret realms entrance.

This was one of the most common ways to identify a secret realm opening as the amount of qi they devoured in the process of opening was large enough to be sensed from far away. Xuan Hao even believed that he would have been able sense such a large change in the qi between heaven and earth even if he was far outside the Heavenly Sky Kingdom… Let alone when he was already inside it.

"Looks like the entrance is indeed opening… The Black Rose Sect is located nearby, I should hurry so I can enter before they arrive." Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao glanced over in the direction where the Black Rose Sect was located before flying in the direction of the secret realms entrance as fast as possible.

…

Flying for another few minutes, Xuan Hao soon spotted the giant gate entrance to the secret realm along with Chi Hu standing nervously a few meters away, seemingly waiting for someone.

Xuan Hao smiled a bit when he saw this as he chose a location a bit away before descending down from the sky without any of the still remaining cultivators seeing him in the process.

"Hah… Seems like I was a bit too slow to inform Elder Xuan…" Upon closing the distance, Xuan Hao managed to hear Chi Hu mutter to himself, clearly regretting the fact that he had not informed him about the secret realm earlier.

"Oh, I think I arrived just on time!" Walking up behind Chi Hu, Xuan Hao called out to him as Chi Hu promptly reacted by turning around turned around.

"Elder Xuan! It's great to see you managed to arrive, I was just about to enter the secret realm myself before some bigshot came and blocked the entrance!" Chi Hu greeted happily before he complained a bit about the fact that someone would most likely come to block people from entering soon.

"Indeed, we should hurry inside, or we might really end up being blocked from entering the secret realm." Shaking his head upon thinking about this, Xuan Hao and Chi Hu quickly made their way inside the secret realm and was greeted by a majestic ancient forest spreading out as far as the eye could see in all directions.

"Hm… It's most likely a forest used to nurture demon beasts." Looking up at the different ancient trees reaching for the sky above and rich foliage below, Chi Hu muttered to himself as he began inspecting the surroundings that they found themselves in.

"A forest used to nurture demon beasts?" Hearing what Chi Hu said, Xuan Hao began to observe the surrounding environment as well and there were indeed a few marks left behind indicating the true use of the forest.

Looking around, Xuan Hao deducted that the large ancient forest was most likely not only used to nurture demon beasts but was also used like a test of sorts. Similar to how the Flying Sword Sect sent their new disciples into the demon beast forest that they kept under their control. The initial instance of this chapter being available happened at N0v3l.Bin.

"Only, how strong would the power behind this secret realm be for their tests to be so hard…?" Looking down on the corpse of the unlucky lion demon beast from earlier, Xuan Hao very clearly noticed that it had the strength at the Peak of the Core Formation Realm when it was still alive!

For someone to keep demon beasts like this and rear them to be used in a test…? Xuan Hao clearly felt that the power behind this secret realm was not something ordinary. Maybe it was from a past long fallen empire or maybe the testing ground of one of a past sect that could rival a kingdom?

"Elder Xuan, look over here!" Interrupting his train of thought, Chi Hu excitedly called out to him as Xuan Hao moved his sight over in the direction that Chi Hu was pointing.

"A road?"

"Yes! It must lead to somewhere important in the secret realm! Let's hurry, the ones who entered before us should have already found this road. If we are not fast enough, there might not be anything left for us when we arrive!" Still full of excitement, Chi Hu hurried Xuan Hao as both of them soon made their way down the road leading deeper into the ancient forest.

Keeping vigilant for any demon beasts that might attack them along the road.

…

"Hm? This is… In the territory of the Sky Empire? A new secret realm appeared and from the looks of it, it should be from someone at the early stage of the Soul Ascension Realm… But when did someone at that stage appear on the borders of the Sky Empire?" Inside a dark and gloomy room big enough to put the throne room of Heavenly Sky Kingdom to shame, an elderly man covered in a pitch-black robe had a thoughtful look on his face as his divine sense spread out and moved in the direction of a large pair of doors leading outside the dark and gloomy room.

At the same time, a person standing outside guarding the large pair of doors immediately felt a shiver go down his spine as he felt the tremendous divine sense bearing down on him.

Stopping himself from shaking, the guard knew what to do and made his way inside the dark and gloomy room, as he kneeled down in front of the elderly man sitting in a meditative position at the centre. Waiting for him to speak.

"A new secret realm appeared at the borders of the Sky Empire. Go and check out where this secret realm stems from, if it is anything worthwhile, inform me about it. If not, just ignore it and let the Sky Empire have it for themselves…" Hearing the elderly man's order, the guard quickly bowed before taking his leave through the giant pair of doors as a new person soon appeared in front of them to replace him.

Similar scenes like this could be seen happening in the different empires and powerful sects surrounding the Sky Empire as all of them sent someone over to check the appearance of the new secret realm.

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Chapter 165: The Giant Pagoda

"I see something up ahead! I think it might be ruins of whatever power controlled this secret realm in the past." Continuing the journey through the secret realm without encountering too many demon beasts along the way other than a few in the Core Formation Realm, Xuan Hao and Chi Hu soon came upon the first manmade structure in the secret realm.

Chi Hu did not wait in the slightest as he rushed over to see this ruin as Xuan Hao followed closely behind.

The ruin in question was a giant pagoda with nine floors, but by now it had decayed to the point that some of the walls had collapsed, causing it to look like it would collapse at any moment with even a tiny amount of force generated by the calm wind blowing through the ancient forest.

Other than them, Xuan Hao also observed a few other cultivators having arrived at the scene before them excitedly searching through all the different floors of the pagoda, with most of them concentrated at the top of pagoda where the precious scrolls and techniques were normally stored as the Nascent Soul Realm Experts tried to comb over the large amount of information with the help of their divine sense.

Walking up to the pagoda, Xuan Hao and Chi Hu both stopped for a moment as they took in the sheer size of the pagoda as it towered up in front of them.

Xuan Hao and Chi Hu both let their divine sense spread out as they began to inspect the pagoda. The few Nascent Soul Realm Experts on the inside stopped their reading session as they felt the brand-new divine sense wash over them, but quickly went back to reading upon discovering that it was just another two cultivators and not some powerful demon beast showing up.

The interior of the pagoda was filled with rows upon rows of bookshelves filled with both books and scrolls. This continued on from the first all the way up to the ninth floor of the pagoda, just reading through this amount of information, even with the help of one's divine sense, would easily take several years.

This was also the reason why the Nascent Soul Realm Experts had made their way up to the Ninth floor of the pagoda where the most valuable things were usually stored, so they wouldn't waste any time on the lower quality techniques stored inside the pagoda.

Chi Hu also saw this and quickly rushed inside the pagoda and made his way to the top before joining the other Nascent Soul Realm cultivators as all of them quietly stayed together, recording all different techniques present on the ninth floor.

Xuan Hao saw this and decided not to join him as he instead decided to walk around the first floor to see if he could find any history related books that could give an idea as to where the secret realm came from and possible locations to other ruins inside the secret realm.

Given that Chi Hu had contacted him for help with the secret realm, Xuan Hao had already expected for him to join the Flying Sword Sect afterwards, so he was not really too worried about the techniques on the top floor as Chi Hu remembered them and could write them down when they made their way back to the Flying Sword Sect.

Why is he not worried about the different Nascent Soul Realm cultivators fighting each other over the cultivation techniques on the ninth floor?

Well, the reason was quite simple as the different Nascent Soul Realm cultivators would rather spend their time recording and remembering as many of the techniques as possible instead of wasting their time fighting for sole ownership of a technique…

Who knew how long they had before the different bigshots appeared and chased them out? More importantly, techniques were easy to just remember and copy down later as long as they were not from the higher end of the Heaven Rank and above.

Techniques at that rank normally contained a special sort of insight in them and copying them was not an option any longer, unless you managed to master said technique or cultivation method at the same level as the creator…

So, with nothing like that appearing, the Nascent Soul Realm cultivators along with Chi Hu on the Ninth floor could quietly read together as they minded their own business.

Entering the Pagoda, Xuan Hao began walking around the first floor and saw many interesting books scattered all over the place. From history books describing long forgotten wars of empires and huge sects fighting it out against each other, along with story books about all sorts of mythical creatures.

Seeing all these interesting books, Xuan Hao could not help himself from picking a few to take back to the sect to read at a later time.

"Hm? Journey of the Snow Phoenix?" Coming upon yet another book describing a mythical creature like a phoenix, Xuan Hao immediately felt something was different as he picked up the book and began closely inspecting it.

The book [Journey of the Snow Phoenix] was an interesting novel so to speak, describing the tale of a small phoenix being cast out from her clan at a young age due to being born different with an affinity for the ice element instead of the fire element that the phoenix clan was revered for and proudly displayed wherever they flew.

The young phoenix who was thrown out by her clan was later cast down into the mortal realm where she tried to survive but found it difficult as she had never learned any kind of cultivation techniques from the phoenix clan due her being viewed as an anomaly of the phoenix race due to her affinity for the ice element.

Like this, the young phoenix struggled for the first few years of her life until a kind elder from a mortal sect picked her up and taught her cultivation.

The story ended here as the book seemed to be the first part of a series, but all of this was not what caught Xuan Hao's attention about the book. No, it was the fact that the writing and words with which the story was written contained a chilling aura far superior to his own!

Xuan Hao could only barely feel this because he had established his own pseudo domain, without it, he would never have been able to feel the chilling aura hidden beneath the words of the story. The words in the story book were clearly written by someone using the power of their Domain!The initial instance of this chapter being available happened at N0v3l.Bin.

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Chapter 166: Supreme Flower Breaking Mantra

Why would someone use the power of their domain to write out a story about a phoenix? Maybe there was more to the story than what he could see at a first glance, Xuan Hao did not understand it too clearly, but decided to take the book with him and investigate it close when he returned back to the sect.

No matter what, the power of a domain left in the book could help him gain a deeper understanding towards how a domain worked and increase his own comprehension towards it. The power of a domain left in the book was like a guiding light showing him how a fully-fledged domain would look like.

Even if he did not manage to figure out what the meaning behind the book was, he would still be able to gain a lot from studying the power of a domain left behind in it.

Looking around himself, Xuan Hao began to spread out his divine sense as he skimmed through the titles of all the books on the first floor followed by the second, third and finally ninth floor. Looking for the next part of the [Journey of the Snow Phoenix, but this was to no avail as the next part was nowhere to be found in the giant pagoda. Discover, Devour, Delight: NvεlB¡n.

The other people sensed his divine sense passing by but paid it no mind as they just continued reading through the different scroll and books.

"Hah, looks like I was wishing for too much…" Shaking his head a bit in disappointment upon retracting his divine sense after scanning through the entire pagoda, Xuan Hao went back to looking through the books on the first floor. Finding a few interesting books here and there to bring back and read at a later time.

But when it came to any sort of history books, there was none outside a few that described the war between different kingdoms or sects. None mentioned anything about where the secret realm could have originated from or any of the different places inside the secret realm itself.

"Elder Xuan! Are we going to move on to the next place?" A few hours had passed and the Nascent Soul Realm Experts along with Chi Hu had finished reading through the important techniques on the ninth floor as they slowly began to take their leave from the pagoda and travel deeper into the secret realm.

The Core Formation Experts present saw this opportunity and immediately rushed to the ninth floor to take a look at the different techniques when the last Nascent Soul Realm Expert left.

"Yeah, there is nothing more for us to gain here… Did you manage to find any Heaven Rank Techniques?" Moving in the direction of the exit to the pagoda, Xuan Hao could not help asking as he only skimmed through the titles of the techniques on the ninth floor without reading any of them.

"Yes! There were two Heaven Rank, sadly both of them were not compatible with me…" Mentioning the two Heaven Rank Techniques, Chi Hu quickly became a bit depressed.

"Hm? What were they about?" Seeing the sad expression on Chi Hu's face, Xuan Hao began feeling a bit curious about the two Heaven Rank Techniques left on the ninth floor of the pagoda.

"Well… You see… The first one is called Supreme Flower Breaking Mantra and it requires the user to cultivate together with a partner…" Blushing in embarrassment, Chi Hu stopped explaining. Dual cultivation could be considered something ordinary and was something dao couples normally did to increase both their cultivation realms as they were together.

Xuan Hao felt a bit bewildered when he saw the elderly face of Chi Hu going bright red upon talking about a dual cultivation technique, could there be something special about the Supreme Flower Breaking Mantra…?

"And?" Trying to encourage for him to continue, Xuan Hao patiently observed the elderly man flushed unnaturally before continuing.

"Well… T-the Supreme Flower Breaking Mantra can only be cultivated with two male partners… Earlier, I saw two of the Nascent Soul Realm cultivators on the ninth floor taking off together to try it out…" Ending his explanation, Chi Hu blushed as he turned away from Xuan Hao.

"…" Spreading out his divine sense, Xuan Hao focused back on the ninth floor and discovered a group of middle-aged men at the Peak of the Core Formation Realm looking at each other as they muttered something about reaching the Nascent Soul Realm.

"What is the other Heaven Rank Technique?" Retracting his divine sense immediately before he saw something that would corrupt his poor soul, Xuan Hao asked about the other Heaven Rank Technique on the ninth floor as he increased the speed at which he was leaving the pagoda.

"The other Heaven Rank Technique was called Enchanted Water Spring, but it is a female only offensive technique that requires the cultivator to cultivate a water qi mantra before being useful… Not something that I would find any use in…" Sighing to himself as he thought about how useless the techniques and mantras on the ninth floor was to him, Chi Hu sincerely hoped that the next place they found would have something useful like an ancient pill that could strengthen his body or a mystical elixir that could increase his comprehension towards the dao and allow him to reach and even higher realm.

"The Enchanted Water Spring should be useful for someone in the sect, as for the Supreme Flower Breaking Mantra… Just ignore it and keep it yourself…" Xuan Hao really did not feel like it was a good idea to spread the Supreme Flower Breaking Mantra in the Flying Sword Sect, so he simply told Chi Hu to keep it for himself, while the Enchanted Water Spring would be fine to share.

"Yes…" Understanding what Xuan Hao meant, Chi Hu swore in his heart that he would never let the Supreme Flower Breaking Mantra corrupt anyone else like it had those two Nascent Soul Realm Experts earlier!

"Good, let's get going then!" Seeing that Chi Hu understood him and would not spread the Supreme Flower Breaking Mantra upon arriving at the Flying Sword Sect, Xuan Hao nodded approvingly as both of them made it outside the giant pagoda standing alone in the ancient forest.

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Chapter 167: Sky Empire Arrives!

The outside of the pagoda had changed a bit from before as a group of people at the Foundation Establishment Realm along with a few in the Core Formation Realm had arrived and were preparing to enter the pagoda.

This was not something odd as the gate leading into the secret realm had already been open for a few hours and those close by would have rushed over the moment they felt the change in the qi between heaven and earth.

"I wonder when the people from the Black Rose Sect will arrive…" Narrowing his eyes slightly upon remembering the Black Rose Sect, Xuan Hao felt that it would be best if he and Chi Hu left the areas close to the entrance and made their way into the deeper regions before anyone who might recognise him arrived.

"Where should we go to next? Follow the road or try to see if we can find something by going deeper into the ancient forest?" Stopping as they made it outside the pagoda, Chi Hu asked as he observed the surrounding crowd of people beginning to make their way over towards the pagoda.

"I think we should head deeper into the ancient forest; this road seems to just lead in a circle around the entrance to the secret realm and the chances of the other places already having been visited by others is extremely high!"

"That is true and with all the people at the Foundation Establishment Realm and Core Formation Realm nearby entering and flooding the area close to the entrance, the chances of us finding anything useful in the areas connected to the road is close to zero…" Nodding his head in agreement with what Xuan Hao said, Chi Hu looked over at the excited expression on the group of people coming over as they seemed to not pay any attention to anything outside the giant ancient pagoda in front of them.

With this, Xuan Hao and Chi Hu both turned around and made their way deeper into the ancient forest of the secret realm, unaware that this action might have ended up saving their life.

…

"So, a secret realm really did appear here... Guess I am the first person to arrive."

Outside the entrance to the secret realm, a person dressed like a wanderer appeared in the air above the secret realm. Holding a simple wooden staff in one hand, he observed the entrance of the secret realm for a moment before looking away with a smile at the corner of his lips.

"This is a definitely a high-level secret realm! How lucky I am to be passing through this place just when it appears! I might have a chance of strengthen my domain and reach a higher realm!" Feeling a rush of excitement rush through him, the wanderer put away his wooden staff as he suddenly stopped and thought about something.

"This is the Sky Empires territory, and they would definitely be among the first to reach this area… If I enter, I might end up falling out with the Sky Empire in the future…" This was something that even caused the wanderer to stop for a moment.

Offending the Sky Empire was not something an ordinary Domain Lord like himself could just afford to do, even if there was a chance for him to increase his strength.

"Ah, who cares if I offend the Sky Empire! My lifespan is already reaching its end and if I don't breakthrough soon, I will die in another hundred or so years anyway…" After coming to this conclusion, the wanderer did not hesitate for a moment longer before he entered the secret realm.

By this point, the Black Rose Sect had already made their way over to the secret realm and allowed for a few of their Nascent Soul Realm Experts to enter.

After this, nothing out of the ordinary happened as days slowly began to pass and? the different sects inside the Heavenly Sky Kingdom began to learn about the appearance of a secret realm.

The Flying Sword Sect, Spring Flower Sect and Raging Flame Sect all decided not to join in, while only the Seven Fates Sect allowed for some of their Nascent Soul Realm Experts to go over and explore the secret Realm.

It had to be known that the Heavenly Sky Kingdom was still at war with the Azure Sky Kingdom and none of the sects wanted to weaken themselves by sending out some of their Nascent Soul Realm Experts to a place where they might very well lose their life.

Like this, the area outside of the entrance had become more populous as several thousand cultivators from weaker sects or just wandering cultivators happening to pass by had gathered together to form groups to enter the secret realm and explore it.

