Cultivating Disciples To Breakthrough

by Stayrr

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

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Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough #Chapter 385 - Rebellion In The Azure Sky Kingdom - Read Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough Chapter 385 - Rebellion In The Azure Sky Kingdom Online - All Page - Novel Bin

Chapter 385 - Rebellion In The Azure Sky Kingdom

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Flying towards the Iron Sky Kingdom, Xuan Hao didn't pay any mind to his surroundings as he focused on his meditation. Only keeping up his divine sense in a short area around the group, so as to make sure he could react in time in case they were attacked.

On the other hand, Qing Yi who was sitting just behind him began focusing on the terrain passing by below them intently.

After having travelled for quite some time, they finally passed through the borders of a neighbouring kingdom.

For Qing Yi, this was her first time ever outside the borders of the now gone Heavenly Sky Kingdom, so she was making sure that she kept an eye out for anything new.

Xuan Hao did not really care too much about all of this. After all, the kingdoms around them, were not much stronger than the Heavenly Sky Kingdom had been back at its peak…

The thing Xuan Hao was looking forward to seeing, was the Iron Sky Kingdom. Even if it was only located at the border of what was widely regarded as the core part of Sky Empires, Xuan Hao clearly knew the importance of the Iron Sky Kingdom.

Other than all of that, the Iron Sky Kingdom could also be considered the first place that was truly a core part of the Sky Empire that he would be visiting!

…

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At the same time that Xuan Hao, Qing Yi and the rest of the group passed the border and truly left the Flying Sword Sect's territory, chaos was beginning to spread through the Azure Sky Kingdom located just next door.

"Just what in the world is happening?! How come those ants dared to cause so much trouble all of a sudden? And how come none of you have managed to stop it yet?!" An angry roar could be heard inside the palace located at the centre of the Azure Sky Kingdom's capital as a group of people were kneeling down in front of a large throne where a majestic looking middle-aged man was sitting with a heavy look on his face as he looked down on the group of people kneeling below him.

The person on the throne was none other than the king of the Azure Sky Kingdom, Su Wuhan, who had just a few months earlier ended the Heavenly Sky Kingdom!

However, things didn't work out like he had expected they would…

After chasing the ancestor of the Heavenly Sky Kingdom to no avail and having no luck finding the thing, he had destroyed the Heavenly Sky Kingdom for in the first place, Su Wuhan had gone back home.

Angry at the fact that he couldn't get anything other than a bit of the land he had lost to the ancestor of the Heavenly Sky Kingdom in the past due to the fact that the sects were too strong for him to deal with… Heck, the Spring Flower Sect had someone at the same realm as him, while the Flying Sword Sect was rumoured to have someone at the Domain Lord Realm… There was no way he would want to fight someone like that over a bit of territory with his current strength!

However, this was not the end of his troubles and could only be considered the beginning of it…

At first, he had thought he just had to deal with the three neighbouring kingdoms that had banded together to grab a bit of his territory while he was gone dealing with the Heavenly Sky Kingdom, but things had soon ended up spiralling out of control and he suddenly had to deal with a rebellion trying to overthrow him.

Who was leading this rebellion? The normal people with close to no cultivation!

Apparently, they had been fed up with their conditions under the plague and wanted to overthrow him…

At first when he had heard about this, Su Wuhan had simply laughed it off. After all, what could a bunch of useless people with no cultivation do to him? Even if he allowed them to freely attack him, they would simply have no way of even injuring him!

For that reason, Su Wuhan had not really cared about the rebellion when he first heard about it and sent a group of people over to deal with it! Now, that group of people were currently kneeling down in front of him with fearful expressions plastered all over their faces…

"Answer me! How have you not managed to deal with that little rebellion yet!?" Seeing that none of the people kneeling down in front of him dared to talk, Su Wuhan grew even more angry as his killing intent along with his pseudo domain pressed down on the group of people.

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"I-I apologies your majesty! But that group of people were simply way too strong, and we weren't able to deal with them! All our attacks were immediately rendered ineffective when we attacked and the people not here with us today perished during the confrontation!" Nervously stepping forward after feeling that his king would indeed begin killing them unless they began talking, one of the people shivered all over before he began speaking of what he had experienced.

"Too strong? Perished? Tell me what happened, I want to know everything!"

Listening to the short answer of what happened, Su Wuhan suddenly felt that something was very wrong about the rebellion that had appeared in his kingdom.

Rebellions were not rare, but they would normally be easily dealt with.

The only party he could think of that had the ability to truly begin a rebellion inside his kingdom, was the Ascendant Frost Hall, which was also one of the reasons why he had been planning to get rid of them over the past few years…

"W-when we first went to confront the rebels, everything was fine and we launched an attack to quickly deal with them… But…"

"But?"

"B-but all of a sudden, one of the rebels stepped forward to confront us while muttering something to himself as a pale green light engulfed him and spread out towards us… Seeing this weird light, we all felt a threat of death and decided to retreat as fast as we could.

However… All of us were not fast enough, those who managed to retreat in time are here before you, your majesty, while those who didn't… Are dead… None of us manged to get a good look at what happened to their bodies as all of us were too busy escaping at that point…" Finishing his explanation, the person who had been brave enough to step forward fearfully went back to the rest of the group as he nervously waited for his king's response.

"… Leave, I will have to think about this alone!"

Hearing the explanation, Su Wuhan narrowed both his eyes before sending the group out of the throne room.

Bang!

"Hah… I never expected the church of the plague god to target me and my kingdom…" Slumping down on his throne with a slightly helpless look on his face after seeing the door close behind the group that had just been shivering down in front of him, Su Wuhan almost looked more nervous and afraid than them as he quickly took out a communication talisman before contacting someone.

No matter what, Su Wuhan clearly knew about the strength of the church of the plague god and along with that, he also very clearly knew that he could not face such a powerful church by himself.

Even if he managed to deal with the ones currently trying to take control of his kingdom, he would still have to deal with the possible revenge of the church in the future… This chapter made its debut appearance via N0v3lB1n.

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Chapter 386 - Entering The Iron Sky Kingdom!

Time slowly passed with the group from the Flying Sword Sect flying towards the Iron Sky Kingdom. The journey, much to both Gong Bo and Chi Hu's surprise, continued without even a single attack from a local bandit group or something similar…

Like this, the group soon found themselves on the border to the Iron Sky Kingdom.

Different from the border of the kingdoms before them that had easily let them pass through without too much difficulty. The border of the Iron Sky Kingdom was completely different as several large towers were scattered across the border of the kingdom.

From a single glance, Xuan Hao could clearly feel a terrifying power lying dormant inside the towers and instantly realized they were some sort of artifact that had likely been made by the current king of the Iron Sky Kingdom to protect the borders of his kingdom.

"We should descend from here on out and make the rest of our way towards the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom by walking!" Before Xuan Hao could even bring up the matter that the artifacts in the shape of large towers scattered across the border might attack them if they just flew into the Iron Sky Kingdom, Gong Bo spoke up and suggested for them to land before making their way across the border on foot.

Whoosh~

Following the words of Gong Bo, everyone in the group descended a few hundred meters away from the border of the Iron Sky Kingdom before making their way over towards a road just besides the place where they landed, as they followed the road into the Iron Sky Kingdom. N0v3lTr0ve served as the original host for this chapter's release on N0v3l--B1n.

"Stop!"

The moment they were about to cross the border, someone called out to them before a person jumped down from a nearby tower and quickly approached the group.

Inspecting the person who had called out to them before rapidly approaching them, Xuan Hao quickly realized that the person in question was someone at the Nascent Soul Realm! While only at the second stage of the realm, Xuan Hao still felt amazed at the strength of the border guard.

How many Nascent Soul Realm Experts would the Iron Sky Kingdom have if each and every tower at the border had someone like that inside of it…?

Just thinking about it made Xuan Hao realize just how strong the Iron Sky Kingdom was. Even if it's size overall was smaller than even the Heavenly Sky Kingdom, its strength far outstripped it! And that was without mentioning the Domain Lord that controlled the kingdom itself!

"What is your purpose for entering Iron Sky?" Arriving just a few meters in front of them, the border guard at the Nascent Soul Realm directly asked with a somewhat hostile look on her face as she closely observed everyone.

Focusing mostly on Xuan Hao and Chi Hu, Chi Hu was at the Nascent Soul Realm, while she could not feel the realm Xuan Hao was at. Only knowing that it was stronger than herself.

This in turn also caused her to tighten her grip around a spear she was carrying with her as she appeared a bit more cautious. looking ready to retreat or attack in case anything happened were to happen.

"We are here to participate in the alchemy competition hosted by an alchemist from the Sky Empire…" Seeing how hostile the border guard looked, Gong Bo didn't dare to delay as he quickly answered her question.

"What sect or kingdom are you from? Can you prove your identities?""

However, this did not seem to calm down the border guard in the slightest as she asked another question. The only difference being that she had taken a few more steps away from the group and towards the tower she had just jumped down from…

"We are from the Flying Sword Sect, located in the Heavenly Sky Kingdom, though… The Heavenly Sky Kingdom came to an end a few months ago… Currently we can be considered a sect living inside the Sky Empire and we are looking get a more legitimate status by joining the Sect Alliance that the Sky Empire is going to set up in the future!" Stepping forward, Xuan Hao quickly explained where they were from and took out his core elder token with the symbol of the Flying Sword Sect etched into it before signalling for Gong Bo to show the invitation to the alchemy competition to the border guard as well.

"Flying Sword Sect? Heavenly Sky Kingdom…?" Listening to what Xuan Hao said, the border guard narrowed both her eyes as she inspected the token in Xuan Hao's hand along with the invitation letter for the alchemy competition.

Swish!

Waving her hand as the invitation letter flew out of Gong Bo's hand before carefully reading through it, Xuan Hao and the rest did not interfere as all of them waited until the border guard was done and sent the invitation letter back to Gong Bo.

"… It looks like the invitation letter is authentic, you can enter… Don't cause any trouble while inside the Iron Sky Kingdom and don't use your demon beasts to fly! Things are currently not so… Never mind…" Nodding her head slowly before allowing them to enter, the border guard didn't stay around, as she quickly disappeared back towards the direction of the tower she had originally come from.

Only leaving them with a few words of caution and reminding them that they should not fly around inside the Iron Sky Kingdom.

"…"

Looking at the disappearing figure of the border guard, Xuan Hao felt like a headache was on the way. From the looks of how cautious the border guard was, it looked like something troublesome was currently taking place or going to happen inside the Iron Sky Kingdom…

Not that he had expected for thing to go completely smoothly, with Qing Yi joining the alchemy competition before they peacefully headed back to the sect again after the competition had finished… But he had still not expected to already see signs of trouble at the border of the Iron Sky Kingdom.

"Hah… That was so nerve wrecking! Looks like we will have to walk the rest of the way to the capital…" Sighing loudly as the border guard disappeared into the tower closest to them, Gong Bo patted the giant bird demon beast next to him before walking over towards Xuan Hao.

"Elder Xuan, should we just send the demon beasts back to the sect? They should be able to find their way back on their own according to the beast tamers. For getting back again, we can just loan a few flying demon beasts from the Iron Sky Kingdom. Kingdoms this big usually loan out flying demon beasts for a modest price…"

"That sounds fine, it's not like we can't afford it…" Nodding his head in agreement with Gong Bo, Xuan Hao and the rest of the group got off their flying demon beasts before sending them back to the sect.

Whoosh!

Soon, with the Great Raven Xuan Hao and Qing Yi had flown on for the last few days flying up in the air, the rest of the flying demon beast soon flew into the air behind it, as the small group of flying demon beast soon headed back towards the Flying Sword Sect together. The Great Raven flying at the front leading the way for the weaker flying demon beasts.

"Well… We should get going as well…" Watching the flying demon beast making their way off into the distance towards the Flying Sword Sect, Xuan Hao slowly began making his way across the border into the Iron Sky kingdom.

The other elders and Qing Yi following closely behind him as the small group from the Flying Sword Sect officially entered the Iron Sky Kingdom!

…

At the same time, at the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom, a large flying ship had appeared just outside the countless mining shafts that were scattered all around the area around the capital.

Aside from their powerful king, this kingdom often appears in gossip all around the Sky Empire not just for the countless rare metals found there, but for the bottomless mining shafts their capital is built around. Many visitors have fallen in and disappeared forever.

The main source of the Iron Sky Kingdoms fame was not only the rare spiritual metals that they were in possession of, but also the bottomless mining shafts they had dug out over the years to get their hands on the spiritual metals.

Rumours even had it that the population found on the surface of the Iron Sky Kingdom was far below that of the number that existed beneath the surface. Mining away for the precious spiritual metals that were abundant in the ground beneath the capital.

In turn, the Iron Sky Kingdom formed by far one of the most complex underground tunnel networks inside the entire Sky Empire! At the same time, the true size of the capital could not be measured just by seeing the capital itself… One also had to account for what was hidden beneath the surface!

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Chapter 387 - First Town

As the flying ship slowly began descending in front of the capital, a few figures could be seen rushing out towards the flying ship before a small group of people had formed in front of the flying ship.

Whoosh!

Just as the flying ship landed, two people could be seen walking out from inside the flying ship.

One was a young woman who was curiously looking at the unique mining shafts that the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom was built on top of, while the other was an elderly man who signalled for the group from the Iron Sky Kingdom standing in front of them to come over.

"Master, this place looks really interesting! Totally different from any of the other kingdoms around this place!" As she was curiously looking at the mining shafts that were just a few meters in front of her. N0v3lTr0ve served as the original host for this chapter's release on N0v3l--B1n.

The mining haft in question was not an abandoned one but was still active as a few people could be seen coming up from time to time before making their way over towards the capital with a few precious spiritual metals in hand.

Though… The flying ships sudden appearance had mostly caused these people to take a short break as they were looking towards it with curious expressions on their faces.

Flying ships were not something just anyone could use, and it required a lot of resources to make one in the first place. For that reason, other than Domain Lords. Normally only people with a strong background would ever use a flying ship.

Not to mention that the symbol of the Sky Empire was plastered all over the flying ship… Making it rather easy for anyone passing by to identify who it belonged to and think twice about whether they would want to try and rob it…

"Ah… It's your first time to the Iron Sky Kingdom if I'm not wrong?" Thinking about something for a short moment as he watched the people from the Iron Sky Kingdom making their way over, the elderly man turned to ask the young woman walking beside him.

"Yes… I never got a chance to visit because a certain someone didn't want to let me leave the capital before I at the very least became an Expert Alchemist…!" Frowning a bit towards the end as she narrowed her eyes while looking at the elderly man walking beside her, it was clear to everyone around who she was referring to.

"Hehe, I wonder who that was… Now, now, the people from the Iron Sky Kingdom are already here! Let's not think about the past any longer." Brushing the young woman's words aside with a shameless smile on his face, the elderly man quickly switched the focus of the conversation towards the people of the Iron Sky Kingdom who finally came to a stop only a few meters away from them.

"Greetings, Artisan Fang Shi! We are part of the royal guard and are here to escort both of you to the royal palace!" Stepping forward and introducing who they were, a tall looking and well-built female soldier clad in a full plate of armour bowed down in front of Fang Shi while saying this.

The other soldiers standing behind her silently followed her lead as they bowed down as well in a show of respect towards the elderly man.

"Hoho, I never expected to be greeted so sincerely. Just get up for now and let's get moving, I still have quite a lot to prepare for before the start of the competition… After all, I don't want to end up not even having the spiritual herbs needed for the competition ready when it starts!" Laughing happily with a smile on his face as he saw how respectful the royal guards of the Iron Sky Kingdom was to him, the elderly man called Fang Shi soon dragged the young woman with them as both of them made their way towards the royal palace of the Iron Sky Kingdom under the protection of the small group of royal guards…

It had to be noted that each and every single one of the royal guards had at least reached the fourth stage of the Nascent Soul Realm! The strong looking woman, who had taken the lead in talking with Fang Shi, was at the Peak of the Nascent Soul Realm!

From this alone, it could easily be seen how strong the Iron Sky Kingdom was compared to the Heavenly Sky Kingdom!

Someone who was comparable to the strongest person in another kingdom was only one of the people in charge of the royal guard of the Iron Sky Kingdom!

Other than that, the strong looking woman was still young and might even have a chance to breakthrough into the Domain Lord Realm in the future with the guidance and help from the king of the Iron Sky Kingdom!

…

At the same time, Xuan Hao and the rest of the group had just entered the territory of the Iron Sky Kingdom, when they came upon their first town.

"What is this?"

"How in the world…"

"T-this is still a town…?"

Outside of Xuan Hao who had long since managed to grasp the appearance of the town before they could even see it, everyone else gasped in wonder and amazement at the weird town in front of them.

Instead of a normal town just consisting of a few buildings, houses and maybe a wall for protection against bandits or demon beasts, the town from the Iron Sky Kingdom was surrounded by several large mining shafts that went straight down into the ground below!

Large groups of people could also be seen moving in and out of the mining shafts with several large containers filled with all sorts of different rocks.

This, however, was not the most shocking part of the town from the Iron Sky Kingdom… The most shocking part of it was the town itself.

The town was located above an enormous mining shaft in the shape of a giant hole that had a diameter of at least a few hundred meters!

Held up by several supporting beams located at the sides of the enormous circular mining shaft, the town was barely held up. Looking like it could fall and take everyone inside the town together with it into the enormous mining shaft below if even a single support beam ended up breaking.

Even Xuan Hao felt a wave of nervousness wash over him while looking at the town from a distance. Not to say how the rest of the group had reacted to the shocking sight.

Towards the centre of the town, Xuan Hao could feel the presence of a formation that helped keep the entire town stable. The formation itself was not too complicated and just helped spreading the pressure at the centre of the town out towards the corners of the town where the support beams were present.

The formation was most likely the only reason why the town could even exist in its current state, and it made Xuan Hao wonder why the inhabitants had not just simply built the town around the giant miningshaft and had instead decided to build on top of it…

Looking a bit closer at the countless smaller mining shafts located around the town, Xuan Hao suddenly seemed to have come to some understand as to why the town was not located beside the giant mining shaft… There was simply no place to put the town in the first place…

"Master… Are we going to enter that town…?" Nervously grabbing onto the side of his robe to get his attention, Qing Yi seemed almost afraid as she asked this while keeping her eyes locked on the weird town almost floating above the giant mining shaft.

"Of course, we are going to visit the town! Aren't you curious why the people here build a town directly above such a giant vertical mining shaft?" Smiling down towards the nervous Qing Yi as he said this, Xuan Hao didn't even wait for her to respond as he began making his way towards the weird town. Making sure not to fall into some of the smaller mining shafts that were located along the way.

"…"

Qing Yi who was about to answer her master about how she really didn't want to visit the town dangling dangerously above a giant bottomless hole was left speechless as she watched her master walk over towards the town without even waiting for her!

"M-master! Wait for me!" Not daring to hesitate and stand around for too long in case she lost sight of her master, Qing Yi bit down on her lips as she threw her fear of the weird town aside as she ran after Xuan Hao who was only a few dozen meters away from the entrance to the town at this point in time.

""…""

The group of elders who had come together with them for the alchemy competition all looked silently at each other with. Nervously glancing over in the direction of Qing Yi and Xuan Hao from time to time.

Whoosh~

It was only when Chi Hu took the first step to follow after the master and disciple that the rest of the elders build up enough courage to break free from their nervous and fearful state and follow.

They were not Domain Lords! If they ended up falling into the giant mining shaft, they would die! Even if they were Core Formation Realm Experts!

