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

6. 193

Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough #Chapter 193: All Out Attack! Kill the Bandit Leader! - Read Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough Chapter 193: All Out Attack! Kill the Bandit Leader! Online - All Page - Novel Bin

Chapter 193: All Out Attack! Kill the Bandit Leader!

"This is…" Looking over at the so-called Old Ji, Xuan Hao wore a surprised expression on his face as he clearly recognized Old Ji…

Old Ji was someone Xuan Hao had met a few months ago in the past, but at that time he was called Elder Skinling from the Black Rose Sect… How come was suddenly connected to someone from the Flowing Cloud Sect after only a few months' time? And how did he already manage to heal his arm and even reach the Nascent Soul Realm?!

Xuan Hao felt even more confused when he saw how concerned the lady from the Flowing Cloud Sect was about him as he selflessly stood up to protect her. Instead of running away, she instead remained in place.

Clearly intent on helping him out in the coming fight against the bandit leader!

"Hehe, both of you can just come together and I will deal with you at the same time!" Showing obvious disdain towards the two of them, the bandit leader motioned for both of them to attack whenever they were ready.

"Young lady… You should just escape while there is still time!" Feeling a bit helpless upon seeing the young woman's steadfast intent to stay and fight.

"No! I will stay, we have a better chance at getting out alive if we stay together!" Dive into Stories, Embrace Enchantment: NvεlB¡n.

"Fine but remember to be careful later on…" Looking at her with a helpless look on his face, Old Ji sighed to himself as he gave up on convincing her anymore.

At the same time, Xuan Hao had made his way a little closer to the battlefield as he was hiding on top of a nearby tree branch of an especially large ancient tree giving him full view of the soon to be battlefield.

Currently, the bandit leader was around the fifth stage of the Nascent Soul Realm and his three underlings were all in the earlier stages of the Nascent Soul Realm as they all prepared to attack Old Ji and the young lady from the Flowing Cloud Sect.

The odds were not really in favor of the two as they were both only in the first stage of the Nascent Soul Realm, along with someone who Xuan Hao presumed was supposed to be the guard of the young lady being at the third stage of the Nascent Soul Realm.

The person in question was an elderly lady who had not said anything since the start as she had clearly been heavily injured in a past clash with the bandit leader, a thin line of blood could barely be seen running down from the corner of her lips by Xuan Hao as he observed how she moved over towards the young lady and prepared to move the moment that the bandit leader began his attack.

Ads by Pubfuture

"Hehe, you still have energy left in you after earlier?" Seeing the elderly woman come up and prepare to attack him as well, the bandit leader did not seem to care at all as he just laughed it off before narrowing his eyes and signalling to his underlings to move into position in case they tried to run away, or he needed help dealing with them.

Seeing this, Old Ji along with the young and elderly lady prepared as they knew very well how dirty that the Fire Blood Gang normally fought, it would not surprise any of them if they suddenly ganged up on one of them as the leader held the others back…

"Seems like these three will end up in trouble without any help…" Xuan Hao muttered this quietly to himself as he observed the bandit leader preparing to make a move along with the three underlings looking like they couldn't wait for much longer.

"Let's go!" Before the bandit leader made his move and his underlings had moved into position yet, Old Ji moved along with the young lady and elderly lady as the three of them launched a quick all-out attack towards the bandit leader together.

Stacking everything on this single attack, they hoped that they would be able to catch the bandit leader off guard as he might not have expected for all of them to suddenly use their strongest moves before first clashing with him or anything like that.

This was especially so as the elderly lady clearly overtaxed herself by going all out and was severely injured in the process of using her strongest attack towards the leader of the bandits.

Whoosh!

Three terrifying attacks flew towards the leader of the bandit as they seemingly worked in tandem with one another to create a single powerful attack that hurled towards the bandit leader a breakneck speed.

"How beautiful…!" Xuan Hao could not help but let out a voice of admiration as he watched the three attacks work together and create a single combined attack with a strength way above the early stage of the Nascent Soul Realm.

From observation alone, Xuan Hao easily deduced that the attack had already reached the level of being comparable to the all-out attack of someone at the peak of the fifth stage of the Nascent Soul Realm!

The bandit leader also sensed the incoming danger as a panicked expression spread all over his face as he began setting up a few barriers to block the incoming attack, but soon found out that it was useless to resist without proper preparations and instead abandoned his defence to take out a small ball that shone with an eerie black light.

Boom!

The attack hit the bandit leader as a shockwave spread through the surroundings and uprooted a few nearby ancient trees along with the surrounding vegetation and plant life.

"This should be enough…" Old Ji and the two ladies all looked at the centre of the explosion as the elderly lady fell to the ground from exhaustion.

"Grandma!" The young lady quickly rushed over to support the old lady as she began checking up on her together with Old Ji.

Ads by Pubfuture

"W-what should we do now…?" One of the three underlings looked at the centre of the explosion with a scared look on his face as he asked the others in slightly confused voice, still not fully processing what had happened yet.

"…" The other two underlings did not know what to do either as all of them just stared blankly at the place their leader had been standing as the explosion from the earlier attack slowly began to subside.

"Hm? This is!" On top of the tree branch, Xuan Hao narrowed his eyes at the place where the explosion happened as a dangerous killing intent slowly began to accumulate in his eyes.

This feeling, Xuan Hao was all too familiar with it after he had visited the Black Rose Sect to fight with the Sect Master and get his disciple back.

"What is that!" One of the underlings also discovered that something was wrong as he called out in shock and pointed over in the area where the explosion had occurred earlier.

Where the bandit leader had been standing earlier, there was instead a pitch-black dome quietly flowing around the place as it seemed to protect something inside of it.

"Demonic qi!?" The old lady who had been helped up by both the young lady and Old Ji exclaimed loudly with a shocked expression on her face as her eyes widened with fear.

Old Ji and the young lady were the same as they both prepared themselves for what was to come next.

"Boss…? A-are you there?" One of the underlings cautiously moved over towards the black dome as he called out in a fearful tone.

"AHHH! How annoying!? Why did you have to force me to do this?!" The underling was not answered as an enraged voice could be heard from beyond the black dome as it slowly began to disappear.

Revealing the bandit leader hidden inside.

Only this time, the bandit leader did not look like the bandit leader anymore and instead had a large pair of pitch-black bat wings and a large pair of claws where his hands had been before.

All in all, the bandit leader had completely turned into a demonic creature that looked like it had crawled up from hell as everyone stared over full of shock and fear. Not knowing what to do when faced with the new appearance of the bandit leader.

"D-demonic cultivator…!" Shaking full of fear, the underling that had walked up to call out for the bandit leader began shaking in fear as he was about to turn around and escape.

Splash!

Sadly, that was too late as a giant claw came down from above and directly killed the underling where he was standing.

Instantly killing someone in the Nascent Soul Realm!

The others began shaking in fear as they watched the former bandit leader lift the claw he just used to kill his own underling and lick some of the blood left on the claw away while moaning in pleasure upon swallowing some of the blood.

"Ah! Why did you have to force me to do this!? Now I will have to kill you all~" The former bandit leader let out a regretful voice as he lifted his head and smiled eerily at Old Ji along with the young and old lady from the Flowing Cloud Sect.

Ads by Pubfuture

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 194: Xuan Hao Appears!

"I never expected for the leader of the Fire Blood Gang to be a demonic cultivator… This would surely prompt the Cloud Sky Kingdom to take action against them, but that is only if they find out…" Whispering this quietly to herself, the young lady from the Flowing Cloud Sect quickly realized that the leader of the Fire Blood Gang did not plan to let anyone of them leave alive…

"What should we do?!" One of the two remaining underling panicked after seeing their leader turn into a demonic cultivator all of a sudden and ruthlessly kill one of them.

At this point, both of the underlings had already realized that their former leader was not going to let them go in case they spread the news of him being a demonic cultivator, causing the surrounding powers to gang up on him and kill him.

This was very likely, as compared to the Heavenly Sky Kingdom where the sects and the ruling royal family were at odds with each other. The Cloud Sky Kingdom existed in harmony with the sects inside their territory and for them to team up and deal with a demonic cultivator was an easy matter.

The former bandit leader knew about this and planned to kill off everyone here to ensure his secret was safe!

"Ahm! W-what do you say we work together…?" The underling that had no idea what to do made his way over to Old Ji and the other two as he asked in an awkward voice.

The other underling also saw the opportunity and quickly made his way over as both of them waited for their response. Anxiously looking over in the direction of their former leader from time to time as they felt the terrifying pressure excluded by a demonic cultivator first-hand.

"Sure… We will need a miracle to get away from this guy alive and more people should at least increase our chances by a bit!" The old lady answered before Old Ji, or the young lady could say anything as she looked over at Old Ji with an extremely exhausted look on her face.

"Ji Yichuan, we might not have known each other for long but I hope you can take care of the young lady… Hah… When we start fighting, try to look for an opportunity to escape with the young lady!" Breathing roughly with each passing second. The elderly woman secretly informed Old Ji with her divine sense before turning around and focusing on the slowly approaching demonic cultivator.

Clenching his fists upon hearing what the old lady said, Old Ji prepared to take the young lady and escape the moment that the opportunity presented itself.

No matter what, he would not let the old lady's sacrifice be in vain! Oh, and the two unknowing former underlings of the bandit leader…

Xuan Hao did not hear what the old lady had secretly informed Old Ji, formerly known as Elder Skinling from the Black Rose Sect, about… But he could still guess it from his determined look and focused attention on the young lady from the Flowing Cloud Sect.

The fact that he was looking behind himself for a possible escape route just made it easier for Xuan Hao to deduce as the demonic cultivator had most likely come to the same conclusion.

Looking over, Xuan Hao barely managed to spot a growing smirk on the demonic cultivator's lips as he felt his divine sense focusing on Old Ji. Preparing for his attempt to escape.

"Looks like I won't be able to sit on the side-lines for any longer!" Seeing the situation in front of him, Xuan Hao decided to lend a hand to Old Ji.

After all, it seemed like the former elder of a demonic sect had indeed turned his life around and Xuan Hao did not really want to deal with the demonic cultivator from the Fire Blood Gang in the future as the Fire Blood Gang had indeed begun focusing their attention on the Heavenly Sky Kingdom after the war between the Heavenly Sky Kingdom and Azure Sky Kingdom broke out… The debut release of this chapter happened at Ñøvl-B1n.

Though… From how things were going now, Xuan Hao believed that both kingdoms would calm down with the appearance of the secret realm as neither party would want to accidently offend any of the bigshots passing by on their way to the secret realm…

With this in mind, Xuan Hao decided that he would deal with the demonic cultivator before he ended up causing any unforeseen damage on his trip to the Heavenly Sky Kingdom, like teaming up with the local demonic sect to attack a certain sect located just beside them…

Whoosh~

Jumping down from the tree branch he was standing on, Xuan Hao walked over towards the battlefield with a carefree look on his face.

After all, even if the demonic cultivator was at the second demonic transformation, being comparable to someone at the peak of the Nascent Soul Realm, it was far from enough to be a real threat to him with his pseudo sword domain.

Only someone half a step into the Domain Lord Realm could cause the current Xuan Hao to be careful!

…

"Hm? Who is it!?" Sensing someone approaching all of a sudden. The demonic cultivator narrowed his eyes as he carefully observed his surroundings before finally spotting Xuan Hao walking over with a carefree look on his face.

Who is this guy!?

The demonic cultivator felt an unprecedented danger approaching him as he could not sense the cultivation realm of the approaching Xuan Hao due to his domain's concealment ability still being active.

This in turn caused the demonic cultivator to be even more cautious as he clearly knew that Xuan Hao did not have any kind intentions planned for him… Well, he was a demonic cultivator…

"Who is that?" The young lady from the Flowing Cloud Sect exclaimed loudly as she also spotted Xuan Hao and soon everyone had turned around to focus their attention on the approaching Xuan Hao.

"Elder Xuan!?" Old Ji's reaction was different compared to the others as he clearly knew the person approaching, this in turn also caused him to grow a bit more confident as he had clearly seen him fly before.

Elder Xuan was most likely someone in the Domain Lord Realm!

Believing this, Old Ji felt way more confident in their survival as he doubted that Xuan Hao would let the former bandit leader get away alive.

"You know him?" Hearing Old Ji's exclamation, the young and old lady both turned around and looked at him with a questioning look asking for him to explain.

"Yes, he once helped me out in the past, with him here we should be fine!" Explaining things shortly without mentioning how he was part of demonic sect, or anything related to that, Old Ji confidently looked over in the direction of Xuan Hao as he had come to a stop a short distance away from the demonic cultivator.

Both parties observed each other as neither made the first move.

The demonic cultivator was fully concentrated as he prepared for the attack, while Xuan Hao was just carelessly standing in front of him without moving.

"Hmph! Might I ask who you are?" Cautiously observing Xuan Hao who had suddenly appeared. The demonic cultivator could not stop his curiosity as he asked.

"I'm Bright Sword!" Smiling cheekily at the demonic cultivator, Xuan Hao decided to use the nickname that he had used in the past to register at the Explorer Union.

After all, he did not want his real name to be known by the people from the Flowing Cloud Sect.

If people found out where he was from and the fact that he had been to the secret realm, Xuan Hao could end up drawing all sorts of unwanted trouble to the Flying Sword Sect as people showed up to either steal or try to persuade him to hand over the things that he might have found inside of the secret realm.

"Bright Sword… I don't think I have heard your name before…" Muttering the name of the person in front of him for a bit as he tried to remember if he had heard about anyone like that before. The demonic cultivator helplessly shook his head after failing to recall anyone like that.

"Haha, that is not unusual! I have just recently come around here as I normally explore different places through the Explorer Union!" Saying this, Xuan Hao mostly wanted the others to believe that he was just a random explorer from the Explorer Union that had passed by and happened to stumble upon the secret realm along the way.

Old Ji also heard what he said and understood the underlying meaning of him wanting to keep his identity a secret.

"An explorer from the Explorer Union I see… I guess I don't have to worry, but you were unlucky to show up here! You will die just like these people!" Not thinking much more about it after hearing that Xuan Hao was an explorer from the Explorer Union and not some big sect or empire. The demonic cultivator did not hold back as a terrifying killing intent erupted. Instantly covering Xuan Hao along with the two underlings and three people from the Flowing Cloud Sect.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 195: Demonic Cultivator Attack~

The killing intent excluded by the demonic cultivator was far denser and more terrifying compared to what he had released before, causing everyone outside of Xuan Hao to shiver in fear as they looked over at the demonic cultivator.

Xuan Hao only raised his eyebrows slightly upon feeling the killing intent of the demonic cultivator. Not really giving off the reaction that the demonic cultivator desired to have.

"Hmph, seems like I will have to deal with you first then!" Not dragging it off for any longer, the demonic cultivator rushed over towards Xuan Hao as he prepared to swing down one of his demonic claws, a blood red light engulfing it as a bloodthirsty aura could be felt by the 5 spectators.

"Misty Rain!"

Xuan Hao used the Misty Rain sword as a bright blue light erupted out from his sword and formed a thin transparent blue barrier in front of him to block the giant demonic claw heading directly towards him.

The demonic cultivator arrived in front of Xuan Hao just as he finished using the Misty Rain Sword Move and his claw came crashing down towards Xuan Hao. Drawing an eerie red line as it moved down towards Xuan Hao.

BOOM!

The red claw of the demonic cultivator made contact with the blue barrier of Xuan Hao as a loud explosion erupted.

"You are stronger than expected…" Retreating rapidly after the first exchange as he looked even more cautiously at Xuan Hao who was completely unscratched from the earlier exchange.

Xuan Hao did not say anything and struck out with his sword.

The demonic cultivator suddenly felt something and looked over to see the sword attack of Xuan Hao heading over towards him.

The strength contained in this simple attack by Xuan Hao was nothing to scoff at as it had combined together with his domain and sword intent to create an indescribably terrifying attack.

This was not something that someone not even at the half step Domain Lord Realm like the demonic cultivator should be able to survive!

"Wha- What is that!?" Sensing the terrifying might behind the incoming sword attack, the demonic cultivator immediately tried to dodge but found out that he could not escape as the attack seemed to follow after him no matter where he went.

Whoosh~

Flapping his bat like wings, the demonic cultivator tried to escape into the air, but this was to no avail as the sword attack soon appeared directly behind him.

Without being able to escape from the simple sword attack, the demonic cultivator could only try to defend against it as he was floating mid-air.

Boom!

"That should be it…" Glancing over at where the small explosion occurred. Not believing that the demonic cultivator would be able to survive it.

Whoosh!

"Hm?" Just as Xuan Hao was about to go over and check the corpse of the demonic cultivator, a small black flame in the shape of a ball flew out of the explosion and headed straight for him as Xuan Hao immediately sensed the terrifying might hidden inside of it as he immediately set up a defensive barrier.

Fwoosh!

The small black flame hit Xuan Hao's barrier and immediately engulfed his barrier for a short moment before disappearing.

"What was that…" Not really understanding what the small black flame was, Xuan Hao clearly felt that the might of the small black flame was way above something that the demonic cultivator should be able to use at his current level, so with that in mind, Xuan Hao cautiously looked over towards the place in the air above where the explosion slowly began receding.

Revealing the demonic cultivator still fine without any visible injuries on his body, as he gently flapped his wings while remaining floating in the air above the ancient trees.

Xuan Hao did not really care much about this as he had instead focused on a small black ball like object firmly held in the right claw of the demonic cultivator as he was floating in the air above.

Earlier, Xuan Hao had seen him use that ball once, but just thought it was a demonic defensive artifact of some sort used to block the attack of the trio from the Flowing Cloud Sect before he could transform…

But from the looks of things, it seemed like there was more to the demonic artifact than he had first thought as the strength behind the earlier black flame clearly reached the level comparable to the demon ape from earlier.

Half a Step into the Domain Lord Realm!

With the demonic artifact in hand, the demonic cultivator had surpassed the peak of the Nascent Soul Realm and reached the transitional realm known as Half a Step into the Domain Lord Realm!

…

"W-what is happening?! Is this still a fight at the Nascent Soul Realm!?" As Xuan Hao and the demonic cultivator began fighting each other, the young lady from the Flowing Cloud Sect could not help but exclaim in shock as she observed Xuan Hao and the demonic cultivator exchanging moves. One more devasting than the other as the surrounding environment slowly began to change according to the direction of the fight.

"Young lady, I think we should escape before we get caught up in it as well or become a distraction for Lord Bright Sword!" Addressing Xuan Hao with the honorary title of lord, the old lady from the Flowing Cloud Sect reminded her that they should not be staying here for any longer and risk getting dragged into the fight between the two of them. The debut release of this chapter happened at Ñøvl-B1n.

"Indeed, my lady, I think we should leave now that an opportunity has presented itself!" Backing up the suggestion of the old lady, Old Ji wanted nothing more than to leave the area as he watched the surroundings slowly be burned down under the weird black flame that the demonic cultivator had suddenly taken out.

"Fine… But we must remember to convey our thanks to Lord Bright Sword in the future… Maybe we can do it through the Explorer Union? After all, he did say he was an explorer…" Agreeing to leave with a bit of reluctance in her voice, the young lady of the Flowing Cloud Sect seemed to remember that Xuan Hao had mentioned that he was from the Explorer Union and found a way to convey her thanks in the future.

The group of three did not stay around for much longer and soon left the battlefield. Leaving behind only the two underlings of the former bandit leader. Now demonic cultivator.

"Brother… What should we do now…?" One of the two helplessly asked as he knew very well that the Fire Blood Gangs days were numbered with their leader gone.

"That person said he was from the Explorer Union… Why don't we try joining them and make a living there? I heard that they also explore different ruins filled with all kinds of treasures and ancient artifacts from time to time…" Answering his brother, the other former underling's eyes shone briefly as he envisioned himself becoming as strong as that Bright Sword person currently fighting their former leader.

"True! I also heard that we could join the core of the Explorer Union and get to train at their headquarters at the Ewaria Continent if we worked hard enough! By that point we might even be able to reach the Domain Lord Realm!" Feeling that joining the Explorer Union would be a good idea, both of the former underlings agreed to join the Explorer Union after leaving the secret realm.

Like this, only Xuan Hao and the demonic cultivator was left facing each other as countless black flame surrounded the demonic cultivator floating in the air together with Xuan Hao, who had by now jumped up on one of his own swords to match the demonic cultivator in the air above the ancient forest.

"Hah… H-how come you can fly as well!? Is that sort a flying artifact of some sort? Why?! Why can you fly as well while not being at the Domain Lord Realm!?" Letting out an exhausted breath, the demonic cultivator screamed loudly as he looked over at Xuan Hao quietly floating in front of him with a cold look in his eyes.

After finding out how strong Xuan Hao was earlier, he had planned to just fly above him and rain down the black flames until he was exhausted and died or retreat by flying away in case he held on against the black flames.

But this did not happen as Xuan Hao flew up to meet him the moment that he began throwing down the flaming black balls constructed by his demonic artifact.

Resulting in them clashing with each other several times mid-air, as the demonic cultivator was left on the defensive and forced to block the constant flow of attacks by Xuan Hao. Only able to launch an attack when he sacrificed some of his defences.

The small black ball in his right hand had not been perfectly fine from the past few clashes with Xuan Hao, as several cracks had already begun spreading across the surface of it.

Blocking the terrifying sword attacks of Xuan Hao had clearly taken a toll on the demonic artifact and the demonic cultivator knew very well that he would not be able to keep up for long if things continued like this.

This had in turn resulted in his earlier loud screaming at Xuan Hao…

To be honest, it was more like him letting some of his pent-up frustration with the current direction of the fight, as he tried to calm down in the face of Xuan Hao's continued attacks.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 196: Demonic Artifact

"Hah… Hah, this should be far enough…" Breathing out loudly, Old Ji informed his two companions as the group of three all came to a stop.

By this point, they had already been running for close to one hour and all of them were exhausted to the point of almost collapsing.

After all, they had just used their ultimate moves earlier and exhausted most of their qi in the process…

The old lady was the worst off, as she immediately sat down the moment Old Ji called for a break and began trying to stabilize the injuries that she had received from clashing with the former bandit leader before he transformed into a demonic cultivator.

"Old Ji… Do you think Lord Bright Sword will be able to win…?" Seeing that the old lady had sat down to stabilize her injuries and recover, the young lady from the Flowing Cloud Sect anxiously walked up to him and asked with a worried look in her eyes.

"Haha, you don't need to worry! I have seen Lord… Bright Sword… Fight before and dealing with that demonic cultivator should not be a problem at all!" Laughing confidently, Old Ji tried his best to ensure the young lady as she seemed to calm down after hearing him speak.

"That's good… Hopefully, we will be able to thank him personally in the future!"

"Yes… Hopefully we will…" Muttering this quietly to himself, Old Ji looked behind them in the direction of the fight and sent his sincere hope that Xuan Hao would win.

…

"Hah… H-how come you can fly as well!? Is that sort a flying artifact of some sort? Why?! Why can you fly as well while not being at the Domain Lord Realm!?" Floating in the air on top of his sword, Xuan Hao looked over at the demonic cultivator as he angrily screamed at him while trying his best to quickly stabilize his breathing.

Xuan Hao had already exhausted him way beyond what he could take, and his demonic artifact had even started breaking down under the constant barrage of sword attacks by Xuan Hao.

This just spoke of how strong Xuan Hao currently was as it should have originally been a pseudo mystic rank demonic artifact. Breaking something like that would be hard for anyone below the Domain Lord Realm and Xuan Hao did not end up too exhausted after bringing it to the point that it was already about to break at the slightest touch.

"What did you expect? That only you could fly?" Answering the demonic cultivator, Xuan Hao rolled his eyes at the childish question of the demonic cultivator.

Did he expect that he would be the only one able to fly below the Domain Lord Realm just because he became a demonic cultivator?

"Y-you!" Pointing angrily towards Xuan Hao with one of his claws, the demonic cultivator did not know what to say, as it was indeed true…

The demonic cultivator had also heard about several different flying artifacts from his travels through different kingdoms and had already convinced himself that the flying sword beneath Xuan Hao was one such artifact.

This misunderstanding did not really bother Xuan Hao much, as he had already viewed the demonic cultivator as a dead person… Whether he knew about it being his sword intent or a flying artifact did not really matter to him.

Boom!

"Wha-!"

As Xuan Hao was observing the demonic cultivator begin to throw a tantrum, a large explosion suddenly erupted from the demonic artifact in the demonic cultivator's right hand as the black flame suddenly engulfed him completely before he even managed to react.

Following this, Xuan Hao watched as the black flame transformed into the shape of a small crow that quickly flew into the distance at a speed way faster than what Xuan Hao could currently muster.

"What in the world…" Xuan Hao did not manage to react much to the situation as he looked over to see that the body on the demonic cultivator and all the things on his person had already been completely burned up by the black flame before it took the form of a small crow and flew away.

"The demonic artifact managed to gain sentience…?" Thinking about it, Xuan Hao could not think of any other reason for the demonic artifact to suddenly erupt and kill the demonic cultivator before turning into a crow and fly away.

Maybe it had gained sentience for some time and just waited for the demonic cultivator to be weak enough before breaking free and escaping…?

"You wouldn't run away…? Right?" NvεlB¡n: Your Escape into Infinite Tales.

Thinking about this, Xuan Hao looked down at the sword in his hand and asked in a teasing tone.

There was a difference between a demonic artifact and a normal artifact that had gained sentience. Most of the time, demonic artifacts would try to kill their master and escape to cultivate by themselves.

This way, the artifact would be able to walk on the path of cultivation by itself after it managed to create a humanoid body.

Normal artifacts on the other hand, would grow along with their master as they might be able to take on a physical body by themselves without needing to spend any time cultivating one after they become strong enough.

Xuan Hao was not really clear about what would happen after this or how accurate it was, as most of the things recorded in the Flying Sword Sect did not mention much about sentient artifacts outside of that…

"Well… What to do now? Should I go and find that Skinling guy or was it Old Ji now?" With the demonic cultivator dead, Xuan Hao did not really have to stay around for any longer as he thought about catching up with the former elder Skinling now going by Old Ji from the Flowing Cloud Sect.

But he quickly threw this idea away.

Meeting up with the people he had saved earlier did not really seem like a good idea and he should just leave that Old Ji alone and let him do his own thing without interfering.

After all, it seemed like he was doing well after leaving the Black Rose Sect for only a few months… Maybe he would give him a few more surprises the next time both of them met?