By now, a small market had appeared in front of the entrance where cultivators bought and sold things they managed to find inside the secret realm. From demon beast remains to different cultivation techniques and mantras.

This peaceful environment continued on, but nothing was meant to last forever as, a terrifying aura suddenly descended from above.

"Leave this area immediately or face the consequences!" A cold and oppressive voice shook the surroundings and caused the cultivators on the ground to look up with a shocked expression as they saw something they would never be able to forget. The initial posting of this chapter occurred via N0v3l.B11n.

Above them, a large ship floated with the banner of the Sky Empire proudly swaying in the wind.

The person who called out before was standing in the air a few meters away from the floating ship as he coldly looked down on the crowd below.

The world shook under the pressure excluded by the figure floating above was too much as the people below felt their bodies become heavy as their knees folded beneath them, forcing them to kneel on the ground.

"General… If you supress all of them like that, they won't be able to leave…" An old voice could be heard from inside the floating ship as the person floating above smiled awkwardly before retracting his aura. Allowing for the people below to finally move again, as they quickly left the area surrounding the entrance of the secret realm.

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Chapter 168: Formation Pillar

"When can we found something new outside just trees and caves?" It had been a day since Xuan Hao and Chi Hu set off from the pagoda located close to the entrance of the secret realm and over that time, they had not seen any other cultivators or ruins.

The only thing they met along their path was the wildlife of the ancient forest and the demon beasts that attacked them from time to time. Not that the demon beast proved to be any challenge, as the strongest was only half a step into the Nascent Soul Realm, there had yet to be any demon beasts in the Nascent Soul Realm.

By this point Xuan Hao suspected that there was some sort of formation in place around the ancient forest, that made sure no demon beast above the Core Formation Realm appeared at the area close to the entrance.

The reason for this was simple, as they had already encountered more and more demon beasts at half a step into the Nascent Soul Realm the further away from the entrance to the secret realm that they got and if he was not wrong, Nascent Soul Realm demon beasts would start to appear soon.

Like the demon beast forest of the Flying Sword Sect where the demon beasts grew stronger and stronger the further the new disciples went in…

"I have no- hm?" Just as Xuan Hao was about to answer back to Chi Hu, a clearing in the forest appeared as both of them stopped and surveyed their surroundings in case other cultivators were present or had already been there before them.

"Looks like there is nobody nearby!" Sensing around with his divine sense like Xuan Hao, Chi Hu followed the direction Xuan Hao was looking in and saw the clearing ahead of them.

Walking up to the clearing in the ancient forest, Xuan Hao and Chi Hu were both shocked by the sight that appeared in front of them.

At the centre of the clearing was a giant pillar planted firmly in the ground stretching up into the sky for several miles. The size of the pillar alone was more than enough to shock both of them, but the countless formations and runic symbols flowing around on the surface of the pillar was what truly shook both of them to the core.

"W-what is this…" Not able to help himself, Chi Hu could not help but ask even though he already knew the answer.

"Hm… It looks like a part of a giant formation, but if this is just a single part…" Realizing something as he began talking, Xuan Hao immediately made his way above the nearby ancient trees and looked around himself and sure enough, another two pillars just like the one in front of them could barely be seen in the distance as the endless sea of trees stretched on for as longs as the eye could see.

Only the giant pillars broke through this endless sea of trees as they pierced through the sky above, forming what could only be considered to be the largest formation Xuan Hao had ever seen.

The formation might even have something to do with the secret realm itself. Maybe the formation kept the secret realm functioning and constructing such a formation could be one of the reasons why creating a secret realm was so expensive in the first place?

Xuan Hao truly had no clue and could only guess as he jumped down from the tree top he was standing on and walked over to the giant pillar to inspect it up close.

"A formation this large, how much time and effort would it take to construct!? And how do they even move these giant pillars in the first place?" As Xuan Hao was beginning to inspect the pillar in front of them, Chi Hu could not help but sigh in amazement as he looked up at the giant pillar looking like it was holding up the sky itself.

"Haha, definitely not something we would be able to do any time soon." Laughing a bit upon hearing Chi Hu, Xuan Hao touched the pillar as he allowed his divine sense to roam around the surface of the pillar and observe the different formations flowing beneath the surface.

The countless formations seemed to have merged together into a single perfect entity with the body of the pillar itself acting as an anchor to connect the different formations together. The connection between the other pillars spread throughout the secret realm could barely be observed as Xuan Hao was far too weak to observe the entire formation and could only settle to observe a single corner of it.

But even that single corner was more than enough to deepen his understanding towards both formations and the sheer power that a formation could hold when reaching a certain level.

If it was brought outside, the formation that the pillar was a part of could probably cover the entire Heavenly Sky Kingdom!

"Should we stay here for a bit and try to comprehend the pilar before moving on?" Staring up at the pillar, Chi Hu had made his way over to Xuan Hao as he also began to inspect the pillar.

"Yeah, let's stay here for a day, comprehending the formations that make up this pillar is quite beneficial to both of us as they contain a power far beyond the Nascent Soul Realm…" Nodding his head in agreement with Chi Hu, Xuan Hao also wanted to spend a bit more time inspecting the giant pillar as he found out that it was not only helpful to his understanding of formations, but also helped him deepen his understanding of a domain as the creator of the formation infused the power of his domain into the pillar itself upon creating the formation in the past. Discover, Devour, Delight: NvεlB¡n.

But for some reason, the power of the domain left behind in the pillar seemed to be weaker than the bone chilling power left behind in the book that he managed to find the giant pagoda close to the entrance of the secret realm.

The creator of the [Journey of the Snow Phoenix] seemed to be stronger than the creator of the giant formation inside the secret realm, or maybe the power inside the pillar had just weakened more over the years as the pillars were constantly keeping the giant formation running.

Xuan Hao did not know the answer to this and only felt more interested in the creator of the [Journey of the Snow Phoenix].

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Chapter 169: Chi Hu's Breakthrough!

Observing the giant formation pillar, both Xuan Hao and Chi Hu spent the next day uneventfully as both of them sat down quietly cultivating without any demon beasts or cultivators showing up to disturb them.

Boom!

A violent torrent of qi began to funnel in towards Chi Hu as his strength increased from the first stage to the second stage of the Nascent Soul Realm. After only a few weeks in the Nascent Soul Realm, he had already manged to breakthrough and reach the second stage and he still felt like his foundation was strengthened.

Xuan Hao looked over from the side and did not feel jealous, the formation pillar benefited him as well, but compared to a breakthrough in the realm, Xuan Hao's pseudo domain grew stronger as the foundation of his domain was strengthened.

"Sadly, the remnants of the creator's domain inside the pillar disappeared, it looks like the ability to comprehend the domain of the creator for a day was a reward of sorts for those who reached the pillars in the past… Maybe a part of the test that the ancient forest was a part of?" Coming to his own conclusion towards the reason for the remnants of the creator's domain left inside the pillar suddenly disappearing, Xuan Hao closed his eyes as he paid attention to the system staying inside his sea of consciousness.

Over the last few months, it had been staying quiet without doing much, but after the remanent power of the domain inside the pillar disappeared, it finally showed some sign of life again.

[Side Quest: Find the core of the Secret Realm Formation]

[Reward: ???]

The quest was bewildering to Xuan Hao, as it was the first quest, he had gotten from his system that did not involve his disciples. By this point he had almost gotten convinced that the system only had quest related for his disciples, but it seemed like that was not the case.

Back to what the quest was about, it wanted him to find the core of the secret realm formation.

Looking at the giant pillar in front of him, Xuan Hao already knew what formation the system was referring to as he began thinking about the possibility of finding the core of the secret realm formation before people above the Nascent Soul Realm began showing up and the chances of that was close to nothing, as the size of the secret realm was enormous and finding the core of the secret realm formation could take years if not decades!

For all he knew, the core of the secret realm formation could be located at the entrance to the secret realm!

"Hah, this feels great, I didn't expect to reach the second stage of the Nascent Soul Realm so quickly!! We should go and see if we can get a chance to comprehend at the other pillars!" Chi Hu interrupted Xuan Hao's train of thought as the aura of a second stage Nascent Soul Realm cultivator spread out with him as the centre.

"I don't think we will gain anything from it as the formation pillar is part of the same formation as the other pillars… But we can try the closet one. After all, if I'm wrong and we just leave, we would miss out on a huge opportunity!" Nodding in agreement with Chi Hu, Xuan Hao threw the quest about finding the secret realms formation core to the back of his mind.

"Great let's get going then!" Excited to the extreme as he flexed his recently increased cultivation base, Chi Hu acted like a child that had gotten a new toy to play with, as Xuan Hao smirked upon seeing the elderly Chi Hu hoping up and down excitedly.

Adding him to the line-up of core elders in the Flying Sword Sect would at least be exciting for some of the disciples if he was as excited about teaching them as he was exploring the secret realm.

…

"Ahhh! There is nothing to comprehend here!" Falling to his knees in a dramatic way as he raised his hands towards the giant formation pillar with an almost begging look on his face, Xuan Hao had to look the other way as he began wondering how this old man had been when he wandered around from kingdom to kingdom beforehand.

"Don't worry so much about it, I'm sure we will be able to find something if we continue to go further into the secret realm. Who knows, there might even be more pillars like these with more opportunities waiting for us! But it will definitely get more dangerous from here…" Narrowing his eyes as he finished his sentence, Xuan Hao looked into the ancient forest beyond the formation pillars.

Nascent Soul Realm demon beasts would almost certainly begin appearing after they passed by the formation pillars and ventured deeper inside the ancient forest.

"True, but I fear that we won't be able to continue for much longer when Nascent Soul Realm demon beasts begin appearing… And if they grow stronger the deeper into the secret realm we go, like they have done so far, the ones at the area around the next pillars would be half a step into the Domain Lord Realm…" Chi Hu shook his head as he felt the difficulty of reaching the next circle of pillars was beyond something a second stage Nascent Soul Realm Expert like himself could archive.

"We can try and see how far we can make it, if it ever gets too dangerous for us, we can always retreat and leave." Seeing the hesitation on Chi Hu's face, Xuan Hao encouraged him a bit.

"Maybe there will be other ruins like the giant pagoda close by like the one at the entrance to the secret realm, we can try to see if we can find any and explore them." Hearing this, Chi Hu nodded his head in agreement.

"That might be the case and the demon beast around here should only be in the early stages of the Nascent Soul Realm, so with you here, we should be fine exploring the area close to the pillars without too much danger..." Thinking it over, Chi Hu agreed with exploring the area close to the pillars as they could always retreat back towards the pillars again if things grew too dangerous for them.

Hearing Chi Hu's agreement, Xuan Hao smiled to himself. Personally he wanted to explore the deeper regions of the secret realm together with Chi Hu and find the core of the resecret alm formation mentioned in the system quest, as he was the one who had invited him to come and explore the secret realm together with him. The initial instance of this chapter being available happened at N0v3l.Bin.

But from the looks of things, he would have to part ways with Chi Hu later if he wanted to enter the more dangerous areas of the secret realm to explore.

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Chapter 170: The Temple Hidden in the Ancient Forest

The other ancient forest beyond the giant formation pillars was almost the same with the exception of a change in the foliage going from a normal forest floor into one filled with more colours and spiritual herbs above the Earth Rank appearing more and more often.

Not that they were useful for Xuan Hao or Chi Hu, as both of them ignored the different herbs on the ground outside a few rare ones that could be useful to take back and cultivate.

Like this, both of them continued further into the ancient forest without encountering a single demon beast along the way, causing both of them to feel a bit bewildered as this was not something either of them had been expecting.

Far outside the idea of Nascent Soul Realm demon beasts attacking them the moment they passed by the giant formation pillars. Not a single demon beast appeared even after walking for over an hour!

"I see something up ahead!" Pointing ahead, Xuan Hao called out to Chi Hu as he kept surveying the area around them for any potential demon beasts coming to attack them when their guard was down.

"A demon beast?!" Hearing the voice of Xuan call out, Chi Hu immediately focused his attention on the direction that Xuan Hao pointed in.

"No, I think this is another ruin like the giant pagoda we encountered close to the entrance of the secret realm." Shaking his head, Xuan Hao began walking over towards the ruins hidden beneath the tall trees of the ancient forest, closely followed by Chi Hu.

"We are most likely the first people to reach this place, so there should be some treasures, artifacts, pills or maybe even high-rank qi techniques or cultivation mantras!" Following behind Xuan Hao as they walked, Chi Hu's eyes began to shine brightly as he looked at the giant ruin in front of them. Forgetting everything about being cautious and looking out for any Nascent Soul Realm demon beasts that might be hiding nearby.

The ruin in front of the two of them was a giant temple stretching on for miles as several parts of the? temple had broken off from the temple and broken down, resulting in large parts of the temple being hidden beneath the rich foliage of the ancient forest.

One of the only parts that still retained some resemblance of once had been, was the main part of the temple that towered up in front of Xuan Hao and Chi Hu. If it was not for the fact that the ground beneath it had caved in swallowing a large part of the temple, it would surely have pierced far into the sky and stand tall above the towering trees of the ancient forest.

Sadly, this could not happen as a large area of the main part of the temple had been swallowed by the ground.

"How could such a large area suddenly collapse!? Perhaps there was a giant underground space beneath the temple that collapsed in the past and thus caused the main part of the temple to sink into the ground?" Observing the ruins of the temple, Xuan Hao walked up to the main part of the temple and inspected the ground around the place where the temple had sunk into the ground.

"That is the most likely scenario, many temples like this normally have a large underground area used for religious ceremonies, I once saw one similar to this when I visited a kingdom in the past, but why would it be here? It seems completely out of place for a secret realm likely used by an ancient sect to train and test disciples, to have a religious temple inside of it." Wearing a confused expression on his face, Chi Hu put on a thoughtful expression as he seemed to have forgotten about the possible treasures inside after reaching the temple ruins.

"Maybe the secret realm switched ownership at some point? It could also be part of the test; they might have made a temple to train their disciples in familiarising themselves with fighting in the environment of one? The past owner of the secret realm could have been locked in a war with a religious order and prepared their disciples for it…" Thinking over it, Xuan Hao could not really come up with any other ideas as to why a temple had suddenly appeared inside of the secret realm.

All they could do to find out about it was to enter and explore it… NvεlB¡n: Inspiring Minds, Illuminating Souls.

…

"Hm… Seems like I am indeed the first one to arrive at this secret realm outside a few Nascent Soul Realm cultivators, but those can be ignored as entering the core area of a secret realm would not be possible with their cultivation!" Standing at the entrance to the secret realm, the wanderer who had just entered the secret realm looked around as his divine sense spread out and easily covered the first few ruins of the secret realm.

"Guess I will start looking into the ruins around here and see if they can point towards the location of the core area." Muttering this to himself, the wanderer soon disappeared from the entrance to the secret realm as he soon appeared above one of the ruins located close by.

The ruin in question was not the same pagoda that Xuan Hao and Chi Hu encountered earlier, instead it was a decaying pavilion located besides a small lake.

When the wanderer in question arrived, a few other cultivators were already browsing through all the different scrolls and books as they searched for anything useful in them.

"Looks like this place used to be a test area of sorts before it was abandoned… Hm… A few of the neutral sects use the same kind of training ground, so finding the core area should not be too difficult as long as I find the core of the formation keeping the test area running." Smiling upon seeing the decaying pavilion, a formation suddenly appeared where the pavilion was in the eyes of the wanderer as countless lines connected to it and spread far into all directions.

Through the lines connecting the formation around the pavilion to the formation keeping the test ground running, the wanderer sensed first-hand the massive scale of the formation.

"Ahhh… What bastard set up such a giant formation! Did they not have to worry about resources when building it? And how long will it take to find the core area if the formation is so large? Don't tell me the entire secret realm was used for this formation?!" Scratching his head in frustration upon sensing the sheer size of the formation, the wanderer knew that he would have no chance of breaking it and could only hope that he would be able to find the core area before others like himself began appearing.

"I will try checking with the first layer of the formation and see if I can find out something that might help me…" Glancing over in the direction that the formation pillars were located, the wanderer soon disappeared from the decaying pavilion. Unbeknownst to any of the cultivators quietly reading through the scrolls and books inside.

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Chapter 171: Underground Hall

"The inside is in a better condition than what I expected…" Looking around at the inside of the temple, Xuan Hao could not help but observe the surroundings more closely as the tall pillars holding up the temple decorated with different religious figures was still standing tall even after the rest of the temple had fallen into ruin.

Even when the temple had sunk into the ground in the past, the main pillars still stood strong and withstood the sudden collapse of the underground area, keeping the main part of the temple intact up to this day.

"What are these pillars made of…" Chi Hu seemed to be interested in something completely different as he walked over a touched one of the pillars while muttering something inaudible to himself.

As Chi Hu was lost in thought observing the pillars of the temples entrance hall, Xuan Hao went deeper inside.

The environment of the temple changed completely as he made his way inside the core area of the temple where the normal religious ceremonies would take place, it was also here that the normal followers could come to pray on a daily basis.

The size of the core area alone was more than large enough to fit over ten thousand people praying together, while the other areas of the temple were most likely used as living quarters for the priests and other believers working at the temple.

Walking up to a majestically decorated stand where a member of the church that was in charge of the temple would have stood when preaching to the followers below, Xuan Hao saw a small book filled with all sorts of religious chants and songs.

"Cardinal…?" But this was not what caught Xuan Hao's attention, instead it was a small book laying on the stand with a small note inside of it talking about a cardinal coming to inspect the temple in a few days' time, followed by a list of things that needed to be prepared before the cardinal arrived.

It seemed a bit out of place in the ruined temple and felt like it had just been abandoned. Looking around, Xuan Hao felt that the temple was too out of place compared to the rest of the ancient forest in the secret realm and could not help himself from thinking about it.