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Chapter 388 - Scaring Everyone~

Entering the town located above the giant mining shaft with Qing Yi following closely behind him, Xuan Hao began walking around towards the centre of the town on what could only be described as loose wooden boards a few meters long that had been clumsily put together to make up the main road of the small town.

Just looking down at the wooden boards, Xuan Hao could easily see down into the bottomless mining shaft located beneath the town. At the very least, it looked like the thing holding up the buildings of the town was safer compared to the loose wooden boards that made up the main road going through the city…

"M-master… Is this really safe…?" At the same time, Qing Yi kept looking down through the holes in the main road of the town with a scared look on her face. Trying her best to keep as close to her master as possible.

"Yes, it should be safe. After all, there is an entire town living here! If it was really that unsafe then-"

"Ah! Old Hong fell through one of the holes in the road recently!"

"Yeah, I heard about it! What a tragedy…"

"Even worse, I heard the only reason he could fall through the hole was because he had lost weigh recently… Slimming down was the end of old man Hong…"

Just as Xuan Hao was about to reassure his disciple that everything was fine, a group of young people happened to pass by and interrupt him.

"Master…"

Looking even more like she wanted to leave the town after hearing what the young people had just said, Qing Yi looked up her master with a pleading look in her eyes.

She was not big at all; she was young and would likely also have the ability to slip through one of the holes in the main road! She did not want to end up like the old man Hong mentioned by the young people!

"You don't have to worry… Even if you end up falling through, I can still catch you!" Not knowing what to say, Xuan Hao half gave up as he said this. The town really was not a safe place to live…

"…"

Not feeling the slightest bit safer upon hearing her master say this, Qing Yi cautiously moved towards the centre of the town together with him. Observing each and every single place she stepped on beforehand to make sure she would not end up falling through.

Chi Hu and Gong Bo's group was no better as they also entered the town hanging above the giant mining shaft. The only difference between them and Qing Yi, was the fact that none of them had Xuan Hao to rely on in case they fell down.

At the very least, they did not even think about the fact that Xuan Hao would be able to easily catch them with his domain if they happened to fall... This chapter made its debut appearance via N0v3lB1n.

In turn, this had caused the group to look even more nervous than Qing Yi while walking through the small town. Even causing a few of the townspeople to stop and look over at them with a curious look on their faces.

"Mom, what are they doing?"

"I think they are just scared of falling down, son."

"Hm… scared?"

"Yes!"

"…"

Listening to the conversation of a mother and child as they cautiously made their way forward, Chi Hu felt himself blush red in embarrassment. Feeling the disdainful look of a close to 5-year-old boy was not something Chi Hu was used to…

But what could he do? He truly was afraid of stepping down on a wrong spot and end up falling into the bottomless mining shaft below…

…

After what felt like hours for everyone not Xuan Hao, the group from the Flying Sword Sect had finally managed to reach the centre of the town. Having gathered quite a bit of attention from the locals along the way…

"What a big lift!"

Not able to stop herself from letting out an exclamation of surprise upon finally lifting her head and looking towards the centre of the town, Qing Yi was met with the sight of a giant lift.

The lift was suspended by four giant tough looking metal chains made out of spiritual metal and was easily a dozen meters long and wide. Fitting a house on top of the lift should be no problem at all!

"Indeed, quite a big lift…" Xuan Hao had already seen it through his divine sense long before he had reached the centre of the town, but he still felt amazed upon witnessing it first-hand.

The reason for this was that the core of the formation that kept the town suspended safely above the mining shaft was none other than the lift, or to be more accurate, the chains that held the lift up.

Looking more closely, even without any cultivation so to speak of one would still be able to glimpse a few runes etched into the surface of the four large chains.

Currently, a few dozen people were busy unloading several large rocks from the lift as they carelessly rolled them down onto the weak looking wooden boards that covered the town centre. The scared looks of Qing Yi and the rest of the people from the Flying Sword Sect as they watched this happen, was quite entertaining in its own way.

"Master… What are we here for?" Having seen the giant lift along with the rocks that were being rolled onto the fragile looking wooden boards, Qing Yi could no longer hold herself back from asking this question.

Since the start, she did not understand why her master had decided to visit the town. Especially when it was so dangerous!

Were they not supposed to be moving towards the capital for the alchemy competition…?

"Haha, of course, it's to help you get a little used to this kind of environment before we reach the capital! Gong Bo, how did that friend of yours describe the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom to you?"

"He didn't mention much… Only saying that it was by far one of the most unique places he had ever visited… D-don't tell me-"

"Indeed, from what I read, the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom should be suspend just like this town!"

Saying this before Gong Bo could voice out his doubts, Xuan Hao watched the expression on everyone around him change for the worse as they realized that they would be spending over a week living inside a place similar to the town they were currently inside of!

How big was the mining shaft that the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom was located above…? More importantly… How deep was it?

"From what I read, there have even been a Nascent Soul Realm Expert that was unlucky enough to fall down into the mining shaft that the capital is suspended above… He never returned alive!"

At the same time that these thoughts were coursing through everyone's mind, Xuan Hao decided to add this with a smiling expression on his face.

In fact, the capital was not suspended above a single giant mining shaft, but Xuan Hao decided not to say this and instead just allowed his disciple and the rest of the elder's thoughts to run wild.

As for the story of a Nascent Soul Realm Expert falling down a mining shaft and dying? That was merely a story he had made up to scare Chi Hu a bit, as it looked like he was realizing the fact that there was close to no way he would die from falling from a high place.

After all, he could just abandon his physical body and fly away with his Nascent Soul if things really came down to it…

At the very least, Xuan Hao had quite a bit of fun at the expense of his disciple and the few elders from the sect.

"Now, should we get going? We still need to reach the capital before the alchemy competition starts!" Smiling happily as he had succeeded in scaring everyone, Xuan Hao no longer saw any use in staying around and decided to give everyone a way out of the current situation.

"Yes!"

"Let's get going!"

"We can't waste too much time!"

Without wasting even, a single second, everyone happily agreed with what Xuan Hao said before the group soon left the small town.

The locals who had been busy removing the precious spiritual metals from the lift didn't pay too much attention to these weird outsiders.

From their point of view, their reaction was quite normal and most of them had long since become used to how outsiders reacted upon first entering their city. Mainly due to the town being located so close to the border and the fact that they saw way more outsiders passing through compared to some of the towns closer to the capital.

Like this, Xuan Hao and the rest set off towards the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom.

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Chapter 389 - Entering The Capital

The capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom was by no means small and easily stretched on for several thousand meters in each direction! The sheer size of the capital alone, was easily enough to fit the entire Flying Sword Sect a few times over… Not that this was unwarranted as most of the people inside the Iron Sky Kingdom lived inside the capital and worked in one of the countless mineshafts that surrounded the capital.

Looking at it from far away, Xuan Hao could not help but sigh in amazement as he clearly felt an enormous formation was in place and covered the entire capital. The sheer number of resources required for something like that was far from anything he would ever be able to afford given his current situation!

Just from feeling the terrifying aura hidden inside the formation, Xuan Hao was certain that more than one treasure at the Transcendent rank had been involved in its construction! The formation was likely strong enough to directly kill someone at the Domain Lord Realm without needing anyone to personally control it!

This alone easily showed off just how wealthy the Iron Sky Kingdom was and understandably also made Xuan Hao more nervous about possibly meeting the current ruler of the Iron Sky Kingdom.

After all, from what he could tell, there was a high chance that he was stronger than him and that is not to mention the fact that he would have the support of the giant formation covering the capital in case they ended up fighting!

"I wonder if the king of the Iron Sky Kingdom opened up an independent space… Given his resources, he should have the ability to do something like that…" Muttering this to himself as he gazed over towards the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom in the distance, Xuan Hao could not help but think back to what he knew about independent spaces, also known as secret realms after the master of the independent space had either passed away or left.

Normally, an independent was a space that could only be created by an extremely powerful Domain Lord close to reaching the Soul Ascension Realm. Given that they had enough resources.

So, with that in mind, Xuan Hao could not help but think that the king of the Iron Sky Kingdom had his own independent space, similar to the secret realm that he had visited in the past!

As for the reason why, someone would spend so many resources to create an independent space in first place, Xuan Hao still had no clue.

Maybe the process of creating an independent space would be helpful towards one's comprehension of the world?

"Master… This is the capital!?" At the same time that Xuan Hao was deep in thought thinking about how far the king of the Iron Sky kingdom had gone, Qing Yi walked up beside him and asked with an amazed look on her face.

"Yes!"

Outside of the bottomless mining shafts the capital was built around, it looked completely different from how Qing Yi and the rest of the elders had imagined it after listening to Xuan Hao back in the small town located close to the border of the kingdom.

From what he had said, they had imagined that the capital would be built on top of a giant mining shaft several thousand meters wide, but this was not the case. Instead, the capital looked like it was placed on solid ground without any giant mining shaft visible beneath it!

"Should we get going? It's starting to get dark, and they might close the gates during the night…" Watching as Qing Yi and the others gazed over towards the capital with amazement on their faces, Xuan Hao interrupted their current state as all of them nodded their heads in agreement with what Xuan Hao said.

They really did not want to end up walking all the way to the capital. Only to find out that they had closed the gate and they would need to wait until morning…

Even if they had Xuan Hao who would likely be able to get them in anyway due to the fact that he was a Domain Lord. One could never be too safe. After all, with the Iron Sky Kingdom's strength and status in the Sky Empire, they were more than capable of dealing with a Domain Lord.

…

Walking over towards the capital, Xuan Hao and the rest quickly realized just how many mining shafts were in the area around the capital.

Seeing it from a distance and seeing it up close was a completely different experience, as a large crowd of people could be seen constantly streaming out from the countless mining shafts and towards the capital.

Looking at this, Xuan Hao felt that it was a little odd that none of the people coming out of the mining shafts scattered around the capital were carrying any of the ores or other things that they had mined down below.

Whoosh~

Spreading out his divine sense, Xuan Hao quickly looked into one of the nearby mining shafts, as he quickly found out the reason why the people coming up were not carrying anything along with.

The reason in question, was a large underground network of mine carts that carried the newly extracted ores towards the capital, where they would likely be processed before being sold or used directly by the blacksmiths of the Iron Sky Kingdom!

Wanting to follow the direction the ores were going and look further; Xuan Hao abruptly came to a stop as he felt the formation around the capital appear in front of his divine sense.

If he continued any further, he would likely end up alerting the formation and in turn the king of the Iron Sky Kingdom…

Whoosh~

Retracting his divine sense, Xuan Hao decided to not go any further. In the first place, he did not want to accidently offend the Domain Lord of the Iron Sky Kingdom…

Other than that, they had also arrived in front of the gate leading into the capital. The only thing standing between them and entering the capital being an identification process carried out by the guards. Similar to how the border guard had wanted to confirm their identifies and where they came from before they were allowed to enter the Iron Sky Kingdom.

"Here for the alchemy competition?" Having made it to the line of people that were waiting to enter through the gate, Xuan Hao was caught slightly off-guard upon seeing one of the guards walk up to him and ask this.

"Yes… How did you know?"

"I was informed about a group from the Flying Sword Sect coming to enter the capital for the alchemy competition hosted by Artisan Alchemist Fang Shi. Hm… From what the border guard informed us about, your identities have already been confirmed, so you can enter without waiting!"

"I see… I will have to thank the border guard for her help if I see her again." Nodding his head in understanding upon hearing what the guard said.

"No problem, we have all just recently been informed about making sure the competitors coming to join in the alchemy competition gets there safely. Recently, things have not been so safe inside the capital, so I recommend you head directly towards the south side of the capital where the royal palace is located. The alchemy competition will begin in five days' time. Until then, you can stay at a small manor that is ready for you to stay in over the next few weeks."

"We have a small manor!?"

Hearing what the guard said, Qing Yi could not help but exclaim from behind Xuan Hao as she heard this. Having expected they would be staying inside an inn during the alchemy competition. Much like how she had done travelling towards the Flying Sword Sect and waiting for the entrance ceremony to officially begin.

"Yes, all of it was arranged by the Sky Empire's Fang Shi, who is also the host of the alchemy competition!" Dive into Stories, Embrace Enchantment: NvεlB¡n.

After having made sure that they would indeed be staying inside a small manor during their stay in the capital, Qing Yi had completely ignored the part where the guard mentioned the capital was dangerous at the current point in time. Instead, she was looking forward to seeing the small manor they would be staying at.

"How do we find out where to go when we reach the south part of the capital?"

"The place is more heavily guarded, and you will need to show the invitation to the alchemy competition again. After which, someone will help you find your way to the place where the competition is held and the location of the small manor that is reserved for you during your participation in the alchemy competition!"

"I see, thank you…"

"No need, it's my job!"

With a final polite exchange, Xuan Hao and the rest soon made their way inside the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom.. Of course, skipping over the line at the gate on the way in.

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Chapter 390 - Iron Sky Market

Entering the capital of the Iron Sky kingdom, Xuan Hao and the rest were instantly met with the sight of a several shops lined up around a large open space. Forming into a large market that was located just at the other side of the gate.

Three paths going straight through the market. One going straight ahead towards the south part of the capital, while two other paths went towards the eastern and western part respectively.

Outside of the large paths piercing straight through the giant marketplace at the entrance to the capital, Xuan Hao was instantly caught off-guard by the fact that he felt so many people at the Nascent Soul Realm present inside the marketplace.

From outside the gate, he could not really sense anything inside of the capital due to the formation blocking him. Only when entering the capital did he truly realize just how many Nascent Soul Realm Experts that existed inside the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom. Just in the marketplace in front of the capital alone, Xuan Hao could sense more than a dozen people at the Nascent Soul Realm!

"The Iron Sky Market…" As everyone else were staring at the marketplace with curiosity, Gong Bo was the only person to not show a surprised expression as he instead showed one of longing.

"Hm? Elder Gong Bo, do you perhaps know about this marketplace?"

Picking up on this and hearing him call what he supposed to be the name of the marketplace in front of them, Xuan Hao's question instantly caused the group from the Flying Sword Sect to turn their curious gazes towards Gong Bo.

"Yeah… I heard a bit about it from the friend of mine who visited the Iron Sky Kingdom in the past. The Iron Sky Market is quite famous inside the Sky Empire due to the wide variety of different spiritual metals that is sold there on a daily basis. My friend came here to find the spiritual metal he went to the Iron Sky Kingdom for…

Sadly, he got quite unlucky and didn't find it there. Forcing him to search for it in the eastern part of the capital, I don't know why, but he never mentioned what happened after that. Only that he found the spiritual metal he needed after visiting the eastern part of the capital…" Sighing a bit as he finished his explanation of the Iron Sky Market in front of them, Xuan Hao felt like he understood why he had felt the presence of so many Nascent Soul Realm Experts.

The Nascent Soul Realm Experts were most likely not from the Iron Sky Kingdom and were most likely just someone who had come in search of spiritual metal or perhaps a weapon…

If the Iron Sky Kingdom truly had a few dozen Nascent Soul Realm Experts just hanging around the entrance of their capital, Xuan Hao felt like he would really have to revaluate his idea on how strong the Iron Sky Kingdom was…

"Should we take a look around the market before heading over towards the southern part of the capital? We should still have a few hours left before it gets dark." This chapter made its debut appearance via N0v3lB1n.

Having walked forward with his eyes clearly plastered onto a nearby stall filled with a few pipping hot skewers along with a few other similarly hot food options, Chi Hu almost salivated as he asked this.

"Sure, we can look around the marketplace for an hour or two before making our way towards the southern part of the capital…" Also feeling himself grow hungry after looking over towards the stall Chi Hu's gaze was focused on, Xuan Hao could not help but agree with him as both of them soon made their way over towards the stall to try out some of the skewers before the rest of the group had even managed to realise both of them had disappeared only to appear in front of a stall a few dozen meters away.

Unknowingly, both of them had used their increased speed due to their cultivation realm to rush over to the small stall, causing the stall owner to jump a bit due to the shock of suddenly seeing someone appear in front of him.

"W-what can I help with…?"

Under the nervous gaze of the stall owner, Xuan Hao and Chi Hu almost bought up everything inside the small stall before happily walking away.

Even if they did not need to eat given their current cultivation realm and could just survive by absorbing the qi between heaven and earth, neither Chi Hu nor Xuan Hao would want to do get rid of something so wonderful!

By the time Qing Yi and the rest of the elders from the Alchemy Hall that had come along reached them, both Xuan Hao and Chi Hu were already happily enjoying the food they had just bought.

"…"

Not knowing what to say, Qing Yi decided to just shrug her shoulders and joined her master and Chi Hu as she picked up one of the skewers and began eating.

At this point in time, it had already been a long time since she had last eaten and even if she could survive a few days without food given her current cultivation realm, she would still need to reach the Nascent Soul Realm before she could directly live off the qi between heaven and earth.

The elders who mostly remained quite were the same. Not having reached the Nascent Soul Realm, so they also decided to partake in the small feast of skewers and other ordinary stall food Xuan Hao and Chi Hu had bought for a few spirit stones…

A little farther away back at the small stall, the stall owner had yet to fully comprehend what had just happened when he realized around a dozen spirit stones laying directly in front of him.

"S-spirit stones!?"

Seeing the spirit stones in front of him and realizing that it had been payment for the food that had just been taken from his stall, the stall owner quickly packed up before directly turning to leave.

In the end, he was only an ordinary person without any cultivation. Getting his hand on something like spirit stones was a rare opportunity for him to buy a low-grade cultivation mantra and use the rest to increase his cultivation realm after reaching the Qi Condensation Realm! Maybe he would even have a chance to reach the Foundation Establishment Realm and increase his lifespan by another 100 years!

The simple act by Xuan Hao and Chi Hu had unknowingly ended up becoming a great opportunity for this otherwise normal stall owner inside the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom. Even if neither of them even realized it, the stall owner would be forever grateful towards both of them…

…

At the same time, inside a large room in the royal palace of the Iron Sky Kingdom, a beautiful young woman momentarily raised one of her eyebrows as she turned to look towards the northern gate of the capital.

"Hm? A Domain Lord entered the capital… An unfamiliar one as well…" Muttering this to herself as a curious smile momentarily graced her lips, the young woman put on a thoughtful expression as she tried to think about who the Domain Lord that just appeared was.

Perhaps… Is the Domain Lord related to those people…?

A trace of killing intent briefly passed through her eyes upon thinking about this.

Over the last few months, those people have gotten more and more impatient perhaps they finally decided to act…

"Yi Min, is anything wrong?" Just as she was about to personally go and check out who the unfamiliar Domain Lord that had entered her capital was, a worried voice sounded out from the side as she turned to look towards the origin of the voice. An elderly man and a good friend of hers, Fang Shi.

"It's nothing much, I just sensed that an unfamiliar Domain Lord entered the capital and felt like I should go and see who it is…" Narrowing her eye while saying the last part, a clear killing intent began leaking out.

"Don't worry too much about it, I know what you are worrying about, and I don't think it's those people… It's likely the Domain Lord from the Flying Sword Sect, his highness informed me just before coming here that there was a chance that he would show up." Shaking his head, Fang Shi quickly informed the young woman looking like she was just about to jump out of the nearby window and rush over to beat up an innocent person up…

"Flying Sword Sect? Why have I never heard about this sect before? Are they perhaps a former neutral sect that came to the Sky Empire seeking refuge from an enemy or something?" Frowning a bit upon hearing the name of the sect and not being able to link it to any of the sects with a Domain Lord behind them inside the Sky Empire, Yi Min could not help but ask what she deemed to be the most logical answer.