"Hehe, seems like I will have to keep an eye out for the Flowing Cloud Sect in the future!" Chuckling to himself as he thought about this, Xuan Hao soon disappeared from the battlefield where the demonic cultivator had perished.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 197: Azure Sky Kingdom Finds out about the Secret Realm~

"What!? A secret realm appeared in the Heavenly Sky Kingdom!?" A loud voice echoed out from the Azure Sky Kingdom's throne room as the nearby guards began shaking in fear. Afraid that even breathing too loudly would get them killed.

At this moment, a certain messenger was shaking in fear as he was kneeling down in front of a giant throne .

He had just finished delivering the news of a secret realm appearing inside of the Heavenly Sky Kingdom before the person on top of the throne began erupting in anger as he cursed at the Heavenly Sky Kingdom.

Originally, the messenger had thought that he and his group could relax after returning to the capital... But he had been wrong.

Over the past week, the messenger had worked overtime together with his small group of subordinates. Travelling all over the vast Azure Sky Kingdom and trying their best to deliver the news of the secret realm's appearance inside of the Heavenly Sky Kingdom's territory. Dive into Stories, Embrace Enchantment: NvεlB¡n.

From the newly conquered territories to the capital at the centre of the Azure Sky Kingdom. The messenger had travelled all over the place as only he was left to come and inform the ruler by himself.

The reason why the messenger and his group had ended up being used for once outside of the communication talismans to deliver news, outside of what the current ruler in front of him ordered him to do from time to time, was the fact that the opening of the secret realm had rendered the normal communication talismans from the Explorer Union useless.

This was of course not to say that all communication talismans in the nearby kingdoms were rendered useless after the secret realm opened, as the Explorer Union had higher quality for sale as well, that could be used over a longer distance as well.

Though this was not cheap like the normal communication talismans bought from the explorer union, resulting in the only buyer of these being the more powerful kingdoms or sects.

"What should we do now? If we continue the offensive on the Heavenly Sky Kingdom, we might risk offending someone powerful… But if we don't launch an attack on the Heavenly Sky Kingdom soon, they will have fortified their defensive position enough to resist our attack! ARGH! Why did a secret realm have to appear now!?" Screaming loudly as he thought about the secret realm that had just appeared, the current rule of the Azure Sky Kingdom felt that he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. No real way for him to get out without losing anything…

"Your majesty! Someone has come seeking an audience with you!" Just as the person sitting on the throne was about to throw yet another fit out of rage, a voice echoed out from the entrance as one of the guards walked into the throne room, a person wearing a pitch-black robe with his face covered by a hood attached to the robe entering behind the guard.

"Hm? You are?" Narrowing his eyes upon seeing the new person entering, the person on the throne seemed to have calmed down as a few seconds passed.

"I see, so that is how it is… Everyone is dismissed! Leave " Nodding his head with a serious look plastered onto his face, the ruler of the Azure Sky Kingdom told everyone to leave as the messenger glanced back at the hooded person on his way out of the throne room.

The person was completely covered outside of his hands that were clearly male from what the messenger could see.

Other than that, there was nothing recognizable on the figure hidden beneath the pitch-black robe.

What is his majesty up to this time…?

Feeling a profound sense of uneasiness welling up inside of him, the messenger felt that something regarding the fate of the Azure Sky Kingdom was about to take place… And it would not be resulting in something good for him or the rest of the people under him…

This was just a gut feeling that the messenger had, but he was sure something that would shake the entire Azure Sky Kingdom was about to take place inside the throne room…

"Maybe I should try and gather those kids and try to go somewhere around the border to escape the incoming storm…" Muttering this to himself as he made his way over to a small resting room located inside of the main palace of the Azure Sky Kingdom's Royal Family, the messenger sat down and thought about what to do before finally standing up and making his way out of the palace towards the small office that the messengers still had left in the Royal Capital.

No matter what, he would ensure that his people would be able to survive the incoming storm and staying in the capital would most likely end up involving them in the upcoming storm that was about to sweep through the Azure Sky Kingdom.

The messenger did not just decide on this because he had seen a person completely hidden about to have secret conversation with the current ruler and king of the Azure Sky Kingdom, but because the situation with the plague had gotten even more out of control over the past few months.

If not for a mysterious group of priests showing up to help the population, the messenger doubted that the people would have wanted to stay any longer.

There was even a chance that they might have started a mass exodus in the Azure Sky Kingdom as they would try to enter the nearby kingdoms in hope of finding aid…

...

The Azure Sky Kingdom was not the only kingdom close to the Heavenly Sky Kingdom that reacted as all of the nearby kingdoms lost their ability to communicate with each other and soon found out about the secret realm that had appeared inside of the Heavenly Sky Kingdom's territory.

By this point, all of the Nascent Soul Realm Experts in the nearby kingdoms began to grow restless as they all knew what the appearance of a secret realm represented! A chance to reach the Domain Lord Realm!

All they had to do, was find a chance to gain access to the secret realm...

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 198: Side Quest Complete, Artisan Alchemist?

The aftermath of the fight with the demonic cultivator did not really lead to anything as the nearby ruin had been destroyed during their fight and everything on the demonic cultivator had ended up getting destroyed by the demonic artifact when it escaped.

Xuan Hao did not really see a reason to stay around for any longer as he left the area and landed a few miles away to resume his walk through the ancient forest while trying to look for more ruins on his way back towards the entrance.

Not wanting to be too fast and end up arriving before the other bigshots arrived to fight for control over the secret realm with the Sky Empire…

Like this, Xuan Hao once again resumed his journey through the Nascent Soul Realm Area of the secret realm on foot. Observing his surroundings as he hoped that he would have a chance to encounter an ancient ruin without it getting destroyed in the process this time… NvεlB¡n: Your Escape into Infinite Tales.

"Hm?" Just as Xuan Hao was walking without anything happening, a small sound could be heard from the system as Xuan Hao quickly checked up on it in his sea of consciousness.

[Side Quest: Disciple, Qing Yi, Becomes a Journeyman Alchemist(complete)]

[Reward: Artisan level Alchemist Knowledge and skill]

[Redeem Reward: Y/N]

"This is… Unexpected… Seems like Qing Yi did not slack of when it came to alchemy!" Smiling to himself as he saw one of his side quests being completed, Xuan Hao redeemed the reward from the system and instantly felt a large amount of information about all sorts of different pills and potions fill up his mind.

The information that he gained from the side quest was of course not just limited to different potion and pill recipes, but also included knowledge about all sorts of spiritual herbs that he never knew about before from the Mortal Rank all the way up to the Soul Rank.

There was even information about some rather unique spiritual herbs as well and one of these unique herbs was the Purple Sky Flower…

Contrary to its name sounding quite majestic, the herb itself was a rare but pretty useless Earth Rank spiritual herb. The only use of the herb was to cause the person who consumed it to giggle uncontrollably for up to an hour depending on how much of the herb was consumed…

The information that he gained of course contained a large number of useless potions and pills as well and to be honest, Xuan Hao felt that the majority of the potion recipes that he had gotten was completely useless…

A potion that changes one's hair colour needing over a dozen different Soul Rank spiritual herbs to brew…

But this was not the worst of it, as another potion required hundreds of different rare and exotic herbs and its only use was to cause someone to develop a fear of rabbits… This was a pinnacle Artisan level potion and was the most difficult potion to make that Xuan Hao got the recipe to…

"Now that I look closer… aren't all these recipes useless!?" Looking over the different recipes that he was given by the system, Xuan Hao did not discover a single normal one among them and began to doubt whether or not he had truly become an Artisan Alchemist…

He could indeed effortlessly brew these Artisan level potions… But all of them were completely useless!

If he wanted to brew a normal Artisan level potion or pill that did not belong to the ones that the system had graciously bestowed upon him earlier, Xuan Hao would still have to spend the time learning the potion or pill recipes from scratch…

While he would undoubtedly be faster as he was already an Artisan Alchemist, it would still take some time to learn the different recipes and he would still have to find some…

The only place Xuan Hao knew about with that level of alchemist recipes was the notebook of Lord Kubera… Outside of that, he had no clue about where to find any pill or potion recipes for the Artisan level…

After all, the Flying Sword Sect never had an Artisan Alchemist and therefore never really saw the need to try and gather any alchemist recipes outside of those for alchemists below the Artisan level…

"W-what should I do with this…?" Xuan Hao felt confused and disappointed at the sudden turn of event.

He had become an Artisan Alchemist and had a myriad of different potion and pill recipes, but all of them were useless!

Even if he was an Artisan Alchemist, it was only in regard to his understanding of alchemy and spiritual herbs… When it came to truly making any useful potions or pills, he could be considered to be completely useless!

"At least I should be able to teach Qing Yi with the knowledge I gained… I don't need to make any pills or potions myself; I will just let my disciple make them for me!" Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao no longer felt that the quest reward was so useless anymore as it would allow for him to teach Qing Yi personally when it came to alchemy now!

Maybe this was the goal of the system. For him to teach his disciple instead of letting others do the job for him…

Yes... This was definitely what the system planned...

…

A few hours earlier at the Flying Sword Sect, the information about the secret realm opening had already spread to the upper echelons of the sect over the past few days as they planned to just quietly observe the situation from the side and not get involved in it.

After all, the sect master was currently in closed door seclusion attempting to breakthrough and they did not really have enough Nascent Soul Realm Experts to send out to explore the secret realm and could definitely not afford to lose even a single one of them.

Other than that, there was also Shu Yao currently staying at the sect under the request of the sect master himself.

Leaving the protection of the sect to her as they went out to explore the secret realm did not seem like such a good idea…

As the Flying Sword Sect had decided to ignore the secret realm and just remain on the side-lines, Xuan Hao's two disciples did not know anything about it as both of them just kept up their normal schedule.

"Where do you think master went?" Walking back to the pavilion of Xuan Hao, Qing Yi asked with a curious expression on her face as she looked over at Chu Yang walking beside her.

They had just recently finished a practice match against each other and were making their way back to the pavilion to rest up and understand the things they had learned from their earlier spar.

"I have no idea about that… Master just said he would be leaving for a few days, but I think I heard him mention something about Chi Hu that we met earlier at the Third Star Peak. Maybe he went out to try and recruit him?" Thinking about it for a moment, Chu yang could not think about any other reason why their master would suddenly leave for a few days.

"I see… I guess that is reasonable, it would never hurt to have more Nascent Soul Realm Experts like master in the sect…" Nodding her head to Chu Yang's answer, Qing Yi felt what he had said was reasonable, but for some reason she still felt like there was something wrong.

If master wanted to recruit him, it would surely not have taken so long… Maybe he had moved to an area far away or something?

"Ah, looks like Zhi Ruo is not here at the moment…" Qing Yi felt this was a little unreasonable, but her train of thought was interrupted as Chu Yang called out as both of them arrived in front of the pavilion.

Zhi Ruo, who was normally always present in front of the pavilion was indeed gone and the pavilion looked a bit lonely to Qing Yi as she entered it and soon parted ways with Chu Yang and made her way back to her own room.

"Hah… What should I do?" Throwing herself down on her bed after making it back to her room, Qing Yi rolled around as she thought about what to do next.

Originally, she wanted to hang out with Zhi Ruo and maybe grab something to eat in one of the many shops located just outside the entrance of the Flying Sword Sect.

But now that her original plan of action for the rest of the day did not seem plausible anymore, Qing Yi suddenly felt at a loss about what to do.

Rolling around her bed wondering what to do, Qing Yi felt that she hit something and turned over to see that it was a small notebook written by one of the seniors of the Alchemy Hall.

The notebook had been given to her after she asked one of her seniors about higher level recipes and she had been told that the different potion and pill recipes inside of the notebook would be good for her to train with as they were relatively easy to understand and did not require a lot of expensive spiritual herbs to make in the first place.

"Hm? Maybe I should try and practice the new alchemy recipes I recently picked up at the Alchemy Hall…"? Muttering this to herself in a quiet voice, Qing Yi picked up the small notebook and began looking through it for a few minutes before deciding on one of the many recipes inside.

"Hop!" Jumping off her bed, Qing Yi made her way out of her room towards a room where she could practice the new alchemy recipe.

Report chapter Comments

The debut release of this chapter happened at Ñøvl-B1n.

Chapter 199: Sweet Cloud Pill

The room that Qing Yi normally used for practicing her alchemy was no longer her own room and was instead another room inside of the pavilion that she had switched over to using after the space in her room was no longer sufficient to store all of the different spiritual herbs and other tools that she used.

Instead, she had moved her things over to a larger room inside of the pavilion located just beside the area where she had put Chu Yang to work growing spiritual herbs for her.

This way, it would also be easier for her to keep an eye on him and make sure he didn't end up wandering up and getting lost somewhere inside of the pavilion…

Walking along the hallways of the pavilion, Qing Yi soon came to a stop in front of a door with a small sign above it with the words [Alchemy Room] on it. The sign itself had been made by Qing Yi herself as she thought about the possibility of any future disciples showing up and wanted to make it clear what the room was for…

Creak~

Opening the door, a scent of fresh spiritual herbs hit her in the face as Qing Yi happily made her way over to her alchemy cauldron that she had managed to get for free at the Alchemy Hall.

The alchemy cauldron was useful for practicing alchemy as it made making things like pills easier, but it was not needed to practice alchemy and was just the preferred tool for most alchemists.

Alchemy could be practiced as long as someone had a pot or another form of container that could be used to store the different spiritual herbs as the alchemist was working.

The reason why a cauldron was a preferred tool for alchemist was due to it being easy to manage the heat going to and from their ingredients and the fact that it could withstand way more heat compared to the normal pot found in the local marketplace.

A cauldron became even more useful when the alchemy reached the later stages as the amount of heat required for some of the spiritual herbs would simply end up melting any run of the mil pot.

A cauldron on the other hand could hold on for longer as most of them were made with more precious metals and when even that was not enough, the alchemist would request a blacksmith to make an artifact cauldron for them to be able to continue practicing alchemy.

This was one of the weirder things to Qing Yi, as she had read about it when she visited the pagoda of enlightenment, that most blacksmiths would only help an alchemist create an artifact in the shape of a cauldron. Never in the shape of something like a pot…

When she had read this, Qing Yi had felt her business senses tingling as she felt something was wrong with the fact that alchemist only used artifact cauldrons when they went further in their practice…

And indeed, looking deeper into it, Qing Yi found out that most of the cauldrons that circulated around the entire Ewaria Continent were created by the same group of blacksmiths…

Maybe… In the future… She could…

The small inconspicuous mark on the side of it representing a certain group of blacksmiths fell into her sight as Qing Yi threw her thoughts about dipping her hands into the market for alchemists' pill and potion refinement tools to the back of her mind.

"No, no, no! Let's not think about this for now… I don't even have a junior brother or sister practicing blacksmithing, yet…" Shaking her head as she muttered this to herself, Qing Yi made her way over to the cauldron in the room and took out the small notebook and began looking through it.

Shifting from her earlier state to an incredibly focused one.

"50 grams of crushed cloud tree berries, 2 drops of sugar flower honey…" Muttering the different ingredients as she heated up the cauldron, Qing Yi began the process of refining the pill that she had chosen to try out first.

The steps were simple for her to follow, and the ingredients were some common herbs that cost close to nothing. The only really expensive thing in the pill recipe was the cloud tree berries, but luckily for her, she had recently gotten some from the elderly seniors of the Alchemy Hall when she went to visit from time to time.

The cloud tree berries were a rare kind of berry that grew on a rare kind of trees called cloud trees, that only grew at places where the ground touched the clouds or in more simple terms, tall enough mountains…

The cloud berries were not only useful for alchemy but were also a popular fruit to eat among the younger generation, due to its sweet taste. This had in turn resulted in the elderly generation beginning to giveaway cloud berries to the younger generation whenever they came to visit them.

In the sects, this also happened… There were even some elders who would spend the entire day relaxing and going around giving the younger disciples a few cloud berries to enjoy.

Qing Yi did not really plan to eat the cloud berries she was given, but instead saved them up inside her alchemy room as she knew they were used in alchemy as well.

"And now all that is left is to wait…" finishing the first part of the pill refinement process, Qing Yi sat down on a nearby chair and began going over her earlier fight with Chu Yang as she waited for the cauldron to reach a high enough temperature before beginning to form the pills themselves.

This process only took a few minutes as Qing Yi soon began to move her qi inside the cauldron before slowly guiding the liquid inside to form the shape of a pill before it began taking on a solid state after cooling down.

"Done!" Finished with the refinement process, Qing Yi retracted the tiny amount of qi that she used to guide the liquid inside into the right shape before cutting the source of heat beneath the cauldron and watch as it slowly began to cool down.

This cooling process was the longest part of pill refinement and normally took a few hours, so Qing Yi went over to a matt located a little further into the room before she sat down and quietly began meditating while she waited for the cauldron to cool down enough for her to take out the pills inside without having them crumble the moment, she touched them.

Like this, a few hours quickly passed as the cauldron finally cooled down and allowed for Qing Yi to reach inside and take out the pills inside.

"Hm… Looks like I succeeded in the first attempt…" Feeling a bit bewildered when she took out the four pills that had formed inside of the cauldron and placed them on a small tray on the nearby table.

Qing Yi slowly began to inspect the four pills, preparing to note down any mistakes she had made but soon ended up speechless as she inspected the four pills

None of the pills were failures! Instead, all of them came out perfect!

Originally, Qing Yi had expected to fail her first attempt. After all, she had not spent more than a few minutes looking into the pill recipe in question… But the pills in front of her proved that she had indeed succeeded.

"I'm a Journeyman Alchemist now?" Smiling wryly to herself as she stared down at the four pills laying on the table in front of her, Qing Yi felt a bit of disbelief when she thought about it, but she was indeed a Journeyman Alchemist now that she had successfully refined a pill of that level… Even if she did not feel like she was one with only having made one of the easiest Journeyman level pills.

"No use thinking too much about it, I will just have to make some more in the future and become a true Journeyman Alchemist…" Throwing the thought of her being a Journeyman Alchemist without much trouble and even succeeding in her first attempt, Qing Yi looked back down on the pills on the table.

The pills in question glowed in a gentle pink colour as the sunlight from a nearby window shone down on them.

A sweet aroma slowly began to permeate the room as Qing Yi remained focused on the four pills.

Sweet Cloud, that was the name of the pill, and it could be considered one of the easiest Journeyman level pills to make as it did not really require any new knowledge outside of what a normal high-level apprentice like herself already knew about.

Sweet Cloud was even easy to the point that some of the more difficult Apprentice level pills were harder to make compared to it, a Journeyman level pill…

The use of the Sweet Cloud pill was even more useless to most cultivators as it would be used when one took a bath.

Throw the Sweet Cloud pill into the bath water you are using, and you will have a pleasant, sweet smell after the bath.

Qing Yi did not really understand why pills like this was so popular with the other female disciples of the sect, but she still felt that it would be nice to use after she broke through a minor realm in the Foundation Establishment Realm and ended up covered in impurities…

Putting away the Sweet Cloud Pills, Qing Yi went back to the cauldron and began refining another batch of Sweet Cloud Pills.

Even if she ended refining more than she would need for herself, she could always sell them to the other female disciples for a profit…

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 200: Suspicious Tree, Attack!

Continuing his journey through the ancient forest, Xuan Hao was not elated over the fact that he had become an Artisan Alchemist and was instead a bit depressed as his only use would be teaching his disciple with the knowledge that he acquired about alchemy from the system.

"How depressing… If I have some time in the future, I should learn some more useful alchemy recipes…" Lamenting over his misfortune, Xuan Hao shook his head and decided not to think about it anymore.

After all, he had learned all those different recipes and even acquired the knowledge and skill of what could be considered a peak Artisan Alchemist.

All he needed to do was set aside the time to learn a few recipes… It should not take too much time; he was after all an Artisan Alchemist now…

"Hm?" Thinking it over for a few minutes as he made his way through the forest at a leisure pace, Xuan Hao soon felt something different as he suddenly came to a stop below a relatively smaller ancient tree with bright green leaves fluttering above as the wind passed by and shook the thin branches.

"My Nascent Soul… Feels stronger…?" Xuan Hao had a confused expression on his face as he slowly sat down below the smaller tree and began to inspect his Nascent Soul in depth.

Inspecting his Nascent Soul, Xuan Hao discovered that it had indeed increased in strength. The strength increase to his Nascent Soul was close to negligible, but it was still there.

This left Xuan Hao wondering as he thought about what had ended up causing his Nascent Soul to suddenly grow stronger all of a sudden.

"Was it because I became an Artisan Alchemist?" Thinking about it, Xuan Hao thought that this was a plausible reason.

But why had he never heard about an Alchemist having their Soul strengthened upon reaching the Artisan Realm?

Xuan Hao felt that it was unlikely that something like that would not be widespread, as even a tiny increase in strength to the Nascent Soul would allow for a cultivator in the Nascent Soul Realm to increase his chances at breaking through to the next realm.

Nascent Soul Realm Experts stuck at a bottleneck would most likely be lining up to become alchemists if they knew that their Nascent Soul would be strengthened upon reaching the Artisan Realm! Dive into Stories, Embrace Enchantment: NvεlB¡n.

What Xuan Hao didn't consider when thinking about this, was the fact that becoming an Artisan Alchemist was not just something anyone could do and it took dozens, if not hundreds of years for an Alchemist to reach the Artisan Realm… Reaching the Artisan realm before the age of one hundred would earn one the title of genius across the Ewaria Continent!

This was also the reason why some alchemist even bothered cultivating in the first place, as their lifespan would simply be too short if they did not…

If news about Xuan Hao reaching the Artisan Realm at his age got out, it would surely cause an uproar in the alchemy community!

A normal Nascent Soul Realm cultivator would normally be able to live up to 2000 years if nothing unexpected happened to them and dedicating what would normally be 500 up to 1000 years on alchemy for a tiny increase of strength to the Nascent Soul, was simply not worth it…

But Xuan Hao did not think about this as he had no idea about the countless struggles that his peers had to go through to increase the strength of their Nascent Soul…

Rustle~

A gentle wind blew through the area and caused a few of the leaves to fall off and land in front of Xuan Hao as he blinked both his eyes before turning to look at the small tree with curious expression on his face.

Those leaves from earlier had clearly landed right in front of him on purpose… The only question that remained, was why and how…

With this in mind, Xuan Hao began to focus his attention on the smaller ancient tree and soon found several odd things about the tree.

From its oddly green and vibrant leaves that was almost glowing, to the weird patterns that seemed to have naturally formed on its trunk.

But this was not the oddest thing about the small tree…

"A hole…"

Indeed, there was a small hole hidden away at the base of the tree as its roots covered it completely. Making it hard for Xuan Hao to spot if he was not looking for it.

Even more odd, when his divine sense swept over it, he never felt anything odd about it.

Like the hole was not even there in the first place…

"Well, this is not suspicious at all, let's just enter the hole beneath the not so suspicious tree without knowing what could be waiting beneath it…" Xuan Hao rolled his eyes as he said this before quickly moving away from the small tree.

"Hm?" Having moved a few dozen meters away from the small tree, Xuan Hao suddenly felt that something was holding onto his left leg.

Whoosh!

Ching~

Cutting down at the thing holding onto his left leg with all his might, the only thing that could be heard was the sound of metal meeting metal as the thing holding onto his leg did not seem to flinch even the slightest under the sword attack along with his pseudo sword domain constantly attacking from the moment that Xuan Hao discovered it.

"C-can we talk about this…?" Seeing that he would not be able to escape, Xuan Hao looked down at the thing holding unto his left leg and smiled wryly.

The thing in question was a long tree root, that looked oddly similar to the roots that were covering the hole beneath the small ancient tree.

Rustle~

The leaves on the small tree a few dozen meters shook slightly in response and Xuan Hao suddenly felt himself being dragged into the hole by the tree root before it let go, causing Xuan Hao to fall into a giant space located beneath the small tree as the hole was quickly covered up by even more roots as Xuan Hao passed through it.

"I guess I can't get out that way… Hah… What is this? Forcing people to go and explore against their will? Was it because I didn't willingly enter the suspicious hole?" Stabilizing himself on top of his sword as he floated inside of the large open space, Xuan Hao felt like crying as he looked at the hole slowly closing up as the roots of the small tree covered it up.

Throwing a few sword attacks towards the tree roots, Xuan Hao soon gave up as he was clearly not able to breakthrough the roots of the small tree and even worse, the other parts of the large open space he now found himself in, was covered in roots as well…

Meaning he would not be able to dig himself out…

"Now… Where in the world am I…?" Inspecting his new surroundings outside of just the root covered ceiling, Xuan Hao discovered that there were a few light sources similar to the ones that he had found in the cave with the small palace.

Other than that, Xuan Hao could only tell that he was in a giant underground cave that seemed to go on endlessly in all direction, as Xuan Hao even felt like it might even cover most of the secret realm!

"Hah… Guess I will just have to look for a way out…" Sighing to himself as he looked at the large underground world spreading out before him, Xuan Hao did not feel the slightest bit happy as he began making his way in the direction where the entrance of the secret realm should be located.

At least this way he should not suddenly run into strong demon beasts at the Domain Lord Realm…

…

While Xuan Hao was making his way through the underground world of the secret realm, the Sky Empire had finally established a base outside the secret realm as they had begun to send their people inside to explore the area surrounding the entrance before determining where the secret realm was from.

After all, compared to the Nascent Soul Realm Experts like Xuan Hao, who entered the secret realm without any prior knowledge at all. The Sky Empire had a large amount of knowledge when it came to the different secret realms that existed out there and what power it might have belonged to in the past.

"So, you are saying that it might be a secret realm set up by a disciple from that sect in the past!?" A loud yell could be heard echoing out as the general that had appeared earlier on to chase away the cultivators setting up camp outside the secret realm looked towards and elderly man with a shocked expression on his face.

"Calm down general, I will contact his majesty first before we do anything. Don't enter the secret realm for now and prepare for when those people show up…" Smiling kindly in an attempt to calm down the general, the elderly man soon stood up and left the room as a communication talisman appeared in his hands, as terrifying killing intent leaked out from the elderly man upon reaching the last part of his sentence…

Forcing the poor general behind him to shiver in fear even though the killing intent was not directed towards him, as he looked at the back of the elderly man with reverence in his eyes as he disappeared out of the room they were currently inside.

"Hah, I will have to prepare before the fight begins…" Standing up after the elderly man was gone, the general once again looked like a general as he made his out of the room to order the soldiers under him to prepare for the inevitable fight that would happen.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 201: Underground Formation Pillars~

Travelling through the underground world, Xuan Hao saw many different unique plants growing along the ground as he flew above it. There were even a few rare spiritual herbs that he recognized after recently gaining a lot of knowledge about alchemy and spiritual herbs earlier on.