"Could it be that someone moved the temple from the outside into the secret realm…?" Just the thought of someone being able to move an entire temple at this size was something unimaginable to Xuan Hao at his current realm, but it might have been possible for someone who had the ability to create a secret realm…

Perhaps the reason that the temple had been swallowed up by the ground was not because an underground area had collapsed, but was instead because someone had thrown the temple down on the ground…?

This thought caused Xuan Hao to shiver a bit as he began inspecting the different cracks running along the side walls of the temple that seemed to have been created from the temple enduring a massive impact.

"I will find out the truth by looking at the underground area and see if something really did collapse under the temple, causing it to sink into the ground or if it was just thrown into the secret realm by someone in the past…" Shaking his head, Xuan Hao looked over at Chi Hu in preparation for entering the underground area together with him.

"Ah! This is truly Holy Steel! How lucky! I will be able to earn a lot if I sell it outside in the future." Chi Hu exclaimed loudly as he used his weapon to cut off pieces of one of the pillars in the entrance hall of the temple, while happily storing the pieces of Holy Steel used to construct the pillars in a small bag around his waist.

"…" Maybe I should just go and check out the underground area alone…

Upon seeing how busy Chi Hu was, Xuan Hao decided to go down and enter the underground area of the temple on his own. The initial instance of this chapter being available happened at N0v3l.Bin.

Luckily, the temple had begun falling apart long ago. Allowing Xuan Hao to easily find a crack big enough for him in the floor leading down into the underground regions of the temple.

Crack

Landing on the floor on the underground area below the core area of the temple, Xuan Hao barely managed to react in time as he jumped to the side before the place, he was standing moments ago disappeared into a giant gorge beneath it.

Splash!

The part of the floor that broke off from the underground hall that he had jumped down onto could be heard contacting a body of water, as Xuan Hao used his divine sense to probe the bottom of the gorge located directly beneath the temple.

"A river…?" Indeed, an underground river was peacefully flowing through the gorge below as the pieces of the underground halls floor were carried away before disappearing into a small hole where the gorge ended.

"Where does the river lead to…?" This was the first time Xuan Hao had seen a subterranean river and he was quite intrigued and felt like trying to explore the cave systems connected to it.

If it was not for the fact that he was inside a secret realm and Nascent Soul Realm demon beasts or even stronger demon beasts might be hiding in the cave systems connected to it and he would not be able to see if he crossed another line of pillars where Domain Lord Demon Beasts might begin appearing…

Imagine finding a rare herb of ore and getting up from underground, only to find out that you are in the middle of a Domain Lord demon beasts' nest…

Shaking his head, as he shivered at this thought, Xuan Hao turned away from the river peacefully passing by in the underground gorge beneath him.

Focusing back onto the underground hall of the temple as he began making his way through the hall, Xuan Hao closely observed the many weird paintings of mythical creatures like dragons and phoenixes fighting together with humans against a giant blue phoenix. The paintings depicted a war of mythical creatures and humans teaming up together to fight the giant blue phoenix.

The last painting on the wall depicted the giant blue phoenix losing and being sealed away.

"But what church is this… It doesn't seem like the plague god's church or any of the churches from the Sky Empire that Shu Yao described… All those churches have a human like figure as their god, this is the first church I have seen that does not worship a human figure as their god…" The more he knew about the church that the temple belonged to, the more confused Xuan Hao grew.

The temple seemed to be a place where people came to worship the giant blue phoenix, this was further enforced by the fact that an altar with a statue of the blue phoenix spreading its wings was located at the end of the hall.

Beneath the blue phoenix statue situated a little above the altar, Xuan Hao managed to see a small blue feather that glowed gently in the dark underground hall placed on the centre location of the altar itself.

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Chapter 172: Interspatial Ring and Surprise from the System

"What is creature is the feather from? A blue bird or something?" Walking up to the altar, Xuan Hao cautiously inspected the blue feather laying on top of the altar before picking it up.

The blue feather had no special aura or hidden domain of some sort inside of it, the only thing special was its colour and the slightly chilly feeling it left when Xuan Hao picked it up and inspected it. Outside of this, Xuan Hao could simply not tell what was so special about the feather, for it to be on top of a clearly important altar of the temple.

"Perhaps it has something to do with the blue phoenix? An offering of sorts maybe? I do remember some religious orders sacrificed different kinds of things to their gods. From cattle and precious artifacts to humans…" Lifting the blue feather up into the air, Xuan Hao swung it around a bit to see if something would happen, but to his disappointment, him swinging it around did not cause the blue feather to do anything.

"Guess I will just keep it for now and try to figure out what it is when I return to the sect…" Putting the blue feather away, Xuan Hao was prepared to spend some time on the blue feather when returning to the sect.

After all, even if it looked like there was nothing special about the feather, it had still stayed in the temple for a long time and a normal feather would have long decayed by this point…

Preparing to leave the underground hall, as there was nothing other than the blue feather, altar and phoenix statue inside of it, Xuan Hao manged to spot a small ring laying on the floor towards the corner of the wall.

The inconspicuous ring immediately caught his attention as Xuan Hao picked it up and inspected it to find out if there was anything unusual about the ring.

"This is!" The moment Xuan Hao sent his divine sense out to probe the small ring, he immediately felt his divine sense being drawn inside it as the ring shone with a deep blue colour for an instant before returning to its former inconspicuous state.

"An interspatial ring?!" Indeed, the small inconspicuous ring was an interspatial ring!

Xuan Hao looked at the ring with a surprised and excited expression as he felt the connection that had been established between himself and the ring, with just a thought, he could easily access the space inside the ring. Withdrawing or storing items with just a thought.

Is there still something left inside the ring?

Calming down, the first thing Xuan Hao did was access the space inside the interspatial ring with his divine sense.

"Nothing…" Feeling himself becoming a bit depressed upon sensing the empty space inside the interspatial ring, Xuan Hao could not help but sigh at the sight of it.

What had he expected…? The person who took care of this temple most likely emptied everything precious inside already…

The interspatial ring was most likely useless to someone strong enough to take away an entire temple after looting the treasures inside.

Did this not mean he was picking up something that had already been thrown away by others…

"I swear… When I reach the Domain Lord Realm, I will also be able to make interspatial rings! When that time comes, I will make a few thousand interspatial rings and throw them at some random places with a note about not needing them anymore! Haha!" Laughing a bit to himself as he exclaimed this, Xuan Hao only thought about it for a moment before he left the underground room.

The construction of a single interspatial ring was not something cheap, this was also one of the reasons why people reaching the Domain Lord Realm would normally only construct one for personal use.

Half a step Domain Lords also had the ability to make interspatial rings, but the cost was way too high for someone still in the Nascent Soul Realm to bear. This in turn resulted in most interspatial rings being constructed by Domain Lords or those above.

Xuan Hao also knew… And that was why…

Ding~

The sound of a new quest did not excite Xuan Hao for the first time, but instead made him think back to a certain day where the system had forced him to throw up blood…

Stopping in place, Xuan Hao did not move for a moment as he calmed down before entering his sea of consciousness to see the new system quest given to him.

[Limited Time Quest: You have found a brilliant way to recruit new potential disciples! Scatter 1000 interspatial rings around the world. The system will add a specific test to the ring that will test the potential future disciples. Interspatial Rings will only be counted towards the quest if they are scattered a certain distance away from each other. Timer will begin upon reaching the Domain Lord Realm!]

[Time: 10 years]

[0/1000] NvεlB¡n: Inspiring Minds, Illuminating Souls.

[Reward: vary depending on the amount of successfully scattered interspatial rings]

"…" This quest was so troublesome... Worst of all, it was his first limited time quest as well.

At least it seemed like the timer would only begin when he reached the Domain Lord Realm, so he could in essence delay his breakthrough to the Domain Lord Realm and stay stuck at the half-step Domain Lord Realm producing interspatial rings.

But who knew how long that would take? And what would he do if his disciples ended up surpassing him while he was busy making interspatial rings…?

Xuan Hao felt quite a dilemma when looking at the limited time quest.

Sure, he could ignore it, but the benefits for such a quest would definitely be good and might even be able to assist his cultivation on the long term!

"I should not delay my cultivation for the quest…" Coming to this decision, Xuan Hao decided that he would work hard to secure and create as many interspatial rings as possible upon reaching the Domain Lord Realm.

Work hard for the 10 years and scatter as many interspatial rings as possible, then return to relax at his pavilion teaching Qing Yi and Chu Yang from time to time for the next 100- No, next 1000 years!

Nodding his head approvingly at his own plans, Xuan Hao made his way out of the underground hall and back into the core area of the temple where he left Chi Hu earlier.

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Chapter 173: First Encounter with Treasure Hunter

Putting most of the things he was carrying on him into the interspatial ring, Xuan Hao made his way back into the core area of the temple.

"Elder Xuan! A group of treasure hunters are approaching the temple!" Just as Xuan Hao returned from the underground hall of the temple, Chi Hu came running over with an anxious look on his face, as a group of people arrived a few hundred meters away from the temples entrance. All of them were clad in the same style of clothing as they made their way over towards the entrance of the temple.

More importantly, all of them were in the Nascent Soul Realm!

"Anyone you are familiar with?" Seeing the panicked expression on Chi Hu's face as he informed him, Xuan Hao realized that Chi Hu seemed to be familiar with the people outside.

But how did he even get to know any Nascent Soul Realm Experts in the past when he was just in the Core Formation Realm?

Xuan Hao doubted that Chi Hu would have been able to escape if he had offended them in the past as a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator was way faster than someone in the Core Formation Realm… That is, unless there is a special circumstance allowing the Core Formation Expert to escape…

"Yes! They are a famous group of wandering cultivators, I once managed to see them in the past when I was exploring a ruin together with a few friends. Back then, they were fighting another Nascent Soul Realm expert over a treasure. Me and my friend ran away the moment we saw this as they don't really have the best reputation among wandering cultivators. Often ruthlessly killing anyone taking what they deem to be theirs… I didn't expect for them to show up here…" Shaking uneasily as he looked at the approaching group of three people, Chi Hu put away the Holy steel that he had managed to gather before preparing to run away from the approaching group of people the moment they showed any sign of aggression. Discover, Devour, Delight: NvεlB¡n.

"So… A group of treasure hunters that will attack anyone that they deem to have the treasures that 'belong' to them…?"? Feeling his head hurt a bit as he watched the approaching trio, Xuan Hao made his way out of the temple with Chi Hu following closely behind him.

"Huh, it looks like there is already people that arrived before us! Brothers, they look like they are about to leave! They might have already cleaned the place for any artifacts or precious materials and are looking to make a getaway!" Spotting Xuan Hao and Chi Hu making their way outside the temple, a tough and burly looking man among the group of treasure hunters stepping forward.

"Huh, these two will make excellent test subjects." Another member of the trio followed as he was swaying a bit from side to side before taking out two alchemical potion bottles filled with a mysterious liquid from somewhere in his robe.

"Hah, there's no end to this… How many more will attempt to steal out treasures?" Sighing a bit to himself upon seeing Xuan Hao and Chi Hu, the last among the trio stepped forward as he took out a giant hammer preparing to attack Xuan Hao and Chi Hu at moment's notice.

The Trio released their killing intent as they began slowly approaching Xuan Hao and Chi Hu.

"Looks like they don't want to talk about it… Do you know anything about their way of attacking?" Glancing down at the trio approaching filled with killing intent, Xuan Hao looked back at Chi Hu.

"Ah, yes! The one with the potions will throw the different bottles that can cause different reactions that will result in an explosion most of the time, while I'm not sure the other two will do anything special…" Thinking over it for a moment, Chi Hu tried his best to explain what he had seen in the past.

"I see… I will try to take care of the tough looking one and the one with the hammer, you should be able to deal with the one throwing potions. From what I can tell, he should only be at the first stage of the Nascent Soul Realm." Sensing the opponent's cultivation realms through his divine sense, Xuan Hao grew confident in his ability to deal with the group of treasure hunters.

"Sure, but are you sure you can deal with two at once?" Chi Hu did not really know how strong Xuan Hao was and he only knew he was stronger than him… As for how much stronger he was, Chi Hu had no idea.

"Yes, you don't have to worry about me." Nodding in response, Xuan Hao drew his sword out from his newly acquired interspatial ring.

Xuan Hao's cultivation being at the seventh stage of the Nascent Soul Realm was something that not many people knew about in the first place. At the moment, the only people who knew about Xuan Hao having reached the seventh stage of the Nascent Soul Realm was the Sect Master Feng Chen and Shu Yao from the Spring Flower Sect.

So, Xuan Hao did not really worry much about the group of treasure hunter, as even the strongest among them was only barely at the third stage of the Nascent Soul Realm.

Even then, Xuan Hao did not dare to underestimate his opponent. From past experience, they seemed to have been able to retreat safely every single time, he fought with anyone at the Nascent Soul Realm so far…

This time around, Xuan Hao wanted to make sure that his opponents would not be able to just opt and run away when they wanted. Resulting in possible future problems for both him, his disciples and the Flying Sword Sect…

"Huh, looks like these two want to fight it out! Haha, and I was looking for a little bit of entertainment!" Laughing loudly, the tough looking man who seemed to be the leader of the group cracked his knuckles before madly dashing towards Xuan Hao and Chi Hu, closely followed by his two companions.

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Chapter 174: Hammer Treasure Hunter

"Remember, I will get the tough looking one and the one with the giant hammer, you take care of the one with the potions!" Seeing the trio rushing over towards them, Xuan Hao remained calm as he reminded Chi Hu before preparing to meet the opponent head on.

Chi Hu looked at the approaching group and quickly calmed himself down before focusing on the treasure hunter with the different potion bottles on him.

This would be Chi Hu's first battle after reaching the Nascent Soul Realm!

Even if he was a minor realm above his opponent, his opponent would have more experience than him when it came to fighting at the Nascent Soul Realm.

With this in mind, Chi Hu prepared for a difficult fight as he took out his weapon, a simple looking wooden staff.

This staff was Chi Hu's personal weapon and was made from a rare type of wood that he had found when exploring ancient ruins in the past, it had helped him through the years of travel and was even tougher than Spirit Rank Artifacts, but how well it would fare in a battle between Nascent Soul Realm Experts, Chi Hu could only find out by trying.

"Fist of fury!" As Chi Hu was making his way over towards the treasure hunter with the dangerous potions on him, the tough looking leader of the treasure hunters arrived in front of Xuan Hao and threw out a simple punch as his fist was engulfed in flames.

Whoosh~

Dodging to the side, Xuan Hao easily managed to dodge the flaming fists of the tough looking treasure hunter as he responded with executing the second move of the Rain Sword Technique, Spring Rain.

The sword glowed gently with a light blue colour for a moment before Xuan Hao slashed down at his opponent.

The treasure hunter who saw his attack missing did not wait in the slightest as he turned around to follow after Xuan Hao, only to be met with the sword flying down towards him.

Trying his best to block the sword, by crossing his arms as they shone bright red followed by a wall of flames appearing in front of him to block it. The treasure hunter was surprised to see the sword glowing in a gentle blue hue easily slashing through the flame wall that was supposed to defend him.

"Argh! I-I got careless…!" Letting out a howl of pain as the sword easily cut into both his arms, the treasure hunter hastily began retreating with all his might as Xuan Hao followed after him, trying to keep him in place.

"Big Brother! I got you!" Just as Xuan Hao was about to slash through the arms of the treasure hunter's leader, the man with the giant hammer arrived just in the nick of time as he swung his giant hammer down towards Xuan Hao. Forcing him to momentarily stop to block the attack.

BOOM!

Xuan Hao firmly held onto his sword as he blocked the giant hammer, causing a spider web of cracks to spread through the ground beneath his feet with him as the centre.

Stumbling backwards from the impact generated when colliding with Xuan Hao's sword, the treasure hunter wielding the giant hammer barely manged to react as Xuan Hao performed three rapid sword attacks.

Clang~

The sound of the sword colliding with the giant hammer sounded out three times in a row as the treasure hunter wielding the giant hammer felt his hands grow numb under the huge weight each of the three sword attacks put on him. The ground beneath his feet shattering with each attack he blocked.

Not being able to bear the weight and strength of the attacks performed by Xuan Hao any longer, the treasure hunter wielding the giant hammer tried to retreat as he regretted helping out his leader.

But it was far too late for regret as Xuan Hao used the opportunity that he showed when retreating, to launch a fatal attack.

"Argh!" The sword attack hit the moment the treasure hunter was about to retreat as it pierced directly into the heart of the treasure hunter, causing him to let out a howl of pain before his blood splattered onto the ground beneath his feet.

This however did not seem to have killed the treasure hunter, even when the blue sword qi from Xuan Hao's sword began to ravage the insides of his body. The treasure hunter was still someone at the Nascent Soul Realm and his vitality was way stronger compared to someone who would die after losing a vital part of their physical body.

So, with his last remaining energy, the treasure hunter decisively chose to discard his physical body and try to escape with his Nascent Soul.

Unfortunately for him, Xuan Hao had already prepared for something like this as he waved one of his hands, causing a new sword to appear out of thin air before channelling his sword qi into it.

This was a backup sword Xuan Hao had brought with him and when he found the interspatial ring, he had stored it in there together with the rest of the things he had picked up along the way.

"Wha-" The sword suddenly appearing out of thin air next to Xuan Hao caught the treasure hunter off guard as the sword suddenly flew over and directly pierced through his Nascent Soul.

Killing him in an instant! NvεlB¡n: Inspiring Minds, Illuminating Souls.

"One left for me…" The fight between Xuan Hao and the treasure hunter only took a few seconds from start to finish as Xuan Hao had easily dealt with him.

The treasure hunter was only at the second stage of the Nascent Soul Realm and could not present too much of a challenge to Xuan Hao, as he did not even have to use his pseudo domain to kill him.

Glancing over at where Chi Hu was, Xuan Hao saw that he was doing fine against the alchemist treasure hunter throwing his weird potions all over the place in an attempt to injure Chi Hu.