"No, they are a sect located close to our border with the Onyx Empire. According to what I know, someone there broke through to the Domain Lord Realm… Though, I do not know when this happened, nor do I have any idea how strong they are…"

"A new Domain Lord? This will certainly make things more interesting…" Smiling dangerously as she said this, Yi Min no longer worried about the Domain Lord that just entered her capital. If he truly made any trouble or was up to something, she would easily be able to sense it through her formation!

Following this short conversation, both of them began to talk together again. The main focus being on the upcoming alchemy competition.

Fang Shi still had a few things to ask about regarding the set up for his alchemy competition and Yi Min was the only person who could help him get them done…

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Chapter 391 - Manor

Over the next hour as the sun slowly began disappearing beyond the horizon, Xuan Hao and Chi Hu spent most of their time trying out the food from the different stalls, while Qing Yi and the rest of the elders curiously looked around the Iron Sky Market to see just what had ended up making the Iron Sky Kingdom so famous inside the Sky Empire.

Even if the most precious of the spiritual metals were not sold in the market, Qing Yi and the group of elders still managed to spot several different spiritual metals of the Soul Rank. At one point, Qing Yi was even lucky enough to spot a Mystic Grade spiritual metal being sold!

The sheer amount of rare spiritual metals present in the Iron Sky Market was more than enough to cause any blacksmith to be overcome with happiness!

Thinking about this, Qing Yi could not help but recall her new junior brother Bai Ning, who was a blacksmith… Perhaps she should ask her master if he could help her buy at least a few pieces of spiritual metal when they made their way back after the competition.

"We should get going now before it gets too late…" Looking up towards the sun that was slowly beginning to disappear, Xuan Hao finished a mushroom skewer he had just bought a few seconds ago.

Hearing her master and watching as the elders began making their way towards the southern part of the capital, Qing Yi soon ran up to her master and followed him.

Getting a present for her junior brother would have to wait until after the alchemy competition. Maybe she would even be able to get some kind of spiritual metal by getting a good placing in the competition!

After all, it had to be remembered that one of the things the Iron Sky Kingdom was most famous for was spiritual metal and it would be a great reward for the young alchemist as they would be able to easily find a blacksmith to make them a cauldron with said spiritual metal after the competition had finished…

Other than the spiritual metal that was likely going to be a part of the reward, there would surely be other more suitable things for an alchemist! Namely recipes and rare spiritual herbs!

Having thought about the rewards that she would be able to get, Qing Yi looked even more forward to the alchemy competition. This chapter made its debut appearance via N0v3lB1n.

Even when they were being guided towards the manor that had been reserved for them during their stay over the duration of the alchemy competition, Qing Yi had still not finished fantasizing about what she would do with the things she won from the alchemy competition.

After all, it had to be known that the person behind the competition was someone from the Sky Empire! There was no way the rewards would be bad in any way!

As for how far she could go in the alchemy competition… Qing Yu honestly had no idea, the reason for this was the fact that other than people like her who came from the border area of the Sky Empire, there would also be people from the more central part of the Sky Empire coming to join the alchemy competition!

People like that would have had a way longer time than her to train and learn alchemy! Even if some of them had managed to reach the Expert Realm and become an Expert Alchemist, Qing Yi felt like it would not be surprising in the slightest!

This was also the reason why she had worked so hard over the past few months. Trying her best to improve as much as possible before the alchemy competition! For that reason, even if she did not manage to reach the Expert Realm and become an Expert Alchemist, Qing Yi knew that she was not too far off from it!

At the very least, she hoped that she would be able to be among to top twenty in the alchemy competition-

"We are here, this is the manor assigned to you during the alchemy competition! After the alchemy competition is finished, you can at most stay here for another week before having to pay for renting it yourself!" Interrupting Qing Yi's train of thought, the guard that had been guiding them towards the manor that was reserved for them due to taking part in the alchemy competition, said this before quickly taking his leave.

"This is the manor we are going to stay at…?" Muttering this to herself as she looked over towards the giant manor that was directly in front of her, Qing Yi could not help but feel a bit intimidated by the sheer size of the manor in question.

Just from its size alone, it was bigger than her master's pavilion back in the Flying Sword Sect!

Yet at this point in time, such a giant manor would be given to every single person that participated in the alchemy competition?

This alone easily made Qing Yi realize just how strong both the Sky Empire and the Iron Sky Kingdom was. Even the entrance to the manor in question had a small artificial mountain along with an artificial river! Thinking about the cost of such a manor, Qing Yi could not help but take a deep breath as she watched her master, and the rest of the elders just make their way inside without showing the slightest sign of caring about the giant and luxurious manor!

Master! Elders! How can you guys just treat this manor so casually! Do you know how much it would have cost to make and rent!

Thinking this as she also entered the manor, Qing Yi could not help but feel a bit saddened over how her master and the rest had reacted to such a splendid manor!

"The alchemy competition should begin in about a week, do you want to continue practicing alchemy over the last few days before the start of the competition? If you want to, I can also help you in your practice-"

"Yes! I want to practice with master!"

Hearing her master suddenly say he would help her with alchemy practice, Qing Yi completely forgot everything about the manor, as she quickly nodded her head and agreed. No matter what, she would not give up an opportunity like training with her master!

Smiling a bit upon seeing how eager his disciple had become upon hearing that he would be helping her with her alchemy practice, Xuan Hao was a little taken aback before quickly calming down.

"I see… Then how about we get some rest and begin tomorrow morning?"

"Yes! That sounds great master! I will take my leave then."

Whoosh!

Watching as Qing Yi headed towards one of the bedrooms in the manor to quickly pass the night, Xuan Hao smiled once again before shaking his head, his disciple was truly eager to begin practicing with him…

"Now, Chi Hu, Elder Gong Bo, can you two handle it from here?" Having seen Qing Yi run away to get some sleep, Xuan Hao turned towards the two senior elders as he asked this.

"Yes? Are you perhaps going somewhere Elder Xuan?" Tilting his head, a bit in confusion upon hearing Xuan Hao's question, Gong Bo did not understand why Xuan Hao was suddenly saying this.

"Yes, I plan to look a bit around the capital before the sun rises again, I really wanted to check out the eastern side of the capital that you mentioned earlier…"

"The eastern side of the capital…? Ah! The place that my friend went to find spiritual metal when the Iron Sky Market didn't have what he was looking for!"

"Yes, that's the place!"

Seeing Gong Bo show an expression of realization, Xuan Hao nodded his head in agreement.

"You have to be careful of that place! My friend warned me a few times about never going to the eastern side of the capital if I ever visited the Iron Sky Kingdom… But with your strength, I feel like there is nothing to worry about…" Smiling a bit awkwardly when he said this, Gong Bo could not really imagine what kind of danger Xuan Hao might run into in the eastern side of the capital with his strength.

After all, his friend was at the Core Formation Realm like himself and had probably warned him due to encountering something or someone dangerous who was in the Nascent Soul Realm… This was not really something that an Expert at the Domain Lord Realm would worry about!

On the other hand, it was the people inside the eastern part of the capital that should worry about accidently offending Xuan Hao…

Thinking about this, Gong Bo felt like his momentary worry about Xuan Hao was better directed towards the unfortunate people who mistook Xuan Hao for someone weak and easy to rob…

"Haha, I will make sure to be careful Elder Gong Bo!" Laughing a bit as he heard what Gong Bo said, Xuan Hao soon disappeared from the manor with a smile on his face.

If there really was someone dangerous for him in the eastern part of the capital, Xuan Hao would likely have ended up encountering the ruler of the Iron Sky Kingdom!

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Chapter 392 - Eastern Part Of The Capital

Having left the manor that, they had been given to stay in during the alchemy competition, Xuan Hao quickly made his way through the capital and soon left the southern part and soon found himself inside the Iron Sky Market located at the gate he had entered the capital through during the day.

"Hm?" Walking through the Iron Sky Market, Xuan Hao immediately noticed a stark difference in the people that were walking around compared to when the sun was still out.

The main difference was the fact that the people he had sensed earlier in the Nascent Soul Realm had left. Leaving the current strongest person inside the Iron Sky Market to be someone around the Peak of the Core Formation Realm… Not really what Xuan Hao had expected to happen to this busy market during night-time.

But from another point of view, it might have something to do with the fact that the business being done inside the Iron Sky Market currently was not really something that would interest most people just here looking for a specific spiritual metal…

Glancing over the shady looking stall selling all kinds of different not safe to consume potions and other substances, Xuan Hao could not help shaking his head.

From his knowledge, he could clearly discern the effects of the potions and other things currently being sold in the Iron Sky Market and calling them not safe was an understatement… None of the products were produced by legitimate alchemist and was instead clearly created by fake alchemist!

In turn, the products in question were extremely unsafe for anyone to consume!

Given the fact that the Iron Sky Kingdom was such a strong kingdom and enjoyed a great reputation, Xuan Hao did not expect to see any products or other things related to fake alchemists and he had at first not seen any when entering… However, from the looks of it, they came out during the night to sell their dangerous products.

Looking around, Xuan Hao spotted a few guards deciding to just ignore the whole thing as they went on with their work.

The Iron Sky Market turning into a place for fake alchemists to gather and sell their products was likely a normal and accepted occurrence from the small group of guards reaction…

"Hah…" Shaking his head as he watched this, Xuan Hao just decided to ignore it as he passed through the Iron Sky Market and headed towards the eastern part of the capital.

No matter where one went, fake alchemists could always be found doing shady stuff and selling unsafe products!

If it was in the Flying Sword Sect or Flying Sword City, Xuan Hao would have done something about it, but this was the Iron Sky Kingdom's capital. Not the Flying Sword Sect's territory! How they handled things was none of his business…

Whoosh~

With one last look over in the direction of the Iron Sky Market, Xuan Hao slowly disappeared down the mostly empty road leading down towards the eastern part of the capital.

…

The eastern part of the capital was different from the southern part and the Iron Sky Market he had seen so far and just after entering it, Xuan Hao was taken aback by the several large holes in the ground that were filled out with small houses build off the side of the large holes in the ground.

The holes were likely past mineshafts that had been transformed into places for people to live after they had outlived their use… Dive into Stories, Embrace Enchantment: NvεlB¡n.

Looking down one of the holes with extremely small and dangerous paths going from house to house, Xuan Hao could not help but feel a bit curious over what had caused people to build their houses in such dangerous locations, but he soon came to understand as the houses around him was slowly replaced with enormous storage buildings taking up most of the space.

Observing the different and well-guarded warehouses a little more closely, Xuan Hao soon realized that each of them were filled to the brim with all sorts of different spiritual metals and other more normal ores that had been brought out from one of the many mineshafts that were located around the capital.

The eastern part of the capital is where most of the spiritual metals and ores mined are stored… Are they perhaps also processed here? Maybe it happens below the surface…

Remembering how the ores and other spiritual metals he had seen before entering the capital being moved through underground tunnels, Xuan Hao thought that it would be reasonable for the Iron Sky Kingdom to have some sort of large underground facility where all the ores and different spiritual metals they mined were processed before being stored in different warehouses across the capital, with the eastern part being the main location for storage!

"They are empty…?"

Walking along a somewhat rundown road that moved deeper into the eastern part of the capital, Xuan Hao quickly came to realize that while the number of warehouses around had not decreased in the slightest and instead only increased in number. The warehouses that had anything inside of them had come to a stop as all the warehouses beyond a certain point were completely empty with nothing inside of them.

"Hm?"

Feeling curious about this, Xuan Hao soon caught the sight of a few people dressed like the guards he had seen at the gate loading up several different spiritual metals and ores inside large boxes similar to an interspatial ring, just with a way higher capacity before moving the boxes onto a small carriage that soon headed out towards the south.

Using the same road, he had been using to enter the eastern part of the capital in the first place.

The group of guards was not alone and soon, Xuan Hao discovered that the same thing was happening across many of the warehouses that covered the eastern part of the capital.

The warehouses were slowly being emptied out before the things inside were moved towards somewhere south of the eastern part of the capital…

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Chapter 393 - Storage Box!

Seeing the warehouses being emptied out, Xuan Hao just felt himself growing more curious about what was happening in the eastern side of the capital.

What were the plans of the Iron Sky Kingdom after they had finished emptying out the eastern part of the capital? And more importantly, what were those boxes similar to interspatial rings that were used for transportation and where could he get some for his sect…?

Just from seeing sheer amount of different spiritual metals and ores that the guards put inside of the boxes, Xuan Hao could easily see just how large the space inside of them were compared to an ordinary interspatial ring.

While not comparable to the one he had found in the ruin inside of the secret realm, it was not far off from it!

Using those boxes would surely help making the logistics of storing things inside the Flying Sword Sect easier and would at the same time also allow them to move larger quantities of materials over a larger distance.

Given the plans Elder Song had for increasing the Flying Sword Sect's influence and strength over its current territory over the next few years, Xuan Hao knew that he would need to move large amounts of different building materials over a large distance and the boxes being used by the guards of the Iron Sky Kingdom would be able to help out with that and make the entire thing go faster and smoother at the same time!

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

Having decided to go over and ask the closest group of guards currently in the process of transporting the things inside one of the many warehouses to another location, Xuan Hao ended up catching the small group of guards by surprise.

"Who are you?!" And causing one of them to immediately call out in a cautious tone while the rest looked ready to fight in case anything was to happen.

"Ah, I'm just someone curious! Not anyone dangerous!" Saying this as he approached the cautious guards, Xuan Hao raised his hands to show he meant them no harm.

Given the environment of the eastern part of the capital, Xuan Hao could understand why they were so on edge.

Other than the many warehouses that were tightly guarded, it seemed like the fake alchemists he had seen back in in the Iron Sky Market lived here… In turn, the eastern area was more unstable compared to the other parts of the capital.

At least it was like that from what he had seen so far during his short walk…

Even if he had not been robbed yet, it was mainly due to the fact that he had used his domain to hide himself just to avoid something like that happening to him!

"Not a cultivator…?"

Muttering this to himself as he closely observing Xuan Hao approaching them, the guard who called out to him in the first place breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing Xuan Hao's young appearance along with not being able to feel any qi present inside of him.

"What is it that you are curious about and don't you know how dangerous it is to visit the eastern area during the night?" Having 'seen through' Xuan Hao, the guard asked. No longer worried about Xuan Hao being someone who potentially came to try and rob the precious spiritual metals they were currently moving.

"I just noticed how many different things you were putting inside one of those boxes and wondered what they were… Are they perhaps something similar to an interspatial ring?" Not trying to hide what he wanted to know and discreetly ask about the boxes, Xuan Hao decided to just straight up ask them about.

From his point of view and given how little the guards did to hide the ability that the boxes had to store a lot of things inside of them like an interspatial ring, Xuan Hao did not expect that the identity of the boxes was some sort of secret only a special few had access to.

"These things? They are just normal storage boxes that had a few modifications done to them so as to allow them to store around four times more than usual… From what I know, these boxes were just recently mass produced by someone from the Explorer Union.

According to the rumours I heard, the person behind these boxes discovered a blueprint for a small formation that would allow other things than rings to be used as interspatial storage containers! The boxes here were personally requested from the Explorer Union by our king to allow us to more easily move things around and do our job!"

Finishing his long explanation, the guard patted a nearby box with a smile on his face, clearly showing how happy he was with their king's decision to get the storage boxes for transporting things around.

Xuan Hao could also easily imagine just how useful something like this was for someone in charge of moving stuff around…

Explorer Union… Looks like I will have to find a time to visit in the future and find out if I can get some of those boxes for the sect to help out Elder Song, it's the least I can do given how hard he works all the time!

"Hm?" Just as Xuan Hao had decided to get Elder Song some of the boxes to make his life easier in his mind, several different auras could suddenly be felt sneakily approaching him and the group of guards from a few hundred meters away.

What is this? Are these people perhaps here to try and steal the spiritual metals these guards are transporting?

"Thanks for the information! I was really curious about what the boxes were after having seen how you just endlessly filled them up with different metals without stopping."

Thinking about the few different people that were sneakily approaching from all directions, Xuan Hao did not act any different on the outside as he thanked the guards.

"Haha, no need to thank me, you can find out about these boxes just by asking around anywhere nowadays.. To be honest, I'm quite surprised that you didn't know about them!" Completely oblivious to the people approaching him and the rest of the guards, the guard smiled happily as he answered Xuan Hao.

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Chapter 394 - Thieves!

Whoosh!

"Who's there?!" Just as the people sneaking up on the guards had managed to get within a few dozen meters of the guards, they suddenly came rushing forward as each of the m launched an attack towards the unprepared guards.

"Argh!"

Catching them by surprise and injuring at least half of the guards that had just casually been observing Xuan Hao and the guard leader chatting while loading up the boxes in preparation to transport them.

The mood of the situation had been relaxed when the group of people suddenly appeared out of nowhere and launched an attack towards the guards!

Not having managed to fully react to the current situation unfolding in front of them, Xuan Hao watched curiously on as the guards tried their best to stop the group of people who had appeared out of nowhere to steal away the boxes filled with precious spiritual metals.

"Hurry! We need to get out!" Seemingly anxious about how long things were taking, the leader of the group that had appeared out of nowhere to steal away the boxes dashed forward. Grabbing onto one of the boxes before the rest of the group soon followed after him and disappeared into the distance with a few of the boxes already filled up with spiritual metals and other precious ores from the mines below the surface before the guards even had a chance to stop them.

The whole thing happened within only a few seconds and the group of thieves had soon completely disappeared once again. Only leaving behind a few injured and angry guards.

"Those damn- hah… We really need to catch those people before we end up losing anymore spiritual metals to them…" Stomping the ground in anger while looking the direction that the group of people had disappeared to after stealing a few boxes worth of spiritual metal, the guard leader muttered this to himself while signalling for one of the other guards to contact someone.

"Who were those people? Are they not afraid that the formation will attack them?" Xuan Hao, who had just been observing the entire thing from the side without doing anything asked curiously, as he looked over towards the angry looking guard leader.

Just a few seconds ago, he had been talking calmly with him, yet a group of people had actually dared to steal directly from the guards of the capital!

This was nothing short of offending the entire Iron Sky Kingdom. Not only that, but they had even dared to do something like that inside the capital with the formation that covered the entire capital around!

"Hm? Ah… The formation is nothing to worry about, it will only activate when someone is directly using it or if someone with at least the strength of the Nascent Soul Realm begins fighting. Anything below that is not worth activating the formation for…" Turning over towards Xuan Hao upon hearing his question, the guard leader shook his head while letting out a sigh of sadness. Ñøvl-B1n was the first platform to present this chapter.

Whether it was over the lost boxes of spiritual metal or the fact that the formation did not just pop up to deal with the people who just robbed them was unknown.

"I see… I should be taking my leave now, it's quite late already and I don't want my family to worry too much about me."

Feeling someone in the Nascent Soul Realm approaching from the southside where he had come from and at the same time feeling the group of people who had just robbed a few of the boxes filled with spiritual metals disappear into the deeper part of eastern part of the capital, Xuan Hao quickly gave a short believable excuse before taking his leave.

"Be careful on your way home! It looks like things are going to be quite chaotic tonight…"

The guard leader did not really care much about this, as he was more focused on finding out just what they had ended up losing and likely also preparing for the inevitable scolding he would end up receiving from the Nascent Soul Realm Expert heading over towards them to find out what happened.