The spiritual plants themselves did not really have much use in his hands, but Xuan Hao decided to gather them as he had more than enough space in his interspatial ring. After all, he could still give them to his disciple or the alchemy hall when he returned to the Flying Sword Sect.

Spiritual herbs and plants were not the only thing that Xuan Hao met through his journey through the underground world as several demon beast had also shown up on the ground below him.

Luckily, most of the demon beasts were only at the Nascent Soul Realm and none of them had the ability to fly as there was no flying demon beast in the underground world… At least from what Xuan Hao had seen so far.

So, his journey through the underground world went smoothly as Xuan Hao was not disturbed in the slightest as he flew through the air a few hundred meters above the ground below. The ceiling covered in thick roots only a few dozen meters above him.

"Is that a… Formation pillar?" Flying undisturbed through the underground world, Xuan Hao soon came to a stop as he looked at the pillar piercing through the underground world from above.

The formation pillar in question was piercing deep into the underground world from above as the thick roots from the cave ceiling were circling around it as they seemed to stop the formation pillar from descending any further into the underground world. Leaving the formation pillar just a few dozen meters above the ground of the underground cave. Dive into Stories, Embrace Enchantment: NvεlB¡n.

Xuan Hao felt that this looked quite weird as it almost seemed like the roots were trying their best to stop the formation pillar from descending any further.

Looking over in the distance, Xuan Hao soon discovered that other formation pillars were the same as they had each descended either more or less than the formation pillar in front of Xuan Hao, but never closer than 10 meters from the ground.

"This should be the formation pillars between the Nascent Soul Realm Area and the Core Formation Realm Area…" Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao glanced ahead and saw several demon beasts at the Nascent Soul Realm wandering around freely in what was supposed to be the Core Formation Area!

"Looks like I will have to be even more careful going forward…" Moving ahead, Xuan Hao no longer dared to fly openly like he did before and instead began moving on the ground as he used his pseudo sword domain to conceal himself from the different demon beasts wandering along the ground of the underground world.

As he was moving closer and closer to the place where the secret realm was located, Xuan Hao also discovered that the ceiling above was slowly getting further and further away from him.

This was not obvious at first, but Xuan Hao soon discovered that the space between him and the cave ceiling had increased from a few hundred meters to several thousand meters!

But this did not make any sense, as Xuan Hao was clearly close to the surface when the root had pulled him into this underground cave world…

"Unless…" Thinking about it, Xuan Hao suddenly thought about the possibility of the entrance to the secret realm being located at the top of a tall mountain peak, Xuan Hao inevitably shook his head and felt like he understood less and less about the secret realm with each passing minute. It had never felt like he was on top of a mountain in the first place and descending down towards the base of a mountain…

Maybe it had something to do with the formation he was inside? Or maybe it was just something with how a secret realm was created in the first place…

Xuan Hao had no idea and suddenly felt his curiosity about the secret realm grow the longer he travelled around the underground world of the secret realm.

"Well… There is only one way to find out…" Looking over the formation pillars covered in the roots, Xuan Hao inspected them for a short time before turning to look in the direction of the secret realm's entrance and continuing his journey deeper into the underground world of the secret realm.

…

The underground world was in itself not so different from the ancient forest above. The ancient trees were just replaced by large stone formations and pillars sticking up from the ground as they covered the entire underground world.

Walking through the underground world, Xuan Hao also managed to discover the first ruin since being forced down there.

The ruin itself was nothing too extravagant like an underground palace or an ancient hiding place for past treasure or that sort of thing but was instead a small crude looking stone hut cut into one of the large stones that covered the entire surface of the underground world. The front entrance blocked by a large stone acting as a door of sorts for the stone hut.

If it was not for the fact that there were no traces of any other people ever being in the underground world before, Xuan Hao would most likely not have bothered with the crude looking stone hut and instead just continued on his way after quickly sweeping through it with his divine sense.

But the fact that his divine sense had failed to discover the hole beneath the small ancient tree earlier on had left a mark on him and Xuan Hao no longer felt so certain about the current strength of his divine sense…

Who knew if something inside the crude looking stone hut would be able to escape his divine sense as well…?

Bang!

Pushing aside the large stone in front of the crude looking stone hut, Xuan Hao cautiously made his way inside of the stone hut.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 202: Hidden Scroll

The inside of the stone hut was almost completely empty outside of a small stone mat located in the corner of the room and a few simple pieces of furniture like a chair and table made out of stone.

The small stone mat was most likely used for cultivation, while the other furniture was used to make things inside of the small stone hut feel more homely. At least that was what Xuan Hao thought…

Looking around the small stone hut, there was nothing that really caught his eyes as he made his way into a small room located beside the area where the stone mat was laying.

Entering the room, Xuan Hao's vision was instantly caught by a scroll in the corner of the stone huts backroom… Though it would be more precise to say that it was the only thing that caught Xuan Hao's attention inside of the small backroom.

After all, there was nothing inside of it outside of the scroll laying in the corner of the backroom.

This alone was more than enough to make Xuan Hao curious as there was not really anything present inside of the small stone hut that could give him any idea as to who it had belonged to in the past or what purpose it might have served outside of a secluded area for someone to quietly cultivate.

Rustle~

Picking up the scroll and unfolding it, Xuan Hao's eyes instantly focused on the large words written on the top of the scroll.

"W-what is this!?" Starring at the large words written on top of the scroll, Xuan Hao encountered a problem that he had never encountered before…

"I can't read it…" The debut release of this chapter happened at Ñøvl-B1n.

Simply put, the words were another language outside of the common language used throughout the Ewaria Continent…

This was not really something that Xuan Hao had expected to encounter, and he felt helpless as he could only stare blindly at the weird words on the scroll before putting it away in his interspatial ring. Maybe he would be able to understand it at some point in the future and find out what was written in it…

Roar!

As Xuan Hao just put away the scroll written in an unknown language, a loud roar suddenly echoed through the entire underground world as Xuan Hao suddenly felt himself tremble unconsciously upon encounter the vast and overwhelming aura followed by the roar.

"Domain Lord demon beast…" Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao quickly made his way outside of the small stone hut and moved in the opposite direction that the roar had come from.

The direction that the roar had come from was not the same place that Xuan Hao had come from, but was around the same general area, so by going in the opposite direction, Xuan Hao just had to continue his journey towards where the entrance of the secret realm would be located above.

The only difference would be the fact that he moved faster and tried his best avoid any possible encounter with the demon beasts that roamed the underground world of the secret realm.

ROAR!

Unfortunately for Xuan Hao, it seemed like the source of the roar was only getting closer and closer with each passing moment, even when Xuan Hao had already utilized his cultivation to the max to move towards the location that the entrance of the secret realm was located as quickly as possible at this point.

Even worse, the roars from the distance seemed to grow more and more enraged as Xuan Hao was able to pick up the sound of fighting in the distance.

Ah! Please don't involve me! Can't you guys go fighting somewhere else…?

Feeling the fluctuations of what he could only assume was several Domain Lords fighting the demon beast roaring loudly begin to close in on him, Xuan Hao felt like he might become an unfortunate bystander caught in the aftermath of the fight between Domain Lords if he was not fast enough.

…

A few hours earlier at the entrance to the secret realm where the people from the Sky Empire had just finished setting up their first line of defence surrounding it, a large shadow suddenly appeared in the air above as the people from the Sky Empire below all looking up in shock.

"The Onyx Empire…" Inside of the flying ship that had landed just beside the entrance to the secret realm, the general turned around and looked up at the banners swaying on the side of the large flying ship that had suddenly appeared above them with a dense killing intent brewing inside his eyes…

The Great Sky Empire and The Onyx Empire had long since been enemies with each other as they were located just next to each other and the only reason why they hadn't ended up fighting an all-out war to destroy the other, was the fact that the other empires and powerful factions close by would be more than happy to take advantage of their fighting to swallow up some of their territories when they were weakened.

But this was not the main reason, as there was a well-known mountain range that covered the bordering area between both of the empires. The mountain range was not just any ordinary mountain range, but it had several demon beasts at the Soul Accension Realm hidden within!

This alone was more than enough to cause both empires to only stare at each other from afar as they patiently waited for an opportunity to launch a devastating attack on the other.

Of course, this was not to say that both empires did not fight with each other as both of them constantly secretly send people into each other's territories to cause chaos.

The general of course knew about this and had long since known that the Onyx Empire would be one of the first groups of people to show up at the secret realm as it was located close to their border with the Onyx Empire…

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 203: Sky Empire and Onyx Empire

"General Liu! Should we wait for them to land or just launch an attack now…?" As the general was standing still and thinking about what to do about the arrival of the people from the Onyx Empire, one of his soldiers anxiously made his way over as he asked in a nervous voice.

"Hm?" Looking away from the flying ship above slowly descending down towards them, General Liu turned around and looked over at the nervous soldier that had rushed over to ask him.

"Just wait for now, there is no use in meaninglessly attacking when the other have not even attacked us yet… And the Onyx Empire will not be the only party to show up later, we still have to worry about the others as well…" Finished speaking, General Liu watched as the soldier hurried back to the rest of the soldiers and informed for them to not attack the people from the Onyx Empire for now.

The elderly man that General Liu had spoken with earlier had yet to appear as General Liu clearly knew that he did not want to be the one to deal with the people from the Onyx Empire himself, so General Liu could only sigh in his mind as he floated up into the air to meet the people from the Onyx Empire before they decided that it would be a good idea for them to launch an attack on them.

Whoosh~

Ascending into the sky, General Liu soon caught the attention of the people on top of the flying ship from the Onyx Empire as someone stepped out from one of the compartments on the ship and flew over to meet General Liu mid-air.

"I didn't expect for the high and mighty General Liu to show up at the border after that thing 12 years ago~" Smiling in contempt as he taunted him, the person from the Onyx Empire looked over at General Liu as he clearly knew the other party.

"Haha… I did not expect for you of all people to show up here General Zhang… Were you not dealing with something at your Onyx Empire's northern border? I heard about a certain demonic sect having taken over a few of your kingdoms over there recently!" Not backing down in the slightest to the general from the Onyx Empire, General Liu did not wait for even a second before he answered back with a short laugh.

"Hmph, we of course already settled that troublesome demonic sect! Let's not talk about this anymore, we both know why we are here in the first place… So, are you going to allow us to enter the secret realm, or will we have to force our way in like what happened 12 years ago…?" Smirking upon mentioning the thing that had happened 12 years ago, General Zhang could not help himself from smiling as he watched the angry look of General Liu whenever he mentioned that incident.

General Liu of course could not forget about the last time both of them had clashed at the border when a secret realm had appeared during a skirmish between both of them.

Back then, General Liu and his army had arrived at the secret realm first and managed to set up a defensive perimeter just like today and General Zhang from the Onyx Empire had arrived later but still managed to crush their defences and enter the secret realm.

General Liu had ended up seriously injured during their fight back then and was forced to return to the capital of the Sky Empire and recover for the next 10 years!

The anger General Liu felt when he saw the person who had forced him to quietly recover without being able to cultivate for the past 10 years appear in front of him was understandable.

But he managed to keep the anger he felt under control as he just resorted to taunt back. Not daring to fall for the obvious trap in front of him, causing him to attack General Zhang.

"No need to bother about that this time around, an ancestor of the Sky Empire is already present!" Smirking happily as he said that General Liu looked over to see the surprised look on General Zhang's face… But there was no surprise written on it, instead the same taunting look appeared on his face as a smile slowly began to creep up his lips.

"Oh… What a coincidence~ It just so happens that I was acting as a guard for an ancestor of my Onyx Empire as well! Why don't we just let those two decided on matters instead. After all, with both of the exalted ancestors present, we juniors should not make any important decisions." Smirking happily as he watched the face of General Liu deteriorate more and more with each word he said, General Zhang finished talking before retreating back into the flying ship of the Onyx Empire.

"You-"

"General Liu, return for now! I will take over from here on out!" just as General Liu was about to say something in return, a loud voice echoed out inside of his head as General Liu quickly shut up before turning to look back at the flying ship of the Sky Empire.

"Hah…" Letting out an unwilling sigh, General Liu cast on last glance in the direction General Zhang had left in before returning back to the ground again.

"Seems like the Onyx Empire already knows something…" Muttering this to himself inside of the flying ship, the elderly man slowly stood up and put away the communication talisman that he had been holding before making his way out of the interior of the Sky Empire's flying ship.

The elderly man did not wait before flying up as he landed at the deck of the Onyx Empire's flying ship before making his way into the interior of the ship where the person in charge would be located.

"I really didn't expect for the Onyx Empire to take the appearance of a secret realm not even inside their own territory so seriously!" Looking at the person shrouded in darkness sitting quietly in the middle of the room, the elderly man from the Sky Empire stopped and waited for a response. Not intending to stay any longer than necessary.

"Hehe, I could say the same. After all, why would the teacher of the current Emperor of the Sky Empire, the Imperial Teacher, show up here for no reason…?" Chuckling to himself, the person sitting in the middle of the room slowly stood up and faced the elderly man from the Sky Empire. Only the smile on his face visible as the darkness of the room moved to cover the rest of his body.

"So, what did you want to talk about? You should already know how things are between the Sky Empire and the Onyx Empire… The only reason I even came here in the first place is due to our past friendship…" As he was saying this, the imperial teacher of the Sky Empire wore a sad expression as he recalled some things that happened in the past.

The person from the Onyx Empire did not say anything as he watched the Imperial Teacher of the Sky Empire slowly calm down again.

"Hah… You should already know what the appearance of this secret realm means, when the other empires, hidden clans and sects finds out… The entire Sky Empire will be thrown into chaos…" Stopping his sentence here, the person hidden beneath the shadows slowly walked up close to the Imperial Teacher.

"What are you proposing…?" Understanding the look in his old friend's eyes, the Imperial Teacher immediately narrowed his eyes as he waited for the person to finish.

"What I want to propose is…"

…

"How long is it going to take?! Perhaps the Onyx Empire did something!?" Nervously pacing around on the ground below the Onyx Empire's flying ship that had stopped descending after the Imperial Teacher had entered it, General Liu could not help himself from thinking about the worst possible outcome.

The taunting smile from General Zhang kept playing in his mind as he could not help worrying that something would happen to the Imperial Teacher, even though he knew very well how strong the Imperial Teacher was.

By now it had already been 15 minutes and there was finally some movement from the Onyx Empire's flying ship as General Liu watched the Imperial Teacher slowly descend down to the ground together with General Zhang and a person shrouded completely in darkness giving off an aura similar to the Imperial Teacher.

"W-what are they-" NvεlB¡n: Your Escape into Infinite Tales.

"We are entering the secret realm together, inform the soldiers to allow anyone that shows up to enter and not to stop them! Remember to not attack the people from the Onyx Empire!" Before General Liu even managed to let out a single word, the Imperial Teacher informed him before moving towards the entrance of the secret realm together with the two people from the Onyx Empire.

"HUH!? Wha- what?! W-wait for me!" Seeing the group slowly disappear as they entered the secret realm, General Liu hurriedly informed one of the nearby soldiers about the order from the Imperial Teacher before quickly entering the secret realm. Hoping to understand why they suddenly began working together with the Onyx Empire…

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 204: To the Edge of the Secret Realm!

Entering the secret realm, General Liu soon caught up with the Imperial Teacher and the two people from the Onyx Empire as he began asking about why they suddenly began to work together with the Onyx Empire.

But his question fell on deaf ears as the Imperial Teacher did not answer even a single question and instead just continued further into the secret realm as the two people from the Onyx Empire followed closely behind them. Not getting too close and not falling too far behind.

Like this, the group of four made their way through the secret realm at a fast pace as all of them could fly at their current cultivation realm. Making traversing the secret realm easy and fast.

During the entire time, General Liu kept sending hateful looks in the direction of General Zhang as the latter just smiled at him in return.

"This should be the first part of the formation…" Coming to a stop after flying above the ancient forest of the secret realm for a few hours, the Imperial Teacher of the Sky Empire looked up at a giant pillar piercing through the sky above as he muttered this to himself.

The most shocking thing to General Liu was the fact that there were many more similar pillars in the distance as they seemed to form a circle around the secret realms entrance.

Even the Sky Empire would find it difficult to create such a large formation! And the Imperial Teacher only said this was the first part of the formation!?

Filled with disbelief and surprise at the giant pillars, General Liu was not the only one as General Zhang from the Onyx Empire opened his mouth with an equally shocking expression on his face after seeing the giant pillar towering far into the sky of the secret realm.

"Imperial Teacher, what is this formation for… I have never seen anything like it, and you said this was only the first part?!" Looking over at the Imperial Teacher, General Liu had manged to hear him muttering this to himself and could not stop himself from asking.

"Indeed… This is only the first part of the formation and from what I know, this should be the first out of three parts of this formation! As for what it is used for… Even I don't know!" Shaking his head as he flew over and put his hand on the formation pillar before quickly closing his eyes, the Imperial Teacher answered with a somewhat confused expression on his face.

"Don't bother trying to figure it out, the formation was set up by a formation master in the Soul Ascension Realm. Not something we will be able to understand at our current realm… Let's hurry or others will begin to show up" The person covered in darkness from the Onyx Empires side came in from the side and said this before hurrying the group to continue. Clearly not wanting to waste too much time admiring the giant formation pillars.

"True… If we don't make it to the core area before the others begin showing up, we won't have a chance when it comes to getting the things hidden inside… After all, when those people discover who this place belonged to in the past, Soul Ascension Realm Expert would begin showing up…

Our best chance is to clean up the core area and collapse this secret realm before those people show up in the first place. That way we would at least be able to avoid having them find out…" Nodding his head in agreement with the person from the Onyx Empire, the Imperial Teacher had a serious expression on his face as the group resumed their journey deeper into the secret realm.

It was also at this point in time that both General Liu and General Zhang realized the seriousness of the matter.

Anything that could attract the attention of someone in the Soul Ascension Realm to move out personally could bring enormous benefits to an empire or in worst cases an empire ending calamity!

Even the Sky Empire only had a handful of Soul Ascension Realm Experts and most of them were in closed door seclusion all year long. Never moving no matter what secret realm showed up in the world.

Normally only Domain Lords would move whenever a secret realm appeared on the Ewaria Continent… For this secret realm to cause Soul Ascension Realm Experts to flock to it… Both General Liu and General Zhang understood the seriousness of the matter!

At this point, General Liu no longer kept sending angry looks over in the direction of General Zhang and instead decided to faithfully follow behind the Imperial Teacher as the group of four quickly made their way through the Nascent Soul Realm Area and into the Domain Lord Realm Area.

Not even stopping when they passed by the second layer of formation pillars as the group only cast a few glances at them before continuing forward.

…

Most of the Domain Lord Realm demon beast were smart? enough to avoid the group of four as they travelled through the Domain Lord Realm area. NvεlB¡n: Your Escape into Infinite Tales.

The reason for this, was that the Imperial Teacher and the person from the Onyx Empire released their aura of high-level Domain Lords to scare away the nearby Domain Lord demon beast, but even then, a few weaker demon beasts still decided to attack them from time to time. Luckily they were nothing to worry about.

Like this, the group of four soon made it to the third and final circle of formation pillars without encountering too much resistance.

"Hm? Who is there!" The moment the group came to a stop before the pillars, the person from the Onyx Empire suddenly shouted out as his dark aura began boiling violently. Prepared to attack at any moment necessary.

The other three also got ready as they looked towards one of the formation pillars where a lonely figure could be seen sitting quietly meditating all by himself with a wooden staff planted into the ground beside him.

But this did not make the group of four calm down as the aura of a Domain Lord could clearly be felt from the seated figure, though not as strong as the Imperial Teacher and the person from the Onyx Empire, he should still be in the middle stages of the Domain Lord Realm!

The person before them was indeed the wanderer that had entered the secret realm before them, and he had even been lucky enough to breakthrough from the early stages of the Domain Lord Realm and reach the middle stage of the realm!

This would allow for him be considered strong even when it came to the entire Ewaria Continent as most of the people exploring and moving around like himself were mostly at the early stages of the Domain Lord Realm if not weaker!

W-what is this!? Are these the people from the Sky Empire!?

However, currently he was panicking as he felt the aura of two high-level Domain Lords along with two early-stage Domain Lords bearing down on him.

Earlier he had thought that even if people from the Sky Empire showed up, he should be able to escape with his current cultivation, but the two terrifying auras above him proved that he was wrong and made him regret staying to comprehend the formations hidden inside of the formation pillar in front of him.

"H-hello, I did not expect to meet people from the Sky Empire here…" Awkwardly getting up and flying into the air to meet the group of four.

"You are?" Staring at the unfamiliar person, all four people did not bother correcting him as the Imperial Teacher walked forward and asked.

"Ah, haha, I-I'm just a humble wanderer who happened to come upon this secret realm and decided to explore it. I-I had no idea that the Sky Empire would be in charge of it! I will just take my leave now!" Nervously stating this, the wanderer was just about to leave when the Imperial Teacher of the Sky Empire flew over to block his path.

"Hold on… Do you know anything about the area ahead or the formation pillars…?" Asking this, the Imperial Teacher narrowed his eyes as he decided to interrogate this person.

If he knew about who the secret realm belonged to and spread it outside…

"Ah, it seems like the secret realm ends after this row of formation pillars, but there is an underground part to the secret realm that can be entered from the edge of the secret realm… As for the formation pillars… Hm… From what I can tell, they act to supress and split up the different demon beasts, but that should only be an accidental feature as the formation pillars are stronger the closer to the secret realms entrance they are, therefore the suppression is the strongest around the secret realms entrance…

The true use of the formation pillars still elude me, but it should have something to do with the underground part of this secret realm…" Explaining everything he had found out so far without holding anything back, the wanderer sincerely hoped that the people from the Sky Empire would let him go.

"I see, you can go now. Leave the secret realm and we won't pursue this matter!" Listing to what the wanderer said, the Imperial Teacher quickly deduced that he had no idea who the secret realm belonged to and just told him to leave.

Having someone other than their Sky Empire and Onyx Empire explore the secret realm as well would allow for the other powers to be less suspicious if the secret realm suddenly collapsed…

With that in mind, letting the wanderer go could be benifeical to them…

The person from the Onyx Empire also understood this and did not interfere as the wanderer quickly felt like he had gotten a new lease on life, thanking the Imperial Teacher happily before using his top speed to fly back towards the entrance of the secret realm.

"The core area should be somewhere in the underground part of the secret realm… Let's go!" Seeing that the wanderer had disappeared, the Imperial Teacher hurried the group of four as they made it to the edge of the secret realm and? saw the sky disappear. Instead, being replaced by the black void that stretched on infinitely where the ground of the secret realm ended.

Going over the edge would mean they entered the void between worlds…

None of the four focused on the endless void that had suddenly appeared and instead focused on the giant underground world that became visible the moment they reached the edge of the secret realm.

The secret world was like a giant island floating in the endless void as it was split into two different layers. One was the ground above, while the other was the underground part of the secret realm.

Looking at each other, the four soon entered the underground area and made their way towards the entrance of the secret realm where the core area would be located.

ROAR!

However, things would not always goes as planned as a loud roar echoed out from the distance. Forcing the group of four to stop as they took out their weapons and looked deeper into the underground world where a giant figure slowly began approaching them…

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 205: Giant Underground Lizard

ROAR!

As the giant figure crawled over towards them as it roared angrily, General Liu and the rest of the group managed to the full body of the giant demon beast.

A large tail coiled around a nearby rock as it had stopped only a few hundred meters away from the group. The demon beast in question was a giant lizard with a set of rough brownish scales covering its large body.

Other than that, a large pair of horns were also visible on the giant lizard as it threateningly stared at them from the inside of the underground part of the secret realm.

Ready to attack them the moment that they moved even a single step closer!

"Imperial Teacher, w-what should we do…?" Nervously starring over at the giant lizard starring at them full of killing intent, General Liu nervously turned around and asked the Imperial Teacher. Hoping deeply that he would just tell him to leave the underground area. Not having to deal with the terrifying giant lizard in front of him.

That lizard was not just giant but looked like a small moving hill from a distance easily being a dozen meters tall and over a hundred meters in length!

Looking at the tough scales covering its body, General Liu doubted that he would be able to do anything to the giant lizard, even if he used his strongest attack!

"We will have to deal with the lizard if we want to move forward… It looks like its body is already considered to be half a step into the Soul Ascension Realm, so injuring it will be difficult even for us…" Upon reaching this point, the Imperial Teacher looked over at the person shrouded in darkness before continuing.

"But we should be able to take it down over a prolonged battle and make our way towards the centre of the secret realm… Hah… We will definitely have to waste some time to deal with it first… Let's hope it gets tired or afraid and runs away without too much trouble, that would save us some time at least..." Finishing his explanation, the Imperial Teacher looked over at the person shrouded in darkness and saw him nod in agreement with his idea as the two of them prepared to attack the giant lizard together.

Roar!

Sensing the people in front of it getting ready to fight, the giant lizard let out a threatening roar as it waved its large claws towards the group in an attempt to scare them away.

"General Zhang, you go together with that guy from the Sky Empire. Try to stay alive later on and keep up with us!" The person covered in darkness finally spoke as he instructed General Zhang before moving over beside the Imperial Teacher.

"Yes! Ancestor Bi Sheng!" General Zhang did not say anything as he orderly moved over beside General Liu while both the Imperial Teacher and Ancestor Bi Sheng began making their move towards the lizard threateningly waving its claws towards them.

Whoosh~

Both Ancestor Bi Sheng and the Imperial Teacher acted without waiting for even a single moment longer as both of them attacked the giant lizard.

Roar!

The giant lizard of course saw this coming, so it retaliated towards the incoming humans as it brought down its giant claws, easily cowering both of them as it brought forth an unbearable pressure to the two generals looking over from a distance as they also began moving to support the two elders.

Ching~

The giant claw of the lizard came down and Ancestor Bi Sheng from the Onyx Empire did not stand still as he waved his hand causing a large domain of darkness to spread out with him as the centre as it engulfed the incoming claw of the lizard and took the form of several large chains that restrained the giant claw of the giant lizard.

The lizard backed quickly as it tried to free its claw from the chains of darkness created by Bi Sheng, but it was surprised when it saw the Imperial Teacher who used this opportunity to draw out a large symbol in the air a few meters away from it that flew towards it at an alarming pace.

An earth-shaking aura could be felt as the lizard could clearly tell that it would not be good for it if the symbol managed to land, but by this point it was too late!