"I will go after the one who ran away, you should be fine here!" Calling out to Chi Hu, Xuan Hao did not waste any time as he chased after the leader of the treasure hunters, who had run away the moment he realized Xuan Hao was too strong for them to deal with.

Leaving his two teammates behind in the process…

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Chapter 175: Potion Potion = Boom!

Hearing Xuan Hao call out to him, Chi Hu did not have any time to look over as he remained focused on the opponent in front of him.

The alchemist treasure hunter and Chi Hu had already fought each other for a bit, as Chi Hu tried to close the distance and get an attack in, while the alchemist treasure hunter kept him at a constant distance with all his weird potions.

It had to be known that the explosions and other effects brought along by the potions was nothing to scoff at, as Chi Hu had felt it personally when he had been hit by one of them, forcing him to retreat before a few more came flying his way.

Even at the Nascent Soul Realm, he would not be able to survive being hit by too many of the treasure hunter's weird potions…

The effect of the different potions far exceed what Chi Hu had witnessed in the past as they came with all sorts of weird effects outside of the normal explosions that he had seen before.

From creating a large cloud of freezing air that froze him in place, to a giant electric explosion that far exceeded the strength someone in the first stage of the Nascent Soul Realm should be able to produce.

"Fry!" Throwing yet another potion bottle in his direction, Chi Hu dodged to the side as the potion bottle exploded upon hitting the ground in a fiery explosion. Leaving behind a pool of red liquid on that bubbled menacingly. Warning Chi Hu that stepping on it was not a good idea.

"How do I even move close to him? Do I just wait for him to run out of potions to throw?" Thinking about what to do, Chi Hu felt that the chance of him being able to successfully dodge all the time until the treasure hunter ran out of potions was unlikely.

After all, the small potion bottles were plenty and Chi Hu could easily spot a few dozen on the outside of the treasure hunter's robe.

"Explode!" Not waiting for Chi Hu to come up with any plans, the alchemist treasure hunter threw out two different potions, one bright red giving off a terrifying heat, while the other was a dark purple with small electric sparks circling around the potion bottle itself.

Chi Hu only managed to set up a quick defensive barrier to block the attack, as the two potion bottles hit the ground right in front of him.

Boom Boom!

Followed by this, they both exploded and as the content from the two potions met each other and caused a reaction, Chi Hu could only stare on helplessly as an even larger and more deadly explosion spread out from the place that the two potions content met each other and soon Chi Hu and the surrounding trees were engulfed in an even larger explosion.

BOOM!

The explosion created by the content of the two potions reacting to each other was far more deadly and soon even the alchemist treasure hunter who threw out the two potions ended up affected by it, as he began throwing out different kinds of potions that caused the explosion to weaken as he soon put up his own barriers to defend himself from the explosion.

Chi Hu on the other hand was not so lucky, as all he could do was try to retreat as he kept putting up new barriers to block the explosion.

"Hah hah…" Finally making his way out of the explosion as things slowly began to calm down again, Chi Hu exhaustedly tried to breathe again as he felt pain throughout his entire body.

The alchemist treasure hunter was far stronger than he had expected!

Even as both of them had ended up injured due to the earlier explosion, Chi Hu knew very well that he had exhausted a large amount of qi to defend against the explosion, while his opponent only used a small amount of his qi reserves.

If things continued like this, he would end up completely exhausting all the qi in his body! And by that point, even if he could draw in qi from the surrounding environment to recover, he would still end up at the mercy of his opponent!

Whoosh!

Not wanting to end up in such a state, Chi Hu decided to go on the offensive, even if he would end up getting hit by a few of the alchemist treasure hunter's potion bottles along the way.

"You dare!" Seeing Chi Hu charging over towards him, the alchemist treasure hunter put on a disdainful look as he took out a few more potion bottles and threw them towards Chi Hu.

Dodge!

Chi Hu's mind wanted him to dodge all the incoming potion bottles, but he knew that if he did that, he would just end up at his previous situation and could only helplessly look on as his opponent could slowly exhaust his qi reserves without spending much of his own in the process.

Boom!

Psch~

So, with his mind set, Chi Hu decided to run into the few potions he knew had a less damaging effect on him. Dodging the deadly explosions created by one potion and instead charging into the freezing cloud created by another, trying to minimize the damage he took with each wave of potion bottles thrown at him.

"Agh! I got careless…!" Seeing Chi Hu arriving in front of him full of bloody wounds and other injuries, the alchemist treasure hunter immediately wanted to retreat, but Chi Hu was faster than him as he swung down his wooden staff!

"No, you don't!" As he swung the wooden staff, it shone brightly as Chi Hu executed one of his qi techniques to empower the staff as the alchemist treasure hunter hastily tried to set up a few barriers to block the wooden staff of Chi Hu to no avail.

Bonk!

The staff easily tore through the few flimsy barriers of the alchemist treasure hunter and directly contacted with the head of the alchemist treasure hunter.

"I…" Before he managed to say anything more, the alchemist treasure hunter felt his world go dark as he fell unconscious. NvεlB¡n: Inspiring Minds, Illuminating Souls.

The attack earlier by Chi Hu had directly injured both his physical and Nascent Soul, forcing him to fall unconscious.

"Hah… Finally done… Hah… I will have to ask Elder Xuan… Hah… How to deal with this guy when he returns! At least we should be able to gain some useful information on some treasures…" Breathing irregularly as he tried to absorb as much of the surrounding qi between heaven and earth as possible to recover, Chi Hu exhaustedly laid down on the ground as he looked over at the unconscious alchemist treasure hunter.

He did not just kill off his opponent like Xuan Hao had and instead kept him for questioning, it had to be remembered that their opponents were treasure hunters!

Who knew how much information a treasure hunter had on them? From information regarding locations of ancient ruins, to information of the secret realm. Treasure hunters would always have an ocean of information when it came to things like this!

Even the Explorer Union who focused on exploring these kinds of places could be considered slightly inferior to treasure hunters when it came to gathering information about ancient treasures and their locations!

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Chapter 176: Escape of the Treasure Hunter, Cave Edition

As Chi Hu knocked the alchemist treasure hunter unconscious, Xuan Hao moved deeper into the ancient forest. Following closely behind the leader of the treasure hunters, who frantically used all the speed he could muster as he attempted to escape from Xuan Hao.

But this was of no use, as the leader of the treasure hunters felt Xuan Hao getting closer and closer with each passing second.

In just a few moments, he would catch up to him and the leader of the treasure hunters did not dare to let this happen.

Looking around anxiously, the leader of the treasure hunters spotted a cave surround by a terrifying aura of a high-level demon beast and with a determined look he dived straight into the cave, using a special technique to accelerate him forward. Momentarily giving him more speed than Xuan Hao at the cost of his qi running out quicker.

Xuan Hao did not fall behind in the slightest either and without caring much about the aura of a powerful demon beast coming from the inside, he soon entered the same cave as the leader of the treasure hunters. The initial instance of this chapter being available happened at N0v3l.Bin.

Making sure to slow down a bit so the demon beasts inside would attack the leader of the treasure hunters first and giving himself some space to escape in case the demon beasts inside were too strong.

The cave itself was large enough to easily allow a group of demon beasts to nest inside of it and Xuan Hao also thought that he would finally get a chance to see a Nascent Soul Realm demon beast after crossing over the barrier that the giant pillars created for the demon beast.

But upon traveling through the cave for a few minutes, he was disappointed upon discovering that no demon beast came out to attack the leader of the treasure hunter in front of him.

Allowing the leader of the treasure hunters enter what was supposedly a nest of Nascent Soul Realm demon beasts without any trouble…

"Guess I will have to catch him myself…" Extinguishing the thoughts about having the demon beasts inside the cave deal with the leader of the treasure hunters for him, Xuan Hao increased his speed as he moved deeper into the cave.

Unaware of the entrance itself slowly closing off behind him, with the rocks from the surroundings gathering together to seal off the entrance.

…

Having gained some distance from Xuan Hao as he entered the cave, the leader of the treasure hunters began to slow down as his cultivation couldn't support using his movement technique for any longer.

"Hah… Hah…" Other than that, the leader of the treasure hunters had already used up most of his qi as he had a difficult time even moving at his normal speed under his current conditions, but upon remembering Xuan Hao behind him, he pushed his body to the limit as he continued deeper into the cave.

The leader of the treasure hunters already knew a fair bit about the secret realm and was not scared of any Nascent Soul Realm demon beasts suddenly jumping him all of a sudden.

All he had to do was make it through an exit located a little further into the cave and then Xuan Hao would end up stuck!

The cave itself was a natural formation of sorts that the leader of the treasure hunters came upon when they split up to explore the area surrounding the ancient temple before grouping up to enter it together.

What the group did not expect was that Xuan Hao and Chi Hu would arrive just as they were about to enter and clean the place up!

The leader of the treasure hunters angrily gritted his teeth upon thinking about this!

Even if he managed to escape from Xuan Hao, he would still not be able to get any of the treasures from the temple! As for his companions? He honestly did not care about them a lot and knew those two would have done the same in his situation…

At most he would visit one of the gathering spots for treasure hunters after leaving the secret realm and pick up another two brothers to hunt with… After all, being able to gang up on people three to one was important for winning with little to no risk and something all treasure hunters aspired to be able to do…

Though… Things did not always works as planned and even though the leader had judged Chi Hu as someone who just broken through to the second stage of the Nascent Soul Realm. Weak enough for them to take on, he was largely mistaken when it came to comparing Xuan Hao to be around the same level of strength…

"Ah… I wish I could go back in time-" Muttering this to himself full of regret as he moved through the cave, the leader of the treasure hunters was caught off guard when a giant paw filled with razor sharp claws suddenly came from the side and knocked him into the nearby cave wall.

Crash!

"Wha-" Still confused at his current situation, the leader of the treasure hunters stumbled a bit as he got up to look up at the person responsible.

In front of him was a giant wolf at least 5 meters in length and over 2 meters in height. The aura of a Nascent Soul Realm demon beast could clearly be felt as a wave of terror washed over the leader of the treasure hunters. The shadow of death slowly beginning to engulf him as the giant wolf made its way over towards him.

"How… Are the demon beasts at the Nascent Soul Realm not supposed to remain sealed for the next week?!" The leader of the treasure hunters face grew pale as he questioned the giant wolf slowly making its way over towards him. Not understanding why, it had suddenly appeared.

"ROAR!" The wolf only stopped for a moment to roar at him as it showed off its sharp fangs in the process before hungrily looking at the leader of the treasure hunters. Eating a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator was something rare for demon beasts to come upon and would help boost the cultivation of a demon beast.

There were even some cases where Core Formation demon beast found the corpse of a Nascent Soul Realm Expert and manged to become a Nascent Soul demon beast after consuming it!

The leader of the treasure hunters already knew about this and prepared to use all his strength to hold on for Xuan Hao.

At this point he could not run away anymore as the qi inside his body had been completely exhausted from the earlier escape along with blocking the paw attack from the giant wolf in front of him.

Escaping with his Nascent Soul was not an option either as the giant wolf was blocking the way in front of him, while the path behind him had already been sealed off by himself…

All he could do now was hope Xuan Hao showed up a little earlier and distracted the giant wolf demon beast enough to allow him to slip away… But the giant wolf did not seem to share the same idea as it pounced on him the moment it noticed his attention slipping.

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Chapter 177: Cave Wolves

"Agh!" Just as Xuan Hao was about to catch up to the leader of the treasure hunters, a scream suddenly pierced through the formerly quiet cave as the roar of a demon beast could be heard up ahead.

Xuan Hao did not slow down in the slightest upon hearing what was most likely the leader of the treasure hunter screaming out in pain as his divine rapidly began spreading out as it headed towards the location in front of him where the sound of the scream echoed out from.

The thing that met him was the sight of a giant wolf gobbling up the last few remains of what he perceived to be the leader of the treasure hunters.

Inspecting a little further into the cave with his divine sense, while trying his best not to be spotted by the giant wolf, Xuan Hao managed to sense at least another dozen wolfs hiding away in the darkness of the caves.

All of them were in the Nascent Soul Realm! With most of them having reached the middle stages of the Nascent Soul Realm. The one currently in the process of devouring the remains of the leader of the treasure hunters had even reached the later stages of the Nascent Soul Realm and was at the seventh stage of the Nascent Soul Realm!

"Guess there is no reason for me to stay here any longer…" Looking at his targets already dead body disappear into the mouth of the giant wolf, Xuan Hao decisively turned around to leave the cave before they managed to spot him.

Fighting the group of Nascent Soul Realm demon beasts in front of him would be dangerous, even if he was stronger than the leader of the giant wolves, he still had to worry about the dozen or so wolves in the middle and early stages of the Nascent Soul Realm attacking him at the same time.

This was not something Xuan Hao really wanted to do just for the fun of it… After all, who knew if there were even more wolves hiding further into the cave and what would he do if they were stronger than the wolf currently in the process of devouring the treasure hunter's body…?

"Well… This is troublesome…" Coming back to the place where the entrance to the cave was located, Xuan Hao was met by a dead end as the former entrance was replaced by a cave wall. Discover, Devour, Delight: NvεlB¡n.

Xuan Hao felt that the leader of the treasure hunters had done something when entering the cave back then… Perhaps he knew about the giant wolves and wanted to die together with him?

Even though Xuan Hao felt that this was unlikely given how the leader of the treasure hunters had abandoned his teammates so easily.

Would someone like that want to give his own life in an attempt to take his opponent down with him?

"No use thinking about it, I have to first find a way to get out of here before those wolves find me…" With this, Xuan Hao took out his sword and sent out a sword light towards the area that the entrance of the cave was located beforehand.

Shuaa~

A dazzling sword light took shape in an instant and moved towards the cave wall where the entrance had been located.

Roar!

"Not good!"

As soon as the sword light formed, the giant wolves behind him felt the aura of the sword as they turned and saw the bright light from the sword intent lighting up the entire cave in front of them.

Xuan Hao also sensed the giant wolves moving over towards him and felt like he had forgotten how bright his sword became when using a sword attack or something similar.

Well… It was not really his fault as he normally fought outside and in daylight where you did not really tend to focus on whether your attack was bright and flashy, compared to the darkness of the cave where the only source of light was the sword attack used by Xuan Hao to smash the cave wall in front of him.

Crash!

As the sword light of Xuan Hao hit the cave wall and immediately began collapsing as the outside world spread out before him, Xuan Hao used his sword to quickly fly out of the cave and over in the direction of the temple where Chi Hu should be waiting for him.

Howl!

Behind him, the howl of a wolf sounded out from deep within the cave, causing Xuan Hao to use all his strength to fly in the direction of Chi Hu as quickly as possible.

The reason for this was simple… The power behind the wolf howl earlier was from a half-step Domain Lord demon beast!

Not something Xuan Hao wanted to fight with, especially not so when there were a few dozen Nascent Soul Realm wolves around it as well…

…

Back at the temple, Chi Hu had just finished sealing off the cultivation of the alchemist treasure hunter as he had managed to recover some of his strength.

Now he was just waiting for Xuan Hao to return or for the alchemist treasure hunter to wake up.

"Hm? What is that? Isn't that Elder Xuan!?" Looking up, Chi Hu got the shock of his life as he saw Xuan Hao descending down in front of him on top of his sword.

"We don't have time for this, we need to leave this place-"

Howl!

Xuan Hao did not bother explaining to him why he could fly despite not being in the Domain Lord Realm and was about to hurry him to come over when a loud howl sounded out in the distance.

"Wh-what was that!?" Hearing the howl, Chi Hu felt the horrifying aura from that howl and began shivering at the thought of where it came from.

"A demon beast half a step into the Domain Lord Realm and its group of friends, we have to leave before they arrive here! Do you want the treasure hunter to join us as well?" Discovering the unconscious body of the treasure hunter for the first time, Xuan Hao finished his quick explanation before asking.

"Ah, if possible, he might know more about the secret realm that can help us in exploring it further…" Not really focusing much at the moment, Chi Hu starred frightenedly in the direction the howl came from as he explained.

"I see, then we will take him with us as well!" Not waiting around for any longer, Xuan Hao picked up both Chi Hu and the unconscious treasure hunter before soaring into the sky in the direction of the giant pillars.

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Chapter 178: Wolves vs Barrier

As Xuan Hao picked up both Chi Hu and the unconscious alchemist treasure hunter, a large wolf easily towering over the giant wolf Xuan Hao had seen earlier. Made its way out of the cave as it looked around at the surrounding ancient trees towering far into the sky above.

Howl!

Raising its head high into the sky before howling loudly, a large number of wolves started pouring out from the interior of the cave as they began rushing out in all directions from the cave entrance.

The amount of wolves present was also far larger than what Xuan Hao had expected with there being at least a few hundred wolves at the Core Formation Realm along with a few dozen at the Nascent Soul Realm.

Spreading out from the entrance, the leader among the wolves looked on as the wolves began reclaiming their territory.

This lasted only for a moment before the leader turned in the direction of the temple where Xuan Hao and Chi Hu had left only a few minutes prior.

The next moment, the leader of the wolves appeared in front of the temple as it narrowed its eyes upon seeing the signs of battle present on the ground in front of it. Along with the dead body of the treasure hunter with the hammer.

Howl!

Howling loudly, a pack of wolves at the Nascent Soul Realm soon appeared in front of the temple as they waited patiently for their leader to command them.

Growl!

After a few commanding growling noises from the leader of the wolves, the group of wolves set off in the direction that Xuan Hao and Chi Hu had escaped in, while the leader of the wolves turned around after seeing the group leave and entered the now empty temple.

…

"Hm… We have already made it back past the pillars, we should be safe from the wolves for now…" Descending down from the air, Xuan Hao landed in front of the pillar that they had been staying at earlier, as he cautiously observed the dense ancient forest beyond the giant pillar.