Whoosh~

Seeing that the guards were not paying any attention to him after the short warning from the guard leader, Xuan Hao left the group of guards and headed in the direction of the group of people that had just robbed the group of guards.

The main reason for him not attacking any of them, was because he was curious about why they had dared to so blatantly steal from the Iron Sky Kingdom.

Other than that, they didn't attempt to kill any of the guards either. Only lightly injuring them to push them away from the boxes filled with spiritual metals.

"I'm really curious what these people are up to…" Muttering this to himself as he had already completely hidden himself with his domain, Xuan Hao appeared only a short distance away from the group of people who were desperately rushing towards the deeper part of the eastern area.

However, unknowingly to both Xuan Hao and the group of people who had just successfully managed steal away the spiritual metals from the Iron Sky Kingdom, a third person was currently observing everything happening in the eastern part of the capital through the formation that covered the entire capital.

Even Xuan Hao, with his cultivation base at the Fourth Stage of the Domain Lord Realm didn't notice that someone was secretly observing him through the use of the formation.

The main reason for this being that he did not dare to fully use his domain nor divine sense inside the capital. Fearing that he might? just accidently end up triggering the formation and cause it to attack him in the process… Not really something he wanted to happen…

…

"Hehe, I really wonder how things will play out… Perhaps that Domain Lord from the Flying Sword Sect would be able to help me deal with those annoying bugs once and for all?"

Smiling happily to herself as she kept an eye on Xuan Hao's figure as he entered a mineshaft leading down into the endless mining tunnels below the surface, Yi Min slowly turned her attention away from Xuan Hao and instead focused on the large stack of papers in front of her that was filled with the names of all sorts of different spiritual herbs that Fang Shi had asked her to help him get for his alchemy competition.

"What I do for friends…" Muttering this to herself as she looked over the long list of spiritual herbs in front of her, Yi Min slowly sighed to herself.

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Chapter 395 - Creepy Cave

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"Everyone, we should have escaped the guards by now, there is no way they will follow us all the way down here!"

Coming to a stop inside one of the many tunnels beneath the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom. The leader of the thieves who had stolen away a total of three boxes filled with spiritual metals smiled happily while informing the others, as the group of thieves slowly came to a stop.

A little farther away from the group, Xuan Hao also came to a stop as he curiously observed how the thieves stopped before happily beginning to go over the different spiritual metals stored inside of the three boxes that they had stolen.

This continued until they had made sure just what they had gotten away with. Among which, the most precious in the three boxes was a few dozen Soul Grade spiritual metals.

"Looks like they are finally moving again…" Seeing the group of thieves pack up the different spiritual metals that they had just taken out before continuing deeper into the abandoned mining tunnel that they currently found themselves inside of, Xuan Hao continued following closely behind them.

Given that they had not just left the abandoned mining tunnel after having already realized and even talked about how the guards would no longer be after them. Allowed Xuan Hao to at the very least confirm that they should not be working alone and indeed did have some kind of backing…

Now the only question that had yet to be answered… Who would dare backing a group of thieves stealing directly from the Iron Sky Kingdom?

After all, doing something like that would almost be the same as directly stealing from the Iron Sky Kingdom themself!

No matter how tolerant the Iron Sky Kingdom was, it would not just let people steal from them without any consequences!

Following behind the thieves as he thought about this, Xuan Hao become a bit more cautious. Given that the Iron Sky Kingdom had yet to act against these thieves, their backing was clearly not ordinary!

…

"Is it just me or is something wrong with the cave up ahead…?"

Walking along the mining tunnel for close to half an hour, one of the thieves suddenly called out to the rest as the entire suddenly came to a stop as every one of them quickly looked over to where the thief? that first called out was looking.

"What is that…"

"It's almost like the wall is alive…!"

"Maybe we should go back and find a way around it?"

Seeing the thing that had alarmed their friend, the rest of the thieves soon began shivering in both disgust and fear towards the thing in question. Most of them immediately suggesting for them to find another way around the cave in front of them.

"Some sort of living creature in the shape of a wall?" Looking over towards the thing that had caught the thieves off guard, Xuan Hao tilted his head slightly to the side as he tried comprehending just what the thing in front of him and the thieves was.

Wiggle~

"Ah! Let's get out of here and find a way around the cave!" Caught by surprise as part of what could only be describe as a wall of flesh and blood began wiggling weirdly, the leader of the thieves immediately agreed with the other thieves that going around the cave in front of them was most likely a good idea…

Rumble~

Crash!

Just as the group had decided to turn around and find a way around the weird cave screaming that something nefarious was going on inside, the path behind them suddenly began shaking violently before the ceiling of the mining tunnel came crashing down. Blocking their path back.

"W-what should we do now boss…? We are at least a few hundred meters underground, and we will likely not be able to dig ourselves out even if we tried…" As the rest of the thieves still had a hard time comprehending what had just happened in front of them, the thief? who had first spotted the weird living flesh wall that existed inside the cave in front of them asked the leader of the thieves in a clearly scared voice.

Not that anyone could fault him… The weird squirming and wriggling wall of flesh was simply way too creepy and unnatural. Even if they had lived for quite a long time, this was the first time the thieves had ever encountered such a weird situation.

"I-I think we will have to make our way through the cave…" Unwilling to even say it, the leader of the thieves barely managed to utter these words as the faces of each and every one of the thieves darkened visibly.

None of them wanted to enter the cave in front of them after seeing the small fleshly part of the wall that likely covered the entire inside of the cave…

"Boss… We can try to do dig our way out, with our combined strength, we should be able to make our way-"

Bang!

"…"

Just as one of the other thieves suggested that they tried digging their way out through the collapsed tunnel behind them, a loud sound could be heard in the distance as what was likely another part of the tunnel collapsing behind them.

"Let's make our way through the cave, I don't think we have any other way out…"

Hearing another part of the tunnel collapsing behind them, the leader of the thieves sighed to himself. Knowing that they likely would not have any other way to go than through the creepy cave in front of them…

…

"Looks like it worked!" This chapter made its debut appearance via N0v3lB1n.

A little behind the group of thieves close to the rubble that blocked the now collapsed mining tunnel leading back to the mining shaft that they had entered through; Xuan Hao smiled a bit to himself upon seeing that he had been successful in forcing the thief? group inside the weird cave in front of him.

Compared to the scared thieves who were all around the Core Formation Realm, Xuan Hao was not afraid of what might be lurking inside the creepy cave.

The main reason that he had decided to force them through it was so that he would be able to better investigate the creepy cave himself, without losing track of the thieves in the process!

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Chapter 396 - A Lot Of Tentacles

"Looks like the rest of the cave is also like that…" Muttering this to himself as he entered the cave first, the leader of the thieves could almost not stop himself from running back out upon seeing that the weird living flesh wall that could barely be seen by them at the entrance, did indeed cover everything inside the cave.

From the ceiling to the floor. Everything inside the cave was covered by a weird wriggling fleshly mass.

"Hm?"

Stepping down on it, the leader of the thieves felt his foot almost sinking into the fleshly mass.

Standing still on the weird fleshly mass that covered the cave was not an option, he did not really feel like finding out what it was like to sink into the fleshly mass that covered the floor of the cave…

"Let's get going! The faster we get through the cave, the faster we will be able to leave this place!" Glancing back at the other thieves fearfully looking over towards him, the leader of the thieves put on a brave face before entering the cave.

""…""

Seeing their leader enter the cave without any fear on his face nor anything happening to him, the rest of the thieves soon build up their courage before entering the creepy cave. Following after their brave leader, as the group of thieves began making their way through the creepy cave.

"Looks like we were panicking too much earlier…"

"Indeed, we should be able to make our way through it within five or so minutes. At that point we should reach a mineshaft and make our ways back up to the surface again!"

With everyone having made their way inside the cave, the thieves slowly began calming down after seeing that the cave, albeit being a bit weird, was not dangerous.

Different from the group of thieves who had concluded that the weird and creepy cave was harmless, Xuan Hao following behind the thieves was not of the same opinion as he focused on a small line running through the centre of the cave.

The more he looked at the line, the more he felt that something was wrong…

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

To make sure that he didn't end up allowing whatever creature the cave was to discover him, Xuan Hao no longer walked after entering the cave and instead decided to float just above the floor of the cave.

…

The journey through the cave continued on, with the group of thieves remaining on guard in case anything happened, while Xuan Hao tried to analyse what the weird fleshly mass that covered everything in the cave was in the first place.

At first, he had thought it was the inside of a trap created by some weird underground creature, with the small line running through the centre acting as the mouth that would open up and swallow the people or demon beasts making their way through the 'cave'.

But this idea was quickly dispelled after Xuan Hao tried to investigate the line along with the rest of the cave through his domain.

No matter how hard he tried, he could not figure out just what it was, but at the very least, he was sure that it was not some sort of underground demon beast waiting for them to go deeper before opening up and swallowing all the thieves in one gulp.

Other than that, Xuan Hao also found out that the formation that covered the capital did not reach far into the ground like he had first expected. Different from when he had first encountered the formation while trying to find out where the different ores and spiritual metals went to be processed just a few hours earlier.

Maybe the formation only covered parts of the tunnels and cave under the capital? Not covering the already abandoned areas underground like the cave he and the thief? group currently found themselves inside of… Or maybe it had something to do with the cave itself-

"Hm? Something is moving up ahead…" Narrowing his eyes as he focused on the exit to the cave that was located just a few dozen meters in front of the group of thieves in front of him, Xuan Hao watched a large number of small tentacles sneakily slither over across the floor of the cave towards the leader of the thieves walking at the front.

"Haha, the exit is just up ahead! Looks like we worried about this creepy cave for nothing!" Ignorant of the tentacle heading over in his direction from the cave exit, the leader of the thieves smiled happily as he informed the rest of the thieves.

Even if nothing dangerous had happened to them after entering the cave. The walls and floor of the cave made out of some sort of flesh wiggling from time to time along with a few drops of blood dripping down on them every now and then from the ceiling.

The thieves were not calm at all, so when they heard about finally being able to leave, a few of the thieves began rushing towards the exit. Overtaking their leader along the way.

"Finally! I can get out of this damn place! I never want to get anywhere near this cave again!"

"This place is simple too terrifying! Boss, I will wait for you at the top!"

"Last to the top will have to buy spirit wine for the rest!"

Whoosh!

"Ha…? These cowards…"

Looking at the other thieves rushing to leave the cave after finding out that the exit was just in front of them, the leader of the thieves could not sigh to himself while saying this.

Whoosh!

But his words did not dictate what he felt himself, as he also began rushing towards the exit after seeing the others already doing so.

Among the group of thieves. Only the three carrying the three boxes filled with spiritual metal were not rushing towards the exit of the cave at full speed. Having to instead be careful that they did not end up dropping the boxes on the weird floor below their feet, while making their way over towards the exit like the rest of the thieves.

"Hm?"

Tilting his head with some confusion on his face, Xuan Hao watched as the thieves rushed past the small tentacles without them attacking.

For some reason, the small tentacles that had begun moving towards the thieves had stopped moving after they began rushing towards the exit.

Even when some of the thieves directly stepped on them, they remained completely unmoving almost looking like they were a part of the weird wiggling mass of flesh that made up the floor of the creepy and weird cave.

Seeing this, Xuan Hao felt curious about what the tentacles were up to and where they had even come from in the first place, as he quietly flew after the thieves making their way out of the cave.

…

"W-what is that thing!?" The first reaction of the thief? that who had rushed out of the cave before the others, was not one of elation, but one of terror as he screamed loudly. Catching the rest of the thieves by surprise before they also came out of the cave and saw just what had shocked their friend.

The thing in front of them was nothing short of something out of a nightmare, as a weird mass of flesh in the shape of a giant cocoon could be seen wriggling at the bottom of the mineshaft that the cave led to. Located right in the middle of it.

Not only that, but there were countless both big and small tentacles all around the cocoon, a few which had people wrapped up.

From a distance, even someone without any cultivation would be able to feel how the life was slowly draining away from the people who had unfortunately been wrapped up by one of the countless tentacles, as the tentacles dropped a few of the people who had been completely drained.

""…""

The thieves along with their leader froze completely in front of the cocoon in the middle of the mineshaft. Not knowing what to do.

"L-let's get out of here…" Not knowing just how much he had begun shaking after seeing the cocoon located at the bottom of the mineshaft, the leader of the thieves suggested to the rest before the group slowly and quietly began making their way up from the mineshaft. Trying to make as little sound as possible along the way.

For some reason, the tentacles below did not seem to register the fact that the thieves were there, as they just continued sucking out what little life remained inside the people that had been caught by them.

This, however, changed when Xuan Hao came out of the cave and appeared inside the mineshaft…

"They… Can see me?"

Noticing how all the tentacles suddenly seemed to freeze up before moving towards the cocoon and taking up a defensive stance after he appeared, Xuan Hao narrowed his eyes before focusing on the cocoon at the bottom of the mineshaft. Not even questioning how the tentacles could even 'see' in the first place…

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Chapter 397 - Tentacle Cocoon's Special Ability!

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"It looks like they can indeed see me…" Closely observing the tentacles around the cocoon, Xuan Hao could not help but wonder how the tentacles had managed to find him only when he had left the cave connected to the mineshaft.

The tentacles are connected to the cocoon… Perhaps the reason they spotted me has to do with the cocoon?

Thinking this to himself, while observing the cocoon and seeing that each and every single one of the tentacles were connected to it, Xuan Hao guessed that the reason the tentacles had managed to spot him. Even when he had used his domain to conceal himself, had something to do with the cocoon located at the bottom of the mineshaft.

Looking at it like this, the countless tentacles that filled out the bottom of the mineshaft were part of the giant cocoon located down there…

Gazing directly at the giant cocoon, Xuan Hao used his divine sense to probe it and see if he could find out what kind of creature it was and what was hidden inside of the giant cocoon.

"Hm?" As his divine sense descended down upon the giant cocoon, Xuan Hao easily pierced through the outer shell made of flesh and saw the inside of the cocoon.

"Nothing?"

Indeed, there was nothing inside of the cocoon. Just an empty space the size of a small house…

Perhaps its deceiving my divine sense into thinking that there is nothing inside? No… If that was the case, why would it show me that there is nothing inside the cocoon? That would only cause me to doubt what I'm seeing…

Lost in thought as he tried figuring out what kind of creature the weird cocoon with countless tentacles was, Xuan Hao soon shook his head. Giving up trying to figure out just what kind of creature it was.

"The thieves have already left the mineshaft… I should be able to deal with this thing before they run too far…" Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao descended down towards the cocoon at the bottom of the mineshaft. Dive into Stories, Embrace Enchantment: NvεlB¡n.

In the first place, he had never planned to just leave something like that alone. From the fact that it was latterly draining the life out of a few people before absorbing it for itself, Xuan Hao had already realized that whatever creature the cocoon was, it was not kind in the slightest.

More importantly, it reminded him quite a bit about the life draining technique he had seen the person from the Black Rose Sect use back when he went to Bright Sun City together with Qing Yi for a youth competition between the young people of Bright Sun City.

Maybe the Black Rose Sect's demonic skills were related to this creature in some way?

Thinking about this, Xuan Hao really wanted to find out just where the weird tentacle cocoon had come from…

Wriggle~

Feeling Xuan Hao slowly coming descending down towards it, the tentacles at the bottom of the mineshaft slowly began growing restless as a large part of them began wrapping around the cocoon for protection.

"Well… Let's see how strong you are!"

Whoosh!

Having his qi take on the shape of a sword, Xuan Hao directly brandished the newly created sword before slashing down towards the tentacle cocoon just below. Making sure not to use too much strength in case he ended up alerting the Domain Lord of the Iron Sky Kingdom.

The main reason for this, was because he had no idea if the one behind the tentacle cocoon was the Domain Lord of the Iron Sky Kingdom, while he did not know why the formation that protected the entire capital did not seem to be present around the weird tentacle cocoon, Xuan Hao felt that it could be something that the ruler of the Iron Sky Kingdom had arrange and preferred being on the careful side.

After all, the tentacle cocoon could not move and was stuck at the bottom of an abandoned mineshaft…

From the fact that it had clearly been devouring the life of at least a dozen or so people when he arrived together with the thief group, Xuan Hao realized that someone had likely been feeding the tentacle cocoon!

At this point, Xuan Hao was just hoping that the effects of the battle between him and the tentacle cocoon would be limited within the mineshaft. Not leaking out into the capital where people and more importantly, the Domain Lord of the Iron Sky Kingdom, would notice-

Swish!

Watching as his attack slashed through the tentacles blocking his its path towards the cocoon with ease before hitting the cocoon without losing any power, Xuan Hao was even more surprised after seeing how easily it went through the cocoon itself.

"Something is wrong…" Seeing how easily things went, Xuan Hao closely observed the tentacle cocoon and just as he watched his attack slash through the bottom part of the tentacle cocoon, Xuan Hao felt a profound sense of danger as his sword attack went moved towards a thin layer of the cocoon that covered the entire bottom part of it.

Only when he focused on it, did he manage to realize that the layer was even there! But he could still not see just what that layer was, as it completely blocked his divine sense from fully seeing it.

BOOM!

Knowing that something was wrong, Xuan Hao rapidly began retreating out of the abandoned mineshaft and just as he made his way out the moment his attack slashed through the small layer at the bottom of the tentacle cocoon.

Instantly killing the weird tentacle cocoon and at the same time causing whatever was hidden inside small layer to activate.

BOOM!

Rumble~

Without even a single second to spare, a terrifying explosion occurred inside of the abandoned mineshaft.

Not only that, but the explosion did not stop there as it violently moved upwards and directly caused the formation around the capital to active.

Whoosh!

Along with the activation of the formation, Xuan Hao was left speechless as he watched the explosion that had more than enough strength to gravely wound him, be supressed within a few seconds before everything calmed down.

The only thing left to remind anyone of what had just happened, was the now collapsed abandoned mineshaft…

"Just what in the world happened…" Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao could not help but try and comprehend just what had happened.

The attack he had used against the tentacle cocoon, could only be considered a normal attack of someone in the early stages of the Domain Lord Realm…

From the fact that the tentacle cocoon had managed to spot him, Xuan Hao had expected for it to have also reached the Domain Lord Realm and be able to block his attack. Allowing him to gauge its strength…

But looking over towards the collapsed mineshaft where the tentacle cocoon had violently exploded just seconds ago, Xuan Hao could not help but rethink his earlier thoughts about the tentacle cocoon's strength.

More so than the weak strength of the tentacle cocoon, Xuan Hao was more surprised by the explosion that it had caused after he killed it. If not for the fact that the tentacle cocoon was located inside the mineshaft and he had managed to retreat in time, Xuan Hao was sure that he would have ended up getting gravely injured by the explosion!

Not only that, given the strength of the explosion a large part of the Iron Sky Kingdom's capital would likely have ended up being affected before the formation could activate by itself to supress it…

"I should get out of here before the Domain Lord from the Iron Sky Kingdom comes…" Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao quickly left and made his way over towards the thieves he had been following before fighting with the tentacle cocoon.

...

"What in the world is happening? Are we under attack!?"

"The guardian formation laid down by the king activated!"

"Did you guys hear that giant explosion earlier!? Do you think someone is attacking us?"

At the same time Xuan Hao was running away from the scene of the crime, the people inside the capital were all surprised at the large explosion followed by the guardian formation of the Iron Sky Kingdom activating.

Some panicking over potentially being caught in the middle of a fight against Domain Lords, while others tried to find out what happened .

Soon the formation began disappearing, as it became invisible to the naked eye once again.

The capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom was by no means a safe haven without any dangers, but it was still among one of the more peaceful places in the Sky Empire due to the fact that the formation deterred anyone at the Nascent Soul Realm from fighting.

Along with the guards that patrolled most of the capital outside parts of the eastern area, it was a safe place to live. Even for someone without any cultivation realm.

The explosion earlier was far from normal and had immediately caused everyone inside the capital to ask about it.. In the end, the ones who suffered the most were the guards, as the people curious about the explosion all swarmed towards any guards they spotted. Asking them about the earlier explosion…

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Chapter 398 - Scaring The Thieves~

Boom!

"W-what was that?!"

At the same time Xuan Hao had managed to kill off the tentacle cocoon in the mineshaft, the group of thieves had only managed to get a few hundred meters away from the mineshaft when the explosion suddenly occurred behind them. Catching all of them by surprise, as the thieves carrying the boxes filled with spiritual metals directly dropped them as they hid behind a few nearby rocks.

Following the large explosion, the thieves all glanced back towards the mineshaft they had been inside of just a few seconds ago.

Whoosh!

Seeing the explosion heading up into the sky with a tremendous force, the thieves all felt a shiver run down their spine.

If they were ever hit by such a terrifying explosion…

All the thieves could not help but shiver upon reaching this thought. The explosion was simply too terrifying and watching how the formation around the capital had needed at least a few seconds to deal with it, they knew that the strength of the explosion should have reached the Domain Lord Realm!

Realizing just how dangerous their current situation was, the leader of the thieves quickly woke up from the dazed state he and the rest of the thieves had found themselves in before anxiously yelling at the rest of the group to wake them up from their dazed state.

"We need to leave this place quickly!"

Along with their leader's loud voice, the rest of the thieves soon recovered from their dazed state as well before the entire group began running away from the now collapsed mineshaft at full speed.

Not daring to stay around and wait for the guards and possibly higher echelons of the Iron Sky Kingdom to show up to investigate just what had happened.

Even if they were curious about what had happened inside the mineshaft, their life was way more important than finding out the origin of the explosion! There was also the fact that they all still very clearly remembered the tentacle cocoon that they had seen inside the mineshaft… Who knew if that thing was still there?

…

Having finished off the tentacle cocoon and managed to get out of the way before it had exploded, Xuan Hao wasted no time waiting around before he managed to catch up with the thief group once again.

The formation that he could not feel back in the mineshaft had appeared around him once again, causing Xuan Hao to wonder if the tentacle cocoon really had an ability that could hide an area around itself from the formation that guarded the capital.

Thinking back, the space around the tentacle cocoon was completely cut off from the effect of the formation… Even when he had used his divine sense without restricting it, the formation had not registered anything!

"No use thinking about it, there is no way I can investigate it now that the tentacle cocoon is already dead…" Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao turned his attention back onto the thieves running at a speed close to someone at the Nascent Soul Realm in front of him.

The group of thieves moved even faster compared to when they had been escaping the guards. Truly, they had been too scared by the earlier explosion…

Grinning a bit to himself upon realizing that he had ended up scaring the thieves that much with the earlier explosion, Xuan Hao decided to mess a bit more with them along the way.

…

Whoosh~

"Argh! W-who is it?!"

"Quiet! There is no one other than us out here!"

"But-"

"No buts! How many times is this now? There is no one out there, its just because you are on edge after the earlier encounter with that weird tentacle creature and the explosion!" N0v3lTr0ve served as the original host for this chapter's release on N0v3l--B1n.

Watching the thieves quarrel once again, Xuan Hao chuckled quietly to himself as he prepared to throw a small pebble towards one of the thieves carrying one of the three boxes with spiritual metal.

Following the thieves, Xuan Hao had decided to scare them a bit by throwing a few pebbles at them every now and then. Using his domain to cloak the pebble and make it invisible, Xuan Hao made sure the thieves didn't notice anything.

This limited use of his domain was not enough to trigger the formation around the capital, so Xuan Hao had happily continued scaring the thieves for the last one hour.

Even if it took them a little longer to travel this way, at the very least it was entertaining for him…

"We are here!"

Just as the pebble in his hand was about to fly out towards the unlucky target he had chosen, Xuan Hao's hand came to a stop upon hearing what the leader of the thieves said before he turned his attention away from his lucky target and looked at the place that the leader of the thieves had stopped.

In front of a small rundown house leaning up against the large wall surrounding the entire capital, Xuan Hao watched as the thief? leader began cautiously looking around the large empty space all around the small run-down building.

Well… Empty space would be an overstatement, it would be better to call the surrounding space the ruins of what had once been an active mineshaft that now laid abandoned after all the precious metals below had been mined out, or a bigger mineshaft opened up nearby…

The houses that had once been occupied by the miners laid completely empty, as the only house still standing, was the rundown house that the thief? leader had come to a stop in front of.

Looking more closely, the rundown could only barely support itself due to the fact that it had been leaning up against the large city wall for support.

"Everyone, let's go!" Having surveyed his surroundings for a few minutes, the thief? leader turned towards the rest of the thieves as he informed them before entering the rundown house.

Seeing this, Xuan Hao waited until all the thieves had entered before slowly following behind them into the rundown house himself.

"This is…" Entering the rundown house, Xuan Hao was surprised upon seeing the thieves orderly squeezing out through a small crack in the wall.

The crack was just barely enough for the thieves to get through and push the boxes out with them, but this was not what had surprised Xuan Hao.

Instead, it was the fact that there was a crack in the wall of the capital that the thieves could use to get in and out without going through any of the gates that were tightly guarded by the guards and soldiers of the Iron Sky Kingdom!

Not only that, but the wall of the capital was clearly part of the formation that engulfed and protected the entire capital…

For there to be a crack in the wall, meant that the foundation of the formation had been damaged! There was no way that the Domain Lord of the Iron Sky Kingdom would not notice something like this!

Looking more closely at the crack that the thieves were squeezing through, Xuan Hao noticed a small row of runes flowing alongside the crack of the wall.

"Hm… Looks like things are not that simple…" Taking a closer look, Xuan Hao realized that the runes flowing along the crack in the wall seemed to have isolated the crack and made it disappear in the eyes of the formation.

It was like the runes were falsely relaying information through the formation and ensuring that the person using the formation would not be able to discover that there was something wrong with it.

Before the formation was utilized to its full potential, the damage to the foundation would not show up…

Thinking this far, Xuan Hao could clearly see that something was very wrong inside the Iron Sky Kingdom.

Remembering how the border guard had warned him and the others, Xuan Hao could not help but realize that the warning likely had something to do with the damage to the formation around the capital.

Someone is preparing to attack the Iron Sky Kingdom…

This was the only thing that he could come up with after putting the few clues he had gathered so far together. Now the only question that remained, was who?

Not to mention that the ruler of the Iron Sky Kingdom was someone at the Peak of the Domain Lord Realm, who would be brave enough and have the power to attack one of the most important kingdoms inside the Sky Empire?

Other than having to deal with the powerful ruler of the Iron Sky Kingdom, they would still need to do it before the Sky Empire had time to respond and send people over.

Given the importance of the Iron Sky Kingdom, Xuan Hao did not doubt that an attack towards it might even cause one of the Soul Ascension Realm Experts to show up!

After all, losing a Peak Domain Lord along with one of the most important locations for the production of spiritual metal was not something any empire would want.

Even if they could take the area back, it would take years to restart production again and the loss of a Peak Domain Lord would not recover within just a few years…

"Hah… No use thinking about all of this…" Sighing to himself as he thought about all of this, Xuan Hao watched the last of the thieves leave the capital through the crack in the wall and quickly followed after them.

This time around, being more careful than he had been before…

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Chapter 399 - Caught Red-handed

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Coming out on the other side of the wall and the foliage it was hidden behind, Xuan Hao was met with the same scene of countless different sized mineshafts surrounding the capital that he had seen before entering the capital itself.

Large numbers of people could even be seen going back and forth between different mineshafts along the wall of the capital. Making it difficult for him to spot the thieves he had been following after without using his divine sense.

If not for the fact that he could lock onto the group of thieves with his divine sense, Xuan Hao doubted that he would have been able to keep track of the thieves given just how many people were walking around just outside the walls of the capital.

Though he did wonder why there were so many people walking along the wall of the capital…

"Hm, I think I understand why…" Looking up towards the wall of the capital, Xuan Hao saw a few soldiers patrolling back and forth while keeping a close eye on the people below.

The reason why so many people chose to walk close to the wall of the capital was likely because it was safer with the soldiers on the wall keeping an eye on them from above.

After all, who would want to try and start any trouble when directly being watched by the soldiers of the Iron Sky Kingdom? Other than that, it was also in the middle of the night where crime tended to be higher…

Thinking about this for a short moment, Xuan Hao did not stay still for long before he followed after the group of thieves making their way towards an area away from the capital where they could relax without having to worry about being caught by the guards or soldiers of the Iron Sky Kingdom.

…

"Hah… We are finally back…" Letting out a breath of relief upon seeing the entrance to their base in the distance, the thief? leader could not be any happier. The earlier encounter with the tentacle cocoon. Followed by the large explosion and constant complaining from the other thieves screaming about someone throwing something at them along the way.

All of this was in the past. Now all he needed to do before he could relax again was to deliver the spiritual metals! Dive into Stories, Embrace Enchantment: NvεlB¡n.

After he had delivered the spiritual metals, he would take a few weeks off from stealing anymore and just try to relax! Given that things had grown so chaotic inside of the capital. Even to the point that the formation had activated, the thief? leader did not see any reason why his superior would refuse his request to take a few weeks off before things calmed down again.

After all, no matter what, sending people in during a time where the capital was chaotic was simply stupid. Times like that, would also be times where the Iron Sky Kingdom was the most cautious and kept an eye on everything happening inside the capital.

Stealing anything during such a time would be close to impossible, as the guards around the city would likely have someone at the Nascent Soul Realm keeping an eye on them to ensure their safety and at the same time make sure that they could act in case something happened again.

"Boss! Should we go over the spiritual metals before entering?" Just as the thief? leader was thinking about his upcoming vacation, one of the other thieves carrying one of the three boxes filled with spiritual metal walked up and asked him.

"Sure, we need to make sure that we report the correct number and what kind of spiritual metals we got…" Not paying too much attention to what his underling said, the thief? leader just waved him aside and allowed him to go over the spiritual metals inside the boxes again.

It was not anything unusual and it was a rather normal thing to go over the things inside more than one time to ensure that no one had stolen anything along the way for themselves.

Going over the things inside before entering the base was also crucial, as reporting an incorrect number would not result in anything good for them…

Worst case scenario, they would be forced to enter the capital again to get another batch of spiritual metals before they would be allowed to get a break! Not something any of the thieves wanted to happen given what they had experienced over the past few hours.

Especially given that the entire capital was on full alert after the large explosion that had happened only a little over one hour ago. Stealing anything during such a time would be close to impossible…

"B-boss…"

"Hm? What is it? Are you already done going through the spiritual metals?" Hearing the underling from earlier call out to him, the thief? leader looked over at him. Not understanding how he had been able to go over the spiritual metals so quickly… It had only been a few seconds since he had asked him to go over them in the first place!

"N-no… Something is missing…"

"WHAT!? What's missing!?" Hearing his underling nervously say that something was missing, the thief? leader no longer looked as calm as he had before. Going from his former relaxed expression that was looking forward to taking a few weeks off, into one filled with anger.

After all, the only way something could have gone missing, was if someone among them had taken some of the spiritual metals for themselves!

"The Soul Rank spiritual metals…"

"…"

Not knowing what to say upon hearing what was missing, the leader of the thieves tried his best to not beat up the underling in front of him.

The Soul Rank spiritual metals were the most precious thing that they had managed to steal! If they were missing, his chances of being able to take a few weeks off, would likely disappear and he would end up being forced to enter the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom during a time where the guard's strength and numbers had increased!

"Who is it!? Who was the one carrying the box with the Soul Rank spiritual metals!?" Thinking about how he might have to go back into the capital again, the thief? leader looked towards the three people carrying the boxes with killing intent present in his eyes.

Having them take a few of the lower rank spiritual metals was not a problem, but he had to get his underlings to spit those Soul Rank spiritual metals back out!

They were the only reason he had been so confident that he would be able to get a few weeks off to relax during the time that the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom had increased guards and patrols!

"B-boss… It was me… But I didn't take any of them! You can check my interspatial ring and the rest of my body-" Anxiously stepping forward, one of the underlings answered his boss and even before he could finish talking, he already felt his boss violently rip the interspatial ring on his finger ring off before proceeding to forcibly searching it.

"Nothing…" Having found nothing inside it, the leader of the thieves soon began searching the entire body of the thief? that had been carrying the box with the Soul Rank spiritual metals. Only to find out that he had nothing on him.

"All of you, give me your interspatial rings and come here to be searched!"

""…""

Seeing their boss's angry appearance, the other thieves all went up one by one as everyone except one of the thieves had been personally searched by the leader of the thieves.

"Now there is only you left… Anything to say for yourself?" Seeing that only one of the thieves were left to be searched, the leader's killing intent once again flared up as he asked the last thief? who had been avoiding coming over to show his interspatial ring.

"B-boss, it was not me! I swear!"

"Then why won't you show me your interspatial ring…?"

"I-I…"

Not knowing what to say the thief? looked like he was about to run away when the leader of the thieves suddenly appeared beside him and forcefully pried the interspatial ring off him before emptying everything inside on the ground in front of him.

"Don't!" Even with the scream from the thief, the leader of the thieves did not care in the slightest as he began looking through the things that had been inside his underling's interspatial ring.

"W-what is this?!" Finding none of the spiritual metals he had been looking for, the leader of the thieves was just about to give up searching through the belongings of his underling when he spotted something familiar out of the corner of his eyes.

But it was not the spiritual metals he had been looking for. Instead…

"Is this not my wife's…?"

Looking at the all too familiar pair of underwear inside the pile of things stored inside his underlings interspatial ring, the leader of the thieves suddenly froze on the spot before an unbearable killing intent began washing over all the thieves. Mainly focused towards the thief? who had been caught with something he should not have…

"YOU! HOW DARE YOU!"

Chapter 400 - Sneaking In~

"YOU! HOW DARE YOU!"

Watching the scene of the raging leader of the thieves beat up one of his underlings, Xuan Hao smiled a bit embarrassedly.

After all, the one who had stolen the Soul Rank spiritual metals was him, he had done it at the time that they had gone through the things they had managed to steal away. Not expecting them to look inside any of three boxes before reaching their base.

Well… He was not wrong, as they had indeed reached the base. Even if he was discovered now, he already found their base…

Whoosh~

Not bothering to stay behind and watch the drama that was currently unfolding between the leader of the thieves, and another thief, Xuan Hao directly moved past the group of thieves before reaching the entrance to the base located just a few meters away from the place that the thieves had decided to stop and look through the boxes before entering the base.

Even this late at night, the mineshaft around the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom were still in full swing as the miners worked without rest. The base itself was nothing much on the outside, just a small building located next to a busy mineshaft brimming with activity.

Looking at it from a distance, the small building looked out of place in the area around the busy mineshaft.

The only thing that made it stand out was the fact that a dozen or so people surrounded the entire building. Guarding it from anyone getting too curious about what was inside the seemingly ordinary building.

Given the fact that the people surrounding the building to guard could all be seen wearing the guard uniforms of the Iron Sky Kingdom's capital. The miners going back and forth did not question why they were there and merely believed that the small building was a meeting place, where some of their higher ups in charge of the different mineshafts would come to discuss how things were going.

Going over what kind of metals they had managed to mine out over a certain period of time and how they could improve their efficiency and the safety of the people working down in the mines.

This idea was not too out of place. After all, in the area around the capital, there were several such buildings that were used for precisely this!

Most of them having been built as a place for the higher ups of the Iron Sky Kingdom a place to stay when inspecting the different mineshaft leading down into the large underground network of tunnels below the surface of the Iron Sky Kingdom.

Whoosh~

Ignoring the people standing guard in front of the building, Xuan Hao directly entered without any problem.

Other than the guards standing outside who were all around the middle to late stages of the Core Formation Realm, Xuan Hao was not the least surprised upon discovering someone in the early stages of the Nascent Soul Realm upon entering the building.

Looking around the inside of the small building, Xuan Hao suddenly found himself stuck as he saw the Nascent Soul Realm Expert in question sitting quietly on top of a trap door leading downwards into what he presumed to be the core part of the base.

The problem now, was how he could enter without letting the Nascent Soul Realm Expert find out?

After all, compared to someone in the Core Formation Realm, someone in the Nascent Soul Realm had already developed their own divine sense and were way more observant of what was happening around themselves.

While he could indeed hide from a Nascent Soul Realm Expert with his domain, Xuan Hao doubted he would be able to enter through the trapdoor that the Nascent Soul Realm Expert was sitting on top of without alerting said Nascent Soul Realm Expert…

Maybe I should just wait for the thieves to come...?

Thinking this, Xuan Hao quickly used his divine sense to check up on the thieves a few dozen meters away from the small building.

"…"

However, what he saw did not look promising in the slightest as the leader of the thieves was in the process of beating up his underling.

At some point during the beating, a few of the thieves had also gone through the belongings of said thief and had managed to uncover a small diary with several plans on how he was going to runaway together with the leader of the thief's wife after they had gotten back to the base…

At this point, all of the thieves had already come to believe that it was indeed the last thief currently being beaten up that had stolen the Soul Rank spiritual metals. Wanting to runaway and needing something to sell for some spirit stones to make life easier…

In the end, the rest of the thieves had to intervene so that their boss did not end up beating him to death before he showed them where he had hidden the Soul Rank spiritual metals.

The thief being beaten up of course had no idea where the spiritual metals were, but the rest of the thieves didn't bother listening to his words. Just making sure that their boss didn't end up beating him to death.

Rustle~

Just as Xuan Hao was about to settle down and try to wait until the group of thieves showed up. The Nascent Soul Realm Expert sitting on top of the trapdoor leading down towards what he suspected to be the real base opened his eyes as he glanced towards the direction of the group of thieves with an annoyed expression on his face.

"Hah… Those damn things are making quite a mess out there… Don't they know that they should keep things quite to not have too much attention on this location?" Listening to the Nascent Soul Realm Expert muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao happily watched him stand up before walking out of the small building with an increasingly more annoyed expression with each passing second.

The Nascent Soul Realm Expert coming out from the small building instantly caught the eyes of some of the thieves, while Xuan Hao used this opportunity to sneak through the trapdoor leading down into the base below.

Breaking a small seal on the trapdoor in the process.

Whoosh!

Using his domain to isolate the small seal that had been destroyed as he opened up the trapdoor, Xuan Hao could not help but curse a bit to himself.

The seal was likely part of an alarm system set up and it was quite well made. Even he only barely managed to notice it after he had already triggered it.

At the very least, he had managed to directly freeze the seal with his ice domain and prevent it from alerting those inside the base… But this was only a matter of time, when the Nascent Soul Realm Expert from above returned back to the trapdoor and noticed that the seal was frozen over, the entire base would know someone had entered… This chapter made its debut appearance via N0v3lB1n.

Sneaking a peak at what was happening a few dozen meters from the building after the arrival of the Nascent Soul Realm Expert, Xuan Hao smiled happily to himself upon seeing how the thieves were all complaining about the stolen Soul Rank spiritual metal. Helping him keep the Nascent Soul Realm Expert distracted.