Boom!

The symbol soon ignited into a large explosion that shook the entire underground cave as the lizard stumbled back awkwardly for a moment before stabilizing.

Roar!

The lizard managed to free itself from the chains of darkness cast out by Bi Sheng as it roared angrily towards the two humans in front of it before angrily charging towards both of them.

Only a small wound was left in the location that the symbol from the Imperial Teacher had landed and exploded…

"Looks like we won't be able to do much to this lizard…" Shaking his head as he watched the lizard approaching, the Imperial Teacher looked over at Bi Sheng who nodded his head understandingly.

Both of them knew that killing the giant lizard was nothing more than a pipe dream with its strong defence.

Like this, the two of them decided to enter a war of attrition with the giant lizard as they tried their best to move towards the centre of the underground world at the same time.

Hoping that the giant lizard would be unwilling to move too far away from where it lived or just give up when it couldn't kill them quickly enough.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Several large explosions kept happing as the two elders from the Onyx Empire and Sky Empire worked together to fend of the giant lizard, while the two generals tried their best to keep up without getting caught up in the aftermath of the fight between the giant lizard and two elders.

Launching their own attacks towards the lizard whenever an opportunity presented itself.

… NvεlB¡n: Unleashing Imagination, One Read at a Time.

Roar!

As the battle between the group of four and the giant underground lizard continued, Xuan Hao was using his greatest speed possible to get as far away from the battle as possible, but for some reason, it seemed like the fighting only grew closer and closer with each passing moment.

"This should be the centre of the underground world… The entrance of the secret realm should be just above here…" Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao looked at the giant ancient palace complex in front of him easily covering everything in the surroundings as a large barrier covered the entire palace complex.

The ancient palace itself was nothing short of amazing, but Xuan Hao did not dare linger around for much longer as the group fighting was getting closer and closer with each passing moment.

At this point, Xuan Hao could even make out the people fighting in the distance as on person covered in shrouded in a black miasma like substance manifested countless chains of darkness in an attempt to restrain a giant lizard demon beast as another figure manifested an infinite number of ancient symbols to attack the giant lizard demon beast as they moved in the direction of the ancient palace complex.

There were also two others following closely behind the trio locked in combat, but both of them seemed negligible in comparison to the three locked in combat with each other.

"Is this how Domain Lords fight…?" Observing the countless attacks that manifested out of thin air to attack the giant lizard demon beast. Xuan Hao felt like he understood a little more about how people in the Domain Lord Realm fought as he felt that the attacks should be the manifestation of the two peoples Domains.

One domain of darkness manifesting a countless number of chains to restrain the giant lizard, while the other domain summoned forth an infinite number of ancient symbols bringing all sorts of changes to the world as they transformed into different attacks.

Would he be the same when he reached the Domain Lord Realm…?

Thinking this, Xuan Hao could not help but feel excited upon thinking about being able to summon forth a sea of swords to attack his opponent… No matter how many enemies there was, it wouldn't matter if they were below the Domain Lord Realm…

Casting one last look towards the fight moving closer and closer to him, Xuan Hao walked up to the barrier of the ancient palace complex and touched the barrier.

"Hm? Seems like the barrier is not blocking me… Maybe it's like the one above that only blocks out demon beasts…?" Not thinking too much about it, Xuan Hao entered the ancient palace complex.

At the same time inside of Xuan Hao's interspatial ring, the blue feather that he had picked up from the underground hall of the temple earlier on shinned brightly for a short moment when Xuan Hao touched the barrier into the palace complex before returning to its former calm state.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 206: Pure Qi Fish

Boom!

A large explosion once again hit the giant lizard as the Imperial Teacher immediately fell back and dodged the incoming claw that was thrown out in retaliation before resuming his attacks together with Bi Sheng.

Roar!

This continued as the group made their way deeper into the underground world of the secret realm before the giant lizard suddenly froze where it stood and hurriedly turned around to run away.

The Imperial Teacher and Bi Sheng both stopped attacking when they saw this and allowed for the giant lizard to retreat as it came to a stop a few hundred meters away where it began roaring intimidatingly towards them like it had done back at the entrance to the underground world.

"Why did it suddenly retreat…?" The Imperial Teacher wondered as he still cautiously kept an eye on the giant lizard in case it launched another attack towards them when their guard was down. The debut release of this chapter happened at Ñøvl-B1n.

"I-Imperial Teacher… I think that is the reason!" The voice of General Liu sounded out as both the Imperial Teacher and Bi Sheng turned around to look at the place where General Liu was pointing and soon froze in shock as they stared at the giant underground palace complex spreading out in front of them.

How did we even miss seeing this earlier…? Were we too absorbed fighting that damn lizard?

Thinking about this, the Imperial Teacher quickly shook his head before he ordered General Liu to follow him towards the underground palace complex, while Bi Sheng from the Onyx Empire's side did the same and had General Zhang follow him down towards the giant underground palace complex.

"Now… How do we get in…?" Standing before the giant barrier covering the entire palace complex, the Imperial Teacher helplessly put his hand on the barrier and felt himself being repelled.

"…"

The rest of the four did not have answer and for now they decided to inspect the area around the giant palace complex. Hoping to find a way inside…

…

At the same time, Xuan Hao had just managed to make it inside the palace complex and sneakily looked down at the group of four from inside without being spotted.

The reason for him doing this was because he felt his divine sense being restrained the moment he made his way inside, so he did not really feel like it would be too dangerous to stay and see who the people following behind him were.

"They can't enter…?" Xuan Hao was both happy and scared when he saw the group not being able to enter through the barrier like him.

Happy because he would not have to worry about dealing with a group of Domain Lords. Scared because he felt like he was about to be in a dangerous situation. The fact that he was forced down into the underground part of the secret realm did not really help much either…

At this point, Xuan Hao was certain that there was a reason why he was forced down into the underground part of the secret realm and was able to enter through the barrier of the giant ancient palace complex…

But he was still not clear about why… Was it perhaps because he was talented for his age and was selected to inherit an awesome legacy of a long forgotten overpowered sect that once ruled the world…?

"Hah… No way that is true!" Shaking his head as he banished his wishful thoughts, Xuan Hao cast one last look at the group of four searching the area outside the barrier before he made his way deeper into the ancient palace complex.

Walking through the palace complex, Xuan Hao did not dare to lower his guard in the slightest as he had no idea what kinds of dangerous awaited inside.

Like this, Xuan Hao soon came upon a pavilion located inside of the ancient palace complex.

[Calm Pond Pavilion]

The small letters on top of the entrance clearly hinted that the pavilion was once used as a leisure spot of some sort in the past and Xuan Hao could not help but look over at the small pond located beside the pavilion as a few fish were happily swimming around without minding the outside world.

"Fish…?" Xuan Hao suddenly grew a bit curious as he inspected the few fishes swimming around in the pond beside the pavilion and soon discovered the fishes were not alive, they were not even fish in the first place!

Xuan Hao tried to think but could not come up with anything to describe what the fishes in the pond were in the first place, they were made up of pure qi and were not living in the first place…

Calling them a construct of the formation covering the small pond would most likely be enough to describe the small fishes made up of qi.

Walking over to the side of the pond, Xuan Hao quickly crouched down and tried picking up one of the small fished made of pure qi and immediately felt his body grow excited as it attempted to absorb the pure qi fish on its own.

"How curious… Looks like the fishes here are useful for my cultivation…" Smiling happily to himself, Xuan Hao absorbed the small fish in his hand as a wave of pure qi entered his body and directly made it to his dantian before he felt his cultivation growing stronger and improving by a tiny amount.

"If I absorb all these pure qi fish, I should be able to reach the Eighth Stage of the Nascent Soul Realm!" Looking over at the few hundred pure qi fish swimming around in the pond in front of him, Xuan Hao felt a wave of excitement wash over him as he waved his hand and caused all the small pure qi fish to float towards him before quickly storing them away in his interspatial ring for now.

Breaking through to the eighth stage of the Nascent Soul Realm would definitely take at least a few hours, so Xuan Hao decided to wait until he made it back to the Flying Sword Sect again. At least he would not be interrupted there and if he broke through inside the ancient palace complex, he would also have to worry about the group of four Domain Lords outside finding a way inside and finding trouble with him.

No matter what, leaving the secret realm was his top priority for now!

Thinking about this, Xuan Hao quickly turned away from the now empty pond and made his way inside of the Calm Pond Pavilion.

Seeing as there were such precious pure qi fish in the pond, Xuan Hao expected for there to be something good? inside of the pavilion as well, but this initial excitement after getting his hands on the pure qi fish did not last for long as he soon left the pavilion with a disappointed look on his face.

Like the rest of the luxurious palaces and other buildings inside of the ancient palace complex, it was completely empty!

All that was left were a few chairs and tables…

Of course, these chairs and tables were all made of precious spiritual trees, so Xuan Hao decided to take a few with him on his way out… Just to fill up his pavilion back at the Flying Sword Sect so it wouldn't look so empty anymore.

He also had two disciples so he would have to bring back some good furniture for them to fill up their rooms when he got back… All they had currently were just the standard furniture that was already filled in before Xuan Hao was given the pavilion in the first place and many of the rooms in the pavilion were empty as well.

He would have to at least fill them up for when he got more disciples in the future…

Convincing himself with this, Xuan Hao would not dare to admit the reason for him stealing away the chairs from the pavilion was due to how comfortable they were to sit in…

The tables on the other hand looked sturdy enough to endure the passage of time without a single sign of decay! Even if he cultivated for a few hundred years, he would not have to think about replacing his furniture in the future! How great was that!

Xuan Hao already knew that most of the Nascent Soul Realm Experts in the Flying Sword Sect were a few hundred years old by now and they had to replace everything in their pavilions at least a few times over as they did not want to waste things like precious metals and wood for common things like furniture when they could be used to craft powerful artifacts!

Only if they had an abundance of resources would one be able to do something like this!

Xuan Hao also felt like whoever owned the ancient palace complex in the past clearly did not care about things that the Flying Sword Sect would consider precious materials and even used it to make common furniture like tables and chairs…

Over the next few hours, Xuan Hao quickly explored the entire ancient palace complex except for the giant palace located at the centre without finding anything too precious outside of a few more pure qi fish.

"Looks like I can only go to one place if I want to find a way out…" Xuan Hao muttered this to himself as he looked towards the centre of the ancient palace complex with a hesitant look on his face.

Compared to the rest of the ancient palace complex that was empty and without any real danger, Xuan Hao clearly felt a sense of deep fear whenever he looked over at the giant palace at the centre of the palace complex.

But at this point, he did not have any other place left to explore inside the ancient palace complex!

Shing~

Drawing his sword, Xuan Hao cautiously began approaching the giant palace as the feeling of danger grew more and more intense with each step.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 207: Entering The Main Palace

The path towards the main palace located at the centre of the ancient palace complex was a large path that cut straight through the complex.

Earlier on, Xuan Hao had not entered through what was the entrance to the palace complex, but instead just entered the palace complex from the side as he entered through a palace located on the edge close to the barrier.

Looking over in the direction of what could be considered the official entrance to the palace complex, Xuan Hao could not help but sigh in amazement as he felt the fear towards what was waiting for him inside of the main palace lessen ever so slightly.

The entrance was of the palace complex was a majestic and beautiful arch at least a dozen meters tall and around a hundred meters wide easily showing how huge the path leading to the main palace was.

"Hm? What is that…?" As he was observing the large arch that was the entrance of the palace complex, Xuan Hao caught sight of a certain group from earlier standing in front of the barrier only a few meters away from the arch.

"Could they have found a way inside?!" Suddenly feeling a wave of worry wash over him, Xuan Hao inspected the group of four as he quickly hid away behind a nearby building. Letting out a sigh of relief when he saw they had not spotted him earlier, too busy with something else.

Looking closer Xuan Hao discovered that one of the four was holding a weird object of sorts in one of his hands as he held it up against the barrier of the ancient palace complex.

"What are they doing…?" Watching the small object as it was placed against the barrier, Xuan Hao soon saw the barrier begin to shake violently as it began weaking in a small area around the place that the object was held up to.

Soon a small circle big enough for a person to fit through began to form as the barrier began to grow weaker and weaker around the area in question.

Xuan Hao felt shocked when he saw this and quickly turned around before making his way towards the main palace of the ancient palace complex without any of his former hesitation.

If he was not fast enough, the group of four would get inside and at that point, Xuan Hao doubted he would be able to get away easily…

…

"How long will it take before we can get inside!?" Standing outside the barrier, the Imperial Teacher was impatiently asking as he looked down at General Zhang holding up a weird object shaped like pillow made of a rare kind of spiritual metal up to the barrier of the ancient palace complex.

"It should not be much longer… From what the writing said, we should be able to get inside in another few minutes!" Focusing on holding the pillow shaped object up to the barrier, General Zhang hurriedly answered before focusing back on the barrier.

The pillow shaped object was something they had found earlier in an underground ruin close to the entrance of the ancient palace complex.

The pillow shaped object was in fact not shaped by someone to look like a pillow in the first place but was a rare spiritual metal that could weaken barriers that it came into contact with and allow someone to pass through.

At least that was what was mentioned in the little writing they found beside the pillow shaped spiritual metal…

Only when the group saw the effects of the pillow did they begin to believe in its effect. Now all they could do was wait as the pillow created a path through the barrier and into the ancient palace complex.

This of course did not stop the Imperial Teacher from wanting to enter the ancient palace complex as quickly as possible.

After all, the more time they wasted, the higher the chances of someone other than the Sky Empire and the Onyx Empire showing up was…

Luckily for both of them, the secret realm was located close to the border between the two empires and there was not really any other powerful force close by and the different religions never interfered in things like secret realms as it was useless for them given the fact, they followed a different system compared to cultivators.

Demonic cultivators and normal cultivators were the only people interested in secret realms. At least given the fact that they did not know much about the secret realm…

The Imperial Teacher and Ancestor Bi Sheng were both sure that the different religions in both their empires would very likely be interested if they knew who the secret realm belonged to…

…

Entering the main palace of the ancient palace complex, Xuan Hao was amazed at the sheer size of everything in front of him.

Even the main gate leading into the palace itself was several dozen meters tall!

From here, Xuan Hao could also see how big the underground part of the secret realm had gotten.

Compared to where he first entered where the gate of the main palace alone could easily reach the ceiling filled with roots. Here Xuan Hao had to look closely to see the ceiling several thousand meters above him.

"Hm?" Looking up, Xuan Hao discovered something interesting as a giant pillar similar to the formation pillars from earlier had pierced directly down through the barrier of the palace complex and into what Xuan Hao assumed was the core area of the main palace!

"But how come I didn't see it earlier…" Wondering this, Xuan Hao closely observed the pillar many times bigger than its counterparts and discovered that it was located around the same area that the entrance of the secret realm was above the ground.

"Is it connected to the entrance of the secret realm…? But why would the entrance of the secret realm pierce into the palace complex underground? Surely, they didn't want to destroy their own palaces…" Looking at the roots covering only a small part of the giant pillar as they seemed unable to hold it back like the past pillars, Xuan Hao felt that the formation pillars might not have been set up by the owner of the secret realm but was instead from someone who might have attacked the secret realm in the past!

Thinking about it in this way, Xuan Hao felt a little confused when he thought about all the different ruins he had seen above ground.

Maybe it was indeed a training ground in the past, but it most likely looked completely different from the ancient forest that he had seen above…

Xuan Hao could not make sense of the different ruins he had seen above like the small underground palace and the temple; both did not really seem to fit in if it was indeed a training ground for younger disciples in the past…

All in all, Xuan Hao decided not to think about it anymore as he began making his way inside of the main palace through the giant gate. The fear he had earlier was completely replaced by curiosity as he was interested in finding out what had happened in the secret realm in the past.

A foreign power invading one of the training grounds of the sect that the secret realm belonged to in an attempt to kill of their younger generation and weaken their future power?

Maybe the owner of the secret realm had betrayed the sect he belonged to in the past and was therefore destroyed as a result?

Or it could be a simple result of offending the religions on the continent… They seemed to have a history of banding together whenever someone tried to take away their faith and begin to gather followers of their own…

The temple in the ancient forest above ground could be related to this… Dive into Stories, Embrace Enchantment: NvεlB¡n.

"Hah… I will never know if I just let my imagination run wild!" Shaking his head as he thought about all the different reason as to what had happened in the secret realm in the past, Xuan Hao made his way into the main palace of the palace complex.

…

"Hah… I will definitely not return without finding out what is hiding in here!" At the same time that Xuan Hao entered the main palace of the ancient palace complex and the group of four was close to breaking through the barrier and entering the palace complex as well, a certain wanderer appeared in the area close to the ancient palace complex as he looked over towards it with a passionate expression on his face.

"With this artifact I will be able to enter even with those four around!" Thinking this to himself, the wanderer made his way over towards the group of four as a small artifact in the shape of a belt was firmly sitting around his waist as it produced a weird mist around him that kept him completely hidden from the outside world.

The giant lizard demon beast was only a few hundred meters away as it kept its gaze focused on the group of four that it had fought earlier.

Completely oblivious to the wanderer that had just appeared beside it a moment ago.

All it saw was just a small mist that passed by and drifted over towards the direction of the four people it kept its eyes locked on. Nothing unusual…

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 208: Meeting a certain Ancient Tree again...

Walking through the main gate of the palace, Xuan Hao soon found himself in an overgrown garden with the nearby trees and foliage having overgrown the path forward completely.

In the past it would most likely have been a beautiful path filled with lush trees and plants on the side, but by this point they had all overgrown the entrance of the palace. Making it stand out from the rest of the ancient palace complex as Xuan Hao felt like he had returned to the ancient forest above once again.

The sheer contrast caught Xuan Hao a little of guard as he quickly began to take in his surroundings before following along the original path into the main palace of the ancient palace complex. Finding the beautiful architecture of the place eye opening and amazing at the same time. After all, it showed no sign of the passage of time outside of the overgrown plants and trees over the years.

"This should be the main part of the palace…" Walking through the path covered in foliage and trees, Xuan Hao soon arrived in front of hall leading into the main area of the palace.

The entrance was even more majestic compared to the entrance of the palace complex, with different phoenixes and dragons being carved into the door as they seemingly roared each other while engaged in some sort of battle for power.

Xuan Hao almost felt like they were alive as he placed his hand on the big door leading into the main hallway of the palace and pushed it open with no resistance. Not being able to stop himself from looking at the beautiful carvings of phoenixes and dragons on the door one more time before continuing deeper into the palace.

"How large…" Entering the hallway, Xuan Hao could not help but let out a sound of disbelief as he stared at the ceiling several hundred meters above him.

A giant mural covering both the sides and the ceiling of the hallway spread out before him as Xuan Hao could not help but feel the sheer dedication of whoever painted such a large mural in the past.

Observing the mural, Xuan Hao soon discovered that it was describing an epic battle between all sorts of heroic figures and mythical creature fighting with each other over long forgotten feuds.

Trying his best to grasp the story told by the mural on the walls of the hallway. Xuan Hao could only shake his head and give up as the story told was not something he was familiar with, nor was it something he knew anything about in the first place. All he could grasp was the fact that an epic fight had happened in the past and the owner of the secret realm might have even been a part of it…

Maybe that was the reason why the secret realm had been attacked in the past…? Something to do with the war depicted by the mural in the hallway…

Thinking about it, Xuan Hao felt like it made sense and continued slowly walking through the hallway as he tried his best to remember the different figures on the mural. Hoping he might be able to find out something in the future if he happened to find a historical record of one of the people on the mural…

"This is!?" Coming to the end of the hallway, Xuan Hao saw a large door leading into what could only be the throne room of the palace, but this was not what caused Xuan Hao's surprise.

"The blue phoenix from the temple…?" Indeed, at the end of the hallway, the mural showed the giant blue phoenix that he had seen earlier on the painting inside the temple flapping its wings as a wave of ice froze the surrounding dragons, phoenixes and humans on the spot.

Compared to the painting where the blue phoenix being sealed away, the mural showed the blue phoenix defeating its opponents as it majestically looked down on the battlefield from above, causing the surrounding dragons, phoenixes and humans to be filled with fear as they looked up towards it.

This was a stark contrast compared to the painting he had seen in the temple where the blue phoenix was sealed away by the combined alliance of humans, phoenixes and dragons…

Perhaps the war on the mural in the hallway happened at an earlier date before the blue phoenix was sealed or perhaps one of the two were wrong…

Shaking his head as he thought about this, Xuan Hao knew that it was no use for him to ponder about these things for now. First, he would have to become stronger, or he might have an unfortunate end looking into things he shouldn't…

After all, there had to be a reason why such an epic war was unknown by most and Xuan Hao felt that it did not have to do with the passing of time…

Creak~

Pushing open the door to the throne room, Xuan Hao opened his eyes wide as he saw a rather familiar tree rooted firmly in the middle of the throne room.

The thing that shocked Xuan Hao however was not this and was instead the giant pillar that descended from above and into the main palace through the ceiling of the throne room and stabbed directly into the ancient tree, breaking the tree in half.

Xuan Hao could easily see the fact that the ancient tree was in the process of dying and had been in that state for a long time.

It was also at this point that Xuan Hao became certain that the formation pillars were indeed part of an attack on the owner of the secret realm in the past…

In that case, the entrance to the secret realm that he had used to enter, was most likely not the real entrance but instead one created by the attacking party when trying to invade the secret realm in the past!

"If that is the case, then…" Looking around the throne room, Xuan Hao soon discovered a large gate of sorts that remained shut located at the place where the throne would normally be.

The main palace was the place where the real entrance of the secret realm was located!

Seeing the real entrance to the secret realm, Xuan Hao began to understand things a bit more as the palace complex was most likely a city of sorts where the different people under the past owner of the secret realm had lived…

Rustle~

As he was beginning to put things together about what he had seen in the secret realm so far, Xuan Hao was suddenly brought back to the real world again upon hearing the familiar rustling sound of the ancient tree that had thrown him down into the underground part of the secret realm in the first place.

"You… Why did you want me to come here…?" Staring over at the ancient tree as he said this, Xuan Hao had already understood that there was a reason for the ancient tree to get him to come here in the first place.

After all, given its strength, Xuan Hao did not doubt that even injured and close to death, it would still be able to kill him without too much effort. The fact that it could easily beat him and throw him into the underground world with no trouble at all only strengthened this belief.

Rustle~ Dive into Stories, Embrace Enchantment: NvεlB¡n.

The tree waved its branches in answer as Xuan Hao suddenly felt himself freeze.

How would he understand what the tree was saying to him...? He did not speak tree…

As Xuan Hao was thinking about how to understand what the ancient tree was trying to tell him, it suddenly waved its branches more aggressively as they began to shine with a gentle green colour as a wisp of qi drifted off it and floated in front of Xuan Hao.

Swoosh~

At the same time, the blue feather inside of his interspatial ring flew out by itself and absorbed the wisp of qi from the ancient tree before shining in a gentle light blue colour before returning to its former state and landing in Xuan Hao's hands.

"W-what just happened!?" Looking at the blue feather still gently glowing in his hands, Xuan Hao inspected it without finding anything and could only reluctantly put it back in his interspatial ring before focusing back on the ancient tree again.

From the looks of things, there was indeed more to the blue feather from the temple…

Crack~

"You got to be kidding me…" Looking back at the ancient tree, Xuan Hao felt that whatever it had just done exhausted it completely and it could no longer hold back against the giant pillar as it slowly began to descend down through the ancient tree.

Bang!

A loud sound echoed through the entire underground world as the pillar split the ancient tree in half and pierced into the ground below.

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

[Reward: Continue side quest]

[Would you like to continue the side quest?: [Y/N]

Feeling the entire underground world shaking violently after the death of the ancient tree, Xuan Hao heard the familiar sound of the system.

Even an idiot would realize that the giant pillar at the centre of the secret realm supressing the ancient tree would be the core of the giant formation!

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 209: The Secret Realm is Collapsing!

Looking at the current situation as the palace began collapsing around him, Xuan Hao decided to quickly accept the continuation of the side quest given by the system as a new quest appeared in front of him.

[Survival Quest: Escape before the collapse of the secret realm!]

[Reward: Purification Pill x5]

[Failure: Death]

This was the first quest that would kill him if he failed! A survival quest!

Xuan Hao felt that the quest was indeed fitting for his current circumstances as he could feel the other formation pillars in the distance breaking through the roots that bound them in place for countless years, as they pierced deep into the ground and began fully activating whatever formation they were supposed to execute in the past.

Rumble!

The formation in question began to show its might as the entire secret realm, both above and below ground began to shake violently as a terrifying energy began to brew around the pillar located at the centre in front of Xuan Hao.

"I will indeed die if I don't get out of here soon!" Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao looked over at the original entrance to the secret realm before quickly moving over to try and open it and escape.

But it did not take long for him to realize that his attempts were in wain as the giant door leading out of the secret realm remained shut.

The only hint on how to open it that Xuan Hao got was a small lock filled with all sorts of runes placed on the entrance.

Bzz~

"Hm?" As Xuan Hao was lost on how to open up the gateway out of the secret realm, the blue feather inside of his interspatial ring vibrated gently and flew out in front of him and began to move towards a hidden passageway located to the side of the throne room.

All Xuan Hao could do for now was follow the blue feather and hope that it would show him a way to open the original entrance of the secret realm… Or at the very least show him another way out of the secret realm…

…

Rumble~

"W-what is happening? Why did the ground suddenly start shaking all of a sudden!?"

"Look! The earth is breaking apart!"

"Is the secret realm beginning to collapse!?"

"Let's get out of here before we end up getting caught in the disaster!"

At the same time that Xuan Hao began to follow the blue feather in search for a way to activate the original entrance to the secret realm, chaos was beginning to spread above ground as several large cracks appeared in the ground leading directly down to the underground part of the secret realm.

The people above however did not care about this as they used their fastest speed to rush towards the entrance of the secret realm. No longer caring about the fact that the Sky Empire would have set up people to block the entrance.

Getting out was their top priority as everyone knew remaining in a secret realm as it collapsed completely would leave on stranded in the void between worlds with no way to get back to their original world again. Left to float in the void until they died to a random void storm or other terrifying dangers hidden in the void between worlds.

Even if one was lucky enough to not encounter this, without any qi present, the cultivator would simply starve to death when they ran out.

This was the main reason that they no longer cared about the fact that the Sky Empire might end up taking away the different treasures that they had found. No matter what, losing a few treasures was better than dying!