"I think we should be fine… I just hope we are right when it comes to the fact that Nascent Soul Realm demon beasts not being able to cross over to this side of the giant pillar." Standing down on the ground again, Chi Hu looked up at the giant pillar with a nervous look on his face.

Howl!

A few minutes passed before a howl was heard in the distance as both Xuan Hao and Chi Hu observed a group of Nascent Soul Realm wolves make their way into the clearing where the giant pillar was located. The initial posting of this chapter occurred via N0v3l.B11n.

Grrr!

The leader among the group of wolves growled threateningly upon seeing Xuan Hao and Chi Hu standing besides the pillar as it began moving closer.

"Looks like we will find out if the pillar really blocks Nascent Soul Realm demon beasts…" Looking at the leader of the wolf group slowly making its way over, Chi Hu tightly held onto his staff. Ready to act in case anything happened.

"?" The wolf was just about to cross the threshold of the giant pillar when it suddenly stopped with a confused expression plastered onto its face.

Raising one of its paws, the wolf swung down at the area that blocked it and a light blue, almost transparent screen of light appeared to stop it at the area that the wolf paw hit.

"Roar?" Letting out a confused sound, the wolf leader called for its companions and soon all of them came up to try hitting the barrier.

Like this, the wolves continued hitting the barrier for the next half hour before giving up and returning back into the ancient forest. The reason for them staying so long, was mostly because they seemed to find it fun whenever the barrier gave off a small bit of light wherever they hit it.

"They finally left…" Looking at the disappearing figures of the wolves, Chi Hu let out a relived sigh.

"It looks like your friend is also about to wake up." Pointing over in the direction of the unconscious treasure hunter, Chi Hu turned his attention over towards the treasure hunter upon hearing Xuan Hao's words, as he observed the treasure hunter slowly began opening his eyes.

"Ah! W-where am I!?" Looking around himself in a panicked state, the alchemist treasure hunter tried to mobilize his cultivation. Only to find that it had already been sealed away by Chi Hu earlier.

Not only that his potions and other weapons hidden away on his body also seemed to be missing!

"No need to continue searching, I already removed all your weird potions along with a few other weird objects!" Seeing the alchemist treasure hunter anxiously searching around his clothes, Chi Hu interrupted him.

"W-what do you want…?" Realizing his situation, the alchemist treasure hunter stopped looking for potions and other weapons hidden away in his clothes as he nervously looked over at Chi Hu and Xuan Hao.

By now he had already realized that he was kept alive by Chi Hu for something and if he could not provide it, he would have a high chance of ending up like brother hammer, who he had seen dying earlier at the hands of the person standing a small distance away from Chi Hu.

Thinking about this, the alchemist treasure hunter decided that he would do his best to answer any question asked. Hoping they would allow him to leave alive if he fully cooperated with them.

After all, for them to keep him alive without anything precious on him. The only thing desirable about him would be the information he had about the secret realm and other ancient ruins or possible locations of a future secret realm…

Like this, the alchemist treasure hunter began to feel a little more determined as he remembered a few stories from other treasure hunters telling him about how they had been captured in the past and gotten away alive.

The best way according to other treasure hunters when it came to staying alive after being captured alive, was to disclose any and all information you were asked about truthfully!

This way, the chances of survival would increase exponentially!

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Chapter 179: Interrogating the Alchemist Treasure Hunter

"We only want the information that you have on the secret realm. After all, you treasure hunters would never enter a secret realm without ample preparation and knowing where the treasure inside is located…" Walking up the alchemist treasure hunter, Chi Hu narrowed his eyes as he asked the treasure hunter with a certain look on his face.

Xuan Hao on the other hand stood a bit farther away and observed as Chi Hu began interrogating the treasure hunter. Not wanting to interfere in what he was doing. After all, Xuan Hao had never tried to interrogate anyone before, and Chi Hu seemed to know what he was doing at the very least…

"So, do you know anything about the treasures inside the secret realm or perhaps where some of the important places inside are located?!" Standing a bit back after finishing his question, Chi Hu waited for the treasure hunter to respond. Preparing to use some more questions in case he was unwilling to answer truthfully to those few simple ones.

"Ah yes of course I do! Take the temple as an example, there was supposed to be a few pillars made out of rare metals inside according to one of our sources. Apparently, it is the temple of an ancient god that ceased to exist long ago. The temple should be one of the last few from that ancient god left on the continent." Not hesitating in the slightest, the treasure answered truthfully as he even described the precious metal pillars inside of the temple.

"I-I see, what about other important locations inside the secret realm or some of history behind it...?" Not expecting for the treasure hunter to answer without even trying to plead for his own life or ensure his own safety, Chi Hu was momentarily shocked as he soon began to question the treasure hunter further.

"I don't really know much outside the temple, as it was supposed to be the only place we raided before leaving the secret realm. After all, we would not want to stay too long and wait for the entrance to get blocked off by those bigshots from the surrounding empires and strong entities…

But outside of the temple, we also found out about a small palace located at the border the testing area holding an ancient artifact from the temple. However, going there would be suicide with our strength. So, we ended up deciding to just raid the temple." Shaking his head as he explained this, the treasure hunter had a regretful look on his face as talked about the small palace.

"Why would it be suicide for you?" Thinking about it, Chi Hu realized that there were a bunch of dangerous demon beast along the way. Some even close to the Domain Lord Realm!

"Hah… The seal of the demon beast would expire before we even managed to reach the area and the entrance to the secret realm would have been sealed off by the bigshots of the different empires and other powerful entities by then…" Sighing regretfully at the thought of those bigshots taking away his treasures upon reaching the entrance of the secret realm, the treasure hunter became a bit depressed.

The number of times he had ended up looting an ancient ruin. Only to have someone come over and take away all the artifacts because it was the "territory" of one of those bigshots…

The treasure hunter knew very well that he could not afford to offend someone like that, so he was forced to give up his artifacts in order to keep his life safe. Truly a painful experience!

"Seal on the demon beast…? What do you mean, we have seen several demon beast since entering the secret realm…" The confused voice of Xuan Hao echoed out from behind Chi Hu before he could ask.

"Ah, it is only the demon beast at the Nascent Soul Realm and above that are sealed, though… From what I know, the seal should naturally release one week after the opening of the secret realm. The core area should also become accessible at that point. Most secret realms work like this, and this is also the reason why most bigshots only start appearing around one week after a secret realm opens.

Treasure Hunters like me use this time period to get as many treasures as possible. Leaving before the bigshots arrive to seal off the area!" Answering confidently to Xuan Hao's question, the treasure hunter proudly waited to see Xuan Hao and Chi Hu's response.

"But… We have just seen a group of Nascent Soul Realm demon beasts…" Smiling wryly, Chi Hu could not help but question the treasure hunter as he still vividly remembered the terrifying wolf howl from earlier along with the group of Nascent Soul Realm wolves playing with the barrier between the Core Formation and Nascent Soul Realm area of the secret realm.

"Hm!? W-wait… A-are you sure…?" Freezing in place, the treasure hunter began to look nervous all of a sudden as he asked in a shivering voice.

"Yes? Perhaps the secret realm had already been open, and we just couldn't enter it earlier…" Not understanding why, the treasure hunter looked so scared and nervous all of a sudden, Chi Hu could not help but ask him while thinking about the probability of the entrance already being open even though the gate leading inside was closed.

After all, nobody went up and tried to open the gate manually during the time that they waited around for it to open by itself…

"…"

How do you think a secret realm works…? Is it something that can just be opened so easily without gathering an enormous amount of qi…?

"The secret realm was not opened before the entrance opened up by itself… This can only mean that this secret realm's seal on the demon beast somehow weakened significantly..." Shaking his head a bit as he brushed aside Chi Hu's idea. The treasure hunter narrowed his eyes upon reaching the last part. Discover, Devour, Delight: NvεlB¡n.

"Meaning…?" Feeling the serious and nervous tone in the treasure hunter's speech, Chi Hu could not help himself from Urging for him to continue.

"Meaning…"

Chapter 180: Seal of The Secret Realm's Demon Beasts

"Meaning… Something inside the secret realm managed to weaken the seal… From what I know, it should have been a demon beast reaching a certain stage in its cultivation where the seal of the secret realm was no longer able to supress it any longer…" Finishing his explanation, the treasure hunter shivered at the thought of the demon beast in question.

"How strong would the demon beast be… For it to be able to weaken the seal…?" Feeling the seriousness of the treasure hunter, Chi Hu felt a bit curious.

"I-I don't know, but the seal is able to seal early-stage Domain Lord demon beasts without too much trouble, so it should at least be above that…" Shaking his head, the treasure hunter had no idea how strong a demon beast capable of weakening the seal laid out by the past master of the secret realm would be.

Late stage of the Domain Lord Realm? Peak stage of the Domain Lord Realm? Maybe above that…?

The treasure hunter did not dare to think any further about it, as the demon beast in question was far above his own realm and killing him would be as easy as swatting a random fly to death.

"So, a demon beast that strong might be running around freely inside the secret realm…?" Shivering at the thought of possibly running into such a terrifying demon beast, Chi Hu exclaimed loudly.

The thought of them being able to run into such a terrifying demon beast was not something either Xuan Hao or Chi Hu enjoyed. Leaving the secret realm at the fastest speed possible suddenly became their top priority.

"Ah! Don't get me wrong. The demon beast should still be sealed, it just weakened the seal enough for the demon beast below the Domain Lord Realm to be free faster. The final part of the seal should still be able to last for a few more days!" Trying his best to ensure both Chi Hu and Xuan Hao, the treasure hunter hurriedly explained.

"I see, but it is still becoming dangerous for us to stay… Xuan Hao, what do you say we head back and leave before things get any more dangerous? We already got a few techniques and some good metal for blacksmithing; I think leaving before things become too dangerous would be a good idea and we would still gain something from it…" Listing to what the treasure hunter said, Chi Hu still thought it would be too dangerous to stay inside the secret realm. After all, who knew how the bigshots would respond when they found out about the situation inside the secret realm!?

The treasure hunter was standing beside Chi Hu as he nodded his head in agreement with what he said.

Staying in the secret realm was way too dangerous and the only place he knew about with anything worthwhile in it, was inside the Nascent Soul Realm area where demon beasts close to the Domain Lord Realm were nesting!

Going there before they were unsealed was already dangerous due to how far he would have to travel. Let alone now that the demon beasts were beginning to get out of their sealed state earlier than expected!

"You can leave, I will stay around a little longer and see if I can enter the Nascent Soul Realm area at another place where the wolves are not at… I am more than capable of getting out if it truly does get dangerous…" Thinking over it for a moment, Xuan Hao decided to stay inside of the secret realm for a few days more. After all, in the worst case scenario, he could still just use his sword and fly away from any dangerous situation and with the Domain Lord Realm demon beasts still sealed, Xuan Hao did not think he would end up in a situation too dangerous for him to get out of.

"Fine, but you have to remember that staying for too long will increase the chances of the entrance being sealed off… I will go to the sect and wait for you there!" Saying this, Chi Hu prepared to leave the secret realm alone.

"What about the treasure hunter…?" Seeing Chi Hu about to leave, Xuan Hao quickly reminded him as both of them turned their attention over to the treasure hunter quietly observing them from the side. NvεlB¡n: Inspiring Minds, Illuminating Souls.

"Hm… I think we should just let him go! It's not like he knows us or anything and I don't believe he would take revenge or anything in the future for the other two treasure hunters. From what I can tell they just grouped up to hunt for treasures together without any real connection between them other than the same desire to find treasures…

This is normal for treasure hunters as most of the groups of them out there are set up like this. Other than that, he also answered our questions and didn't really cause any trouble for us…" Chi Hu and Xuan Hao both looked over at the treasure hunter that was currently sweating bullets as he knew whatever came next would decide his fate.

"Let's just allow him to leave then but remember to only do it when you have left the secret realm. After that, you can unseal his cultivation and allow for him to go back to what he was doing beforehand…

Wait… wouldn't he just return to being a treasure hunter…" Realizing that the idea of releasing the treasure hunter might actually not be such a good idea upon further contemplation, Xuan Hao stopped in his tracks as he thoughtfully began to inspect the treasure hunter, causing him to shiver in fear.

"Indeed, what you say is true…" Nodding in agreement with what Xuan Hao said, Chi Hu also began to look over the treasure hunter. Trying to think of a solution.

Won't I end up dead if things continue like this!?

Seeing the situation developing in a direction that the treasure hunter knew very well was not good for him or his future, he decided to find a way out for himself!

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Chapter 181: Treasure Hunter's Life Story...?

"A-actually I-I never really wanted to be a treasure hunter in the first place… I only became a treasure hunter in the past due to the different herbs I needed for alchemy being way too expensive for me to get without becoming a treasure hunter." Finishing what he wanted to say, both Xuan Hao and Chi Hu did not know how to respond.

You're an alchemist, couldn't you just sell the potions or pills you made and earn more that way?

Both Xuan Hao and Chi Hu's face seemed to say this as the treasure hunter sighed a bit before continuing.

"The reason I didn't settle down and just become and normal alchemist at some sect or kingdom, was that the direction of my research is quite… Unique. Compared to what ordinary alchemists will focus on doing… So, nobody was ever willing to buy any of the things I made…

The only people that showed a bit interest in the things I made were a group of demonic cultivators I met when out adventuring in the past…" Upon reaching the end, the treasure hunter wore a distressed look. Becoming more and more depressed after remembering his past struggles as a young alchemist. Discover, Devour, Delight: NvεlB¡n.

"What is it that you were so focused on researching? Does it have anything to do with the potions you threw at me earlier…?" Listening to the treasure hunter, Chi Hu felt what he said made some sense, but why would people not want to buy his potions?

From what he had experienced first-hand, they seemed to be able to injure someone in the Nascent Soul Realm! Selling them would surely be a big hit and good way to earn a lot of spirit stones to buy whatever he needed…

"Yes, it is the potions I threw at you earlier…" Talking about this, the treasure hunter looked embarrassed as he calmed down before continuing.

"But the potions themselves can be considered a part of what I am studying and just producing those few potions I threw at you earlier would easily be worth a few high-grade spirit stones… The price that I would sell the potions at was way too high for anyone to want them in the first place.

Only those few demonic cultivators were interested in a few of them as it would help their cultivation after consumption or something along that line." Shaking his head as he thought of the weird looks people gave him every time he went to try and sell his potions at a market for cultivators, the treasure hunter became even more sad. Making both Xuan Hao and Chi Hu feel bad for him.

"Maybe we should think about it for a bit longer… Chi Hu, just take him back to the sect for now and we will get things sorted out after I return! Also, ask the Alchemy Hall to look into the potions that this guy made. Maybe they will find something useful from it!" Thinking about it over for a few minutes as the treasure hunter nervously observed him together with Chi Hu, Xuan Hao decided to bring him back to the sect for now and find out what to do with him after returning from the secret realm.

For now, Xuan Hao did not want to waste any more time on the alchemist treasure hunter and try to figure out what to do with him.

"Yes! Then, I will take my leave for now Elder Xuan! I hope to see you at the sect safely again soon!" Agreeing with what Xuan Hao said, Chi Hu grabbed onto the treasure hunter before taking off in the direction of the entrance to the secret realm.

"Now that I think about it… Did I remember to inform the Flying Sword Sect about recruiting someone new for the sect…? I probably did…!" Throwing the sudden thought to the back of his mind as he observed Chi Hu's leaving figure, Xuan Hao soon jumped on top of his sword and once again flew into the Nascent Soul Realm area of the secret realm.

The difference this time, was that he first decided to fly along the edge for some time before going deeper into the Nascent Soul Realm area. Not wanting to run into the recently unsealed wolf close to the Domain Lord Realm…

…

"Hm? It seems someone already arrived at the edge before me…" As Xuan Hao was making his way deeper into the Nascent Soul Realm area outside the territory of a certain wolf pack, a person dressed like a simple wanderer appeared in the air above Chi Hu and the treasure hunter making their way back towards the entrance of the secret realm.

"Just someone in the Nascent Soul Realm… Looks like I'm worried over nothing!" The somewhat cautious look that started to form on the wanderer as he observed the two below him disappeared the moment, he felt the two's cultivation realm. No longer deeming them to be a potential threat.

"The first layer of the formation should be just up ahead, perhaps those two encountered the formation and decided to go back?" Thinking about this, the wanderer soon disappeared from the spot above Chi Hu and the treasure hunter.

Appearing directly in front of the pillar Xuan Hao and Chi Hu had spent a day cultivating after half an hour of flying.

"T-this is?! WHAT INSANE PERSON MADE SOMETHING LIKE THIS!?" Screaming in shock as he saw the giant pillar piercing through the sky above, the wanderer felt a wave of terror wash over him.

"Whoever made this formation is far above the Master Realm when it comes to formations… Looks like this is not an ordinary secret realm!" Feeling both excited and scared upon realizing this, the wanderer stared at the giant pillar for a few minutes before deciding to spend the next day quietly studying the giant formation pillar before making his way deeper into the secret realm.

At this point, the wanderer knew very well that he could not waste too much time as the big empire would soon find out about the secret realm and seal it off to wandering cultivators like himself and force him to hand over everything upon leaving.

Even then, just studying the formation pillar for a single day had brought him immense benefits when it came to his own study as a formation expert. This was simply not something he could give up on and even if the entrance was sealed, he would still be able to keep the knowledge that he learned after studying the formation pillar!

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Chapter 182: Flying up into the Sky Above~

The path through the ancient forest was quiet and Xuan Hao did not manage to spot any other Nascent Soul Realm beast like the group of wolves from earlier, so they were most likely one of the first groups of demon beasts inside the secret realm that had ended up being unsealed earlier than expected.

This was good news for Xuan Hao, as he would not have to deal with all sorts of flying demon beasts coming up to attack him while flying over the ancient forest as he made his way towards the small palace located at the border between the Nascent Soul realm area and the place where the few Domain Lord Realm demon beasts inside the secret realm were located.