I should at least have a few minutes before he returns back and finds out someone entered…

Calculating how much time he would have before he was discovered, Xuan Hao didn't bother going slowly, as he instantly made his way through the tunnel under the small building heading downwards at a close to ninety-degree angle.

As for just killing off or knocking out the Nascent Soul Realm Expert along with the rest of the people guarding the small building?

Xuan Hao did not dare to do it in case some other seals like the one at the trapdoor was placed on them and he would be too slow to stop them from activating and alerting the people below that something was wrong at the entrance.

For the matter of only having a few minutes, to Xuan Hao, this would be more than enough time to reach the base and find out who it belonged to before they ever had a chance to destroy anything that would help him find out.

The main reason for his confidence in this regard, was simply because he was someone in the Domain Lord Realm. Even if there was someone in the Domain Lord Realm waiting in the base, he should be more than capable of keeping himself safe.

Other than that, Domain Lords were not just a common day expert and if there really was a Domain Lord present, he should be able to easily find out which power he or she belonged to!

Fighting was not what he had come for anyway. The main reason he had showed up was to find out who it was that was stealing from the Iron Sky Kingdom and given what he had seen so far, might even be the one planning to attack the Iron Sky Kingdom!

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Chapter 401 - Breaking In Through The Front Door

Making his way through the tunnel at a speed that would easily allow him to disappear in the eyes of people, Xuan Hao arrived at the true entrance of the base that was located beneath the small house within only a few seconds.

"Hm… Looks like that's the entrance to the base…" Coming to a stop just as the tunnel around him had expanded from only being a tunnel only a few meters tall, to being a cave least a few dozen meters tall expanding in all directions.

Not only that, but there were several other tunnels similar to the one he had used, connecting to the underground cave he now found himself inside of. Likely leading towards other similar entrances like the one he had entered through.

Just looking at the number of tunnels alone numbering above ten, Xuan Hao could easily imagine the strength of the power that existed here if? every single entrance had someone at the Nascent Soul Realm guarding it!

With this in mind, Xuan Hao cautiously inspected his surroundings before focusing all his attention on a large metal gate made out of spiritual metal located only a few hundred meters away from him.

Just the size of the gate alone was more than enough to amaze anyone seeing it. Not only for its sheer size being able to directly block anyone from moving deeper into the cave where the base was likely located, but also because the spiritual metal used in its construction was at the very least Soul Rank Spiritual Metal!

From a distance, Xuan Hao could even sense that traces of Mystic Grade Spiritual Metal had been used in its construction to strengthen the giant gate even further!

The gate was not only built to hold off against people in the Nascent Soul Realm, but would also have the ability to delay someone in the Domain Lord Realm for a short moment…

Looking over at the gate, two guards that could be seen closely observing the tunnel, both of them having reached the Nascent Soul Realm.

"Should I just try to break through?" Muttering this to himself as he looked over at the gate, Xuan Hao had already tried to find a way around the gate, like digging into the side of the cave and directly bypassing the gate altogether…

But after closely inspecting with his divine sense, he realized that the gate was not only a gate, but also acting as a core for a large formation that enveloped the deeper part of the cave!

The formation connected back to the gate in front of him and without breaking through it, he would have no way enter the deeper part of the cave.

Ignoring the two guards at the gate, breaking through the gate would be his only way of entering the base in the short term and he did not really have time on his side…

Whoosh!

With this in mind, Xuan Hao didn't bother wasting any more time trying to think up a way to sneakily enter the base and directly dashed towards the base while condensing the strength of both his cultivation base and two domains inside a large transparent silver palm that-

BOOM! Dive into Stories, Embrace Enchantment: NvεlB¡n.

Directly smashed into the gate, causing several cracks to form in the gate, while at the same time causing the two unfortunate Nascent Soul Realm Experts standing guard to be hit by the shockwave of the attack. Instantly sending both of them flying into the nearby cave wall. Their conditions unknown.

"Indeed, a strong gate…" Looking at the gate that had managed to hold up even after he had used the Earth Rank Technique, God's Palm, Xuan Hao could not help but feel amazed at the defensive powers of the gate.

Even if he had only used an Earth Rank Technique, God's Palm was not a technique that could be underestimated in the slightest!

The reason why it had ended up becoming popular across the entire Ewaria Continent was because its ability in allowing someone to merge all of one's power into a simple palm attack!

The stronger the user, the stronger the palm would become! While it was indeed a useful technique for fighting people below one's own realm, its weakness became obvious when fighting someone at the same realm.

The technique was indeed strong, but it cost a massive amount of energy compared to other techniques and at the same time, the attack was extremely slow! Only improving in speed after every breakthrough into a new major realm, where the newly acquired speed was once again useless against someone in that realm…

Swish~

Not bothering to stand around waiting for the people behind the gate to react, Xuan Hao switched to using his sword domain, as a sword manifested in his right hand before he slashed down towards the gate that was already in the process of falling apart.

After being hit by the giant palm attack, the gate could no longer stand up any longer, as the sword attack managed to directly slash through it. Cutting the gate in half and destroying the formation connected to it at the same time.

Bang!

As the gate fell to the ground, the large cracks that had formed from the first attack grew even larger before the two halves of the gate shattered into several smaller pieces on the ground.

"Wha-"

A person standing on the other side of the gate covered in a dark robe with his hand raised into the air like he was about to knock on the gate had a confused look on his face upon seeing the gate suddenly cracking before being slashed in half in front of him.

The entire thing took no time at all and in the eyes of the robbed man about to knock on the gate, all of it had happened during the time that he even manged to move his hand a few centimeters forward to knock on gate!

Whoosh~

Not bothering to pay any attention to the person who had appeared on the other side of the gate, Xuan Hao dared not waste any time, as he rushed through the now empty place where the gate had been just a few seconds ago.

"WHO!?"

Just as he entered the underground base located, a loud roar could be heard from the deeper part of the cave before a terrifying aura even stronger than his own could be felt erupting with a fear inspiring domain following closely behind.

Just from the presence alone, Xuan Hao knew that the other person would not be someone that he would be getting along with…

Whoosh!

Ignoring the question from the voice, Xuan Hao fully unleashed the strength of his ice domain to counter the terrifying aura erupting from the deeper part of the cave, as everyone and everything around him instantly froze in place.

The few unfortunate people caught up in his domain suffered similarly as they were all turned into ice statues on the spot. Not even getting a chance to react before they died a quick and cold death.

Boom!

The clash between the two domains instantly caused the cave to shake violently as it showed signs of collapsing.

Without the gate and the formation to help keep it intact, there was no way a normal cave would be able to endure the terrifying energy waves from two domains clashing with each other for more than a few seconds!

"HOW DARE YOU!"

Sensing how bad the current situation was, the voice from the deeper part of the base immediately began dedicating part of his strength towards making sure that the cave didn't suddenly collapse and kill off all the people and ruin everything inside the base.

From the domain alone, Xuan Hao could not find any similarities to the domains of the Domain Lords that he had read about in a book detailing the domains of the different Domain Lords inside the Sky Empire!

The book itself was not that hard to get his hands on, as it was apparently available for the Flying Sword Sect to easily buy for a few spirit stones through the Explorer Union even before he had reached the Domain Lord Realm.

From the book, Xuan Hao guessed that the Domain Lord should either be a new Domain Lord or someone not from the Sky Empire and given the fact that he was above the Fourth Stage of the Domain Lord Realm, Xuan Hao highly doubted he was a new Domain Lord…

At the same time, he could also not rule out the possibility that the Domain Lord was someone with more than one domain like himself!

Whoosh~

Ignoring the angry words coming from the deeper part of the cave, Xuan Hao smiled to himself as he began searching through the cave for anything that would help him figure out what power the Domain Lord in the deeper part of the cave belonged to.

Even if he could not pinpoint where the Domain Lord was from, he should still be able to find something inside the cave that would help him find out…

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Chapter 402 - Stealing Documents

Searching through the base with his divine sense, Xuan Hao soon smiled brightly as he discovered a small building with several different documents gathered stacked on top of each other located just a few dozen meters outside the area covered by his domain.

The only problem, was that the documents were part of the area covered by the domain of the Domain Lord in the deeper part of the cave… If he wanted to get his hands on the documents gathered inside the small building, he would have to break through the domain of the Domain Lord he was currently in the process of confronting.

The fight itself had not yet truly evolved into a real fight between Domain Lords and given that the Domain Lord was still hiding away in the deeper part of the cave. Only using his domain to fight with him over a distance, Xuan Hao guessed that the Domain Lord had no plan to reveal himself.

Thinking a bit about this, Xuan Hao felt like the Domain Lord inside the deeper parts of the cave should be waiting for someone to come and help him out… If this really was the case, the people aiming for the Iron Sky Kingdom was a lot stronger.

Having to fight one person in the Domain Lord Realm was different from having to fight two people in the Domain Lord Realm! Even Xuan Hao had no idea if he could do something like that and he didn't know how strong the person coming to help out would be either.

"Staying here for too long and getting my way out blocked, is not a good idea…" Muttering this to himself as he glanced over towards the deeper part of the cave, Xuan Hao didn't hesitate about making a move towards the small building filled with documents likely able to help him figure out what power the base belonged to in the first place.

Given that the person hidden in the deeper part of the cave did not look like he would be moving out before his backup arrived, Xuan Hao didn't bother with the clash between his and the hidden Domain Lord's domain any longer.

Whoosh~

Rushing towards the small building, Xuan Hao used his ice domain to carve a path directly through the hidden Domain Lord's domain towards the small building before the other party had even managed to react to the sudden change, Xuan Hao had already managed to store most of the documents inside the small building. Stuffing them into his interspatial ring without caring too much if he accidently damaged them in the process.

"Wha-"

The voice coming out from the Domain Lord hidden in the deeper part of the cave sounded out in a confused tone, as the person in question did not understand what Xuan Hao was doing and just watched speechlessly as he rushed forward.

"STOP!" Only after seeing all the documents inside the small building disappear into Xuan Hao's interspatial ring did he realize what he wanted to do.

However, by the point that the Domain Lord hidden inside the deeper part of the cave realized what Xuan Hao was doing, Xuan Hao had already begun retreating as he hastily made his way towards one of the many exits of the underground cave.

Not wanting to stay around when the backup of the Domain Lord hidden away inside the base showed up…

The Domain Lord in the deeper part of the cave seemed to want to rush out after him, but for some reason, still didn't come out to chase after him and instead stayed behind in the deeper part of the cave.

Seeing this, Xuan Hao could not help but feel curious about just what it was that the Domain Lord was guarding in the deeper part of the cave with so much determination.

Even when he had taken away so many documents that probably had a lot of information regarding the goals of the underground base, the Domain Lord still didn't chase after him and try to prevent him from leaving. Instead staying behind to defend something in the deeper part of the cave…

"Hm?" Just as he was about to make his way back out of the same tunnel he had entered through, the system suddenly decided to issue him a new quest.

[Side Quest 1/2: Explore the deeper part of the cave.]

[Reward: Unlock next part of the quest]

Checking out the quest as he had come to a stop at the entrance to the tunnel leading out of the underground cave, Xuan Hao felt a bit speechless.

He had just finished up inside the underground base and was on his way out, but the system had suddenly decided to issue him a new side quest that asked him to go back in…?

Other than that, the quest was a two-part side quest, and he wouldn't get anything from just completing the first part of the quest… At the very least, it looked like he would only get a reward after completing both the second and last part of the quest…

Boom!

Just as Xuan Hao was thinking about whether or not he should try entering the deeper part of the cave where the Domain Lord was hidden for the side quest, a terrifying aura could be felt rapidly approaching towards his direction from one of the other tunnels.

This aura alone was far stronger than the aura of the Domain Lord hidden inside the deeper part of the cave! The person approaching, should be the reinforcements that the Domain Lord inside the deeper parts of the cave had been waiting for, as Xuan Hao felt a drastic change happening inside the deeper part of the cave before a shadowy figure could be seen rushing over towards him filled with killing intent.

The Domain Lord in the deeper part of the cave no longer stood still as he made his way over to hopefully team up and deal with Xuan Hao before he could escape.

Whoosh!

Not wanting to be caught in a battle with two strong Domain Lords at once, Xuan Hao no longer thought about his new side quest and turned around before using his full speed to rush out from the underground cave before the two Domain Lords could join up and prevent him from leaving.

The entire thing happened within an instant and by the time Xuan Hao had made his way back up through the tunnel, the Nascent Soul Realm Expert guarding the trapdoor leading down into the tunnel beneath had not even returned and could be seen scolding the thief leader and the other thieves a few dozen meters away from the small building. Still unaware of just what had happened within the past few minutes.

Bang!

As he reached the trapdoor, Xuan Hao didn't bother hiding himself in the slightest, as he directly broke through the trapdoor leading up to the surface before rushing back towards the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom.

"W-what is happening!?"

"Intruder!"

"Get ready to fight!"

By the time that the Nascent Soul Realm Expert and the guards reacted to the sound of the trapdoor being destroyed along with a new hole that had formed at the top from Xuan Hao directly rushing to the sky before flying in the direction of the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom, the person responsible was already long gone.

"Everyone, return to the base! Something happened and we will have to move forward faster than expected!"

A short moment later, a solemn voice filled with a dense killing intent echoed out from the tunnel entrance. Instantly causing both confused and curious people standing around the small building wondering just what had happened to freeze up.

"We will follow the command of the Lord!" As everyone else froze up, the Nascent Soul Realm Expert barely managed to respond under the terrifying pressure that had suddenly appeared around all of them.

Whoosh~

After the Nascent Soul Realm Expert spoke up, the pressure around the guards of the building and the thieves disappeared as all of them suddenly felt like they had escaped from the grasp of death. Dive into Stories, Embrace Enchantment: NvεlB¡n.

"Looks like you guys got lucky today… We will be returning to the base after cleaning up the surrounding area!" Narrowing his eyes as he said this to the group of thieves, the Nascent Soul Realm Expert no longer paid any attention to them before he began cleaning up the inside of the building along with fixing the trapdoor and hole in the wall.

As this was happening, the group of thieves had yet to make a single sound. Scared that if they said anything out of line, they would be killed.

Scolding from the Nascent Soul Realm Expert was one thing, the aura of death they had felt earlier was something completely different! Even the Nascent Soul Realm Expert that had seemed so fierce earlier, was nothing more than a helpless chicken without any way to resist in front of the terrifying aura that followed the scary voice.

All the thieves knew very well that something major had happened and the thief leader knew that his vacation would most likely not come any time soon…

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Chapter 403 - Back To The Manor

"That was close…" Looking back towards the place where the entrance to the underground tunnel was located, Xuan Hao could not help but mutter to himself, he only wanted to find out who had been planning to deal with the Iron Sky Kingdom as it might end up affecting him now that he, his disciple and a few of the elders from his sect were staying during the competition.

To be honest, Xuan Hao didn't really expect to encounter someone in the Domain Lord Realm. Not to mention encounter two people in the Domain Lord Realm! One of them being around the same realm as himself, while the other should be above the Fourth Stage of the Domain Lord Realm…

By how much, Xuan Hao would not know without fighting the person first. At the very least, he did not want to end up fighting against both Domain Lords at the same time.

Whoosh~

Thinking about this as he made his way back through the crack in the capital wall without being seen, Xuan Hao soon decided to make his way back to the manor before the sun came back up again and his dear first disciple, Qing Yi, came to ask him for help with her alchemy.

However, before all of that, he wanted to go through the documents he had gotten his hands on and see if he could find out who the underground base belonged to and maybe even find out who the two Domain Lords were…

…

"Elder Xuan? Did you check out the eastern part of the capital?" Arriving back at the manor that had been allocated for them to stay at during the alchemy competition, Xuan Hao happened to bump into Chi Hu sitting down on a stone bench at the small garden located in front of the manor.

"Yes… How come you are out here?" Not asking how Chi Hu had managed to guess where he went, Xuan Hao was instead more curious about why Chi Hu was sitting outside in the middle of the night just staring up at the dark sky above.

"No reason, I was just thinking about a few things… You know, this isn't really my first time inside the core territory of the Sky Empire. The Iron Sky Kingdom is just so different from the kingdom I visited back then…" Sighing a bit to himself before standing up from the stone bench, Chi Hu looked over towards Xuan Hao who had just appeared at the entrance of the small garden in front of the manor.

"Not your first time? I guess you were a wandering cultivator before I got you to join the sect… Did you perhaps manage to visit the capital city of the Sky Empire in the past?" Hearing Chi Hu talk about having visited the core territory of the Sky Empire, Xuan Hao could not help growing excited.

After all, he really wanted to find out about the Sky Empire and more importantly than that, the capital of the Sky Empire where at the very least one of the two Soul Ascension Realm Experts of the Sky Empire would be staying. N0v3lTr0ve served as the original host for this chapter's release on N0v3l--B1n.

Even in the records kept by the Flying Sword Sect, Xuan Hao had not managed to find anything written about the capital of the Sky Empire.

He could find records of the different Domain Lords that lived in the Sky Empire and their domain, but he couldn't find anything about the capital?

This alone had been more than enough to cause Xuan Hao's curiosity about the capital of the Sky Empire to grow the more he managed to see of the Sky Empire outside of just the kingdoms located around the Flying Sword Sect that were no stronger than the past Heavenly Sky Kingdom.

"The capital of the Sky Empire?"

"Yes, have you visited in the past or perhaps know anything about it?" Ignoring the clearly confused look that had appeared on Chi Hu's face after hearing Xuan Hao's random question, Xuan Hao continued to ask him.

"Hm… I have never really managed to visit the capital of the Sky Empire. After all, it's simply located way too far away from here and given that my cultivation realm was only at the Core Formation Realm at the time, it might have ended up taking me my entire lifespan to reach the capital… Not to mention how dangerous it would be to travel through strong kingdoms with Domain Lords ruling them and plenty of people in the Nascent Soul Realm!" Shaking his head as he said this, Chi Hu soon put on a thoughtful look.

"I see… I forgot just how far away the capital of the Sky Empire truly is. Even with my cultivation realm, it would take weeks if not months to reach…" A little disappointed after hearing that Chi Hu had not visited the capital of the Sky Empire, Xuan Hao shook his head. Not intending to blame Chi Hu for not being able to satiate his curiosity.

"But… I have heard a bit about it from a fellow wandering cultivator that I once travelled together with for a few months, I really do wonder how that guy is doing now… From what he last told me; he should be somewhere in the core territory of the Sky Empire currently. Given how young he was compared to me, he should not be anywhere near passing away from old age like I was…"

Turning a little reminiscent towards the end, Chi Hu soon let out a sigh before continuing.

"From what he told me; the capital of the Sky Empire is not like any city he had seen before. Easily being large enough to cover the same space as an entire kingdom! Not only that, but several different independent spaces or secret realms have been set up over the years by both the Imperial Family and the different that exist inside the capital city.

The only other thing he told me, was that the capital is split up into two sides. One being the ruling family and the other being the different religious orders… Outside of that, I know nothing more about the capital of the Sky Empire."

"No problem at all, I still have something to do, so I will get going first. Thanks for helping me understand a bit more about the capital of the Sky Empire!"

Having listened attentively to what Chi Hu said, Xuan Hao talked with Chi Hu for a few more minutes before heading back into the manor, he still had to go through the documents he had stolen earlier before the sun rose and he would have to teach Qing Yi…

…

"No name or any location of other bases…" Having made his way into the manor and found himself an isolated room to look through the documents he had stolen from the underground base, Xuan Hao was a bit disappointed upon realizing that there was nothing about the name of the organisation that the underground base belonged to nor was there anything about any other bases.