"Young Lady, we should get out of here immediately! Even if those from the Sky Empire are outside, if we stay here, we will just end up dead!" Ji Yichuan pleaded with the young lady of the Flowing Cloud Sect as she seemed to not want to leave the secret realm and possibly end up getting caught by the people of the Sky Empire in the process.

"My lady, I think that Old Ji is right! Even if we lose that artifact, it is still better than losing our lives here!" The old lady seemed to understand what was going through her mind and quickly spoke up to support Ji Yichuan.

"Argh! Fine! We will leave like the rest of the people here! Let's just hope that the Sky Empire is not the only power stationed outside the secret realm…" Letting out a frustrated voice when she thought about the fact that she would might lose that artifact, the young lady reluctantly agreed to the suggestion of Old Ji and the old lady.

The artifact in question was a precious artifact of the Flowing Cloud Sect that had been passed down for generations. Even then, its true use still remained unkown.

The reason why the young lady and old lady had ended up in the Heavenly Sky Kingdom with such a precious artifact from the Flowing Cloud Sect and managed to meet with Old Ji also had something to do with this.

All in all, things back in the Cloud Sky Empire was not as peaceful as they used to be, and the Flowing Cloud Sect had ended up being targeted by another group of sects that had teamed up to steal the precious artifact of the sect.

To stop this from happening, the sect master had sent the old lady and young lady over towards the Heavenly Sky Kingdom in an attempt to hide until the unrest and chaos blew over.

"We should be able to head the Spring Flower Sect after getting out… Hah… We should have never entered the secret realm in the first place just because nobody had showed up to claim it yet among those empires and stronger sects…" Sighing in regret, the old lady blamed herself as she said this. Thinking that she should have stopped the young lady from acting so rashly and enter the secret realm to explore it.

Crack~

"No use thinking about it for now. Let's just get out safely first of all" Watching the ground cracking as the earth below them began collapsing, Ji Yichuan motioned for the two of them to look at the ground beneath them showing signs of collapsing at any moment. NvεlB¡n: Your Escape into Infinite Tales.

"Let's move!" The young lady looked around and saw a nearby ancient tree towering over a hundred meters tall suddenly tumble down in the underground part of the secret realm below them and crash into the ground a few thousand meters below.

Whoosh~

The trio did not wait along for any longer as they quickly moved towards the entrance to the secret realm.

Luckily, they had waited close to the entrance for an opportunity to leave when the Sky Empire would start fighting with the other powers on their level for control over the secret realm, so it did not take long before they safely made their way out of the secret realm.

…

"Haha! Finally! We can enter the ancient palace complex!" Letting out a happy laugh, the Imperial Teacher of the Sky Empire happily watched as the pillow like object had made a small hole in the barrier big enough for them to pass through.

Rumble~

But just as he was about to enter together with General Liu and the two from the Onyx Empire, the entire underground part of the secret realm began shaking violently as the barrier in front of the ancient palace complex completely disappeared along with it.

From the centre of the main palace, the group of four also saw a giant pillar piercing through the main palace as it slowly began to release a terrifying energy. Slowly growing stronger and stronger with each passing second as the shaking from the surroundings grew more and more violent.

Roar!

The giant lizard demon beast also sensed the changes and let out a roar in the direction of the giant pillar, but still remained locked in place. Not daring to move even a step closer, clearly afraid of the giant pillar.

A certain weird mist also stopped a few meters away from the ancient palace complex before it quickly began floating in the direction of the main palace while the group of four were locked in place due to the shock that the giant pillar had brought to them.

Boom Boom Boom!

In the distance, a violent shaking could be felt as the Imperial Teacher and Bi Sheng could barely see the other smaller formation pillars in the distance pierced down in the ground and began linking up with the main pillar as the terrifying energy began to gather together at an even faster pace compared to before.

"T-this is a realm destruction formation!" Muttering this to himself with a shocked look on his face, the Imperial Teacher seemed to realize what kind of formation that the pillars were!

A realm destruction formation!

The only purpose of such a formation was to destroy a secret realm, but even the Sky Empire would not use such a method due to how wasteful it was compared to just causing the secret realm to collapse by itself after finding the core.

A realm destruction formation would only be used if this was not possible and even then, it would still be a waste of resources as the sheer amount of reassures used would cause even the biggest empires to feel the pain.

Worst of all, those resources used to construct the formation would forever be lost in the void between worlds after the formation successfully activated and destroyed the secret realm!

In the end, capturing a secret realm was a way better solution compared to destroying it most of the time!

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 210: Ancient Realm City

As the people in the secret were all panicking and trying to rush out before the secret realm fully collapsed, Xuan Hao was making his way through the secret passage. Following closely behind the blue feather as it floated in front of him leading him deeper into the underground part of the palace.

The passage that he was walking through shook violently as Xuan Hao wished that the blue feather could fly a little faster, as he worried that the ceiling would come crashing down at him if it took too long!

Crack~

The worry was not unfounded as several cracks was beginning to spread along the underground passage as Xuan Hao tried his best to remain calm.

"This is!" Coming to the end of the passage, the blue feather suddenly stopped, and Xuan Hao quickly grabbed it and put it back into his interspatial ring before inspecting the room that was at the end of the underground passage. Trying his best to look for anything that might be able to help him activate the original entrance of the secret realm and get out.

The room itself was bigger than he had first expected, but it was still as empty as most of the other places inside of the ancient palace complex.

The only difference compared to the rest of the places inside the palace complex, was the fact that the place looked like it had been recently used.

Thinking about this, Xuan Hao looked over on the bedsheets that were all crumbled up and thrown to the corner of the room and at the small table located in the other corner of the room with a few papers on it.

A small light was emitted from a lamp beside the papers on the table as Xuan Hao wondered about whether there was still someone left inside of the palace complex other than the ancient tree.

"Hm… Weapons…?" Looking over the papers on the table, Xuan Hao immediately recognised the drawings on the paper to be blueprints for different kinds of weapons and other weird artifacts.

Rustle~

As Xuan Hao was looking over the different papers on the table, he suddenly heard a sound of something moving from beneath the bed and prepared himself for the worst as he cautiously approached.

Earlier, he had not felt anything when he entered the room in the first place and the place was more than small enough for it to be covered by his entire pseudo sword domain…

Xuan Hao could not help but be reminded of the time he got thrown into the underground part of the secret realm by a certain ancient tree…

Whoosh~

Moving towards the bed in the room and moving it to the side, Xuan Hao momentarily stopped.

"Another secret entrance…" Staring at the trapdoor under the bed, Xuan Hao cautiously opened it and stared down into the darkness.

"Someone else was indeed living here!" While he was not certain before, Xuan Hao managed to feel the presence of something living after opening the secret entrance and became certain that there had indeed been someone living in the room before he showed up and they most likely fled through the secret path after feeling him approaching!

Rumble~

The surroundings shook violently as Xuan Hao saw the passage, he came from getting closer and closer to collapsing as several cracks began to spread at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Glancing around the room, Xuan Hao did not see anything that would be able to help him open the original entrance of the secret realm and escape…

"Hah… I hope there is a way out of the secret realm down there…" Sighing to himself as he looked at the passage behind him began collapsing, Xuan Hao decided to follow whoever lived in the room before he showed up.

After all, he doubted that they would enter the secret path under the bed if there was no way out with the secret realm beginning to collapse…

Thinking about this, Xuan Hao thought that it might have been possible that the person did not flee when he showed up, but instead ran away after feeling the imminent collapse of the secret realm…

Whoosh~

Entering the secret path, Xuan Hao did not forget to store away the different blueprints that were scattered on the table before closing the trapdoor.

Crash!

Moving deeper into the secret path, Xuan Hao heard the room behind him collapse as he let out a sigh.

No matter what, there was no way back now…

All he could do was hope that he had made the right decision.

…

At the same time outside of the ancient palace complex, the Imperial Teacher and Ancestor Bi Sheng along with General Liu and Zhang all decided to enter the ancient palace complex.

The time it would take for them to reach the entrance of the secret realm would take too long, unless they waited for the earth to crack apart enough for them to fly out of the underground world.

But before that happened, they would still have some time to explore the ancient palace complex and uncover what was hidden inside.

After all, the secret realm belonged to 'that' sect in the past and there would surely be something precious inside!

The sect in question could be considered the strongest sect to have ever existed and even the empires of today was nowhere near the same strength as the now forgotten sect!

The Sky Empire's Imperial Teacher and the Onyx Empire's Ancestor Bi Sheng decided to work together precisely because they knew that the things inside a secret realm left behind by the sect would be more than enough to cause Soul Ascension Realm Experts to fight over it!

This was an opportunity for both of them to finally breakthrough the last stage of the Domain Lord Realm and enter the Soul Ascension Realm!

At that time, they could truly be considered to have reached the peak of the Ewaria Continent!

No matter what kind of feud both empires had with each other, the Imperial Teacher and Ancestor Bi Sheng would be more than willing to let this go as they worked together to obtain a chance to reach an even greater hight!

Of course, their past friendship also contributed to how easily they managed to work together…

General Liu and General Zhang on the other hand did not have any sort of past friendship… On the contrary, they had clashed on the borders with each other quite a few times and only worked together because their elders told them to do so…

"This should be one of the legendary realm cities from the past…" Looking at the countless palaces spread around the ancient realm city, the Imperial Teacher emotionally muttered this to himself as he was lost in thought.

"Realm cities…?" Hearing the mutterings of the Imperial Teacher beside him, General Liu tilted his head to the side and asked with a questioning look on his face as he looked at the surrounding palaces. Clearly, he did not know as much about the ancient sect from the past as the Imperial Teacher did.

"The realm cities are places where the cultivators from that sect would go when they needed a place to quietly relax or enter seclusion for an extended period of time, they were called realm cities because most of them were located inside different secret realms…" Walking over from the side as he also looked at the surrounding palaces, Ancestor Bi Sheng explained this.

"Indeed, they would construct an entire secret realm just to have a place away from the world to quietly cultivate in peace… Even then, entering a realm city and getting a palace was not easy. The minimum requirement would be for one to reach the Domain Lord Realm…" Continuing the explanation where Ancestor Bi Sheng Stopped, the Imperial Teacher could not help but let out a sigh of amazement.

The palaces in the ancient realm city alone were more than one thousand! And this was just for one realm city!

The Imperial Teacher could not even begin to fathom how strong the ancient sect truly was back then…

And to think such a terrifyingly strong sect ended up getting destroyed!

Just from the giant realm destruction formation, the Imperial could easily see how brutal the war back then had been…

The Imperial Teacher did not know much about what had truly happened in the past, but he could easily imagine how world shaking the war had been!

Boom!

A large piece of rock fell from the ceiling and crashed into a nearby palace, quickly bringing the Imperial Teacher back.

"According to what I know, the entrance to the secret realm should be located in the main palace of the realm city. The one we entered was most likely an artificial entrance used by the invading force in the past! The main storeroom should also be located there!" Calling out to the others, the Imperial Teacher flew in the direction of the main palace.

The others did not wait behind after hearing what the Imperial Teacher said as they quickly followed behind him. Not noticing an almost invisible mist floating a few meters above them as it followed closely behind the group of four.

…

As more and more of the underground part of the secret realm collapsed, the giant lizard demon beast could no longer stand still as it narrowly dodged the rocks falling towards it from above.

Roar!

Boom! NvεlB¡n: Your Escape into Infinite Tales.

Letting out a loud roar as it dodged another rock, the giant lizard demon beast looked up and spotted a giant ancient tree falling down towards it.

When did trees start falling from above?

Jumping to the side, the giant lizard demon beast discovered that a crack had formed in the ceiling and the sky above could be seen!

ROAR!

Letting out an excited roar upon seeing a way out of the collapsing underground world, the giant lizard demon beast used all its strength to climb onto a nearby pillar connected to the ceiling and make its way through the crack in the ceiling.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 211: General Liu and Zhang, Towards the Storage Room!

Slowly making his way along the path, Xuan Hao felt that the shaking from the secret realm beginning to collapse begin to grow more and more intense with each passing second, but he did not dare to move any faster.

After all, he had no idea if the person who lived in the underground room was hostile towards him and prepared to attack him the moment he let his guard down.

Even then, it did not take Xuan Hao long before he reached the end of the path and found himself in what could only be considered an underground garden.

Looking around at the weirdly glowing trees and foliage neatly arranged in some sort of weird order all, Xuan Hao tried to think about what kind of plants they were and his newly acquired knowledge about spiritual plants and trees soon began to show its worth as Xuan Hao almost immediately recognised the different plants and trees inside the underground garden.

"Violent Crystal Trees, Crystal Flowers, Earth Spirit Vines…" Looking over all the different rare spiritual plants, Xuan Hao could not help but open his eyes in shock as he slowly understood that he had come upon an extremely rare garden filled with rare spiritual plants!

Rustle~

Walking through the underground garden with an increasingly shocked look on his face, Xuan Hao heard a rustling sound from a nearby spirit berry bush and froze in place as he cautious look over at the spirit berry bush.

The spirit berries on the bush shook gently as Xuan Hao clearly felt and saw something moving inside of the spirit berry bush!

"Hello…?" Calling out cautiously, Xuan Hao slowly began to approach the berry bush with his sword drawn. Ready to attack in case whatever was hiding inside the spirit berry bush decided to launch an attack towards him!

The spirit berry bush also stopped shaking the moment Xuan Hao called out and it seemed like whatever was hiding inside the spirit berry bush had decided not to answer as it had ceased any form of movement.

This in turn only causing Xuan Hao to grow more cautious as he slowly began to use his qi to move the leaves of the spirit berry bush to see what was hiding inside of it…

…

"This should have been the original entrance to the secret realm…" Arriving in the throne room of the main hall, the Imperial Teacher of the Sky Empire said with confidence as he walked in front of a gate located to the side. Completely ignoring the terrifying pillar piercing through the ceiling of the palace and directly into the ground.

The terrifying energy gathered around the pillar shattered the surrounding palace walls as it slowly grew stronger. Growing close and closer to reaching a point where it would erupt outwards and destroy the entire secret realm along with the remaining paths back to their home world!

"Imperial Teacher. S-should we not hurry up and get out before that thing activates…?" General Liu nervously looked towards the giant pillar with the terrifying energy swirling around it as it let out a world destroying aura.

The sheer amount of fear he felt when looking at the giant pillar with the energy swirling around it was incomparable to anything he had ever felt before!

Even when he met with the ancestors of the Sky Empire at the Soul Ascension Realm, he did not feel such a terrifying suppression!

Whatever that energy was, it was above what someone in the Soul Ascension Realm was capable of doing on their own.

At least that was what General Liu felt when he looked up at the giant pillar gathering more and more of that terrifying energy.

"Haha, you don't need to worry so much about it! From what I see, it will at least take another 30 or so minutes before the formation gathers enough void energy to activate!" Calming down the worry of General Liu, the Imperial Teacher laughed a bit before he focused back on the original entrance to the secret realm.

"Void energy?" General Liu who heard an unfamiliar term could not help but ask out.

"No need to think about that for now, go with General Zhang to find to storage room, I will stay here together with Bi Sheng and find a way to open up the entrance here." Dismissing the question of General Liu, the Imperial Teacher ordered for him to move with General Zhang of the Onyx Empire to find the storage room hidden inside of the palace.

"But…" Looking over at General Zhang and Ancestor Bi Sheng, General Liu could not help but feel uncomfortable upon hearing the orders of the Imperial Teacher.

Working together with them when the Imperial Teacher was around was one thing. Working together with them alone was another…

He did not feel safe at all…

"Don't worry about it, he won't do anything to you. The storage room should be located at the north wing of the palace. Now hurry!" Seemingly reading his mind, the Imperial Teacher answered before he managed to protest and directed him towards the north wing of the palace

"Yes… Imperial Teacher…" Reluctantly agreeing, General Liu cast an unwilling gaze in the direction of General Zhang as the other party just smiled in return before both of them moved towards the north wing of the palace.

"Are you really sure it is fine to leave it to them…? One of us should have gone to make sure nothing happens…" Watching the two generals disappear, Bi Sheng turned around and asked the Imperial Teacher with a questioning look on his face.

"Its fine… I trust General Liu won't do anything inappropriate and I'm sure you think the same about that General Zhang… And I will need you here as well when breaking the seal on the entrance…" Smiling as he said the first part, the Imperial Teachers mood soon turned sour as he reached the last part.

"My help…? What do you mean, you know that I'm not skilled in dealing with seals and that kind of stuff…" Showing a confused expression on his face for the first time since entering the secret realm, Bi Sheng looked at the Imperial Teacher waiting for him to explain what he meant.

"That!"

Swoosh~

Pointing towards the giant pillar gathering what the Imperial Teacher had called void energy, a small string of energy broke off as it slammed into a nearby wall and easily pierced through it before landing a little farther away.

Boom!

The small string of void energy caused a violent explosion as it hit the ground and easily reduced several nearby palaces to rubble.

"Another reason why realm destruction formations are not used often. Void energy is highly unstable! I hope you a prepared to block it when it comes this way~" Smiling cheekily at Bi Sheng as he said this, the Imperial Teacher focused back onto the original entrance to the secret realm as several differing symbols manifested in the air around him while trying to break the seal on the gate.

"You got to be kidding me…" Watching as the void energy around the pillar grew stronger and stronger, Bi Sheng also discovered that it grew more and more unstable… Dive into Stories, Embrace Enchantment: NvεlB¡n.

Whoosh~

A dark qi slowly began to drift out of Bi Sheng as he began to prepare his defensive techniques for the inevitable clash with the unstable void energy.

…

Boom!

"What was that?!" Looking over in the direction of the explosion, both General Liu and General Zhang had a shocked expression on their face as they watched from afar as several palaces were reduced to rubble.

"We have to hurry before this entire secret realm ends up collapsing!" Feeling a sense of urgency, General Liu began moving quicker than before as they soon found themselves in the north wing of the palace.

Not discovering a weird mist that slowly drifted a little behind them as they moved. Never getting too close and never falling too far behind…

"General Zhang, should we split up or move together?" Entering the north wing of the palace, General Liu asked General Zhang in a cautious tone as he waited for an answer.

"Just call me Zhang and we should move together, it would be dangerous to move alone if we encountered anything… Remember, the barrier to this realm city is down and anyone can enter now, that includes demon beasts!" Saying this, General Zhang looked out of a nearby window in the direction that the giant lizard demon beast was staying.

"I understand, you can just call me Liu as well then!" Nodding his head in agreement as he remembered the giant lizard demon beast from earlier, General Liu felt a shiver run down his spine.

If it was not for the two elders, he was sure that he would never have been able to survive the encounter with such a terrifying demon beast close to the Soul Ascension Realm…

"I think the storage room is located in that direction…" Just as they walked into the main hallway of the north wing of the palace, General Zhang stopped General Liu as he said this.

"Hm? How do you know?" With a confused expression on his face, General Liu looked in the same direction as General Zhang and soon understood.

[Storage Room -]

A sign was hanging on the wall of the hallway as it pointed in the direction of the storage room…

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 212: Soul Enhancing Flower

"Nothing…?" Observing the spirit berry bush, Xuan Hao had a confused look on his face as he tried his best to see if he missed something, but in the end, he found nothing hiding beneath the spirit berry bush.

"I swear I saw something moving there…" Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao shook his head and moved deeper into the underground garden as he picked up the different spiritual plants and herbs along the way.

The only things he did not take with him was the crystal trees as they were simply too difficult to move and were not too rare. Taking the different spiritual herbs and plants growing in the underground garden was more than enough…

Unknown to Xuan Hao at this point in time, a pair of eyes opened behind him and observed as he left the spirit berry bush before going deeper into the underground garden before quickly disappearing again.

Xuan Hao did not notice this and instead focused on the different plants and spiritual herbs that appeared along the path that he was following.

By this point, Xuan Hao could already feel that his interspatial ring was close to being full at this point in time, so he could only reluctantly stop himself and only focus on picking up the more precious spiritual herbs and plants.

Walking along the path of the underground garden, Xuan Hao soon came to a stop as he saw a gate similar to the one, he had seen in the main palace of the ancient palace complex earlier on.

The gate was covered in all sorts of foliage from the underground garden, that had grown all over it. Completely covering the gate in the process.

This did not stop Xuan Hao from recognising it immediately.

"Another entrance to the secret realm…" Looking at the gate located in the middle of the underground garden, Xuan Hao muttered this to himself as he cautiously approached the gate covered in different vines and other sorts of plants that had grown on it over the years.

Compared to the gate he had seen earlier on in the throne room of the main palace; this gate was way smaller in size and did not have any sort of seal on it.

At least Xuan Hao could not see any visible seal on the gate preventing him from opening it up like the one in the throne room.

Creak~

Pushing open the gate, Xuan Hao watched with a shocked expression on his face as the gate effortlessly began to open up without any resistance.

"This feels way too easy…" Staring into the pitch-black darkness beyond the gate, Xuan Hao clearly knew that the gate led to a completely different place compared to the entrance he had used to get into the secret realm in the first place.

Behind him, a pair of eyes shining in a bright green colour also appeared in a nearby crystal tree as it looked into the pitch-black darkness of the gate with fear.

Rumble! Bang!

The rocky ceiling of the underground garden suddenly began shaking, as Xuan Hao saw a few glowing crystals fall down from above and crush a few nearby crystal trees in the process.

"Hah… I hope that nothing goes wrong…" Sword prepared, Xuan Hao cautiously entered the gate and officially left the secret realm.

The owner of the pair of green eyes did not do the same and instead waited around for a good five minutes before also entering the gate after Xuan Hao.

… NvεlB¡n: Your Escape into Infinite Tales.

"This should be the storage room, but it looks like it has already been emptied out…" Standing in front of the entrance to the storage room and looking in, General Liu sighed as he said in a sad voice.

If they didn't get anything out of entering the secret realm, General Liu could not imagine how he would be able to justify working together with his enemies… Even if the Imperial Teacher was the one who ordered him to do it, General Liu still did not feel like it was right for them to work together with their archenemies.

Let alone now that it seemed like they would not even get anything out of it other than risking their lives together…

"Calm down Liu, look over there!" Seeing the increasingly distorted look on General Liu's face, General Zhang walked over from the side as he pointed at somewhere far off in the corner of the storage room where a small unremarkable wooden box was located.

It was the only thing inside of the storage room and General Liu had even managed to miss it when he looked inside of the storage room the first time.

Now hearing what General Zhang said, he once again looked inside the storage room and saw the small unremarkable wooden box located in the corner that General Zhang had pointed out.

"Hm… What do you think it is, Z-Zhang…?" Having a difficult time calling General Zhang without his title in front, General Liu walked over to the small unremarkable wooden box and picked it up.

"No idea… Let's open it." Standing beside him, General Zhang took the small unremarkable wooden box out of General Liu's hand and located a small lock that he easily destroyed with his strength before opening up the box and seeing what was inside.

"This!"

"Hm? What is it?" Hearing the shocked voice from General Zhang as he opened the wooden box, General Liu grew curious as he moved over to see what was inside of the wooden box.

"Soul Enhancing Flowers!? And more than a dozen of them!?" Not able to keep himself from exclaiming loudly upon seeing the dozen or so delicate flowers inside of the box, General Liu felt a wave of excitement wash over him.

Working together with the Onyx Empire for Soul Enhancing Flowers was more than worth it, as the trip to the secret realm could already be considered to be worth the risk.

Soul Enhancing Flowers were incredibly rare spiritual flowers that could help purify and strengthen the soul, it was one of the most sought after spiritual herbs by Soul Ascension Realm cultivators as it would be extremely beneficial for them.

The effects of the Soul Enhancing Flower were of course not just limited to the Soul Ascension Realm but was even more miraculous for Domain Lord and Nascent Soul Realm cultivators.

Domain Lord Realm cultivators would have an easier time cultivating and even increase their chances of breaking through into the Soul Ascension Realm in the future!

For Nascent Soul Realm cultivators, it could guarantee that they would be able to easily reach the Domain Lord Realm and ensure that they would be able to go further on the path of cultivation.

All in all, the earlier that the Soul Enhancing Flower was consumed, the larger benefit it would bring to the cultivator. The Nascent Soul Realm being the earliest possible realm, as the Soul Enhancing Flower's strengthening effects to someone that had yet to overcome the cloud tribulation and reach the Nascent Soul Realm would be too powerful and instead end up killing the person who consumed it instead of strengthening their soul.

Seeing the over dozen Soul Enhancing Flowers inside of the box, General Liu knew very well that there would at least be 6 for their side after splitting them together with the Onyx Empire.

Other than that, he knew very well that he would get at least one of them from being one of the two to discover the Soul Enhancing Flowers, General Zhang was the same as both of them were excited over the prospect of being able to use a Soul Enhancing Flower.

Whoosh~

It was at this point where both of them were excitedly thinking about how they were going to use the Soul Enhancing Flowers in the future, that a small mist slowly drifted over before turning into a person that quickly grabbed the box of Soul Enhancing Flowers before turning to leave.

"Stop him!" Seeing the Soul Enhancing Flowers in front of him suddenly disappear, General Liu angrily screamed as he watched the wanderer that they had chased away earlier suddenly appear and steal away the Soul Enhancing Flowers.

General Zhang was a little more prepared compared to General Liu as he reacted the moment that the wanderer appeared and snatched away the box of Soul Enhancing Flowers.

Using a movement technique to block the thief's escape path out of the storage room as General Zhang did not wait for even a second as he quickly drew his weapon and launched an attack towards the wanderer.

Swish~

A terrifying blade energy suddenly appeared in front of the wanderer as he took out his wooden staff to defend against the blade attack launched by General Zhang.

Not expecting that the other party was cable of using such a terrifying movement technique to block his escape path.

Boom!

Both the attacks collided as both parties were flung backwards by the sheer force.

The wanderer looking relatively better compared to General Zhang.

This however did not last for long, as the wanderer found himself between a rock and a hard place. General Zhang blocking him in front and General Liu behind him.

Even if he had reached the middle stages of the Domain Lord Realm, he had only recently reached it and did not feel too confident in dealing with the continuous attacks from two other Domain Lords at the same time…

Worst of all, both of them were generals from the Onyx and Sky Empire… Their combat experience in dealing with Domain Lord level opponents would be far superior to his own as a wandering cultivator…

But he could simply not let go of such an opportunity… The Soul Enhancing Flowers might be the only shot he would ever get at surpassing the Domain Lord Realm and reach the Soul Ascension Realm in the future…

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 213: Battle for the Soul Enhancing Flowers!

"Just leave the Soul Enhancing Flowers and we can forget about this… The only way out is guarded by the two elders from earlier, you should at least know that you won't be able to get away without running into them first!" Slowly approaching the wandering cultivator, General Zhang attempted to persuade him first before attack again.