Hopefully what the treasure hunter had said about the small palace was true and he would be able to gain quite a lot from his visit to the secret realm!

Xuan Hao really was curious about what sort of ancient artifact was stored in the palace at the border between the two areas, perhaps it had something to do with the formation covering the secret realm, seeing as it was located at the border where the formation pillars were also present.

"Well, I will find out when I get there…"

Flying high above the ancient tress below, Xuan Hao suddenly thought about something.

Normally, when he flew too high up on the outside, he would feel the pressure increase as the qi between heaven and earth grew denser and denser until it reached a point where it became unbearable for him to move any higher up.

Xuan Hao felt a bit curious if things were the same in a secret realm and decided to try it out.

Whoosh~

With a quick change in direction, Xuan Hao flew straight up into the air.

Bang!

Without knowing what even happened, Xuan Hao flew full speed into an invisible wall in front of him. Falling off his sword in the process as he began falling down towards the ancient forest below.

"What the hell! How come there is an invisible wall!?" Cursing a bit at the creator of the secret realm, Xuan Hao felt a bit shaken that he had not even managed to discover that there was an invisible wall of sorts directly in front of him until it was too late.

"Perhaps that was the edge of the secret realm?" Thinking about it, Xuan Hao nodded a bit at his own conclusion. After all, a secret realm was nowhere as big as the outside world and there had to be a limit to it of some sort. The qi between heaven and earth did not change either as he ascended. Always staying on the same level as it was on the ground.

"Hm? What is that?" As he was falling down towards the ancient forest, Xuan Hao discovered something below him and failed to see it beforehand as he was too focused on making his way to the border before the demon beast there began to break free of their seal.

But the thing in front of him was not something he could ignore as it literally screamed to be something from the test that had once been a thing in the ancient forest. NvεlB¡n: Inspiring Minds, Illuminating Souls.

After getting closer, Xuan Hao made out that the thing to be a giant stone monument standing tall beneath the ancient trees.

Without looking down from the angle he was currently falling from, Xuan Hao would have never spotted the stone monument hidden beneath the ancient tress.

Whoosh~

Waving his hand, Xuan Hao's sword intent spread out and covered his sword falling a few meters away from him and soon stabilized a few hundred meters above the ancient trees.

"Guess I will have to check it out now that I found it…" Not really thinking much about it, Xuan Hao descended down to the ground and made his way over to the stone monument hiding beneath the ancient trees.

The stone monument had several cracks running through it as the decay brought about by the passage of time was clear to see.

Walking up to the monument, Xuan Hao discovered a small path close to it spreading out towards the surroundings. Sadly, whatever the path led to had long since decayed with the passage of time as only the stone monument itself was left barely standing.

"There are some words on it… Names?" Narrowing his eyes, Xuan Hao tried to use his divine sense to make out the names on the stone monument and soon came upon the name of the stone monument itself.

But things were not that great as a giant crack had formed at the top where the title was located. Only allowing the few words reading out Nascent Soul Ranking to remain.

[Nascent Soul Ranking]

That was what Xuan Hao managed to make out from the few words at the top of the monument, this made Xuan Hao curious. Maybe some of the names on the rankings would be from people that had existed in the past?

After spending some time reading through the few history books in the giant pagoda close to the entrance of the secret realm, Xuan Hao became a bit familiar with the history of the outside world during the era that the secret realm was still up and running normally under the sect behind it and hoped he would be able to recognize some of the famous names mentioned in the history books.

"Hm… Firestarter, Fluffy Fist, Death Incarnate, Daoist Fluffy Cloud… What are these weird nicknames?" With the few topmost name being impossible to view due to the numerous cracks running through the stone monument, Xuan Hao could only view the ones at the middle and bottom of the stone monument.

But this did not help in the slightest as it was filled with all sorts of weird nicknames. Making Xuan Hao think that one of the sect rules was to pick a silly nickname…

Shaking his head in disappointment after realizing that he did not read about any of the names before, Xuan Hao decided to just throw it to the back of his mind for now and look over the history books back in the sect and see if any of the silly names showed up.

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Chapter 183: Stone Monument, Enlightenment!

Other than memorizing the few names still visible on the stone monument, Xuan Hao also focused on the stone monument itself as the aura of a cultivator could be felt behind each nickname on the stone monument. Suggesting that the people themselves had etched their name into the stone monument in past.

From this, Xuan Hao could also sense a part of the strength they had when they etched their name into the stone monument in the past.

The strength of those at the bottom of the stone monument were around the middle stages of the Nascent Soul Realm, while those in the middle areas like Daoist Fluffy Cloud were around the later stages of the Nascent Soul Realm.

The ones on the top on the other hand were not at the peak of the Nascent Soul Realm. Instead, they were not at a specific realm, some being in the later stage, while others were in the middle or early stage of the Nascent Soul Realm.

But they all had one thing in common and that was the fact that the wisp of aura they left behind on the stone monument contained a pseudo domain! Or at the very least a trace of a pseudo domain…

This should be the geniuses of the past sect…

Xuan Hao felt a bit bad when he thought about his own pseudo domain… Maybe he should work harder in the future? After all, someone seemed to have been able to get a pseudo domain just after reaching the Nascent Soul Realm here!

How strong would someone like that become after a few hundred years? And a sect with such powerful people behind it had fallen!

All of a sudden, Xuan Hao remembered that there would always be someone stronger than him. This was after all a cultivation world, and he didn't know how many savage or ruthless main characters were out there!?

"Hah… No use thinking about this, I just have to get strong enough and I won't have to worry so much about it…" Sighing to himself, Xuan Hao did not think any deeper about it and decided to focus on trying to see if he could comprehend anything useful from the different pseudo domain still barely surviving in the remaining aura left from the past cultivators who etched their name into the stone monument.

The different pseudo domain was not as useful to Xuan Hao compared to the domain left in the giant formation pillar, but it would still be useful as a reference to improving his own pseudo domain further.

And with so many different pseudo domains present, Xuan Hao would be able to learn more about how a pseudo domain was supposed to be set up.

After all, he did not really have anyone to guide him on the path to constructing his pseudo domain, outside of [The Untold Swords Mantra] cultivation mantra. The past geniuses on the other hand, would have their elders help them and would definitely have a far more stable and stronger pseudo domain compared to him!

Sitting down in front of the stone monument, Xuan Hao closed his eyes as he let his divine sense spread out and engulf one of the past genius's pseudo domain, trying his best to fully comprehend the pseudo domain and find out what concept that the pseudo domain was created with.

When Xuan Hao tried to comprehend the domain inside the formation pillar in the past, he could not fully enter it with his divine sense like he was doing now. Only capable of observing the domain from outside without being able to truly try and comprehend the domain up close.

The pseudo domains still remaining on the stone monument on the other hand, were not isolated by anything at all.

Allowing Xuan Hao to freely observe and touch the different pseudo domain with his divine sense attempting to learn what he could before they used up the last remaining energy in them and dispersed.

"Earth Domain?" The first pseudo domain Xuan Hao' divine sense engulfed was a pseudo earth domain.

From The pseudo earth domain, Xuan Hao felt an indestructible will. Standing tall even against the worst disasters. Compared to it, Xuan Hao felt his own pseudo domain was fragile and could break at even the slightest impact from the pseudo earth domain.

Of course, this was not true and was just Xuan Hao's imagination. After all, what remained of the pseudo earth domain was far from enough to do something like that.

The past owner of the pseudo earth domain should only have been at the middle stages of the Nascent Soul Realm, but Xuan Hao still felt a wave of helplessness wash over him when it came to the past genius's pseudo domain.

The domain was far superior to his own!

Summoning his own pseudo domain, Xuan Hao compared the two as several flaws began appearing in his own pseudo domain.

These flaws were not something Xuan Hao could see before, but when comparing to another pseudo domain, they became as clear as day to him. The initial instance of this chapter being available happened at N0v3l.Bin.

"I was way too hasty with my domain…" Feeling the countless flawless suddenly appearing in front of him, Xuan Hao knew very well that if he broke through to the Domain Lord Realm like this, he would be among the weakest Domain Lords as his Domain would end up filled with countless flaws for his opponent to make use of.

"I see… So, the pseudo domain is there for me to mend the mistakes before creating my own domain and breaking through to the Domain Lord Realm!" Feeling like he understood something important, Xuan Hao entered state of enlightenment as he unconsciously began engulfing the rest of the pseudo domains on the stone monument.

Like this, Xuan Hao unconsciously began to fix the different mistakes in his pseudo domain as his pseudo domain grew stronger and stronger under the constant refinement and improvement.

A clam breeze swept through the area as Xuan Hao was quietly sitting beneath the stone monument. The terrifying growth of his pseudo sword domain could not be sensed at all as he just looked like an ordinary young man quietly meditating to any outsider passing by.

Unknowingly, his pseudo sword domain reached a brand-new realm.

Even if his cultivation realm remained the same, his strength had undergone a huge change!

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Chapter 184: Towards the border of the Nascent Soul Realm Area!

As his pseudo sword domain grew stronger, Xuan Hao was fully absorbed in his cultivation and did not discover that the remains of the pseudo domains on the stone monument slowly disappeared as his own pseudo sword domain grew.

This continued over the next few days as Xuan Hao was fully immersed.

During this period of time, the wanderer at the? Domain Lord Realm reached the same area and was only a few hundred meter above Xuan Hao before quickly flying by. Not discovering Xuan Hao in the ancient forest below as his aura had completely merged together with the surrounding environment.

A day after the wanderer had passed by Xuan Hao, he finally opened his eyes and calmy observed the surroundings as he felt his pseudo domain engulfing the area a few meters away from him.

The pseudo sword domain was not activated by Xuan Hao but was instead passively merged into the surrounding environment as a sharp sword intent could be felt from Xuan Hao with every move he made.

At the current moment, Xuan Hao felt that all he needed was a single thought to manifest his sword qi into a deadly attack.

"So, this is what a domain is like…" Waving his hand, Xuan Hao caused a sword made out of sword qi to manifest directly in front of him without any effort.

Whoosh~

Pointing in the direction of a nearby ancient tree, Xuan Hao watched as the sword flew forward and easily cut through the giant ancient tree, causing the giant tree to crash into the ground below.

The newfound power of his pseudo domain allowed him an even greater control over his sword qi and strengthened his sword intent at the same time. Making all his attacks even stronger than they were before.

"It has already been two days… I should hurry…" Looking over at the now empty stone monument, Xuan Hao quickly deduced the time he had spent improving his pseudo sword domain and felt a sense of urgency upon recalling the fact that the demon beasts were being unsealed earlier than expected.

The fact that he had used two days already, could potentially force him to give up on the small palace and the ancient treasure inside mentioned by the treasure hunter…

But Xuan Hao did not really regret it, as his strength had improved, and he felt even more clear at how he should reach the Domain Lord Realm in the future.

Even if he had to give up on the ancient treasure mentioned by the treasure hunter, Xuan Hao still felt that it was worth it for him!

Not wasting anymore time staying around the stone monument, Xuan Hao cast one last look towards the stone monument and the names etched onto it before a sword floated out in front of him.

Jumping onto his sword, Xuan Hao quickly ascended into the sky and flew in the direction of the small palace mentioned by the treasure hunter.

Flying through the air, Xuan Hao also discovered that his speed had improved by a large margin. At this rate, he should be able to reach the small palace located at the border between the Nascent Soul Realm area and the Domain Lord Realm area within a few hours!

…

As Xuan Hao was making his way over in the direction of the border area, the wanderer from earlier had already managed to make it and had just finished inspecting one of the formation pillars located there.

"These are so much more impressive compared to the first pair… I really wonder what kind of crazy bastard wasted so many resources to construct them and why… These things should not be required to seal some demon beasts in the Domain Lord Realm, heck, even someone above the domain lord realm could be sealed by this formation if that was its purpose…" The pillars at the border between the Nascent Soul Realm area and the Domain Lord area were widely different as the ones present here were smaller and looked more minimalistic, with only a few symbols visible on them. The initial instance of this chapter being available happened at N0v3l.Bin.

The wanderer did not let this simple exterior fool him, as he clearly knew about the terrifying might hidden beneath the surface of these pillars.

Even if a single one of those pillars were used as a formation core to execute a killing formation, the wanderer knew very well his only option would be death!

This just made the wanderer even more interested in the core of this giant formation. After all, for the formation to be stable meant that the formation core was able to supress all the auxiliary parts and keep them operating.

The strength of the formation core could easily be seen just from this, and the wanderer wanted nothing more than to find it and study how it was able to operate such a giant formation!

"Sadly, it looks like things are going to get difficult from here on out…" Staring at the area beyond the formation pillar, the wanderer locked eyes with a giant worm like creature slithering around on the ground in front of him.

The worm like creature was at the Domain Lord Realm! The same realm as the wanderer himself!

But the wanderer did not back down as he took out his wooden staff and made his way over towards the giant worm like creature beyond the formation pillar.

The wanderer did not wait for the worm like creature to react as he swung his staff down towards it. At the same time a calm ocean manifested behind the wanderer as a torrent of water qi merged together with the wooden staff, causing the wooden staff to shine with a bright blue light as the calm ocean behind the wanderer began to descend down towards the worm like creature together with the simple wooden staff.

Boom!

This took a lot of time to explain, but it happened in an instant as the worm like creature barely managed to react before the wooden staff hit it.

Screech!

A terrifying screech erupted from the worm like creature as it struggled under the wooden staff, but soon it was suppressed as the calm ocean descended and directly killed it.

"At least the demon beasts around the border do not seem to have a domain yet… Only their physical body reached the Domain Lord Realm…" Looking at the remains of the worm like creature, the wanderer only paid attention to it for a short moment before moving deeper into the Domain Lord area of the secret realm.

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Chapter 185: Pseudo Sword Domain Showing it's Might!

Discover, Devour, Delight: NvεlB¡n.

Screech!

"Another one..." Flying high above the ancient forest below him, Xuan Hao helplessly looked down as a giant crow demon beast flew towards him from the ancient forest below.

The demon beasts flying up to attack him from time to time had become common as Xuan Hao already knew that most of the demon beasts in the ancient forest below had already been unsealed at this point in time.

At this point, the crow demon beast with a wingspan of at least a dozen or so meters arrived a few hundred meters away from Xuan Hao as it prepared to launch an attack, its claws giving off a dangerous feeling as it quickly closed the short distance between itself and Xuan Hao.

"Screech!" Getting closer and closer to Xuan Hao who ignored it this entire time, the crow demon beast let out an angry screech as it claws shone in an eerie black light before it was soon only a little over 10 meters away from him.

"Screech?" It was at this point the giant crow demon beast suddenly noticed something weird as it felt the world around itself disappear and instead it was replaced by an endless ocean of swords.

The crow demon beast was fully engulfed in Xuan Hao's pseudo sword domain and before it could react, the sword ocean swallowed it up completely. Killing it instantly before it could let out one last screeching sound.

On the outside, Xuan Hao looked over and saw the crow demon beast suddenly freeze for a moment before it was filled with countless sword wounds all over its body.

Bang!

The crow demon beast did not remain flying after the wounds appeared on its body and soon crashed into the ancient forest below.

A group of demon beast nearby heard the commotion and soon swarmed over to devour dead body of the crow demon beast.

Xuan Hao did not pay any more attention to the dead crow demon beast and resumed his journey towards the border area of the Nascent Soul Realm area.

What happened earlier was simply Xuan Hao using the power of his pseudo domain to kill the crow demon beast. The image that the crow demon beast had of a sword ocean engulfing and attacking it from all sides was simply the image that Xuan Hao's pseudo domain had.

While not a complete domain yet, Xuan Hao still manged to bring out some of the true essence of his future sword domain.

Following the Untold Swords Mantra, Xuan Hao's future sword domain would be able to manifest an untold number of swords into an endless sword ocean that could be used to attack his opponents. At its current stage, Xuan Hao could only use it to launch an attack if the opponent was kind enough to walk directly into his domain like the crow demon beast did.

Outside of that, Xuan Hao would be able to use his pseudo sword domain to strengthen his attacks even further. The strengthening brought about by his pseudo sword domain made Xuan Hao confident that he would be able to move however he wanted in the Nascent Soul Realm area of the secret realm without fearing the Half-Step Domain Lord demon beasts!

This was not to say Xuan Hao wanted to fight with them, as that would most likely end up attracting other Half-Step Domain Lord demon beast the longer the fight went on.

But Xuan Hao did not really worry too much about this. After all, he could always run away if things became too dangerous for him… A tactical retreat!

Xuan Hao did not really care much about "fighting to the end" or upholding his "honour" or something ridiculous like that. Life was way more important, and he doubted any sane cultivator would die for the sole purpose of saving a bit of face…

…

The journey to the border area went relatively peacefully, with only a few demon beasts at the earlier and sometime middle stages of the Nascent Soul Realm launching an attack at Xuan Hao from time to time as the demon beasts on the ground below happily devoured what remained of them after their unfortunate encounter with Xuan Hao did not end as planned for them…

"So, this is the formation pillars at the edge of the Nascent Soul Realm area, they look way smaller compared to the others..." Arriving at the border area, Xuan Hao instantly spotted one of the formation pillars stretching far into the sky above, but compared to the other formation pillar, they were way smaller and looked simpler.

Xuan Hao went up to the formation pillar in front of him and tried to inspect it with his divine sense like he had done in the past together with Chi Hu but was disappointed when all he saw was a myriad of different formations.

Nothing like the domain power left in the other pillar was left behind for him to comprehend or maybe there was something located beneath the countless formations, but Xuan Hao would never know…

Moving his vision away from the formation pillar, Xuan Hao looked at the surrounding ancient forest and did not spot the small palace mentioned by the treasure hunter anywhere nearby.

According to the treasure hunter, the small palace was located at the border area in the rough direction he was currently at, but even then, Xuan Hao could not spot the small palace even when he surveyed the surrounding area from above.