Even finding out who the two Domain Lords he had encountered down there, was not possible through the documents he had stolen…

But at least there is some information about their plans regarding the Iron Sky Kingdom!

Thinking this to himself as he looked through the documents, Xuan Hao soon sorted the large quantity of documents into the two piles, the one for documents with useful information and the one for documents without any useful information.

The majority of which ended up being useless documents filled with information about small missions like the one the group of thieves he had followed were on to gather spiritual metal through stealing it from the Iron Sky Kingdom.

The useful information he managed to gather on the other hand, was more than enough to help him understand that an attack on the Iron Sky Kingdom would not be happening any time soon!

The documents themselves were mostly made up of different request for materials made between the underground base and what he assumed to be the headquarters of the power that the underground base belonged to.

In those requests, Xuan Hao was clearly able to make out the fact that the people planning to attack the Iron Sky Kingdom were still not finished preparing and would not be attacking the Iron Sky Kingdom any time soon.

By the point that the attack happened, Xuan Hao and the rest of the people who came together with him would have long since left the Iron Sky Kingdom!

Thinking a bit more about it, Xuan Hao also felt that it would not be a good idea for the enemy of the Iron Sky Kingdom to attack when an Artisan Alchemist from the Sky Empire was present…

After all, there was no way an Artisan Alchemist would just visit the Iron Sky Kingdom without any form of protection!

The most obvious of which would be a set of powerful talismans imbued with the power of a powerful cultivator from the capital of the Sky Empire!

There was even a chance that the Alchemist had managed to get his hands on a talisman created by one of the two Soul Ascension Realm Experts… No matter what, attacking the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom now was not a good idea for the enemies of the Iron Sky Kingdom.

For this reason, Xuan Hao began relaxing as he used his sword domain to get rid of the documents, he had stolen from the underground base.

At the very least, if the Iron Sky Kingdom was attacked, it would be after the alchemy competition had finished. Not something he personally needed to worry about!

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Chapter 404 - Start Of Alchemy Practice And Nervous Yi Min

As the last few hours of the night passed with Xuan Hao preparing to teach his first disciple Qing Yi alchemy, the first rays of light passed through the windows leading into the room, that he by this point had transformed into an alchemy room. Having everything that he or Qing Yi would need to practice alchemy!

Other than that, Xuan Hao had also managed to get his hand on a few different spiritual herbs that they could use for practice by asking a few of the elders from the Alchemy Hall that had come together with them.

One thing was for certain, if he ever found himself in need of any spiritual herbs in the future, just asking an elder from the Alchemy Hall would be more than enough to get him a few.

How they even managed to carry around such a large number of spiritual herbs without an interspatial ring, Xuan Hao had no clue, but at the very least it had been a good thing for him, as he did not need to go out and buy any spiritual herbs for his practice sessions with Qing Yi…

"Talking about alchemy practice, looks like Qing Yi just got up…" Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao left his room and headed over towards the room where Qing Yi was staying inside the manor.

Knock kncok~

"Who…?" Hearing someone knock on her door just when she had woken up, Qing Yi looked around her room in confused state before quickly putting on a new set of clothes before walking over to the door.

"Master…? Master!" Opening the door to her room, Qing Yi tilted her head in confusion when she saw her master standing there like he was waiting for her, it was only after a few second of staring at him for a few seconds that she remembered how she would be training together with her master from today onwards. All the way until the start of the alchemy competition in a week.

"Are you going to teach me alchemy now!?" Feeling herself grow excited upon thinking about her master teaching her, Qing Yi could not help but ask as she looked up at Xuan Hao with an increasingly excited expression on her face.

After all, from what she knew, her master should be a really skilled alchemist. Far better than the elders of the alchemy hall that she had learned from so far!

"Yes! Let's go to the room I prepared for us to use in the next week up until the start of the alchemy competition." Nodding his head in agreement to his excited disciple's question, Xuan Hao soon made his way towards the room he had transformed into a usable alchemy room during the last few hours.

"Yes, master!" Hearing what her master said, Qing Yi excitedly travelled behind him towards the alchemy room where they would be spending a majority of their time over the next week.

She knew very well that this might be her only chance to breakthrough and become an Expert Alchemist before the start of the alchemy competition!

Although she did not really expect herself to be able to do so. After all, the current best alchemist in the entire Flying Sword Sect was an Expert Alchemist!

If she could breakthrough and become an Expert Alchemist, she would automatically be among the best alchemists of the Flying Sword Sect after only having begun her study less than a year ago! Dive into Stories, Embrace Enchantment: NvεlB¡n.

Even if she knew how slim her chances were of becoming an Expert Alchemist, Qing Yi still hoped deep down that she would be able to become one.

The main reason for this being that she had heard from some of the elders in the Alchemy Hall, that some of the younger alchemists participating in the alchemy competition would already have reached the Expert Alchemist Realm!

For Qing Yi who deep down wanted to win the entire Alchemy competition and take the lucrative prize offered up by the Artisan Alchemist, becoming an Expert Alchemist would be a requirement!

…

At the same time Xuan Hao and Qing Yi were making their way to the newly created alchemy room, somewhere at the eastern part of the capital where a crack had been formed in the wall that Xuan Hao had followed the thieves through last night, a figure slowly appeared next to the crack in the wall.

"Looks like there is indeed something hidden here, it looks like it was a good idea for me to secretly monitor that new Domain Lord from the Flying Sword Sect, he truly helped me out a lot this time…"

The figure in question slowly revealed itself to be the current ruler of the Iron Sky Kingdom, Yi Min, who had been keeping a close eye on Xuan Hao entered the capital. At some point even being close to launching an attack towards him if not for her old friend Fang Shi stopping her.

"But how did they manage to make such a large crack in the wall without me noticing…? The crack itself is even slowly expanding with each passing second at an increasingly fast pace! If this continued for another month or so, the entire formation around the capital would likely have been completely destroyed without me even knowing it!" Saying this to herself, Yi Min could not help but shiver at just how dangerous her situation would have been if she did not discover this.

Given her cultivation realm, she could easily imagine how things would play out in case she was attacked by someone and decided to rely on her formation to protect her and the capital from damage while fighting. Only to suddenly realize that the formation she relied on for protection was gone…

The result of possibly taking a full-on attack of someone at her realm would be easy to imagine! Even if she survived, she would be way too injured to fight back at that point in time and her opponent would most likely be able to easily overwhelm her and kill her before she had the chance to escape!

Thinking about this, Yi Min felt even more thankful towards Xuan Hao. Even if he had no idea that he had ended up helping her so much, Yi Min would still remember the fact that he had ended helping her out. Knowingly or not.

"But how should I deal with this crack…? I don't want it to continue destroying the foundation I spend so long on laying down. At the same time. Dealing with this crack is likely to warn the other party that I'm aware of what is happening, likely causing them to retreat once again and bide their time like in the past…" Muttering this to herself as she realized just how hopeless she was when it came to dealing with the crack in front of her without alerting the people after her life, Yi Min ultimately decided not to deal with the crack.

In some way, this might be her only opportunity to deal with the people after her life!

Now that she had some idea on how they planned to kill her, she would be able to prepare for it!

Other than that, she also had time to secretly call over a few of her trusted friends to help her out. Given the speed at which the crack in the wall was widening, Yi Min could easily calculate that her enemy did not plan to attack anytime soon, as there would still be some time left before the formation had been damaged enough to render it useless.

"There is also finding out the origin of that weird explosion from earlier… From its strength alone, its likely another one of those peoples plans to deal with me! Just… How did they manage to isolate an area inside the capital from my formation and just how many more of those things are hidden inside the capital?" Having come up with a plan for dealing with the crack in the wall, Yi Min now focused on the other thing that Xuan Hao had managed to uncover for her.

The origin of the explosion could not be found. Even when she had searched through the wrecked mineshaft that it had been located inside of.

At this point, the origin of the explosion was the thing that worried her the most, as she had already some idea on how to deal with the crack in the wall slowly weakening her formation.

The explosion on the other hand was different, it clearly had more than enough strength to injure someone in the Domain Lord Realm and at the same time had the ability to remain hidden inside of the capital. Even her formation had been completely useless when it came to finding out about the origin of the explosion!

In the future during her fight, she might accidently end up being drawn into one of the areas where this explosive device was located and without even realizing it, she would be caught in an explosion and end up being badly wounded… Not something she ever wanted to experience!

"I have to find out just where that explosion came from!" Muttering this to herself, Yi Min glanced one last time at the crack in the wall before disappearing.

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Chapter 405 - Cloud Cover Potion

After reaching the alchemy room, the first thing Xuan Hao did was make sure everything was in order and ready to be used.

Following closely behind him inside the room, Qing Yi stood quietly by the side as she patiently watched her master go over the different tools and spiritual herbs neatly placed together in easy to access locations.

"Everything should be fine…" Having made sure that everything was in order, Xuan Hao turned his attention away from the different tools and spiritual herbs he had gathered together over the past few hours.

"Master, what are we going to be doing? Alchemy practice or maybe the more theoretical side…?" Seeing her master having gone over the different tools and spiritual herbs, Qing Yi could not hold herself back from asking.

The moment she found out her master would be personally teaching her during the week leading up to the alchemy competition, Qing Yi had been extremely excited! This could be considered the first time her master would truly be teaching her alchemy!

Even during the few months leading up to the alchemy competition before they set off. The most he had helped her in regard to alchemy, was answer a few of her questions when she came to him for help.

While this had indeed helped her a lot, it was still different compared to having her master directly teach her over a longer period of time instead of just answering the questions she might have!

"Hm… I think we should start off with this."

Whoosh~

Thinking about it for a short moment, Xuan Hao soon waved his hand and caused a piece of paper to float over in front of him before several hundred words instantly appeared on the paper.

"This is the recipe to a Pinnacle Journeyman Alchemist Potion, the ingredients required for it are all present here and the first thing we will do today, is help you brew this potion!"

Whoosh!

Along with Xuan Hao finishing his last words, the piece of paper that had now been turned into a brand-new potion recipe flew over towards Qing Yi and hovered in front of her.

"This is… Cloud Cover? What does this potion do, master?" Reading the title of the potion on the top of the piece of paper along with the long list of steps involved in making the potion, Qing Yi could not help but grow curious about the effect of the Cloud Cover Potion.

From the name alone, Qing Yi did not really have any idea what purpose the potion had and looking at the different ingredients used in making the potion only ended up making her even more confused as to what use the Cloud Cover Potion would have.

It was the first time since she had started practicing alchemy, that she had ever come across such a weird potion… Just from the ingredients alone, it looked like someone had just grabbed a handful of spiritual herbs from a bag filled with random spiritual herbs!

The potion recipe made no sense to her, and she had no clue if it would even work! How would she ever figure out what the Cloud Cover Potion that her master gave to her did when she didn't even think that following the recipe would result in her getting a potion in the first place!

"What it does…? Hm… The Cloud Cover Potion will cover the user in a thin layer of clouds, that will make one lighter and at the same time make it easier to hide among clouds…" Thinking about it for a short moment, Xuan Hao soon explained what the Cloud Cover Potion did.

In the end, this only caused Qing Yi to grow even more confused as she heard about the use of the Cloud Cover Potion.

Doubtfully turning to look back down at the recipe that her master had given her filled with spiritual herbs known for their violent effects.

Take the Death Willow Root used in the Cloud Cover Potion as an example, well known for its poisonous nature to the point that it was widely known to have caused the death of countless unfortunate cultivators who accidently consumed the spiritual root in the belief that eating a spiritual root would help increase their cultivation realm…

Qing Yi had heard about the spiritual root from one of the elders of the Alchemy Hall, who had warned her about just how dangerous a Death Willow Root was! The elder in question even told her that she had seen someone in the Core Formation Realm die after consuming a Death Willow Root!

How did such a scary spiritual root ever have anything to do with making one's body lighter and allowing one to hide among the clouds covered by a thin layer of clouds!?

"Now, should we get started? First, I will make a Cloud Cover Potion so you can see how its done. After that, I will go over any questions you have, and you will make one yourself! Of course, I will help you from the side and help correct you in case you make any mistakes." Not realizing how doubtful Qing Yi currently was about the Cloud Cover Potion even being a potion in the first place, Xuan Hao gathered the spiritual herbs needed for the potion before he began the brewing process.

Given that the potion was one he had already practiced over the past few months and the fact that it was one of the recipes he had gained through the system, Xuan Hao easily went through the process of mixing the different spiritual herbs without making any mistakes and soon enough an airy and bubbly liquid that was a pure white colour could be seen inside the cauldron Xuan Hao was using.

"Wha-?!" Seeing the entire thing happening before her, Qing Yi could not help but let out a gasp of shock at just how skilled her master was.

At first the liquid had been in a colour similar to charcoal when the first few herbs had entered the cauldron, but somehow after a few minutes under her master's skilful manipulation of the liquid inside the cauldron and the new spiritual herbs being added in at just the right time. The liquid had gone from looking like liquid charcoal, to becoming a pure white, airy and bubbly liquid!

Just looking at it, Qing Yi could not help opening her mouth in shock. Even without personally testing the pure white liquid, she could tell that the poisonous effect of the Death Willow Root and the other poisonous herbs that had been were gone.

Whoosh!

Upon seeing that the liquid inside the cauldron had turned into an airy and bubbly white liquid, Xuan Hao used his ice domain to quickly cool down the mixture before pouring it into a few empty potion bottles that he had already placed on the ground beneath the cauldron.

"And… Done!" Filling up the last potion bottle and placing it on top of the table located just beside the cauldron he had used during the brewing process, Xuan Hao turned around to see Qing Yi staring fixatedly at the potion bottles he had just filled up.

Seeing her look so intently towards the potion bottles, Xuan Hao could not help but feel a bit proud inside.

"You can just take one if you want to study the finished product before attempting to make on by yourself."

"T-thank you, master…" Shyly thanking her master as she realized that her intentions had been seen through, Qing Yi quickly hopped over towards the table and picked up one of the bottles filled with the still airy and bubbly white liquid that made up the Cloud Cover Potion.

Not wasting any time after getting her hands on one of the potion bottles, Qing Yi quickly began to observe the liquid inside of it more closely before cautiously bringing the potion bottle up to her lips.

Pwhoosh!

"Wha-what is this?!" Exclaiming in shock as she suddenly felt herself begin floating from lightly pushing against the ground beneath her as a thin layer of clouds covered her body, Qing Yi didn't know what to do as she had never felt something so bizarre before.

Even if her body was lighter, it was not to the degree that it would make it easier for her to fight. Instead, it was more like she had become too light, to the point that even exerting a slight amount of strength would cause her float away without being able to get down again in the short term.

After all, it was only people in the Domain Lord Realm that had the ability to fly… Floating might be a nice thing but given the fact that she could not control where she went, Qing Yi did not feel that the floating benefitted her in the slightest. Especially not when she was currently in the process of slowly floating towards the ceiling of the alchemy room without being able to stop herself…

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Chapter 406 - Poisonous Herbs

Floating down onto the ground again after having reached the ceiling and pushing herself gently downwards, Qing Yi cautiously tried moving around under the effect of the Cloud Cover Potion her master had made.

For the next five minutes, Qing Yi curiously tried floating around inside the alchemy room, while also trying to understand just how such poisonous spiritual herbs had ended up having such a unique effect…

"Ahh!"

After five minutes had passed, the effect of the Cloud Cover Potion conveniently ended while she was floating close to the ceiling of the alchemy room, causing Qing Yi to suddenly fall from a few meters in the air and onto a table filled with several different things beneath her.

Crash~

Landing on top of the table, Qing Yi manged to destroy a few empty glass vials and potion bottles without injuring herself in the process of landing on top of the table.

"T-the effect ran out faster than I expected…"

Hurriedly getting down from the table, Qing Yi quickly proceeded to clean up the mess of broken glass that she had ended up creating with her sudden landing.

"I will take care of it." Standing by the side, Xuan Hao did not plan to wait for Qing Yi to clean up, as he quickly waved his hand, causing a small wind to pass through the room and take care of the mess Qing Yi had created.

"Thank you, master…"

Not knowing what to say as her master had cleaned up the mess she had made, Qing Yi decided to just thank him before Turning her attention towards gathering the different spiritual herbs needed for the Cloud Cover Potion located around the alchemy room.

Placing all of them on a table beside an unused cauldron that her master had found for her during the time she was floating around the room.

Having gathered all the things required to make the Cloud Cover Potion, Qing Yi turned her attention back towards her master.

"Do you have any questions before starting?" Seeing Qing Yi stare up at him, Xuan Hao immediately knew the reason why as Qing Yi soon nodded her head.

"Yes! I'm not too sure how you prepared the poisonous spiritual plants used in the Cloud Cover Potion and I'm still not certain about the exact order that I will be adding in the different spiritual herbs to the cauldron…" Not holding back in the slightest after hearing what her master said, Qing Yi asked about the things that she had been worried about when it came to making the Cloud Cover Potion.

Not to mention the fact that she had never really dealt with any poisonous spiritual plant when making potions or pills before, Qing Yi was not sure about exactly what order she would be adding in the different spiritual herbs!

Even if she had seen her master do it already, she had not really focused too much on the order that the spiritual herbs had been added into the cauldron and the recipe given by her master had only mentioned what spiritual herbs were used! Not the order that they would be added into the cauldron!

"Hm… I will teach you how to handle the poisonous spiritual herbs used for the Cloud Cover Potion and how to prepare them. Luckily most poisonous spiritual herbs or roots in this case, are prepared in mostly the same way, so you should be able to apply what you learn from handling these few poisonous spiritual herbs to any you may encounter in the future!

For the order that the different spiritual herbs will be added into the cauldron, I purposefully left out. You will have to figure it out by yourself! Though, I will give you a little help. The stronger and more powerful herbs will go in first, while the weaker will go in last!"

Hearing? what her master said, Qing Yi first felt excited upon hearing that he would teach her how to handle and prepare poisonous spiritual herbs, but began feeling a bit afraid upon hearing that she would have to figure out the order of the different spiritual herbs by herself…

"Let's start with the weaker poisonous spiritual herbs and slowly move our way up towards the Death Willow Root… What do you say Qing Yi?"

"I'm ready master!"

Ignoring Qing Yi who was still in the process of trying to figure out the order that she would be adding in the different spiritual herbs to the cauldron, Xuan Hao interrupted her state of mind and quickly brought her back to the matter of the poisonous spiritual herbs.

Over the next few hours, Xuan Hao slowly taught Qing Yi how to prepare the four different poisonous spiritual herbs for use in alchemy. Making sure that she knew what do, so she wouldn't accidently end up poisoning herself in the future.

After having gained a lot of knowledge on different poisonous spiritual herbs through the system when he had become an Artisan Alchemist, Xuan Hao found out how truly terrifying some poisonous spiritual herbs were.

Among the Soul Grade Poisonous Spiritual Herbs that he had learned about through this knowledge, there were even a few that had the potential to infect the soul and possibly kill someone in the Domain Lord Realm!

Therefore, it was important that Qing Yi learned how to properly prepare and handle poisonous spiritual herbs before she began using them in the future.

Avoiding poisonous spiritual herbs was easy at the start, but from what Xuan Hao had learned after reading through the recipes stored inside the sect and the going over the recipes he had learned from the system. Poisonous spiritual herbs would end up becoming one of the main ingredients used throughout almost all potions and pills!

…

"Finished!" Dive into Stories, Embrace Enchantment: NvεlB¡n.