After all, the other party had already been blocked and would not be able to run away without going through him first!

Even though the other part was above the early stages of the Domain Lord Realm and had already reached the middle stages of the realm, General Zhang had clearly felt that the other party had just barely reached the fourth stage of the Domain Lord Realm and was not yet familiar with his own strength yet.

Other than that, the earlier clash also helped General Zhang affirm that the other party was not as skilled as himself when it came to fighting someone at the Domain Lord Realm.

At this point, General Zhang already felt like he could win against the wandering cultivator alone if he was given enough time. Not considering that General Liu, who had around the same strength as himself, was there as well…

"Hmph!" Narrowing his eyes after hearing what General Zhang said, the wandering cultivator knew very well what he said was true.

Even though he was a wandering cultivator, he mostly specialised in formations and seals. Not really too focused on the aspect of fighting, outside of a few staff techniques that he had managed to pick up over the years.

Swish~

A calm ocean slowly began to manifest around him as the domain of the wandering cultivator appeared.

"A water domain…" Seeing the water domain of the wandering cultivator appear, General Zhang and General Liu both knew that they would not be able to talk it out with him and fighting would be the only option left for them.

Giving up the Soul Enhancing Flowers was not an option as both of them could easily imagine their elder's reaction upon hearing how they lost something so precious due to a moment of elation where their guard was lowered. Allowing for the wandering cultivator to snatch away the box of Soul Enhancing Flowers.

Whoosh~

Both General Zhang and Liu reacted to the wandering cultivator and manifested their own domains.

General Zhang was covered in darkness as a domain looking similar to what Ancestor Bi Sheng had used to fight the giant lizard demon beast earlier on appeared around him.

General Liu on the other hand was covered in flames, as a sea of flames erupted with him as the centre.

The fire domain and darkness domain soon collided with the calm water domain of the wandering cultivator as it began to shake visibly under the pressure of both domains.

"Hah!"

Whoosh!

Knowing that he could not stand still and allow both of them to supress his domain together, the wandering cultivator did not stand still to contend against both domains at the same time and instead decided to launch an attack towards General Zhang. Attempting to break out of the storage room before using his artifact to hide away once again and look for an opportunity to leave the secret realm.

The formerly calm water domain of the wandering cultivator suddenly became ferocious as a large amount of water qi gathered together and manifested into a giant tidal wave that came crashing down towards General Zhang.

"Hmph!" Already prepared for the attack, General Zhang lifted his blade and swung down to meet the incoming wave. Following which dark qi merged together with his blade to strengthen it as he met the attack of the wandering cultivator head on without hesitating in the slightest.

Boom!

The two clashed once again as the attack this time around was way more devasting, causing the surrounding storage room to end up getting destroyed. Luckily, the wandering cultivator had already put away the box of Soul Enhancing Flowers in his interspatial ring.

If not, the clash would surely have ended up destroying the flowers… Not an outcome either party would want to happen.

As both General Zhang and the wandering cultivator clashed with each other, General Liu did not wait behind as he was gathered a large amount of fire qi in his fists before throwing a punch in the direction that the wandering cultivator retreated towards after clashing with General Zhang.

The attack of General Liu began to burn the surroundings as the fire fist appeared behind the wandering cultivator who just barely managed to use his domain to block the incoming fire fist of General Liu with a large wall of water.

Fwoosh!

As the fiery fist attack of General Liu hit the water wall that protected the wandering cultivator, a large amount of vapor appeared as the water manifested from the water domain began boiling under the intense heat of General Liu's attack.

Soon all of the water disappeared as the wandering cultivator could only meet the attack head on and try his best to ensure he did not take too much damage from the attack.

Bang!

The attack of General Liu had weakened quite a bit after evaporating the wall of water set up by the wandering cultivator, but still managed to carry forth a terrifying heat as it smashed directly into the body of the wandering cultivator.

Sending him flying into a nearby wall of the storage room.

Crash!

The wall almost immediately collapsed as it fell down and covered the wandering cultivator under the rubble.

Rumble~

The collapse of the wall soon caused the rest of the storage room to collapse, as both General Liu and Zhang quickly made their way outside.

The materials used to construct the palace was not just any ordinary materials and even if they were Domain Lord Realm cultivators, they would still be injured if they were hit by the collapsing storage room.

"Give up and hand over the Soul Enhancing Flowers!" Moving over to the area where the wandering cultivator was buried, General Zhang called out in a stern tone as his domain covered everything around the area. Making sure that the wandering cultivator would not be able to escape without him noticing!

General Liu moved over as well, as both of them slowly began to move the collapsed wall. Preparing to resume their fight with the wandering cultivator at any point.

Whoosh!

"The Soul Enhancing Flowers!" Suddenly the wandering cultivator broke out from the collapsed wall of the storage room as he threw the box containing the Soul Enhancing flowers into the distance while throwing an attack towards it at the same time.

All of this was done while the wandering cultivator desperately escaped in the opposite direction, it was clear that he did not want to continue fighting any longer and was just trying to escape at this point.

General Zhang also sensed this and through his domain felt that the Soul Enhancing Flowers were indeed in the box thrown out by the wandering cultivator.

Boom!

Flying out to block the attack that was flying towards the box of Soul Enhancing Flowers, General Zhang could not care too much about the wandering cultivator.

Securing the Soul Enhancing Flowers was way more important in his eyes compared to chasing after the wandering cultivator.

"I got it!" Yelling out excitedly, General Liu had not blocked the wandering cultivator either and had instead caught the box of Soul Enhancing Flowers before they managed to land on the ground.

Swish~

Just as General Zhang was about to give chase to the wandering cultivator, he suddenly turned into a thin mist like form and disappeared.

"There is one Soul Enhancing Flower missing!" Counting up the Soul Enhancing Flowers inside of the box, General Liu could not help but exclaim loudly.

General Zhang only frowned as he looked in the direction that the wandering cultivator had disappeared for a few seconds before turning back towards General Liu. The debut release of this chapter happened at Ñøvl-B1n.

"Hah, looks like we won't be able to chase after him… At least we got the Soul Enhancing Flowers back… Losing one should not be too bad considering that he might have destroyed them if we really entered a life and death fight…" Letting out a depressed sigh, General Zhang walked up to General Liu before he put away the box of Soul Enhancing Flower in his interspatial ring. Making sure the wandering cultivator would not return again to try his luck…

Rumble~

Crash!

"Looks like we will have to hurry back to the elders and get out of here before the entire place collapses…" Not caring about the fact that General Zhang took away the box of Soul Enhancing Flower, General Liu was instead focused on the continuously worsening state of the secret realm.

In the first place, he did not worry about General Zhang running away with them as he was sure that the Imperial Teacher would make sure they got their share of the Soul Enhancing Flowers after leaving the secret realm.

Like this, both of them left the north wing of the palace and returned to the throne room where both of the elders were waiting.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 214: Collapse of the Secret Realm!

Making their way back to the throne room of the main palace, both General Liu and Zhang felt relieved when they saw the Imperial Teacher and Ancestor Bi Sheng standing in front of the open gate leading out of the secret realm.

"Hm? Did you manage to find anything in the storage room?" Asking in a both curious and excited voice, the Imperial Teacher had an exhausted look on his face as he made his way over to the two approaching generals. NvεlB¡n: Your Escape into Infinite Tales.

Whoosh~

General Zhang did not hesitate in the slightest as he took the box of Soul Enhancing Flowers out of his interspatial ring and showed it to the approaching Imperial Teacher.

"Soul Enhancing Flowers!" not able to contain his excitement upon seeing the flowers inside of the box, the Imperial Teacher exclaimed excitedly as he went forward and took the box out of General Zhang's hand before inspecting the Soul Enhancing Flowers himself.

Making sure that he was extra careful, so that he did not accidently end up damaging the flowers.

"Did you say Soul Enhancing Flowers!?" Hurriedly walking over to the Imperial Teacher to see the flowers inside of the box, both General Liu and Zhang noticed the thin line of blood running down his lips as they did not understand how he had gotten injured.

Perhaps both of them had send the two of them away as they dealt with a dangerous demon beast or something along that line!

BOOM!

Just as both generals were feeling grateful towards their two elders, a large explosion occurred as some of the void energy gathered at the main pillar of the realm destruction formation broke free and crashed into a nearby wall of the palace. Instantly causing it to collapse.

"Let's get out of here first! We can go over the Soul Enhancing Flowers after leaving the secret realm first!" Putting away the box of Soul Enhancing Flowers before Ancestor Bi Sheng could catch a glimpse of them, the Imperial Teacher hurried all of them before making his way towards the gate out of the secret realm.

Swish~

The group did not really have anything to say when they heard what the Imperial Teacher said and followed him into the gate leading out of the secret realm.

The void energy that had gathered around the main pillar of the realm destruction formation at this point was way too terrifying and General Liu could not help but glance back one last time at it before leaving the secret realm behind.

Boom!

The moment everyone had made it through the gate, the void energy swirling around the giant pillar in the centre of the throne room seemed to have reached a critical point as the void energy grew even more unstable.

"We should leave this place before the void energy from inside spills out and ends up harming us in the process!" Glancing around at the cave with several kinds of ruins that they had found themselves in, Ancestor Bi Sheng hurried the group as they soon left behind the gate and looked for a path out of the cave.

Bang!

Just as a part of the void energy split off from the pillar and made its way towards the gate leading out of the secret realm, a small mist flew towards the gate at its highest possible speed as it barely made it through as the void energy hit him along with the gate and destroyed it.

"Hah… Hah… I-I made it…!" The mist slowly turned into a human shape, as the wandering cultivator looked back at the now destroyed gate behind him with an exhausted smile on his lips before suddenly spitting out a mouthful of blood.

Looking down on the blood that stained the ground beneath him, the wandering cultivator soon turned back into a mist and found a place to secretly recover.

Earlier on, he had forcefully endured the void energy as he passed through the gate leading out of the secret realm and damaged both his soul and body in the process!

Normally such an injury would be extremely hard to recover from, but with the Soul Enhancing Flower he would be able to recover in half a year and even be able to increase his strength even further!

…

"What is this place…?" Walking through the gate inside of the underground garden, Xuan Hao found himself in the middle of a wide underground cave in what he could only assume was outside of the secret realm. All the shaking sounds from earlier were also completely gone.

Ignoring the completion notification of the system, Xuan Hao looked around himself and saw a lot of ruins in his surroundings with the gate at the centre of what Xuan Hao assumed was also a part of the underground garden from the secret realm.

The difference between the two underground gardens was size and the ruins of buildings spread all over place. Most likely a place for those who took care of the underground garden in the past to stay.

Illuminated under the glowing crystal hanging high above in the cave ceiling, Xuan Hao had not seen anything like it back in the underground garden of the secret realm and hurriedly made his way through the thick foliage covering the cave floor towards one of the nearby ruins.

Hoping that he would be able to find out about where he currently was and find a way out.

After all, he still had to return back to the sect again!

At least he had informed them about Chi Hu…

He did inform them about him recruiting Chi Hu… Right…?

"Looks like I will have to hurry back quickly before Chi Hu ends up in a bad situation…" Smiling wryly as he thought about Chi Hu being blocked at the entrance of the Flying Sword Sect, Xuan Hao walked a little faster as he soon arrived in front of the ruin closest to the entrance of the secret realm that was connected to the underground garden.

Standing in front of the small cottage that seemed to have decayed to the point where only the stones foundation remained, Xuan Hao walked inside to see if he could find anything.

…

At the same time Xuan Hao entered the underground garden, under a crystal tree located deeper inside the underground garden, a pair of red eyes suddenly sprung open as a large creature looked in the direction of the gate leading into the secret realm for a short moment before disappearing.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 215: Second Blue Feather

Looking around inside the ruins of the cottage, Xuan Hao could not see anything of interest. Even after looking through the entire place with his divine sense and pseudo sword domain!

"Guess I should just find own my way out of here…!" Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao took out his sword and began floating up into the air to get a better view of his surroundings and hopefully spot a path out of the underground garden.

In front of him, there were all sorts of plants everywhere covering the ground beneath him. In the area close to the gate leading into the secret realm, there was a lake as clear as a mirror reflecting the surrounding greenery under the illuminating light of the crystals above.

On the shore of the lake, a large area surrounded in a stone fence that had long since broken down with the passage of time was barely standing as the surrounding vines and other foliage had begun to take over.

Seeing this, Xuan Hao narrowed his eyes as he focused on a place inside of the area surrounded by the broken-down stone fence where the plants and foliage had not yet spread to.

Leaving it completely empty outside of a small shrine that did not show any sign of decay like the rest of the buildings in the underground garden.

Looking closer, Xuan Hao discovered that it was not that the surrounding plants and other foliage did not spread to the area around the small shrine but was instead because they couldn't. Almost like an invisible force of sorts had prevented them from growing any closer to it.

Whoosh~

Feeling curious, Xuan Hao flew over to the lake and reached the place with the small shrine.

"Small is most likely not the right word to use…" Standing in front of the shrine, Xuan Hao discovered that the shrine was not small at all and was at least a few dozen meters tall!

"But what is so special about it…" Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao observed the shrine that was in a blue colour oddly similar to the phoenix that he had already seen on the painting in the underground part of the temple along with the mural of the main palace.

Walking up to the entrance of the shrine, Xuan Hao felt like he already knew what he would find inside before proceeding to enter.

The inside of the shrine was almost completely empty outside of the blue pillars following the theme of the outside holding up the structure of the temple itself.

On the sides of the shrine wall, Xuan Hao saw yet another gathering of paintings of the blue phoenix.

The difference was that this time around, it did not show off any kind of epic war like the last two places had done.

Instead, it showed the blue phoenix among different humans and demon beasts peacefully coexisting as they went on with their life.

The change compared to the other depictions he had seen of the blue phoenix being sealed away and fighting against the coalition of both humans, demon beasts and other mythical creatures like dragons and phoenixes was enough to cause Xuan Hao to stop for a moment to observe the paintings a second time before moving deeper into the shrine.

"So, three different depictions of the blue phoenix… One peacefully coexisting with everyone, one locked in a war against different forces and finally the blue phoenix being sealed away…

But why do I feel like I'm missing something…?" Speaking to himself in a low, barely audible voice, Xuan Hao had a confused look on his face.

Honestly, Xuan Hao did not fully understand anything about the different stories being told of the blue phoenix, but he felt like part of the story was missing.

Like, how did it go from peaceful to being at war with all those different powers and races all of a sudden? The shift was a bit too drastic…

"Another blue phoenix statue… Hah…" Staring at the familiar phoenix statue in front of him, Xuan Hao saw another blue feather similar to the first one that he had found in the underground part of the temple.

"Maybe someone already took away the blue feather that was located inside of the main palace…" Thinking about this as he picked the blue feather up and put it into his interspatial ring where the other feather was, Xuan Hao remembered the fact that the secret realm was most likely attacked by someone in the past…

Perhaps the people who attacked the secret realm in the past was after the blue feather… But why…?

Xuan Hao did not know why, but he suddenly felt a shiver go down his spine as he thought about something.

Those people would attack a secret realm for one blue feather… Would that not mean that they would also come after him in the future…?

"Ah! No use thinking about this! It's not even certain that the people who attacked the secret realm are still alive in this world. Let alone know that I have the two blue feathers!" Calming himself down, Xuan Hao decided to not think about it anymore, he would wait until he grew stronger before looking into where the blue feathers came from.

For now, he just needed to get back to the Flying Sword Sect and help both his disciples grow stronger while also increasing his strength along the way!

Roar!

"Ah!"

"Help!"

About to check the system quest that he had completed after leaving the secret realm, Xuan Hao was suddenly alerted by a loud roar in the distance as a scream of fear soon followed closely behind the roar. NvεlB¡n: Unleashing Imagination, One Read at a Time.

"There are demon beasts down here? And a human as well!?" Showing a surprised expression on his face, Xuan Hao soon located the rough direction that the scream came from before jumping on top of his sword before quickly flying towards it.

Not daring to be too slow in case the demon beast managed to catch up and make a meal out of the person screaming for help.

Also preparing himself in case it was a trap to lure in people and ambush them…

After all, screaming so loudly in the middle of the underground garden was sure to attract more demon beasts…

The only reason Xuan Hao could see for someone to scream like that was to lure in someone and ambush them, or if they had entered the underground garden together with other people and were calling out for their help…

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 216: The Young Blacksmith

A little earlier after Xuan Hao had already left behind the underground garden inside of the secret realm, a small shadow suddenly appeared in front of the gate leading out of the secret realm.

Whoosh~ Crash!

Only barely making it through as the gate on the other side was completely crushed beneath the underground gardens ceiling caving in above it.

"I made it! Now I just have to be careful that those wolves do not find me!" Cautiously glancing around the surrounding environment, the figure of the person who emerged from the gate was soon revealed.

Under the light of the crystals from above a child around the age of thirteen with a pair of green eyes and pitch-black hair could be seen standing in front of the gate as he cautious surveyed his surroundings. The debut release of this chapter happened at Ñøvl-B1n.

Earlier on, he had watched as Xuan Hao had entered the gate and hoped that he would be able to deal with the wolves waiting on the other side and from the looks of things, there were no wolves in view around the gate!

Normally, a large pack of wolves would be sleeping in front of the gate, preventing him from leaving the secret realm. Luckily, it seemed like the person who went in before him had indeed driven them away! This time around they were nowhere to be seen!

Feeling a bit more confident, the boy looked around the area one last time before making his way towards the exit of the underground garden.

As he was walking through the underground garden, the young boy sighed to himself as he thought about how he had ended up in his current situation in the first place.

Originally, he was an orphan that was taken in when he was young and had been left in front of an orphanage that later ended up shutting down due to the city lord not seeing the use in spending money to keep it running in the first place.

At that time, he had just reached the age of eight and managed to become a student for a local elderly blacksmith that took pity on him and began to train him in the art of blacksmithing and even treated him like his own son.

The elderly blacksmith did not have any family left in the world, so being able to take in the young orphan helped cheer him up as he tried his best to train the young boy to become a great blacksmith in the future.

Like this, three years passed where the young boy trained under the old blacksmith. In the end he became an apprentice blacksmith at the tender age of 11.

But before he could share this great news with his teacher that he now viewed as a father figure, he was murdered…

Listing to the people loitering around the smithy, he had found out that a group of people had broken into the smithy that he was running and killed him in broad daylight before disappearing.

At that time, the young boy had been devastated and it was only after calming down that he remembered something that the elderly blacksmith had said to him the day before.

"Remember child, if anything were to happen to me. Look for the place under the tree where I first picked you up. Don't worry about anything and just try to get as far away from here as possible!"

Before he reached the apprentice blacksmith realm, his teacher had also weirdly told him to train in the forest instead of the normal spot just outside the smithy that he usually used…

At that time, he had not understood what he had meant but at the moment he suddenly understood that his teacher and father might have offended someone powerful in the past and did not want him to get involved in it.

After thinking about this, he wanted revenge for his teacher but had no idea who to take revenge against in the first place.

All he knew was that a group of people appeared in broad daylight and killed his teacher before leaving before anyone could even do anything…

"I was so hopeless back then…" Muttering this to himself as he thought about his past, the young boy clenched his small fists as a determined look appeared on his face.

The place beneath the tree had contained a box with all sorts of different blueprints made by his teacher and would be able to help him improve as a blacksmith in the future.

"Just you wait teacher! I will surely get revenge for you in the future! With those blueprints I will definitely be able-" Suddenly stopping where he was standing, the young boy suddenly looked around himself with a panicked expression on his face as he searched everywhere on himself.

"They are not there! Not there! Argh! I must have forgotten them when that guy suddenly appeared, and everything started shaking violently!" Remembering how shocked he had been when someone appeared while he was quietly studying his teacher's blacksmith blueprints inside the underground room. Drinking spring water and eating the different fruits in the underground garden whenever he grew hungry or grew thirsty over past few months he had been stuck in there.

"Maybe that guy took them with him when he passe through…?" Knowing that it might not be likely, the young boy still held onto hope as he thought about it.

After all, his teacher's blueprints were extremely beautiful to behold and even someone not proficient in blacksmithing would be able to see the value in them…

Nervously looking all back at the gate, the young boy bit his lower lip as he thought about a myriad of different outcomes before deciding to wait at the gate and see if the person who had suddenly appeared would show up once again.

The young boy knew that there was only one way out and it was extremely difficult to find under normal circumstance, so he was sure that the person would return to the gate and maybe look for clues to find the exit at some point.

With this, he should be able to meet the person who he had observed earlier inside the underground garden of the secret realm…

At the very least he seemed to be young and looked like a kind and reliable elder brother… But the young boy knew very well that looks could be deceiving and did not dare to let his guard down as he patiently waited in front of the now destroyed gate into the secret realm.

Rustle~

"Ah!"

Hearing the sound of a few nearby bushes suddenly moving, the young boy unintentionally let out a panicked scream as he turned over in the direction of the bush. Hoping to spot the person he had seen earlier inside the secret realm.

Growl~!

Things however did not always go as planned and an all too familiar growl could be heard from the bush as a slightly larger than normal wolf stepped out.

Growl!

Growl~

Bark!

Closely followed by another dozen or so wolves appeared as they all began growling threateningly in the direction of the young boy.

Ignoring one smaller 'wolf' among the pack letting out a not so wolf like sound, the young boy did not dare to wait around for the wolves to attack him and instead turned to run in the direction of the nearby lake.

Hoping that he would be able to make it into the water as the wolves had been afraid of it the last time, he had been chased by them.

At that time, he had just entered the underground garden before he was found by the pack of wolves and was forced to jump into the lake. After that, he swam to the other side before entering the gate and hiding away inside.

Following this, he had tried to leave on several occasions, but would always end up being found by the wolves and would soon be forced to run back into the gate that the wolves also seemed afraid to enter.

Climb a tree to escape the wolves?

He had already tried, but these wolves had just ended up jumping up after him and could easily just bring the tree down if needed…

Growl!

Coming to a sudden stop, the young boy looked helplessly as another wolf suddenly appeared in front of him to block his path forward.

It seemed like the wolves had already learned about his escape path from the last time and were prepared!

Roar!

A large wolf aggressively roared at him as it began moving closer, the young boy felt an enormous amount of fear as he saw the bloody mouth of the wolf slowly open as it approached him.

"Ah!" Letting out a scream of fear as he watched the wolf, the young boy did not know what to do as he suddenly thought about the person who he had seen earlier on inside the underground garden of the secret realm!

"Help!" Not knowing if the other party could hear him, the young boy desperately screamed for help as the large maw of the wolf slowly began approaching.

At this point in time, he did not know what else to do other than scream for help.

In all his life, the young boy had never been so close to death before, even when he was an orphan, or the time after the elderly blacksmith was murdered!

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 217: Helping the Young Boy and Escaping?

Arriving at the place that the scream had come from, Xuan Hao looked down as he saw a young boy around the age of thirteen being? surrounded by a pack of wolves around the early stages of the Qi Condensation Realm.

Currently, a bigger than average wolf around the middle stages of the Qi Condensation Realm had begun approaching the young boy as it looked like it was about to attack him at any moment.

"Doesn't look like an ambush is set up or anyone nearby coming to help him… Perhaps he just screamed due to fear…?" Scanning the surroundings with his divine sense, Xuan Hao did not manage to find anyone else hiding nearby.

Looking at the young boy, Xuan Hao quickly discovered that he did not have any cultivation at all.

Not having any cultivation at all could be considered quite common as one would at the very least need access to a cultivation mantra before one could even begin to cultivate in the first place, so Xuan Hao did not really find it weird that the young boy had no cultivation at all.

However, the thing that he found weird, was the fact that the young boy was present in the underground garden in the first.

"Maybe there is a village or city located nearby and the child accidently found his way down here by accident…?" Thinking about it, Xuan Hao felt that it sounded reasonable and decided to help the young boy for now.

Hopefully he would know of a way out of the underground garden…

With this in mind, Xuan Hao used his pseudo sword domain to instantly kill off all of the wolves before descending down towards the young boy.

…

As the young boy was fearfully looking at the wolf in front of him about to bite down, a sound something moving with the wind could be heard as the surrounding wolves suddenly froze in place and stopped growling at him.

Even the larger wolf in front of the young boy had frozen in place with its mouth wide open about to devour him.

Bang~

"W-what is happening…?" Letting out a somewhat confused voice as he looked at the now unmoving wolves slowly collapse and fall onto the ground like they had just fallen asleep, the young boy cautiously began touching the big wolf in front of him as he felt even more confused with each passing second.

Why had the wolves suddenly begun sleeping all of a sudden?

That was all the young boy could think about as he observed the pack of wolves peacefully laying on the ground all around him.

Not discovering Xuan Hao who had already descend from the sky and appeared behind him at this point in time.

"Ahm!"

"Ah!"

Letting out a fake cough in an attempt to catch the young boy's attention as he was busy looking at the surrounding pack of wolves on the ground, Xuan Hao smiled a bit awkwardly when he saw the young boy jump in fear before turning around to look at him cautiously.

"Ah! You are that person!" Seemingly recognizing Xuan Hao, the young boy exclaimed loudly as his cautious face became eager and excited. Much to the confusion of Xuan Hao, who had never seen the young boy before.

"Do I know you from somewhere…?" With a confused look on his face, Xuan Hao asked in a curious tone.

Maybe the young boy had heard about him before or something along that line… But he was not really well known inside the Heavenly Sky Kingdom in the first place, so that should not be the case.

Xuan Hao felt more and more confused about the current situation the more he thought about it.

"Ah! Sorry, I-I forgot! You have never seen me before, but I saw you back in the underground garden! Remember the room that you went through? That was my room! Did you perhaps take the blueprints on the table out with you…? Please say you did! I really need them!" Beginning to talk at a speed that would be hard for ordinary people to keep up with, the young boy began narrating where he knew him from as he ended asking about the blueprints Xuan Hao had found inside the underground room.

"Wait a moment, so you are saying you were also inside of the secret realm? How come you ended up there in the first place…?" From what Xuan Hao had seen inside the underground room. The young boy had clearly lived there for a long time and had not ended up entering the secret realm a few days ago like Xuan Hao and the rest had.

"I entered… The secret realm? Through the gate that we both left the garden through…" Confused upon hearing the word secret realm, the young boy explained how he entered through the gate in the past.

Also explaining how he had ended up inside the secret realm in the first place and how he had ended up being stuck in there for close to half a year by now due to the pack of wolves.