Maybe the small palace was not visible when looking from above and was instead hidden beneath the ancient trees. After all, the treasure hunter did say it was a small palace instead of just calling it a normal palace…

With this in mind, Xuan Hao descended and began to search the area around the border from the ground.

According to what the treasure hunter said, the border area should be swarming with Half-Step Domain Lord demon beast, similar to how the border of the Core Formation area had a lot of Half-Step Nascent Soul Realm demon beast!

Compared to when he was far above the ground where a random flying demon beast spotted him every now and then, danger could be lurking around every corner as Xuan Hao cautiously made his way through the ancient forest.

Not daring to let his guard down as he searched for the small temple. Staying cautious in case any demon beast decided to launch a sneak attack on him.

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Chapter 186: Chi Hu and the Treasure Hunter leaves the Secret Realm

The ancient forest had not changed much compared to how it was in the Core Formation area, outside of more spirit herbs growing there and the demon beasts being stronger.

Xuan Hao cautiously made his way through the ancient forest as he searched for the small palace. Hoping that the treasure hunter had not lied to him about its existence…

ROAR!

A bestial roar echoed out from the area in front of him followed by the loud howls from what Xuan Hao presumed was a group of wolf demon beasts. Most likely in the process of hunting a bigger demon beast together or maybe they just accidentally entered the wrong territory…

Xuan Hao did not really pay any mind to this as there were several fights happening all over the place in the ancient forest at the moment.

The demon beast who had just gotten unsealed were currently in the process of establishing their own territories inside the ancient forest and this had in turn caused them to fight with each other as they attempted to either expand or defend their newly established territories.

With all the fighting happening all over the place, Xuan Hao would have a higher chance at not attracting the surrounding demon beasts over if he ended up fighting a demon beast. After all, they would be too preoccupied with defending or attacking each other to come over.

Not like the Burning Mountain Range where the different demon beast's territories had already been established and they had more than enough spare time to come over whenever someone began fighting!

This was also one of the main reasons that the Burning Mountain Range was so dangerous, even Domain Lords didn't dare to enter the deeper areas in fear of being ganged up on by the Domain Lord demon beasts hidden inside!

"This should be it…" Searching through the area surrounding the border area, Xuan Hao finally managed to find something after half an hour of searching.

The thing in question was a small stone lamp post.

Whoosh~

Waving his hand, Xuan Hao caused a gentle wind to sweep through the area around the small stone lamp post removing the overgrown foliage around it and a path gradually began appearing leading in a direction further away from the border and the other closer to the border.

Xuan Hao did not stand around waiting for long before he began moving towards the location of the path that led further away from the border. Reasoning that the past owners of the secret realm should not have built anything just beside the formation pillars…

All he could hope now was that he was walking in the right direction so he wouldn't have to make the shameful walk back to the stone lamp post and follow the other direction of the path leading to an area closer to the border…

…

As Xuan Hao had finished his cultivation at the stone monument earlier, Chi Hu and the treasure hunter had made it to the entrance of the secret realm as the two were about to leave.

"So, where are we going? I heard you talking about returning with me to the sect for now, but I don't really know what sect you were talking about, is it perhaps a local sect from the Heavenly Sky Kingdom or perhaps one of the nearby kingdoms?" The treasure hunter had a curious look on his face as he asked Chi Hu. No matter what, the treasure hunter already believed that he should be safe at this point.

After all, if they wanted to kill him off, they would have already done it by now…

"We are going to the Flying Sword Sect; it should only be a few days travel away from the entrance of the secret realm." Not planning to hide it as the treasure hunter would find out about it at some point in the future anyway, Chi Hu directly answered him without hiding anything.

"The Flying Sword Set… I see, that sounds great!" The treasure hunter thought about it for a moment before he remembered some information regarding the Flying Sword Sect of the Heavenly Sky Kingdom.

All in all, the Flying Sword Sect had a good reputation as a relatively neutral sect keeping to itself most of the time. Only really skirmishing with the Raging Flame Sect from time to time over a past feud, but nothing too serious like a large-scale fight had happened.

The treasure hunter felt even more safe when he heard that it was the Flying Sword Sect and even began to chat more enthusiastically with Chi Hu as the two made their way out of the secret realm.

"Hm?" The moment both of them made their way outside of the secret realm, a market of sorts had sprung up with cultivators trading all sorts of spirit herbs and other materials found inside the secret realm as they joined up in different groups to enter the secret realm together. NvεlB¡n: Inspiring Minds, Illuminating Souls.

"Leave this area immediately or face the consequences!" As Chi Hu and the treasure hunter were about to leave the secret realms entrance, a cold and oppressive voice shook the surroundings and caused them to look up into the sky where a giant flying ship floated with the banner of the Sky Empire proudly swaying above it.

The person who called out before was standing in the air a few meters away from the floating ship as he coldly looked down on the crowd below.

Both Chi Hu and the treasure hunter felt the pressure excluded by this person far surpassing the Nascent Soul Realm as both of them clearly understood the person in question was someone in the Domain Lord Realm!

"General… If you supress all of them like that, they won't be able to leave…" An old voice could faintly be heard from inside the floating ship as the person floating above smiled awkwardly before retracting his aura. Allowing Chi Hu and the treasure hunter to breath freely again.

"The Sky Empire arrived already!?" Both Chi Hu felt worried upon realizing what this meant for Xuan Hao still inside the secret realm, while the treasure hunter also began to worry about how things would work out for him if Xuan Hao did not come back from the secret realm alive…

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Chapter 187: Underground Palace

Roar!

Xuan Hao dodged to the side as a giant paw filled with razor sharp claws barely missed him as he swung his sword down on the attacker, cutting off the attacking demon beasts head cleanly without any form of struggle.

"It seems like I'm getting closer…" Ignoring the dead demon beast lying beside him, Xuan Hao instead focused on the path before him becoming more visible as he travelled deeper into the ancient forest. Ensuring him that he had picked the right direction to follow.

Other than that, a few demon beasts around the earlier stages of the Nascent Soul Realm also came out from time to time and blocked him, but they were swiftly dealt with as Xuan Hao continued following the path.

The ancient trees quickly passed by as Xuan Hao moved through the ancient forest, listening to the surrounding roars and howls of demon beasts as they engaged in deadly fights with each other.

"This should be the end of the path…" After traveling for another half hour, Xuan Hao was already far away from the border and felt a little doubtful as he looked at the place where the path had stopped.

A gorge stretching far into the distance had appeared in front of him, a small river ran through it as it spit the ancient forest in half as the ancient trees barely managed to hide it from any prying eyes with their wide tree crowns. The initial posting of this chapter occurred via N0v3l.B11n.

Looking down, Xuan Hao managed to spot a small platform close to the bottom of the gorge with an entrance leading into the side of gorge. The path also seemed to lead down towards the platform as Xuan Hao also discovered a pair of stone steps etched into the side of the gorge leading all the way down towards the platform.

Following it, Xuan Hao soon found himself at the bottom of the gorge as he looked towards the entrance leading into what he could only assume to be a cave.

Checking out the platform with his divine sense, Xuan Hao did not sense anything weird about it or anything and decided to make his way inside the cave entrance. Maybe the small palace that the treasure hunter talked about had already completely disappeared from history. Only leaving behind the platform in the side of the gorge.

Xuan Hao felt that this was a possibility as quite a few demon beasts roamed around this area, and it could have been destroyed when the demon beasts had clashed in the past and end up slowly getting washed away in the river below over a long period of time.

In the end, the platform that the small palace once stood would be the only thing remaining…

Entering the entrance in the side of the gorge, Xuan Hao was shocked to see several crystals in the side of the cave walls lighting up the interior as Xuan Hao observed the inside of the cave and was once again shocked after he managed to fully observe the sheer size of the underground cave.

In front of him, Xuan Hao saw a small palace standing quietly surrounded by a giant chasm with only a simple hanging bridge connecting the small palace with the entrance to the cave.

Walking up to the chasm surrounding the small palace, Xuan Hao leaned forward as he tried to find out how deep the chasm was with his divine sense. Only to end up disappointed as his divine sense did not manage to reach the bottom of the chasm, even when stretching it as much as possible.

The reason for this was not so much that the chasm was too deep, but more because Xuan Hao felt his divine sense being suppressed the further down into the chasm his divine sense travelled.

The feeling of suppression on his divine sense was not something Xuan Hao was used to, and he felt a bit weird after discovering it, while also feeling curious as to what restricted his divine sense from peering further into the chasm below…

"No use thinking about it…" Shaking his head as he turned his attention away from the chasm, Xuan Hao walked over to the hanging bridge barely hanging in there and made his way over towards the small palace.

Remaining cautious in case any demon beast had made the small underground palace their home or any formation were in place to deal with any intruders.

But his worry was for nothing as Xuan Hao made it to the other side of the chasm without anything happening to him in the process. No demon beast or formation to block his path…

Xuan Hao felt that it was all a little too easy, but just shrugged his shoulders and entered the small palace in search of the ancient artifact mentioned by the treasure hunter.

The small palace was almost completely empty with no elaborate decorations or other precious objects.

Instead, the palace only had a single hallway leading to the main hall along with a few other rooms on the side with nothing inside them.

It almost seemed like everything inside the small palace had already been taken away with nothing remaining.

"Hah… Looks like I might be too late…" This caused Xuan Hao to sigh in defeat as he thought someone else might have found the small palace before him.

Feeling depressed thinking about the fact that someone else might have beaten him to it, Xuan Hao made his way into the main hall of the palace without expecting there to be anything left inside.

"This is…!"

…

Rumble~

The sound of a large creature moving could be heard from the chasm surrounding the underground palace, as a pair of eyes slowly sprung open and stared directly up at the underground palace filled with an undeniable killing intent.

And before long, the creature slowly began moving up from the chasm and towards the underground palace where Xuan Hao was currently at. Completely unaware of the fact that a certain demon beast had already targeted him just after being unsealed!

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Chapter 188: Wooden Box and Demon Ape~

"This is…!" Entering the main hall of the small underground palace, Xuan Hao was taken aback as he saw the surrounding environment suddenly shift to a livelier one filled with all sorts of extravagant decorations. Making the past few rooms and halls look like they did not belong to the same palace in the first place.

Xuan felt it was weird as he observed the staircase at the end of the main hall leading into what he could only assume was the throne room of the underground palace.

Walking forward, Xuan Hao did not spend too much time in the main hall as he walked up the staircase and entered the throne room of the underground palace. Only to be met with an almost empty room outside of a small stone pedestal located towards the end of the throne room where the throne would normally be located.

The room itself did not seem like anything special and was not even close to being as beautifully decorated as the main hall was. Making Xuan Hao doubt whether he had truly entered the throne room of the underground palace or maybe taken a wrong turn…

Slowly moving forward, Xuan Hao soon arrived in front of the stone pedestal as he discovered a small wooden box with a beautiful phoenix engraved into it.

"Hm?" Picking up the wooden box, Xuan Hao tried to open it, but soon found out that the small wooden box did not react in the slightest and remained closed. Even when he tried to put all his strength into it, the small wooden box did not budge in the slightest and remained closed.

"What is this?! Is it perhaps the ancient artifact mentioned by the treasure hunter?" Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao decided to ask the treasure hunter about it after returning to the Flying Sword Sect.

For now, he but the small wooden box away in his interspatial ring as he began exploring the rest of the underground palace.

This however only ended in disappointment, with nothing of value appearing outside of the wooden box found in the throne room of the underground palace.

"Hah… Looks like there isn't anything other than the wooden box in this palace…" Sighing with a disappointed look on his face, Xuan Hao left the underground palace and made his way over towards the hanging bridge connecting the underground palace with the entrance of the cave.

Crash!

"Hm?" Just as Xuan Hao was about to step onto the hanging bridge, the other part of the hanging bridge connected to where the entrance was snapped as the hanging bridge crashed down into the chasm surrounding the underground palace.

This was not much of a problem as Xuan Hao could just jump on his sword and fly over to the other side of the chasm, what truly caught him off guard was the giant furry hand that suddenly appeared from the chasm as another hand soon appeared along with the rest of the demon beast's body appeared.

ROAR!

Towering several dozen meters tall, a giant demon ape crawled out of the chasm as it let out a heaven shaking roar before turning to look in the direction of Xuan Hao filled with a clear killing intent.

"Well… This was unexpected…" Observing the demon ape on the other side of the chasm as it stared back at him filled with killing intent, Xuan Hao tilted his head to the side as he examined the cultivation of the demon ape.

"Of course, its half a step into the Domain Lord Realm…" Taking out his sword from his interspatial ring, Xuan Hao narrowed his eyes as he prepared for anything that the demon ape might do. The initial instance of this chapter being available happened at N0v3l.Bin.

ROAR!

Seeing Xuan Hao drawing his sword, the demon ape reacted cautiously as instead of jumping over the chasm to fight him, it instead retreated out through the entrance to the cave as Xuan Hao was left alone in the cave.

"Looks like it is planning to ambush me the moment I exit the cave… Not that I have any other way out… Maybe I could wait for it to get impatient?" Jumping up on his sword, Xuan Hao gently floated over to the other side as he landed and went over his options.

Rumble~

Roar!

Just as Xuan Hao was planning to stay inside the cave and wait for the demon ape to grow impatient outside. Another somewhat muffled roar could be heard from the chasm behind him as the entire cave began shaking violently.

"There are more demon beasts sealed down in the chasm?!" Feeling the increasingly growing demonic aura of several demon beasts in the chasm as they were in the process of breaking their seal and regaining freedom just like the demon ape had, Xuan Hao felt his option of waiting around in the cave was no longer viable unless he wanted to fight multiple demon beasts like the demon ape at once…

Whoosh~

Not hesitating anymore, Xuan Hao decisively charged out of the cave entrance. Ready to deal with any ambush set up by the demon ape as he prepared to unleash his pseudo sword domain the moment the demon ape attacked him.

Roar!

The demon ape did not disappoint him in the slightest, as it had indeed waited outside the entrance of the cave.

Swinging down its huge fist filled with a destructive qi as Xuan Hao used his pseudo sword domain to block the torrent of destructive qi that the giant fist of the demon ape unleashed.

BOOM!

A large explosion occurred the moment the destructive qi of the demon apes fist made contact with Xuan Hao's pseudo sword domain.

Instantly causing the entrance of the cave behind Xuan Hao to collapse together with the stone platform both of them were standing on.

Crash!

The stone platform crashed into the river below running through the gorge, as Xuan Hao and the demon ape both moved up from the gorge and into the ancient forest above.

Clang~

The sound of a sword hitting a metal surface echoed out in the surroundings as Xuan Hao's used the moment that both of them made their way out of the gorge to launch a sneak attack at the demon ape.

Sadly, it was easily blocked by the thick fur of the demon ape as it let out an angry roar and closed the distance on Xuan Hao before once again swinging down its huge fists in an attempt to kill Xuan Hao.

"Looks like it won't be easy to pierce through the thick fur of this one, I should try out the Sword Shadow technique from the Untold Swords Mantra now that my pseudo sword domain have gotten stronger, I should be able to more easily control it without using up too much of my qi reserves…" Muttering this to himself as he wanted to see how strong the Sword Shadow technique had gotten after the strength of his pseudo sword domain grew, Xuan Hao decided that the giant demon ape would be the best possible candidate to try it out on.

And given how he needed to end things quickly before the other demon beasts in the chasm managed to break free from the seal and come to join in on the fight, Xuan Hao watched as the giant fists from the demon ape closed in on him as he used the Rain Sword's first move, Misty Rain, to block the two giant fists from the demon ape.

"Misty Rain!"

The first move from the Rain Sword was a defensive sword move and compared to the Cloudburst from the Rain Sword technique that was the strongest move in the Rain Sword technique, the Misty Rain Sword was way more suited for dealing with the attack from the demon ape!

The giant fists of the demon ape were about to land at the place Xuan Hao was standing as a bright blue light erupted around Xuan Hao's sword forming a thin transparent blue barrier around Xuan Hao as he remained in place facing the two giant fists of the demon ape without trying to dodge to the side.

BOOM!

The attack of the demon ape landed on the thin blue barrier surrounding Xuan Hao as a shockwave spread out with him as the centre.

Instantly levelling the surrounding ancient trees within 500 meters. Leaving behind only a barren wasteland where the ancient forest had once stood.

"Roar?" The demon ape began feeling something was wrong as it slowly lifted both its fist to see the situation of its opponent. Only to be left with a shocked expression as Xuan Hao was completely fine, with the blue barrier only showing a few cracks in the place where the two fists of the demon ape made impact.

"Hah… It seems that Misty Rain is way stronger when it is strengthened by my pseudo sword domain!" Xuan Hao let out a satisfied smile as he did not expect for his pseudo sword domain to strengthen his sword techniques by such a large margin.

"Hehe, seems like it is my turn now!" Chuckling a bit to himself as he felt the power of his pseudo sword domain, Xuan Hao stopped using the Misty Rain sword move and prepared to attack the demon ape.

"R-roar…?" The demon ape saw the human who had survived its earlier attack suddenly preparing to attack and suddenly felt a shiver run down its back…

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Chapter 189: Demon Ape vs Xuan Hao!

Ching~

Grabbing hold of his sword, Xuan Hao executed the Sword Shadow Move from the Untold Swords Mantra for the second time since learning it.

Whoosh~

A calm wind blew through the barren landscape created by the demon ape's earlier attack and an almost invisible shadow suddenly appeared in front of the demon ape.

"Roar?" Letting out a confused roar upon seeing the small sword shadow suddenly appear in front of it, the demon ape instinctively knew that the sword shadow was far more dangerous than anything that it had ever encountered before!

Boom!

Surging with energy, the demon ape put up both its hands to block the incoming attack. It's qi erupting from its body as it formed black barrier in front of its two arms, small electric currents running over the surface of the barrier making it look even more intimidating.