"Did you not try to leave the room at all during the last half year or so…?" Finding it quite odd that the boy had not tried to leave the underground room and garden during half a year, Xuan Hao could not help himself from asking after seeing that the boy had stopped talking.

"I did… But every time I went too far along the passage; several roots would extend out from the sides and block my path forward… No matter what I did, be it burning or cutting them, I couldn't even leave a scratch on those weird roots…" Sighing to himself as he recalled all the things, he had tried to pass through the thick roots blocking his path, the young boy felt a bit helpless. Dive into Stories, Embrace Enchantment: NvεlB¡n.

"I see… " Recalling the tree from the throne room, Xuan Hao knew that it had been the one to block the young boy and nodded understandingly when heard him mention the roots blocking his path forward.

"By the way… What is your name?" Realizing that he still had no clue what the boy in front of him was called, Xuan Hao asked kindly. Not as cautious after finding out that the one who screamed for help was just a child without any cultivation.

"Name…? I-I don't have one…" Fidgeting with an embarrassed look on his face, the young boy looked away for a moment.

"Hm?" Showing a surprised expression on his face after hearing that the young boy did not have a name yet, Xuan Hao suddenly felt a shiver run down his spine as he looked into the distance.

"You see… I was an orphan and teacher who took me in never gave me a name and normally just called me boy… But I don't really mind it at all as that-" Not seeing the sudden change in Xuan Hao's demeanour as he continued talking.

The young boy told him about his time with his late teacher as he became absorbed in the past he had spent together with his teacher. No longer paying attention to Xuan Hao as he was talking about it.

"Quiet down for a moment!" Putting his hand on top of the young boy's mouth, Xuan Hao promptly silenced him as he moved on top of his sword before quickly ascending into the air with the young boy in hand.

Bang!

Just as Xuan Hao had ascended into the air, the ground where both of them had been standing moments ago suddenly collapsed as a dark abyss leading downwards covering at least a few thousand meters appeared.

"W-what is that?!" Looking down into the abyss that had suddenly appeared where he had been standing moments ago, the young boy saw something moving below as it felt like he was being watched.

He did not really care about Xuan Hao interrupting him and dragging him into the air and was instead more focused at the dark abyss that had suddenly appeared beneath them.

Even the blueprints of his late teacher were no longer on his mind as he remained staring down into the abyss below while Xuan Hao was holding onto him.

"Let's get out of here immediately! Do you know the path out of here!?" Compared to the young boy who could not see what was hidden below them, Xuan Hao on the other hand could clearly see what was lurking below them and wanted nothing more than to get out of the underground garden as fast as possible!

If it was not for him sensing something suddenly moving below them through his divine sense, Xuan Hao was sure that the creature below would have been able to launch a sneak attack and injure, if not kill him, when he suddenly found himself falling.

"Ah, y-yes! Go over there, the path I used should be over there!" Realizing that it was not the time to be shocked, the young boy quickly pointed in a direction where the path he had used to enter the underground garden was located.

Xuan Hao did not stay floating mid-air for even a second longer as he used his fastest speed to move in the direction that the young boy had given him.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 218: Escaping From the Serpent Demon Beast

Not looking back as he felt the creature that had suddenly appeared beneath them and caused the place they were standing on and the surrounding area to collapse following closely behind them, Xuan Hao felt an increasing sense of danger with each passing second that he remained inside of the underground garden!

The creature in question was from what Xuan Hao managed to see, a giant serpent like demon beast that had lived in a cave that was just beneath the underground garden… Worst of all, the serpent was a Domain Lord Realm demon beast!

Not just some demon beast who had just managed to reach the Domain Lord Realm through its physical body alone, but a real Domain Lord Realm demon beast that had a domain of its own!

This was also the reason why Xuan Hao could not wait to get out of the underground garden as fast as possible.

Even though he had a pseudo sword domain and could be considered strong enough to deal with people at the Half-Step Domain Lord Realm, Xuan Hao doubted that he would be able to deal with someone at the Domain Lord Realm that already had a fully constructed domain instead of a pseudo domain…

In the first place, Xuan Hao did not have any experience when it came to fighting someone at the Domain Lord Realm…

Running away from the scary Domain Lord Realm demon beast that suddenly decided to show up seemed like the best plan.

After all, why would he risk his life to fight against a Domain Lord Realm demon beast for no reason? And who could say if there were not more demon beasts hiding below the underground garden where the serpent demon beast came from…?

Xuan Hao clearly felt an indescribable danger when he tried to sense the bottom of the abyss that had appeared along with the serpent demon beast. Preventing him from truly finding out what was hiding below.

But he was almost sure that the serpent demon beast would not be the most dangerous thing down there…

"Over there!" Flying through the underground cave, Xuan Hao heard the young boy call out to him as he pointed in the direction of a small crack in the underground caves wall.

Whoosh~

Xuan Hao immediately dived down towards the crack in the wall and entered the crack together with the young boy.

Soon finding himself inside of a dark cave tunnel with only one path going upwards towards the surface.

Bang!

ROAR!

The giant serpent following behind them crashed headfirst into the wall of the cave as it tried to brute force its way through as the crack and into the cave tunnel.

Luckily, both the crack and the cave tunnel were way too small to fit its huge body and it had to force its way through the hard rocks with its huge body.

Bang Bang Bang!

Rumble~

The large serpent slowly forced its way through the hard rocks, but Xuan Hao was not one to wait around as he did not stop moving and followed the cave tunnel upwards. Leaving the angry serpent demon beast in the dust as it could barely move forward with its large body. Only able to watch as both of them disappeared in front of it.

Roar!

Letting out one last unwilling roar, the large serpent demon beast soon gave up and returned back to the place which it came from.

…

"Hah… Hah… That was close, who would know such a terrifying demon beast hid beneath the underground garden…?" Breathing in the surrounding qi between heaven and earth to speed up his recovery from flying as quickly as he did, Xuan Hao put the young boy down as he sat down recovering his strength.

Earlier on, he had wasted way too much of his qi when escaping from the serpent demon beast, but it could not be helped as the other party was a Domain Lord demon beast… Not really something Xuan Hao wanted to fight with his Nascent Soul Realm cultivation… NvεlB¡n: Your Escape into Infinite Tales.

"I will have to reach the Domain Lord Realm before anything similar happens again…" Originally, Xuan Hao had thought that Domain Lord Realm cultivators were a bit rarer, but after entering the secret realm, he had seen a group of at least four Domain Lords in front of the ancient palace complex and after leaving, he had encountered a Domain Lord Realm serpent demon beast…

Domain Lord Realm cultivators felt a bit too common all of a sudden, causing Xuan Hao to feel a sense of urgency before reaching the Domain Lord Realm, he could not feel safe…

"Looks like I will have to have either Chu Yang or Qing Yi reach the Core Formation Realm after returning to the sect again…" Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao hoped that completing the main quest given by the system would give him something that would increase his strength…

After all, in the past when he had completed a main quest, it had allowed him to breakthrough several minor realms at once!

Thinking about the system, Xuan Hao went into his sea of consciousness and completed the survival quest.

[Survival Quest: Escape before the collapse of the secret realm!(complete)]

[Reward: Purification Pill x5]

[Redeem: [Y/N]

Yes!

Redeeming the quest reward, Xuan Hao felt a wave of information appear in his mind as he learned about the use of the purification pills that he had gotten. Sadly, he did not get the recipe to making them…

"I should use one of these for myself when I get back as well…" Taking out one of the Purification Pills that he had gotten from the system, Xuan Hao could not help but feel a bit excited when the thought about its use.

The Purification Pill was pure white as it shone under the sun, causing it to appear mystical and extremely enticing to the young boy who was observing Xuan Hao suddenly taking out the pill from the side.

The use of the Purification Pill, was as its name implied, purifying the body and soul a cultivator!

Yes! The Purification Pill could purify the soul!

Sadly, it could only be used once… If not, Xuan Hao felt that he might be able to reach the Domain Lord Realm a few weeks after he returned to the sect!

The effects of the Purification Pill were simply too powerful…

From what Xuan Hao could gather, it was made with the use of a rare plant called a Soul Enhancing Flower as the main ingredient.

Xuan Hao did not know anything about the Soul Enhancing Flower, but from the name alone, he could guess what its use was.

"Why are you waiting around like that?" Standing up again, Xuan Hao discovered that the young boy was patiently sitting a few meters away from him as he was recovering from the earlier chase and going over the reward given by the system.

"S-sorry-"

Nervously answering Xuan Hao's question with an apology, the young boy looked afraid when he looked up at him as he seemed to still be scared from the earlier encounter with the giant serpent demon beast and suddenly flying through the air at a speed that would have been less than comfortable for someone without any cultivation.

"No need to apologise to me. Now that we are finally outside the underground cave, can you tell me where we are?" Stopping the boy before he could continue any further, Xuan Hao asked once again as he waited for the boy to calm down and answer.

"W-we are close to the Seven Lily City; it should be somewhere at the eastern border of the Heavenly Sky Kingdom!" Thinking about Xuan Hao's answer as he calmed down, the young boy soon answered the question without his earlier nervousness.

"I see… At least it is still somewhere inside of the Heavenly Sky Kingdom… And here I thought I would have to go through a few random kingdoms and use a few weeks if not months to get back again…" Hearing what the young boy said, Xuan Hao let out a breath of relief.

The Eastern part of the Heavenly Sky Kingdom was controlled by the Spring Flower Sect and could be considered the most peaceful part of the Heavenly Sky Kingdom as there were not any other powers with Nascent Soul Realm Experts present there, allowing the Spring Flower Sect to have an easy time keeping the entire place under their control.

"Here, they were yours in the first place!" Taking out the different blacksmith blueprints that he had taken from the boy back in the secret realm, Xuan Hao did not really see much value in keeping them.

He did not understand them in the first place and even though they looked extremely beautiful, they might just be that and he did not really like the feeling of stealing from a child in the first place.

"Thank you!" Happily receiving the blueprints from Xuan Hao, the young boy excitedly checked all of them as he made sure nothing had happened to them.

"Hm?!" Watching as the boy was happily going over the different blueprints, Xuan Hao finally looked at the young boy's talent value displayed by the system.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 219: Recruiting The Boy for the Sect

Talent value of… 34?" The talent value of the young boy could be considered to be extremely high, only a little below his first disciple Qing Yi, but still far above anyone else in the Flying Sword Sect.

The reason why he did not have any form of cultivation in the first place should be because he had never come into contact with any cultivation mantra and thereby never had a chance to cultivate… How many talents were missed among the ordinary people every single year…?

Thinking about this, Xuan Hao felt that it was a pity that cultivation was not more easily accessible to ordinary people like the young boy… Maybe he could take advantage of this in the future and find a group of extraordinary children among the common people and get them to join the Flying Sword Sect…?

"Boy, you don't have anywhere to go back to… Right…?" Turning around to look at the young boy still absorbed in his late teachers blacksmithing blueprints, Xuan Hao asked in a probing way. Trying to see if he might be able to bring the boy back with him to the Flying Sword Sect.

Even if he did not take him as his own disciple, Xuan Hao knew that he would surely be welcomed in the Flying Sword Sect with his talent and in the future, he might even reach the Domain Lord Realm and help protect the Flying Sword Sect, if not go even further!

No matter what, Xuan Hao could not see any demerit to recruiting a talented orphan that had nowhere to go back to and no place to call home….

"I-I don't have anywhere to go… I would most likely just go back to hunting in the forest and selling the things I caught… M-maybe in the future I would be able to become a blacksmith like master, but for now I can't… People don't take me seriously and think I'm too young, even if I was taught by master for 3 years!" Looking to the side as he watched a rabbit jumping into a burrow located under a tree nearby, the young boy had a helpless and confused look on his face when thinking about what he would be doing in the future.

"I see… If you don't have anywhere to go, how about following me back to my sect and becoming a disciple there…? From what I can tell, you should be quite talented, just that you never had the chance to practice cultivation before!" Throwing out his invitation to the young boy, Xuan Hao patiently observed him as he waited for a reply.

After all, he could not force him to join if he didn't want to in the first place.

Doing something like that would only end up creating trouble for himself and the Flying Sword Sect in the future… Not really something that was desirable for either Xuan Hao or the Flying Sword Sect!

The only sects that would force someone to join them would be the demonic sects…

Normal sects, kingdoms or empires would not force someone to join them no matter how talented they were, as they could end up nurturing someone who wanted nothing more to do with the sect in the first place and might even feel resentful towards the sect and end up cooperating with their enemies to get rid of it...

Secretly killing the other party if they deemed them to be a threat or that they might join their opponents was the most common outcome…

Not that Xuan Hao planned to do something like that if the young boy refused him…

"Join a sect!? Are you sure I can do that?! B-but what about blacksmithing? Can I still continue that if I join the sect…?" Contrary to the reaction that Xuan Hao had expected of the boy being a bit more excited, the boy instead seemed to be struggling as he asked about whether he would be able to continue practice his blacksmithing.

"Of course, we even have a part of the sect dedicated to just blacksmithing, so you should be able to freely focus on improving your abilities there and you would even be able to get different spiritual metal to practice with if you managed to convince the elders over there of your talent!" Reassuring the boy that he would not have to give up blacksmithing after joining the sect, Xuan Hao watched as the struggling expression on his face disappeared.

"If that is the case, then I want to join!" Not thinking much about it after hearing that he could still practice blacksmithing after joining the Flying Sword Sect, the boy immediately agreed to join the sect… Even though Xuan Hao had not yet mentioned the name of the sect itself…

Maybe it was because Xuan Hao had given him back his late teachers blacksmithing blueprints and saved him earlier inside the underground garden from both the wolves and the giant serpent…? The debut release of this chapter happened at Ñøvl-B1n.

"Great! By the way, do you have anything you want to do before we leave…?" Hearing that the boy accepted to join the Flying Sword Sect, Xuan Hao was happy as he knew that the Flying Sword Sect would gain another powerful person in the future as long as the boy was trained properly.

"N-no, I should be fine…" Shaking his head, the boy looked a bit nervous as he looked up at Xuan Hao.

"Hm? Is there something you want to ask?" Saying this after seeing the clearly questioning look that had appeared in the boy's eyes, Xuan Hao felt that he might have forgotten to say something earlier on when he asked if the boy wanted to join his sect… Just that he could not remember what he had forgotten to say.

"Ah… I-I just wanted to ask what the sect is called… And maybe how to refer to E-elder…" Asking this, the young boy looked at Xuan Hao waiting expectantly for an answer.

"The Flying Sword Sect and you can just call me… Elder Xuan in the future…" Feeling himself aging by at least a few years after being referred to as elder by the young boy, Xuan Hao promptly answered his questions before letting out a sigh inside his mind.

How come it is elder and not senior brother…? Do I perhaps look old…?

Touching his face as he checked for any signs of aging, Xuan Hao could only give up as he really did not know how people kept calling him elder without even thinking twice…

Maybe it was just that being an elder meant someone had a high position and was powerful in this world… The young boy had after all witnessed how strong he was back in the underground garden and surely thought someone as strong as him would be a high ranking elder or something!

Thinking that this made sense, Xuan Hao focused back on the boy.

"Let's get going now then, we should get back to the sect as soon as possible and get you registered before you can begin your journey on the path of cultivation."

Not saying anything more as the boy seemed to understand and put away the blueprints from his late teacher, Xuan Hao once again picked him up before flying in the direction of the Flying Sword Sect.

…

At the same time that Xuan Hao had managed to recruit the young boy to join the Flying Sword Sect, Chi Hu and the alchemist treasure hunter had both made their way to the Flying Sword Sect and was about to enter when a terrifying pressure suddenly descended upon the duo the moment, they were close to entering the Flying Sword City outside the Flying Sword Sect.

"Halt, where do you two think you are going!? Why have you come to the Flying Sword Sects territory?" A calm voice could be heard as a beautiful mature looking woman dressed in a pure white dress with a lovely flower pattern on it, appeared in front of them.

Both Chi Hu and the alchemist treasure hunter were shocked as they looked at the beautiful woman that suddenly appeared in front of them and immediately recognised that the terrifying pressure that had suddenly appeared was emanating from her.

This person is dangerous!

Both Chi Hu and the alchemist treasure hunter could only think about this as they clearly felt how terrifying that stunning woman in front of them was!

"Elder Xuan asked me to come join the Flying Sword Sect and I decided to join a few days ago when I met up with Elder Xuan, this person is a treasure hunter that had his cultivation sealed. Elder Xuan asked me to bring him back to the Flying Sword Sect and wait until he returns to decide what to do with him!" Nervously saying this as he observed the beautiful woman in front of him, Chi Hu suddenly felt that the people from the Flying Sword Sect was way scarier than he had first thought.

This could be considered a good thing as it would be a good thing for him the stronger the sect was!

"I see, follow me then! I will allow you to enter, but I will keep an eye on both of you until Elder Xuan returns!" Sensing some of Xuan Hao's aura on both of them with her divine sense, the mature looking woman, Shu Yao, agreed to let both of them enter as she decided to keep an eye on them until Xuan Hao returned… Just in case they decided to do something...

As Chi Hu and Shu Yao was talking, the alchemist treasure hunter was frozen in shock as he clearly felt that the mature looking woman in front of him was at the peak of the Nascent Soul Realm!

When did the Flying Sword Sect get someone that strong? Was it not enough with that Elder Xuan being present in the Flying Sword Sect…?

Along with the Sect Master, there should at least be three Nascent Soul Realm cultivators in the Flying Sword Sect at the later stages!

Such a sect would be more than strong enough to easily become the top sect in any kingdom that did not have a Domain Lord!

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 220: Naming the Young Boy

"Hm, I think you need to get a name before we reach the Flying Sword Sect. After all, it would not do if everyone just referred to you as boy…" Flying through the air along with the boy as they were making their way back towards the Flying Sword Sect, Xuan Hao could not help but say this as it felt a bit weird to continue calling him boy instead of using a name.

"A name!?" Jumping up in surprise, Xuan Hao had to grab hold of the boy before he ended up falling off the flying sword that he was standing on together with Xuan Hao.

"Yes, a name… Do you have any idea as to what it could be?" Not really the best at things like giving out names, Xuan Hao tried to ask the boy if he had some idea as to what his name could be. NvεlB¡n: Your Escape into Infinite Tales.

"Hm… I never really thought about it before, what about Bai… Bai… I don't know, but I want the same family name as my teacher had!" Not able to find a name that he wanted; the boy just repeated the family name of his late teacher a few times before giving up.

"What about Bai Ning…?" Coming up with a name after thinking over it for a little bit, Xuan Hao looked down at the boy to see what he thought about it.

"Bai Ning… I like it!" Muttering the name to himself a few times with a thoughtful look on his face, the young boy… Or now Bai Ning, happily agreed to his new name.

A few hours after he had gotten a name and Bai Ning had gotten used to flying together with Xuan Hao by now as he looked down at the trees and small villages passing by below them.

"By the way, Elder Xuan… How long would it take for us to get to the Flying Sword Sect?" Turning back to look up at Xuan Hao with a slightly sleepy look on his face, Bai Ning asked clearly exhausted from flying for so long without any rest.

It did not help that the sky was slowly begging to turn dark as the night slowly approached.

"I think we should be able to make it back to the sect in another day or two if we continue at our current speed… But I think we should find a place to rest for the night before you end up falling off." Smiling when he said this, Xuan Hao looked for a place to land and a place where they could stay for the night.

"Mhm" Bai Ning did not say anything and just nodded his head in acknowledgement of what Xuan Hao said as a small sound escaped his lips.

"Let's go down to the city over there, they should have an inn or some place for us to stay." As he was scanning the surroundings for a place that they could stay over the night, Xuan Hao spotted a small city a few thousand meters away from their current position and quickly descended before approaching the city together with the half-asleep Bai Ning.

…

"What do you mean the Spring Flower Sect knows about this!?" As Xuan Hao and Bai Ning were making their way inside of the city to find a place to stay for the night, a group of people had gathered together inside the city lord's manor and was discussing something as one of them exclaimed loudly.

"What I mean to say is that the people from the Spring Flower Sect will soon find this place and destroy it… We won't be able to continue operating inside of the Heavenly Sky Kingdom for much longer now…

From what I know, the Seven Fates Sect already destroyed all the bases we had inside of their territory…" Shaking his head regretfully, one of the people said this with a pained expression on his face.

"Looks like we really have to retreat from the Heavenly Sky Kingdom for the time being… If only we had a little more support, we would surely be able to deal with the Spring Flower Sect and the Seven Fates Sect!" A burly man let out an unwilling sigh as he agreed with what the two others had said.

"Indeed, we should not waste more time and resources here, we should just leave before we end up losing any more! In the future when we have more people to spare, we can always return and complete the mission! I will go and recover what I can from the Seven Fate Sect's territory…" The last among the group of people said as he stood up and took his leave from the dark room.

"With this, the meeting ends!" Standing up, the person who was surprised over the fact that the Spring Flower Sect already knew about their location said this before everyone except for him began dispersing.

Moving back to their own places to begin preparations to leave the Heavenly Sky Kingdom behind.

"Hah… I never imagined things would go like this…" After everyone else had left, the man slowly sat down again and let out a sigh of disbelief.

Originally, everything had gone as planned and they managed to do what the higher ups required of them…

But everything changed when they tried to infiltrate the Seven Fates Sect!

"I never expected that the Sect Master of the Seven Fates Sect would have reached the Half-Step Domain Lord Realm…" Their intel had been wrong and the person guarding the Seven Fates Sect was not just someone at the Peak of the Nascent Soul Realm, but was instead a Half-Step Domain Lord that already had a pseudo domain…

The original plan had been for a group of their Nascent Soul Realm Experts to hold back the Sect Master while the rest completed their task before they would all leave faster than the Seven Fates Sect would be able to gather their people to surround and attack them.

Sadly, when they met the Sect Master of the Seven Fates Sect, the group tasked with holding him back had ended up dying within a few seconds as the other group could do nothing but run away before they ended up in a similar situation…

The situation with the Spring Flower Sect was even worse as they already found their bases even before they acted against them…

The trip to the Heavenly Sky Kingdom could be considered to have ended in a disaster… And they had originally thought they could borrow the chaos shown by the Church of the Plague God and the war with the Azure Sky Kingdom to act…

"All we can do now is wait for the rest to finish their missions in the Sky Empire before asking for help… Hah… Hopefully we can get a Domain Lord to come and help with the Sect Master from the Seven Fates Sect…" Shaking his head as he thought about this, the man no longer worried about completing the mission given to him and the three others as he knew it was already considered to have failed.

Retreating and waiting for others to come and help them was the best plan of action… After all, their intel had been wrong in the first place, so they could avoid some of the blame for the two failed missions in the Heavenly Sky Kingdoms…

"Looks like the Seven Fates and Spring Flower Sect will be safe for another few years…" Narrowing his eyes as he said this, the man picked up a glass of wine before quickly drowning it in one go as he looked out a nearby window.

"Master, all the preparation to leave are ready!" A voice echoed out beside the man as a dark shadow suddenly appeared to his left side and handed over a document before quietly waiting for instructions.

"I see… Begin leaving the Heavenly Sky Kingdom, make sure that no traces are left behind!" A thick killing intent spread through the room as he said this, the shadow beside him only nodded before disappearing from the room.

The man did not stay for long either as he soon turned to leave the room, making his way out into the hallway of the city lord's manor.

"Hmph, looks like the shadows are quite good at cleaning up!" Looking around the hallway, the man saw at least a dozen corpse scattered all over the hallway as a creepy smile crept up his lips.

Turning to look out of a nearby window, he watched a few people guarding the manor outside suddenly fall to the ground without even knowing how they died.

…

"Hm?"

"Elder Xuan, is something wrong?" Bai Ning asked in a confused voice as he suddenly saw Xuan Hao narrow his eyes and look towards the centre of the city.

Xuan Hao had already felt a group of four Nascent Soul Realm Experts when he scanned the city earlier on but did not really care much about it as they might just be someone looking for a place to meet up and chat together as they seemed to be gathered in the same place.

This idea was only reinforced when he felt three of them leave the city and move in three completely different directions. Most likely returning to their sect or something along that line.

But things suddenly changed when the aura of several Core Formation Experts suddenly began to be filled with killing intent as they began killing everyone around the place where the group of four Nascent Soul Realm Experts had been gathered together earlier.

"It's nothing, let's get a room for you to sleep in for now." Entering the inn and getting a room for Bai Ning to sleep in, Xuan Hao did not say anything about the massacre that had happened at what he supposed was the city lord's manor.

"I will be going out for a few minutes to check up on something…" Making sure Bai Ning was preparing to sleep for the night, Xuan Hao left the room before he could say anything and made his way over in the direction of the city lord's manor.

Ready to find out what had suddenly caused a massacre to take place…

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 221: Spring Flower Sect Arrives!

"Seems like they already finished up…" Arriving in the air above the city lord's manor, Xuan Hao looked down at the bodies of the guards and servants being dragged away by a group of figures dressed in completely dark clothes. Hiding all their feature, making it difficult for Xuan Hao to discern anything outside their gender and cultivation realm.

Xuan Hao decided to wait to see if he could find out something about the Nascent Soul Realm Expert that most likely ordered for the massacre to take place, as he stayed still in the air above. Not forgetting to use his pseudo sword domain to hide himself.

"Ah, looks like that person is finally showing himself!" Staring down at the entrance of the manor as a handsome man looking to be in his early thirties walked out and called for one of the people cleaning up the front of the manor, Xuan Hao sat down on his sword with a smile as he prepared to listen in on the conversation going on below him.

"Though I do hope he at least gives some useful information…" With his feet hanging down from the side of his sword, Xuan Hao tilted his head to the side as he supported it with his hand while putting on a thoughtful look.

Like this, Xuan Hao silently began listening to what the Nascent Soul Realm Expert down below was saying without the other party even noticing a person floating a few dozen meters above him.

From this alone, it could be seen how strong the concealment ability of a pseudo domain was!

Without the other party having a pseudo domain himself, it would simply be impossible to spot him!

…

"Great job cleaning the place up so quickly, we are pretty much clean when it comes to this city after we finish moving our people and resources out of here! At that point, the Spring Flower Sect will just find an empty base with nothing in it! Hehe, I really wish I could see their expressions when they arrive!"

Completely oblivious to the fact that there was another person directly above him listening in on what he was saying. The Nascent Soul Realm Expert did not bother thinking about what he was talking about, as the only? people around were his own.

"Master, we have finished the clean-up, should we also take care of the rest of the city…?" Standing before the handsome man that had come out of the city lord's manor, one of the figures dressed completely in black came up to him and asked in a voice devoid of any emotions.

"No need to do that, it will take way too long in the first place, and we would just end up wasting time and give the people from the Spring Flower Sect a chance to arrive before we finish moving everything out of here…!" Shaking his head in denial, the man talked a bit more on their direction of retreat and how long it would take with the person before he made his way outside the city lord's manor in the direction of the city gates.

The people of the city did not know that their city lord had already died and still went on with their lives without knowing anything about the massacre that just took place.

Xuan Hao quietly floated above the Nascent Soul Realm Expert as he made his way outside the city and came to a stop in front of a forest located to the north of the city.

Fwoosh~

A sound could be heard as Xuan Hao saw an entrance open up in front of the Nascent Soul Expert leading down into what he could assume was the base that the Nascent Soul Expert had talked about earlier with his subordinates.

"This concealment formation is quite well made… Even I missed it when I searched the place with my divine sense!" Muttering a few words in surprise as he saw the entrance, Xuan Hao discovered once again that there were some things that his divine sense could not pick up on

Maybe his domain could find it if he used it to sense his surroundings… But that was not really possible on such a large scale as his current pseudo sword domain was way too small to even cover a few fractions of what his divine sense could!

"To enter or not to enter…"

Staring down at the entrance below as the Nascent Soul Expert entered, Xuan Hao hesitated for a moment as he did not know if his pseudo sword domain would be able to conceal him from the formation in front of him.

"Hah… Worst case scenario I will just have to fight that guy…" Watching as the formation slowly began to close up the entrance into the base, Xuan Hao steeled himself as he quickly descended and made his way inside the underground base.

Luckily it seemed like the formation did not detect him when he entered, so he would not have to fight the Nascent Soul Realm Expert yet and might even be able to find out where the person is from or what he was planning…

After all, they clearly targeted the Spring Flower Sect and given that they would most likely merge together with them in the future, Xuan Hao would much rather find out about these future enemies of his early on…

…

"The base should be located close to the city over there!" At the same time that Xuan Hao entered the underground base, a group of female cultivators dressed in different kinds of clothes each with the same floral designs on them appeared a few hundred meters away from the city that he had just been in moments ago.

The design in question was a rather beautiful yet simple flower wild flower that could be found almost everywhere in all kinds of different colours. The debut release of this chapter happened at Ñøvl-B1n.

"Let's go, we can't let them get away!" The group did not stand in front of the city and waited for long as a mature looking woman moved in front as the group entered the city.

If Xuan Hao was present, he would have easily seen that the aura of the female leading the way was in the Nascent Soul Realm! And not only that, but in the fourth stage of the Nascent Soul Realm!

Whoosh~

It did not take more than a few seconds for the group to reach the city lord's manor where they found a group of people in the process of removing the corpses of the people who formerly lived in the manor.

"Prepare to attack-"

"Elder Meng, I think we should wait for the leader to show up before attacking! According to what the people from the Seven Fates Sect said, he should be in the Nascent Soul Realm, if we take care of these Core Formation Experts now, we might alert the leader and cause him to run away!" A more petite looking lady among the group walked up and suggested as she could see that the elder in front of her was just about to attack the Core Formation Experts in front of them.

"Xuefeng… We can't just wait around here for them! Don't forget what the people from Seven Fates Sect told us! They will most likely be in the process of retreating from the Heavenly Sky Kingdom already. Catching a few of these people might be the only way for us to quickly find the base that is located around here before they are gone!" Looking back at the petite lady called Xuefeng, Elder Meng did not budge in the slightest as she signalled the others to get ready to launch an attack.

"Xuefeng, take care of the backside and make sure that no one escapes!" Saying this, the group slowly spread out as they encircled the manor.

Xuefeng could only pout in anger after seeing how she got refused before she did as Elder Meng told her and took position behind the manor to block anyone trying to escape.

Boom!

It did not take long for the group of ladies from the Spring Flower Sect to launch their attack as they soon overwhelmed the u group of Core Formation Experts without having as much as a single injury on their side!

Not really that it was a fair fight in the first place, as they had Elder Meng who was in the fourth stage of the Nascent Soul Realm on their side.

Other than that, the petite looking young lady called Xuefeng was also someone in the Nascent Soul Realm! Though not as strong as Elder Meng, she was still way stronger than the few escaping Core Formation Experts trying to leave from the back of the manor…

In the end, the people inside the manor were swiftly dealt with as they had no chance to win against two Nascent Soul Realm Experts and a group of well-trained peak Core Formation Experts from the Spring Flower Sect.

The people inside the city were also awoken as they heard the brief sound of fighting coming from the city lord's manor.

The guards patrolling did not dare to slack for even a moment when they found out where the sound of fighting came from as they hurriedly made their way towards the city lord's manor.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 222: Blue Crystals

"So, the base is located at the entrance of the forest just outside the city! Let's get going and catch that guy before he finds out what happened here!" Throwing down one of the surviving black clothed men that she had interrogated, Xuefeng excitedly told Elder Meng as she prepared to leave the manor.

"Xuefeng, stay behind and explain what happened here to the guards with, I will go and check out the base located outside the city alone." Elder Meng watched as a group of people dressed like guards approached the city lord's manor with her divine sense as she told Xuefeng.

"But why go alone!? Can't I join as well? You clearly just don't want me to join in! If you really wanted someone to stay behind and inform the guards about what happened, you could just ask Grandma Zhang, Liu or Weng to do it!" Seeing Elder Meng about to leave without her, Xuefeng hurriedly caught up as she stubbornly followed after her.

"This person should have reached the third stage of the Nascent Soul Realm and might even have reached the fourth stage like me… I won't be able to protect you after we start fighting… And the most combat experience you have versus other Nascent Soul Realm Experts are a few spars with me and the other elders!" With a worried expression on her face, Elder Meng stated her reason for wanting Xuefeng to stay back at the manor while she went out to deal with the Nascent Soul Realm Expert.

"But I won't gain any experience if I never fight anyone other than you guys! And this is a perfect opportunity for me to gain some real combat experience. Even if I can't help much, I should at least be able to keep myself safe!" Not wanting to back down, Xuefeng followed closely behind Elder Meng as the duo made their way through the now lively city.

"Hah… Fine… But you have to run away the moment you can't hold on any longer or feel that it would be dangerous for you to stay around!" Letting out a sigh as she decided to let Xuefeng follow her to subdue the Nascent Soul Realm Expert, Elder Meng felt that the once young girl she had watched grow up in the past had suddenly grown enough to be able to help her out…

Looks like I have been a bit too protective in the past…

Watching the girl beside her jumping around excitedly as she was allowed to follow, Elder Meng smiled happily as she decided to allow Xuefeng to join in and help the Spring Flower Sect like the rest of the elders, something Xuefeng had always wanted to do after reaching the Nascent Soul Realm.

"Thank you so much Big Sister Meng!" Suddenly giving Elder Meng a hug as she excitedly jumped around, Xuefeng smiled from ear to ear.

"At least keep yourself in check and remember formalities! We are still out on a mission!" Stopping Xuefeng with one hand, Elder Meng quickly calmed her down.

"Sorry, Elder Meng… But there is no one else around…"

"Hah… Fine, but just until we reach the outskirt of the forest…"

Seeing the sad look that Xuefeng gave her while apologising, Elder Meng could not help but give in to the sad look as Xuefeng suddenly sprang back to life again.

"Thank you so much Big Sister Meng! I love you!" Hugging Elder Meng once again as they made their way to the gate, Elder Meng could not help but feel that she had been fooled by Xuefeng's sad look just a moment ago…

…

"What is this place!?"

Entering the underground base, Xuan Hao could not help but exclaim loudly inside his mind as he watched the entrance slowly expand out until a large cave more than big enough to fit the city that he had just come from, appeared in front of him.

Looking around, Xuan Hao manged to spot a few different tools for mining along with several tunnels going in all kinds of different direction.

From the looks of things, the Nascent Soul Realm Expert had been mining for something just outside the city and had even constructed a giant underground base for it…

Xuan Hao felt really curious as to what had caused this Nascent Soul Realm Expert to go against the Spring Flower Sect and even construct such a large underground base inside their territory…

Observing the rest of the base that was in the form of a small city, Xuan Hao easily passed by the few patrols walking around the place as he followed after the Nascent Soul Realm Expert as he entered the small underground city. NvεlB¡n: Unleashing Imagination, One Read at a Time.

The city itself could not really be considered a city, as it only looked like one from outside.

The moment Xuan Hao entered the underground city, he immediately felt the atmosphere around him change as all the people present inside wore a solemn look on their face while transporting different boxes of materials around.

Getting a closer look, Xuan Hao discovered that the people were carrying all sorts of different things, from armour and weapons to food supplies and spirit stones.

Among all of the things that were transported out of the city, Xuan Hao was most interested in a blue crystal that seemed to be handled with extreme care while being transported.

Even the people transporting the blue crystals were at least in the Core Formation Realm as everyone seemed to make way whenever someone came running through with a box of blue crystals in hand.

"What are these crystals?" Picking out one of the crystals from a box carried by a Core Formation Expert that ran by him without being spotted, Xuan Hao focused his divine sense on it as he tried his best to examine the blue crystal in his hand.

"Spirit stones!? No, it's something different…" Feeling the abundant amount of qi inside the blue crystal, Xuan Hao first thought that it was some kind of high-grade spirit stone, but this idea was quickly thrown away when he felt that he was unable to absorb the abundant qi inside the blue crystal.

The reason for this was because the qi inside the blue crystal was incompatible with humans and absorbing it was not something he could do.

No matter what he tried, Xuan Hao could not make any sense of what the blue crystal was or what other use it had.

Even with the large amount of qi inside of it, it could not be used for anything… At least Xuan Hao had no idea what use the blue crystal had.

"I will just ask the Sect Master or the other elders when I get back to the sect and see if they know anything…" Throwing the blue crystal into his interspatial ring, Xuan Hao no longer paid attention to the large number of boxes filled with the blue crystals being transported out of the underground city and instead caught up with the Nascent Soul Realm Expert. Resuming his observation as he entered the core area of the underground city.

…

"How is the transport of the crystals going!?" Entering his meeting room where a group of people were waiting for him around an oval table, the Nascent Soul Realm Expert loudly asked as he watched the surrounding people shrink away upon hearing what he asked about.

"You! How long will it take to move all the crystals out of here through the emergency tunnel?!" Seeing nobody coming forward to answer him, the Nascent Soul Realm Expert had an angry look on his face as he turned to focus on a shivering man sitting at the end of the oval table, as a dense killing intent filled up the entire meeting room.

"S-seventy percent of the crystals have already been moved out and it will take around t-two days before we can move the last thirty percent of them out through the emergency tunnel!" Shivering under the gaze of his superior, the man barely managed to speak as he prayed that the person in front of him would not kill him off like the one who sat in his current position before him…

"Seventy percent…? Hm… That's fine… Everyone, we will leave the remaining thirty percent of the crystals mined so far. Begin cleaning up the place and seal the mines before the people from the Spring Flower Sect arrives! We should have a day or two at most!" Thinking about what he was told, the Nascent Soul Realm Expert seemed lost in thought for a moment before he informed all the people inside the meeting room.

Whoosh~

After informing them about this, the Nascent Soul Realm Expert did not stay behind for any longer as he quickly disappeared from the meeting room.

"Clean up!? Within 1 or 2 days!? How is this possible!?"

"We are giving up so many crystals…"

"Quick, we need to inform the miners and transporters about this!"

"Yes, we need as much help as possible if we need to clean this place up and seal the entrance to the mines…"

As the Nascent Soul Realm Expert disappeared, everyone inside the meeting room began panicking as they quickly ran out to inform their subordinates to get started cleaning the place up and making sure no traces of them could be found.

Xuan Hao did not really pay much attention to this as he instead followed behind the Nascent Soul Realm Expert back into his personal quarters.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 223: Xuefeng and Elder Meng vs Saber Lord!

The personal quarters of the Nascent Soul Realm Expert were not located at the centre of the underground city but was instead located in a small mansion just outside of it.

Xuan Hao followed behind the Nascent Soul Realm Expert while remembering to keep his distance as he floated a few dozen meters above the mansion. Observing any movements made by the Nascent Soul Realm Expert inside.

"Looks like he is just cultivating…" Watching as the Nascent Soul Realm Expert sat down an meditated through one of the windows in the mansion Xuan Hao knew that he would not find out much more from just following behind him and instead decided to enter the mansion himself and see if he could find anything about the organisation behind him or the use of the blue crystals that they had mined.

Whoosh~

Like a gentle breeze passing by, the guard standing outside the entrance of the mansion didn't notice Xuan Hao as he entered without any difficulty at all.

"A formation…?" Arriving at the entrance to the room where the Nascent Soul Realm Expert was cultivating, Xuan Hao saw a formation covering the entire room as he gave up on sneaking into the room.

No matter how concealed he was with the help of his pseudo sword domain, he would still be discovered if he tried passing through the formation forcefully.

With this in mind, Xuan Hao decided to explore the rest of the mansion and see if he could find any important documents or something along that line.

Like this, Xuan Hao began reading through anything he could find. Aided by his divine sense, making it easier for him to go through the different documents and books inside of the mansion in no time at all.

BOOM!

"Hm?" Just as Xuan Hao had found a book about the blue crystals and was absorbed in reading it, a large explosion occurred in the direction of the entrance as two auras at the Nascent Soul Realm appeared.

"Someone broke the formation hiding the entrance and forcefully entered this place… Perhaps the people from the Spring Flower Sect arrived earlier than expected?" Smiling to himself as looked in the direction of the entrance, Xuan Hao decided not to kill the Nascent Soul Realm Expert and instead decided to use him to see how strong the people from the Spring Flower Sect were.

"WHO DARES!?" At the same time that Xuan Hao put the book about blue crystals away and prepared to watch a good show, a loud roar shook the entire underground base as Xuan Hao turned in the direction of the room where the Nascent Soul Realm Expert was meditating earlier on. NvεlB¡n: Your Escape into Infinite Tales.

By this point, a dense killing intent could be felt leaking out from the room as the person had already stopped meditating as he was the one who roared angrily earlier.

The Nascent Soul Realm Expert did not stay like this for long as he soon rushed out of the room in the direction of the entrance. Ready to confront the two people who just destroyed the concealment formation at the entrance and rudely let themselves in.

…

"This should be the location of the base… Are you ready Xuefeng?" Glancing over in the direction of a place located close to the entrance of the forest on the outskirts of the city with dangerous glint in her eyes, Elder Meng turned to look at Xuefeng standing next to her before she asked in a gentle voice.

"Yes, Big Sister Meng!" Filled with excitement as she looked forward to fighting the Nascent Soul Realm cultivator that had caused trouble and was planning to create even more trouble inside the Spring Flower Sect's territory, Xuefeng could not help but become excited when she thought of her first real fight against another Nascent Soul Realm Expert.

"Great! Remember what I said earlier on. Retreat if it gets too dangerous for you."

"Yes~"

Hearing her response, Elder Meng no longer delayed as she gathered her qi together in the form of a giant green ball that she proceeds to throw directly onto the entrance of the hidden base. Directly destroying the concealment formation in the process.

BOOM!

Not waiting for even a moment after seeing the entrance as both of them rushed down into the underground base, both of them showed a shocked expression when they saw the small underground city in front of them.

They did not expect for there to be such a large city underground! Let alone so many people seemingly working to transport different things out through another tunnel in the distance.

"WHO DARES!" It was at this moment both of them heard a loud roar coming from a mansion located just outside the city as a figure soon rushed out from the mansion and headed towards them full of killing intent.

"Xuefeng, be careful! This guy is at the fourth stage of the Nascent Soul Realm!" Sensing the cultivation of the person who was rushing over to meet them surrounded by an almost suffocating killing intent, Elder Meng narrowed her eyes dangerously as she warned Xuefeng before taking out a small handheld folding fan with a beautiful flower pattern engraved on it.

Whoosh~

Waving the small handheld folding fan, a large amount of ice qi began to gather before quickly forming a small vortex of ice qi that quickly flew towards the incoming Nascent Soul Realm cultivator.

Freezing a few unfortunate miners and transports on the way as they were directly frozen to death as the ice qi vortex approached before having their bodies ripped apart by the violent ice qi vortex as it passed by their frozen bodies.

"Hmph!"

Seeing the ice vortex approaching him, the Nascent Soul Realm cultivator did not shrink in the slightest and large saber appeared in his hand before he swung down towards the incoming ice vortex.

Whoosh! Boom!

The attack sent out by the saber quickly collided with the ice vortex as both attacks cancelled each other out. Leaving behind only a frozen path of shattered bodies behind where the ice vortex passed through.

"You should be the so-called Saber Lord who helped attack the Seven Fates Sect a few weeks ago! Are your three friends not coming to help you? Sword Lord, Spear Lord and Bow Lord…? Quite the unique names you guys have…" Watching as the Saber Lord had stopped after blocking her attack, Elder Meng called out in an attempt to see if she could get more information on the other three that were also hiding inside the Spring Flower Sect's territory.

After all, if anyone of those three were here as well, it would be quite dangerous given that the Saber Lord in front of her was at the same cultivation realm as herself…

"Hmph! Think I am more than enough to deal with you and that brat over there!" Sneering full of disdain as he said this, the Saber Lord charged forward as he launched another attack towards Elder Meng. Completely ignoring Xuefeng.

"Who's a brat!?" Clearly offended by how she was completely disregarded by the Saber Lord as he attacked her big sister in front of her, Xuefeng took out her own weapon in the form of a giant hammer that was easily bigger than her and slammed down towards the Saber Lord with all her might.

The Saber Lord saw a giant hammer suddenly appear out of the blue as he had a confused look on his face before quickly stopping his attack on Elder Meng and defend against the giant hammer.

Bang!

The giant hammer collided with the saber of the Saber Lord as he barely managed to push the aggressive little girl back before suddenly discovering a giant cluster of ice spikes flying towards him from the side.

Puchi~

The sound of flesh being pierced could be heard as the Saber Lord retreated with one of the ice spikes directly lodged into his right leg.

"Hah… I didn't expect you to take advantage and attack me while dealing with the little girl! Hmph, looks like I will have to be a little more serious when fighting both of you!" Arrogantly pulling out the ice spike lodged in his right leg, the Saber Lord once again took a stance as he prepared to attack both of them.

"…"

Is this guy's brain malfunctioning or something…?

Staring at the large amount of blood flowing out of the wound of his leg along with his haggard expression, Elder Meng began doubting whether the person in front of them was truly someone in the fourth stage of the Nascent Soul Realm…

"Hah… Xuefeng, you can fight him alone! I will come and help if something happens!" Looking over to Xuefeng and informing her of this, Elder Meng suddenly felt like it was a good idea to have Xuefeng come along with her.

If not, how could she find such a good training partner willing to fight for her without putting her in too much danger?

…

"Somethings wrong with that guy…" At the same time, Xuan Hao was observing the fight as he felt something was wrong with the qi that the Saber Lord had used earlier on to block the ice vortex attack of Elder Meng.

No matter how weak a fourth stage Nascent Soul Realm Expert was, he should never end up like this after just clashing with Elder Meng and Xuefeng a few times…

"How sad…" Listening in on what Elder Meng was saying to Xuefeng, Xuan Hao could not help but feel a bit bad for the Saber Lord as he was designated to become a training dummy for Xuefeng to help familiarize herself with fighting someone in the Nascent Soul Realm.

"But… Maybe I can use this method in the future as well…"

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 224: Source Crystal and Snake~

"Yes!" Hearing what Elder Meng said, Xuefeng excitedly stepped forward as she once again brought forth her giant hammer. Swinging it down towards the Saber Lord who was preparing to launch and attack towards the two of them.

Boom!

The giant hammer of Xuefeng collided with the saber of the Saber Lord as both of them were forced to take a few steps back as they seemed to be evenly matched.

…

"Looks like I don't really need to stay here any longer…" Looking at the two ladies from the Spring Flower Sect treating the poor Saber Lord as a top-quality training dummy, Xuan Hao decided not to interfere in their battle as he instead turned his attention towards one of the tunnels that the miners had been transporting the blue crystals out from before the clash between the Saber Lord and two people from the Spring Flower Sect.

Most of the people had already begun retreating towards what Xuan Hao had overheard to be their emergency tunnel, Xuan Hao had no idea where it led to and was not really too interested in finding out…

So, he left the people retreating alone and instead made his way over towards one of the tunnels as he looked inside.

Ignoring the constant sound of fighting happening behind him.

From the book about blue crystals or Ghost Crystals as they were called in the book, Xuan Hao knew with certainty that they were not something a cultivator should absorb under any circumstances due to its poisonous effects on a cultivator's soul and dantian.

Other than that, he also found out that it was one of the most sought-after type of resources by demonic cultivators…

The only problem was…

The Saber Lord was not a demonic cultivator but stilled seemed to have absorbed the qi inside the Ghost Crystals… Maybe that was why he was so weak even though he was a fourth stage Nascent Soul Realm cultivator? NvεlB¡n: Your Escape into Infinite Tales.

The book itself did not mention anything about this and only noted down how useful the Ghost Crystals was to demonic cultivators.

"But there is supposed to be a Source Crystal at the centre of the Ghost Crystal mine." Reading through the book, Xuan Hao could not help but feel tempted to enter the Ghost Crystal mine and see if he could find the Source Crystal written about in the book.

The effects of a Source Crystal were simply too amazing as it would allow the cultivator to easily comprehend the dao.

For Xuan Hao, getting the Source Crystal would allow him to reach the Domain Lord Realm with ease after using the purification pill along with the pure qi fish from the secret realm!

The reason why Xuan Hao believed that the Source Crystal was still inside the Ghost Crystal mine, was because of the fact that according to the book, a special sort of life form was born alongside the source crystal and would protect it from anyone who dared to move too close…

Even the weakest of these life forms had reached the Domain Lord Realm… And it was not something that the living training dummy Saber Lord could deal with…

Boom! Boom! Boom!

As Xuan Hao was hesitating on whether he should go in and enter the Ghost Crystal mine, a small explosion occurred in the tunnel leading into the Ghost Crystal mine in front of him.

This was not the only place this happened as all the other tunnels except the entrance and the emergency tunnel began collapsing after several explosion talismans hidden at the entrance of them activate, causing the different tunnels inside the underground base to begin collapsing.

Rumble~

The tunnels were not the only affected, as large stones began falling down from above. Signalling the fact that the cave that the underground base was located in was beginning to collapse.

Whoosh!

Xuan Hao did not hesitate any longer as he entered the Ghost Crystal mine.

He was not really worried about the two from the Spring Flower Sect. After all, with their strength, the collapse of the cave would not be able to injure them. At most they would have to dig their way out after being buried by the falling rocks and dirt.

It was not something like the secret realm where the entire place was about to get destroyed.

Even the best-case scenario of staying in the collapsing secret realm would be ending up drifting aimlessly in the void between world before dying a slow death or a quick death if one happened upon some of the dangerous that lurked within the void.

As for getting out by himself after the entrance Ghost Crystal mine and the underground base collapsed? Like the two from the Spring Flower Sect, he could also dig his way out!

With this in mind, Xuan Hao had decided to enter the Ghost Crystal mine and search for the Source Crystal.

Steal the Source Crystal from the guardian life form and run away as fast as possible! That was his plan!

Why fight a Domain Lord Realm life form if he did not have to?

Even with this plan in mind, Xuan Hao still felt that things might not go as planned…

…

"Wow… So, this is a Ghost Crystal mine!" Walking through a mostly empty tunnel for close to 10 minutes, Xuan soon came upon a large opening as he saw a large underground lake at the centre.

Around the lake, countless small Ghost Crystals were covering the cave walls and ceiling as they weakly shone down towards a small natural platform made out of several different sized rocks that seemed to have fallen into the underground lake from above.

"That is the Source Crystal…?" Staring a small pure white crystal, the size of a grain of rice located on the natural platform of rocks in the middle of the underground lake, Xuan Hao could not help but feel a bit suspicious.

Would such a small crystal really be able to help him…?

"Hisssss~"

Lost in thought upon seeing the small size of the Source Crystal, Xuan Hao suddenly became cautious as he heard a small hissing sound come out from the lake.

"The guardian life form…?" Looking over in the direction of the hissing sound, Xuan Hao soon spotted the origin of the sound as a large snake at least a few dozen meters in length could be seen as the Ghost Crystal shone down and illuminated its body beneath underground lake water.

"Not a demon beast…" Even thought Xuan Hao had already read about it being a special life form that guarded the Source Crystal, he could still not really believe it as he had only ever really seen demon beasts before.

But the snake quietly observing him from the underground lake was clearly not made of flesh and blood.

Instead, its entire body seemed to be made from different kinds of precious metals as its two eyes resembled the surrounding Ghost Crystals. Glowing weakly as they remained locked onto Xuan Hao. Capturing each and every move he made.

According to the book, each special life form born together with a Source Crystal was unique and not one was the same.

This also made it difficult to know what kind of abilities the special life form would have, but at least it was written down that the special life forms strength depended on the size and strength of the Source Crystal itself.

Meaning, the bigger and stronger that the Source Crystal was, the stronger the special life form guarding it would be!

"How close can I get before it attacks me…" Looking around the underground cave, Xuan Hao quickly spotted a few boxes filled with Ghost Crystals as it seemed like the people under the Saber Lord had not managed to take away all of them in time before escaping.

Observing the places where the Ghost Crystals were missing after being mined and stored in the different boxes, Xuan Hao managed to calculate how far he would be able to go before he would be attacked by the unique snake observing him from the underground lake in front of him.

"Hm…"

Splash!"

Picking up a Ghost Crystal from one of the nearby boxes and throwing it into the lake directly in front of the snake, Xuan Hao hoped to get some sort of response from the snake.

"Hiss!"

But all he was met with was an angry hissing sound as the snake moved its large body inside the water, seemingly unhappy that Xuan Hao threw a Ghost Crystal towards it.

"So, I have to fight it…" Feeling a bit unwilling as he clearly sensed the strength of the snake in front of him had reached the Domain Lord Realm, Xuan Hao knew that he would not be able to sneak by it and steal the Source Crystal before running away like he had originally planned to do…

Looking over towards the Source Crystal, Xuan Hao decided to try his luck.

At most he would have to retreat if things were too much for him to handle…

"Hissssss~!" Feeling the change in Xuan Hao, the snake quickly responded as it angrily hissed in his direction once again. This time in a more threatening tone as it clearly saw the direction Xuan Hao was looking!

Report chapter Comments