Only a split second passed from when the demon ape set up its defensive barrier and the Sword Shadow by Xuan Hao finally hit the defensive barrier of the demon ape.

Compared to the last time where the sword energy erupted out into a giant vortex made of sword qi covering the skies and sweeping through the surroundings, this time was different.

Psh!

The sword shadow easily pierced a tiny hole through the barrier and pierced into the demon ape as the sword vortex hidden inside of the sword shadow erupted out.

The gentle wind blowing through the ancient forest soon turned into a furious storm that swept through the surroundings as a small vortex made of sword qi formed around the demon ape.

"Looks like I still failed…" Trying his best to keep the sword vortex under control, Xuan Hao had a disappointed look on his face as he observed the demon ape being covered in a dark aura that protected it against the sword vortex's constant barrage of attacks.

The demon ape had a way easier time defending against the sword vortex as the attack was not as concentrated as the earlier sword shadow where the vortex had concentrated into the tiny sword shadow and easily penetrated through its defences.

Roar!

Letting out a heaven shaking roar, the demon ape forcefully dispelled the sword vortex surrounding it as the dark aura defending it dispersed.

Xuan Hao did not really stop this and had already given up on wasting his energy to keep the sword vortex up and running. Allowing for the demon ape to dispel it uncontested.

At this point, Xuan Hao had not really wasted too much of his qi reserves as he decided to not keep the sword vortex up, while the demon ape had already used a large majority of its energy.

"Guess I should end this quickly…" Glancing over in the direction of the gorge where the demonic aura from the other demon beast awakening could be felt growing stronger and stronger with each passing second, Xuan Hao did not waste any time as he attack the demon ape without any special sword moves or techniques.

Just simple sword attacks strengthened by both his qi and his pseudo sword domain. Making even a simple attack from Xuan Hao deadly to the demon ape without wasting too much of his own energy in the process.

ROAR!

The demon ape roared loudly as it saw Xuan Hao suddenly come over to attack himself and prepared to launch an attack itself, but upon reaching the distance of a dozen or so meters from Xuan Hao, it suddenly felt its movement being restricted as it felt something all around it constantly trying to cut into it.

Psh~

Blood splattered out from the demon apes back as it felt the unseen force successfully cutting through its skin.

It did not take long before the demon ape realized that it had to keep up a constant barrier around its body to defend against the unseen force constantly trying to cut into it from all directions, while also having to block Xuan Hao's constant barrage of attacks.

This was one of the most useful abilities of Xuan Hao's pseudo sword domain when dealing with opponents that could not just be outright killed by it and best of all, Xuan Hao did not even have to use any of his qi to constantly keep up his domain!

The only demerit was that he would begin growing exhausted after an extensive use of his pseudo sword domain, but this did not matter much as he did not plan for the current fight to continue for much longer.

Like this, Xuan Hao kept on a constant offensive against the demon ape as it tried its best to defend, but this was not meant to last as the demon ape's defence grew weaker and weaker with each passing second.

Swish~

A sword slash by Xuan Hao soon managed to break through the defences of the demon ape as the sword directly cut into the left arm of the demon ape, cleaning cutting it off.

ROAR!

The demon ape let out a roar filled with pain as it tried its best to retreat, but it was too late as Xuan Hao used the opening created by the demon ape.

"Cloudburst!" The initial instance of this chapter being available happened at N0v3l.Bin.

Xuan Hao channelled his qi as he used the final move of the Rain Sword, Cloudburst.

Sword qi rapidly formed around the edge of the sword and merged together with Xuan Hao's Sword Intent as a streak of sword light exploded out from the sword and headed straight for the retreating demon ape.

Together with the sword light, the demon ape faintly heard the sound of rain as it turned around only to see the sword light already appear directly in front of it.

A terrifying rainstorm engulfed it briefly as the illusion ended the sword qi gathered inside of the sword light exploded outwards a few meters away from the demon ape, raining down on the demon ape in the shape of countless tiny raindrops.

Roa-

The demon ape did not even manage to let out one last roar as the raindrops formed from the sword qi hit it and created countless small holes in its giant furry body. Killing it in an instant.

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Chapter 190: Heading back towards the Secret Realm Entrance~

Crash!

The giant body of the demon ape fell to the ground as it shattered the area that it landed with its weight alone, causing a dust cloud to rise up after the impact.

The demon ape was dead! Riddled with countless small holes all over its large frame from Xuan Hao's finishing move, Cloudburst.

Roar Roar Roar! Discover, Devour, Delight: NvεlB¡n.

Countless roars could be heard from the gorge just besides the battlefield of Xuan Hao and the demon ape, causing Xuan Hao to quickly use his interspatial ring and store the corpse of the demon ape before making his way up into the sky away from the gorge. Not that keen on the idea of getting ganged up by a group of demon beasts that had just managed to get free from their seal.

"Now what should I do… Stay in the secret realm and try to search for the core of the secret realm formation or leave before things get too dangerous…" Looking over at the formation pillars separating the Nascent Soul Realm area with the Domain Lord Realm area, Xuan Hao felt himself hesitating even though he knew very well that going there would not end up well for him…

Thinking about, Xuan Hao soon shook his head and turned away from the formation pillars and began heading back towards the entrance of the secret realm.

"Hah… No matter what, going to an area filled with Domain Lord Realm demon beasts at my current state would be nothing short of suicide…" Smiling wryly as he extinguished his early ambitious thoughts, Xuan Hao no longer hesitated as he made his way back towards the entrance to the secret realm.

At most he would consider coming back to the secret realm after reaching the Domain Lord Realm if it had not been emptied out at that point in time…

Going to search for the core of the secret realm formation at this point was nothing more than a suicide mission!

He would at least need to reach the Domain Lord Realm before wanting to enter the secret realm again. For now, he should just focus on some of the more doable things for the current him, like helping his disciples reach a higher realm and solving the quest he got related to them…

With this in mind, Xuan Hao no longer thought about the quest from the system as he observed the never changing? ancient forest passing by below him along his way back to the entrance of the secret realm.

Trying to see if he happened to be lucky enough to spot an ancient ruin or some precious herbs along the way.

Though that was easy said than done, as the large crowns of the ancient trees covered up most of the ground below. Not allowing for Xuan Hao to easily stop anything hidden beneath.

…

"Are you sure there is an ancient ruin located over here? Sure the map you bought from that fellow at the entrance can be trusted in the first place?" Just over the border between the Nascent Soul Realm area and the Core Formation Realm area, a duo of one female and one male were walking through the dense forest as they were arguing with each other.

"I'm sure of it! And would that fellow even dare to lie to me in the first place? Remember, I'm someone in the Nascent Soul Realm! How could that silly little fellow at the Foundation Establishment Realm dare to lie to me?" Saying that, the male of the two proudly puffed up his chest in an attempt to look a bit more reliable.

"Sureee~ Just like the other map that you bought for 100 spirit stone from that child in the Qi Condensation Realm would not dare sell you a fake one~" Hearing the exclamation from her male partner, the female of the two rolled her eyes as she pointed out the map that they had followed earlier.

Back then, both of them had walked into a pack of Nascent Soul Realm wolves and just barely managed to escape back over the border to safety as the map in question had just pointed them into a cave that the pack of Nascent Soul Realm wolves were living in.

"T-that… I'm sure that was just a mistake! This map will surely lead us to a ruin with great treasures in it!" Not knowing what to say, the male tried to deflect as he insisted that the second map was real.

Partly due to the fact that he didn't want to admit the fact that he had wasted close to 1000 spirit stones on it…

"Well, we will find out soon enough…" Not wanting to waste time arguing, the woman just decided to play along and chide him after they walked into yet another den of demon beasts… Not at all worried that they would end up being in danger.

"By the way, I heard that those fellows from the Sky Empire arrived already and blocked off the surrounding area around the secret realm… Do you think that they were nearby or something? They reacted way too fast and one of their skyships even showed up…" Continuing through the ancient forest, the male among the two of them asked as he curiously looked over at his female companion to see her reaction.

"Hmph, who cares what those idiots are doing! But leaving will indeed be more difficult with those people guarding the entrance…" Cursing out the moment she heard the mention of someone from the Sky Empire showing up, the female soon calmed down as she began to analysing the situation before them.

Leaving would indeed be difficult if the Sky Empire blocked the entrance…

Waiting until the other powers showed up and leaving during the turmoil would be their best option, but how long would that take…?

"Ah, the ruin should be just over here!" Seeing his companion's mood growing a bit unstable, the male quickly informed her as he pointed ahead at a cave located a few meters away from them.

"Is that not the same cave from before-" Looking over, the female companion immediately woke up from her train of thought as she recognized the cave from earlier in the day.

Howl!

"RUN!" A loud wolf howl was heard as she grabbed onto her stupid companion and dashed over in the direction of the border, a large pack of wolves soon came out of the cave as they chased after the duo.

"I swear it was not on purpose!" Being dragged along, the male companion screamed out as he watched the pack of wolves following them all the way back to the border before giving up and returning to the cave once again.

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Chapter 191: Sky Empire Blocks the Entrance of the Secret Realm

"So… What did I say? Still want to try another of those maps you bought earlier?!" Looking over at her companion with a mocking smile on her lips, the female of the duo snickered as she asked.

"I-I'm sure its just a mistake… This time for sure! As people say, third time's the charm!" Not willing to give up, the male took out yet another map as he prepared to enter the Nascent Soul Realm area once again.

"Enough! We can't continue visiting those wolves and that map is the exact same as the first one!" Stopping him before he made his way back over the border, the female signalled for him to look at the map more closely.

The male companion stopped in place as he took out the first map and compared it with the third map.

"I-it's the same!? W-what about the rest of the maps…?" Screaming out in surprise like he had gotten the shock of his life, he hurriedly took out the rest of the maps he bought and compared them with each other. Only to end up disappointed.

All of the maps led towards the same cave with a pack of Nascent Soul Realm wolves living in it…

"H-how could they scam me like this!? I-I swear I will get my revenge when I find them again!" Angrily proclaiming this, he proceeded to throw all of the maps away and begin sulking as he thought about the large amount of spirit stones that he wasted on those maps…

Rolling her eyes at her companion's childish display, she walked over beside him and asked, "So can we go explore the place I want to. Seeing as we are finished with your treasure maps…?"

"Hah… Fine, but we have to find those people when we leave the secret realm!" Agreeing to follow her lead, the male companion quickly calmed down and thought about how to deal with those people who scammed them after they made their way back out of the secret realm.

"Sure~" Not wanting to continue this anymore, the female agreed. Not wanting to talk about how the Sky Empires people had most likely already chased away those people and their chances of finding them once again being reduced to close to nothing… NvεlB¡n: Inspiring Minds, Illuminating Souls.

Satisfied with his female companion's response, the male of the two happily followed as the two of them once again entered the Nascent Soul Realm area.

This time moving in a direction far away from a certain cave filled with wolves…

…

A day passed as Xuan Hao had decided to slow down a bit while making his way back towards the entrance of the secret realm.

The reason for this was not that he did not want to leave faster or anything along that line.

Instead, it was because he had managed to spot a group of Nascent Soul Realm Experts earlier and had overheard them talking about the Sky Empire already arriving and blocking the entrance to the secret realm off.

Searching anyone leaving the secret realm and Xuan Hao knew that he would most likely end up being stuck in the secret realm for a while longer before other people showed up and allowed people like himself a chance to escape without getting all the thing on him robbed clean by the Sky Empire…

Because of this, Xuan Hao had decided to spend some more time in the Nascent Soul Realm area and decided to explore it more in depth as he slowed down and looked out for new ruins or precious spiritual herbs while flying above the ancient forest.

Other than the group Xuan Hao had overheard earlier in the day, there was also other groups of cultivators present in the Nascent Soul Realm area trying to find ruins or treasures just like himself!

"But how come they did not get killed off by that Half-Step Domain Lord Realm wolf at the border?" Thinking about this, Xuan Hao felt a bit confused. The demon wolf should still be fine and these people at the earlier and middle stages of the Nascent Soul Realm running around should not have the strength to deal with the wolf and its pack…

Maybe something changed and the wolf decided to move its pack away from the border deeper into the ancient forest?

Xuan Hao had no clue what happened to the strong wolf demon beast and its pack, so he decided to ignore it for now.

After all, with his current strength, he would be fine even if he encountered the wolf and its pack…

"Hm? Maybe the people from the Sky Empire started entering the secret realm already and dealt with it?" Thinking a bit deeper about it, Xuan Hao realized that the Sky Empire would most likely have people at the Domain Lord Realm present.

Dealing with a small demon beast half a step into the Domain Lord Realm, should be relatively easy for someone like that.

Xuan Hao immediately began to feel the danger, as encountering a Domain Lord at his current state was not really something that he wanted to happen.

"I should land on the ground and walk the rest of the way… If a Domain Lord spots me flying around, I will definitely get stopped by them…" Thinking about this, Xuan Hao quickly began descending towards the ancient forest below him as he put his sword away and began walking in the direction of the border.

"Well… At least I should be able to more easily find any ruins hidden beneath the ancient trees this way…" Xuan Hao did not feel that this was a problem and even felt like travelling on the ground was a good change of pace from all that flying earlier.

"Hm… I wonder what other powers will show up at the secret realm… I don't really know that many empires or powerful organizations outside of the Sky Empire and the Explorer Union…" Thinking about this, Xuan Hao began looking forward to the inevitable clash between these great powers outside of the secret realm.

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Chapter 192: Fire Blood Gang and Flowing Cloud Sect

"There really are way more ruins around here than I expected…" As he was travelling along the ground this time around instead of flying high above the ancient forest, Xuan Hao managed to encounter several ancient ruins.

But this also made Xuan Hao start doubting whether this ancient forest was truly a testing ground in the first place or something different.

After all, why would they place so many random buildings inside of the ancient forest if it was just for testing disciples in the first place? Perhaps it was for something other than just testing?

Thinking about this, Xuan Hao realized that the different ruins he had found so far included a temple, a pagoda with cultivation techniques and mantras and several living quarters so to speak.

At this point, Xuan Hao felt that the secret realm seemed more like a part of the ancient sect that controlled the secret realm compared to a testing ground for disciples to come…

"Hah… I really don't understand…" Shaking his head a bit as he thought about this, Xuan Hao suddenly turned his head around as he sensed a large group of people a little farther away locked in combat.

"Hm…? Seems like there is another ruin over there as well…" Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao did his best to conceal himself with the help of his pseudo sword domain helping him blend into the surroundings before moving over in the direction where he had sensed the large group of people fighting.

The concealment from his pseudo sword domain was something he only found out about recently when playing around with it as he made his way back towards the secret realms entrance and was something anyone with a pseudo domain could do.

It was useful for concealing oneself from those without a pseudo domain yet but was completely useless if someone else had a pseudo domain or a real domain already.

So, with his new concealment technique, Xuan Hao slowly made his way towards the large group of people. Praying that there was not anybody there that could spot him in case he was viewed as an enemy of sorts…

…

Boom!

A little farther away from Xuan Hao, a large explosion suddenly echoed out through the surroundings as a few figures could be seen flying through the air before crashing into a large ancient tree besides a small ruin of what looked like a house.

"H-how? W-why are the people from the Fire Blood Gang here…?" One of the figures who crashed into the ancient tree struggled to stand up again as he fearfully looked over at the person responsible for his and his teammates current state.

The person in question was a beautiful young lady in her early twenties dressed in a pure white robe, or at least she looked like that… Her true age was most likely far from being some young lad…

After all, female cultivators tended to enjoy their young looks and went through all sorts of different techniques to make sure they appeared young and beautiful for as long as possible.

This had led to quite an interesting development when it came to dao couples where most of the females forced their partners to take on a youthful look like themselves, as it would look a bit out of place for someone looking like she was twenty or so walking together with a kind looking grandpa… Discover, Devour, Delight: NvεlB¡n.

"Hmph! I didn't think a beautiful lady from the Flowing Cloud Sect would show up here, hehe!" Licking his lips with a lewd smile on his lips, the leader of the group made his way forward towards the weak looking young lady just as Xuan Hao arrived at the scene to see this.

What the hell did I just walk into…? Where is the hero saving the damsel in distress?

Watching the leader of the Fire Blood Gang making his way towards the clearly weakened lady from the Flowing Cloud Sect, Xuan Hao decided to observe the situation for now as he had clearly sensed a familiar presence among the group that were thrown back earlier together with the young lady.

Sitting back and preparing to watch a show, Xuan Hao recalled what little he could about the Flowing Cloud Sect and the Fire Blood Gang.

Both of them belonged to the Cloud Sky Kingdom located quite a distance away from here, but the Fire Blood Gang was a well-known bandit group with several Nascent Soul Realm Experts in it that terrorized a lot of kingdoms close by as they often went outside the Cloud Sky Kingdom to either rob someone or recruit new people.

All in all, Xuan Hao was not that surprised about their appearance in the Secret Realm, but the lady from the Flowing Cloud Sect.

No matter what, she should not have appeared so far away from the Cloud Sky Kingdom but here she was…

"You will have to pass through me if you want to lay your hands on the young lady!" Just as Xuan Hao was lost in thought, a familiar voice echoed out as Xuan Hao immediately turned to look at the person that appeared in front of the young lady.

"Old Ji!" The young lady exclaimed the moment the person appeared to block the bandit leader from moving any further.

"Heh, so you want to block me? Let's see what you got then, don't go flying like last time! Haha!" Bursting in loud laughter along with the rest of the bandits. The leader had an amused look on his face as he walked forward with a huge double headed axe in hand.

"Old Ji, hurry and run away! You can still escape if I buy some time!" The lady pleaded with the elderly man standing in front of her as she desperately pleaded for him to leave her behind and leave.

"No, I will stay my lady. Get ready to run away when we start fighting!" Saying this, Old Ji prepared to face the bandit leader as he ignored the pleading voice of the young lady behind him.

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