Smiling happily as she looked down on eight small piles of now prepared spiritual herbs, Qing Yi felt a bit proud when she looked over the four piles that belonged to the four poisonous spiritual herbs that the Cloud Cover Potion needed.

"Now all you have to do is figure out when the different spiritual herbs are going in."

Feeling her smile suddenly disappear when she heard those words from her master, Qing Yi could not help but look over at him with a slightly wronged expression on her face.

Did he really have to mention that already!? At least let her pat herself on the back for a bit before moving on to the next step!

"Haha, no need to look at me like that, you still have to make the Cloud Cover Potion!" Laughing a bit upon seeing the wronged expression on Qing Yi's face, Xuan Hao showed no mercy as he said this.

"I know…" Muttering this in a low voice, Qing Yi began looking over the eight different spiritual herbs she had prepared.

Her master said that the more powerful spiritual herbs should go in first, while the weaker ones would go in last…

Thinking along this line of thought, Qing Yi quickly managed to divide the herbs into four different piles. Each containing two different spiritual herbs of the same grade.

Six Mortal Grade Herbs, with a pair of two belonging to the lower, middle and peak of the Mortal Grade.

The last pair contained two Earth Grade Spiritual Herbs. One of which was the poisonous Death Willow Root!

"S-should I add them in like this?" Feeling a bit nervous as she looked down at the spiritual herbs divided into four different pairs, Qing Yi looked back over at Xuan Hao. Hoping that she would have correctly divided the spiritual herbs up.

"Yes, that's great! Do you know why each of the poisonous spiritual herbs are paired up with another spiritual herb?"

"Because it neutrali-! It neutralizes the poisonous nature of the poisonous spiritual herbs!" Listening to what her master said, Qing Yi quickly realized why the spiritual herbs would go into the cauldron at the same time!

Even if she still struggled to understand how these spiritual herbs would end up producing such a weird effect like the one the Cloud Cover Potion had. At least she had begun to understand that it had something to do with the poisonous spiritual herbs poison being neutralized, or at least that was what she believed was happening…

"Correct, I think you should be more than ready to try making a Cloud Cover Potion by now!" Observing how Qing Yi excitedly looked at him and the different neatly prepared spiritual herbs on the table, Xuan Hao stepped to the side and allowed for his disciple to begin.

Hearing the encouraging words from her master after, Qing Yi no longer felt as confused about the Cloud Cover Potion as she had at the beginning.

Instead, she began feeling confident. Confident in the fact that she would be able to make a Cloud Cover Potion herself!

Whoosh!

Beginning the process of adding in the first pair of spiritual herbs to the cauldron, Qing Yi began the most important step in the process of making any potion. The mixing process where the different spiritual herbs were blended together into a single mixture that would then end up becoming the Cloud Cover Potion!

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Chapter 407 - Qing Yi's Cloud Cover Potion And Winged Lion

Whoosh~

Along with Xuan Hao helping Qing Yi with cooling down the potion mixture after she had finished adding in the last few spiritual herbs, Qing Yi's first attempt at making a Cloud Cover Potion had officially finished!

Now all that was left for her to do was find out if the potion had come out well or she had made some sort of mistake along the way that ended up ruining the potion mixture…

"…"

Nervously inching forward as she looked over the still bubbly white and airy liquid that was a carbon copy of what her master had made, Qing Yi did not feel herself calming down in the slightest. After all, while the potion mixture looked the same, it could still have a widely different effect.

For example, if she had ended up making any sort of mistake during the preparation of the poisonous spiritual herbs, it might instead have become a deadly poison for any who consumed it…

Thinking about all of this, Qing Yi could not help but feel even more nervous as she watched how her master in her eyes, carelessly filled up an empty potion bottle with the potion mixture she had made before inspecting it for a few seconds and then swallowing the whole thing in front of her.

Even if she knew that the poison inside of the Death Willow Root and other poisonous spiritual herbs were not enough to harm her master, she still felt a bit afraid when he drank the potion mixture.

Pwoosh!

Just like it had done when she had taken the Cloud Cover Potion made by her master, Qing Yi watched as her master was covered in a thin layer of almost transparent clouds.

"Hm…"

Whoosh!

Pushing himself off the ground as he floated around the alchemy room for a bit, Xuan Hao soon stabilized himself on the ground before nodding his approvingly towards Qing Yi looking on from the side.

"I… I did it!"

Knowing that she had succeeded in making the Cloud Cover Potion, Qing Yi felt herself overcome with joy as she happily jumped into the air before quickly calming down again upon remembering the fact that her master was still present.

Having her master see her do something like that was quite embarrassing…

Wait... What about the time I floated around the room…?

Realizing just how embarrassing she had been just a few hours earlier when she had tried out the Cloud Cover Potion made by her master, Qing Yi could not help wanting to dig a hole for herself to jump into and hide away at the moment.

"Looks like it works perfectly without any weird side effects… Well done Qing Yi, you can take a break for now and get something to eat. The last few hours should have been quite hard on you, and you didn't get anything to eat before we started." Not paying any attention to the embarrassed look on Qing Yi's face, Xuan Hao instead praised her Cloud Cover Potion before allowing her to leave for a break before they would continue.

"Thank you, master! I will be taking my leave!"

Whoosh~

Taking advantage of the fact that she had been given a chance to escape, Qing Yi quickly darted out of the alchemy room. Not daring to stay behind for even a second longer in case her master realized anything wrong with her.

"How interesting… It looks like this Cloud Cover Potion should be only slightly behind the one I made…" Too busy inspecting the Cloud Cover Potion made by Qing Yi to discover how weird she was just before she rushed to leave, Xuan Hao was completely oblivious to what had just transpired.

…

Yawn~!

At the same time Xuan Hao had just finished teaching Qing Yi, back at the Flying Sword Sect, the winged lion demon beast was lazily laying on a large rock basking in the sun on top of an almost empty mountain with only a few strong pine trees growing there.

After Xuan Hao had left, the winged lion didn't feel like staying around Xuan Hao's pavilion and decided to look around the Flying Sword Sect and find a more comfortable place to sleep.

In the end, it had found a lonely mountain located inside the mountain range surrounding the Flying Sword Sect and decided to stay there to pass time.

For the winged lion, it just wanted a good place to sleep and good food to eat whenever it was hungry.

In a sense, the winged lion felt like it had benefited from following Xuan Hao back to the Flying Sword Sect…

Not only was there a lot of nice mountains with great sleeping spots on them, but there would also always be someone ready to come deliver a well-prepared meal whenever it was needed…

"Roar?" Just when the winged lion was about to call for its daily meal to be delivered, a strong presence could be felt approaching the Flying Sword Sect.

The presence in question should have at least reached the Domain Lord realm! But in the eyes of the winged lion the presence approaching was still far from being strong enough to pose any threat to it.

Whoosh!

Instead of getting ready for a fight, the winged lion just sent a warning by using its own terrifying aura to show off its strength to the approaching presence. Hoping that the person in question would leave after having felt the difference between both of them…

Roar!?

However, much to the winged lion's surprise, the presence did not slow down and instead continued approaching without showing any sign of stopping!

Feeling the presence still continue towards it, the winged lion narrowed both of its large eyes as it knew that it would not be able to get rid of the approaching person by just flexing its strength over a distance.

Swoosh~

Flapping both its large wings, the winged lion directly took off from the mountain top that it had been sleeping on top of. Heading directly towards the approaching presence.

The faster the annoying presence was dealt with, the faster it could return to the Flying Sword Sect and get to eat…

…

"Why does it rain so much today of all days?"

At the entrance of the Flying Sword City, a travelling merchant could not help but grumble to himself as he looked up at the rain the was violently pouring down in front of him.

"I should really get a carriage that can allow me to stay dry while steering in the future-"

"Papa, there is a biiiiig kitty!"

"Kitty? Where? I don't see any… And why would they be out here in such bad weather? Get inside the carriage again before you end up getting wet!" Hearing his youngest daughter call out to him from behind, the merchant quickly scolded her.

"But! There really was a biiiig kitty! It even had wings and could fly! Look it just flew away!" Not one to back down upon hearing her father's words, the young girl pointed over towards one of the mountains that were part of the mountain range surrounding the Flying Sword Sect. N0v3lTr0ve served as the original host for this chapter's release on N0v3l--B1n.

"Wings? A cat with wings!?" Hearing how insistent his daughter was, the merchant felt a bit nervous as he thought she might have seen a demon beast and turned to look at where she was pointing but saw nothing.

"Look there is not cat out there. Now get back into the carriage before you get any more wet than you already are!" Feeling a bit relived at the fact that there was no cat with wings at the place his daughter pointed, the merchant quickly got back to the fact that she was still pointing her small head out in the cold rain.

At this point, her hair had already been completely drenched like his own. Making the merchant already imagine how she will end up getting a fever the next day.

"But-"

"No but-"

Not planning to discuss with his daughter any longer, the merchant decided to call for his wife who had been taking a nap inside the carriage before the daughter was pulled back inside to get dried and warmed up.

If not for the fact that the sky was clouded, and it was raining violently. Making it hard for anyone to notice that anything was happening just above them. The merchant traveling towards the Flying Sword City would surely have been able to spot a giant winged lion demon beast and a person floating mid-air just a few hundred meters above them.

Having come to a stop, the winged lion slowly began to observe the person floating in front of it.

"What a curious demon beast, was this perhaps the one mentioned by Feng Chen?" As the winged lion demon beast was cautiously observing the person before it, the person in question was also observing the winged lion without a worry in the world.

Roar!

Roaring threateningly towards the person in front of it upon realizing that it was not being taken seriously. The winged lion fully concentrated its terrifying aura towards the person floating just in front of it.

"Ah! No need to be like this! I'm a friend of Elder Xuan!" Feeling the terrifying aura, the person floating mid-air quickly called out, causing the winged lion to stop what it was doing.

Roar?

Hearing this, the winged lion felt a bit confused as it stopped and looked more closely at the person floating in front of it.

Friend? My master had a friend who also reached the Domain Lord Realm?

"I'm Shu Yao! The current Sect Master of the Spring Flower Sect! You can ask Feng Chen if you have any doubts!" Seeing that the winged lion was still doubtful of her identity, Shu Yao revealed her identity. Not daring to drag it any longer in case the winged lion really decided to attack her.

Even if she was curious about the strength of the winged lion, she had no plan to fight it in her current situation!

After all, it had not been too long since she reached the Domain Lord Realm and she had not yet fully stabilized her cultivation base yet!

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Chapter 408 - Domain Lord Shu Yao

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Roar!

Still not fully convinced by Shu Yao, the winged lion demon beast still remained in front of Shu Yao. Preventing her from coming anywhere near the Flying Sword Sect.

"I get it… I will call for Feng Chen!"

Knowing that she could not simply get past the winged lion by saying she was friends with its master and the Flying Sword Sect, Shu Yao quickly pulled out a communication talisman before she contacted Feng Chen to come over and help her out before the winged lion demon beast in front of her grew impatient and decided to attack her.

Soon enough, the figure of Feng Chen rushed out of the Flying Sword Sect before he reached the place just below where Shu Yao and the winged lion were.

Roar…?

Seeing Feng Chen come out, the winged lion understood that Shu Yao did not lie earlier and was indeed a friend of the Flying Sword Sect and its master…

Whoosh!

Lifting the pressure that it had slowly begun applying to her again. The winged lion directly left. Flying back towards the mountain peak just above the rain clouds that it had been lazily sleeping on top of before Shu Yao showed up.

Having realized that it had wasted the time it could have spent eating or sleeping, the winged lion didn't bother waiting for Feng Chen to explain how Shu Yao was a friend of its master and the Flying Sword Sect.

Not wasting any time in contacting the disciples and elders in charge of making its meal as soon as it had returned to its sleeping spot. Making sure they understood that it needed something bigger than normal now that it had been forced to move around so much just after waking up… Ñøvl-B1n was the first platform to present this chapter.

…

Thumb!

"Took you long enough to show up…" Landing on the ground as Feng Chen came running over, Shu Yao could not help complaining to Feng Chen.

The short time between her calling for him to show up and him actually showing up was simply unbearable for her, as the winged lion demon beast clearly began to grow impatient with each passing second. Slowly increasing the pressure on her with its aura.

At first it was still bearable for her, but with time, it became harder and harder for her to remain standing in the air.

The pressure that was applied to her was not simple in any way and she had clearly felt the domain of the winged lion having merged with this pressure. Even using her own domain, she just recently comprehended, Shu Yao had no way to block the pressure of the winged lion demon beast. The difference between their strength was obvious from this alone!

"Sorry, I was busy discussing something with Elder Song and was not anywhere close to the entrance of the sect…"? Apologizing for his late arrival, Feng Chen soon focused on the fact that he had just seen Shu Yao flying. Looking closer, Feng Chen realized that her presence had completely changed compared to the past.

"You reached the Domain Lord Realm!?" Putting two and two together, Feng Chen could not help but exclaim loudly as he looked over at Shu Yao filled with disbelief.

Not only had Xuan Hao reached the Domain Lord Realm, but now Shu Yao had also broken through to the Domain Lord Realm?

"Yes, I managed to break through to the Domain Lord Realm with the help of Elder Xuan from your sect!"

Hearing the confirmation from Shu Yao that she had indeed reached the Domain Lord Realm and that it was Xuan Hao who had helped her breakthrough, Feng Chen could not help but feel a bit doubtful about his future.

Why had he not reached the Domain Lord Realm yet? Could he still remain as the Sect Master in the future when they merged together with the Spring Flower Sect given that he was only at the Peak of the Nascent Soul Realm? Up to this point, he had still not even managed to condense a pseudo domain…

With all of these things going through his head, Feng Chen suddenly remembered the purification pill Xuan Hao had given to him.

Yes! He still had the purification pill that Xuan Hao had given him, with it, he should be able to at least condense a pseudo domain of his own! At that point, he would not be too far off reaching the Domain Lord Realm himself!

Thinking about this, Feng Chen had completely forgotten about Shu Yao standing only a few meters away from him.

"Should we go into the sect?" Calling out from the side to Feng Chen who was lost in thought about how to improve his cultivation base even further, Shu Yao didn't really think too much about why Feng Chen had suddenly gone so quiet.

Mainly because she thought he had just been shocked over the fact that she had reached the Domain Lord Realm, which was true to some extent.

"Yes! Yes, let's find a place to talk! I'm sure you didn't come here just to show off the fact that you reached the Domain Lord Realm…" Throwing his thoughts of using the purification pill to the back of his mind for now, Feng Chen and Shu Yao both began making their way back towards the Flying Sword Sect.

...

"M-mom!"

The voice of a young girl could barely be heard through the rain as a certain little girl had managed to witness the entire conversation between Shu Yao and Feng Chen.

Both Shu Yao and Feng Chen of course knew that someone had been observing both of them the entire time, it was just that neither of them really cared about a little girl with no cultivation hearing them talk about the fact that Shu Yao had reached the Domain Lord Realm.

In the first place, the fact that Shu Yao had reached the Domain Lord Realm, would be public knowledge inside the Flying Sword Sect and the Spring Flower Sect's territory in the soon to be future anyways…

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Chapter 409 - Core Region Of The Ewaria Continent

"So, what is the reason you came here?" Having found a quiet place to talk inside the Flying Sword Sect, Feng Chen turned around and to ask Shu Yao.

In the first place, it should be something important, or she would just have contacted him through a communication talisman instead of showing up in person…

"The Sect Master of the Seven Fates Sect has also reached the Domain Lord Realm…"

"What…?"

"The Sect Master of the Seven Fates Sect is also a Domain Lord!"

Hearing what Shu Yao told him, Feng Chen at first thought he had heard wrong at first. After all, Shu Yao reaching the Domain Lord Realm was one thing, as she had been helped out by Xuan Hao. It was only after Shu Yao repeated herself that he finally managed to fully comprehend what she said.

Now the Sect Master of the Seven Fates Sect had also became a Domain Lord before him?

"Are you sure he reached the Domain Lord Realm?!"

"Yes, I managed to see him around the border of our territory just after I broke through myself… From talking with him, it seemed like he wanted to take over a part of the core region where the Heavenly Sky Kingdom was located before its destruction."

Frowning a bit when she said this, Shu Yao could not comprehend what the Seven Fates Sect was up to and how it would affect her sect and the Flying Sword Sect. Especially now that their Sect Master had reached the Domain Lord Realm!

Were they simply trying to expand their territory now that they had freed themselves from being suppressed by the Heavenly Sky Kingdom for so long, or was there perhaps some other reason for their expansion?

No matter what it was, it looked like they would have to keep an eye on the Seven Fates Sect in the future…

"How troublesome… It looks like I will have to inform Elder Xuan and the rest of the elders about this…"

Compared to Shu Yao who was frowning a bit when talking about the Sect Master of the Seven Fates Sect, Feng Chen looked way more troubled.

Deep down, Feng Chen hoped that the Seven Fates Sect would give up their current territory and move towards the Core Region of the Sky Empire after joining the sect alliance being set up by the Sky Empire.

This way, the Flying Sword Sect would easily be able to grow its territory without having to worry about another sect with a Domain Lord just next door.

Leaving their current territory for a new one in the Core Regions of the Sky Empire where the resources were more plentiful, was never really something Feng Chen had thought about doing. In his eyes, staying in one place and slowly growing was the way to go and the way that The Flying Sword Sect had done things in the past.

A sect would not be able to survive for thousands of years without being cautious and knowing their surroundings!

Leaving for a more resource rich territory at the Core Region of the Sky Empire might be a great idea on the surface, but one should also remember that there would be far more powerful cultivators in places like that. In turn, one would also have to face far more dangerous situations!

The Core Region of the Sky Empire was a part of the Southern Core Region of the Ewaria Continent.

The Core Region of the Ewaria Continent was split into several different regions. Each being controlled by a power comparable, if not stronger than the Sky Empire!

It was also here that the fights between these large powers would mainly take place between the different Domain Lords under them.

The Sky Empire might be able to stay safe, but the Domain Lords under them would be forced to fight to keep control of their territory from any Domain Lords from other powers that might come to attack them at any time.

This was not to say that the Sky Empire would just let the Domain Lords under them die to their enemies, they of course assisted them in making sure that their territory did not fall into the hands of their enemy.

It was just that the fights were limited to the Domain Lord Realm, so as to not end up causing too much destruction.

At least, this was what Feng Chen knew about regarding the Core Region of the Ewaria Continent and all of his knowledge was based on what little records their founder had left behind before disappearing…

All in all, while the Core Region of the Continent was filled with treasures and countless opportunities, it was also a place filled with danger. Even someone in the Domain Lord Realm could not guarantee their safety, it was after all the place where the Soul Ascension Realm Experts of the Ewaria Continent all resided!

Shivering a bit when he remembered the things that their founder had recorded about the Core Region of the Continent, Feng Chen promised himself that he would never move the Flying Sword Sect anywhere near that place.

Not only would it be dangerous for the sect as a whole, but it would also make it extremely dangerous for the disciples to travel outside the sect like they could after just reaching the Foundation Establishment Realm at the moment.

The current territory of the Flying Sword Sect, while it was still dangerous to travel for the weaker disciples, it was still far safer than any territory in the Core Region of the Sky Empire!

…

"Looks like he's deep in thought about something…" Watching Feng Chen's thoughtful expression as he was clearly deep in thought about something, Shu Yao knew that their conversation would not go anywhere for the time being, as she lazily laid down on the comfy couch she was sitting on. NvεlB¡n: Inspiring Minds, Illuminating Souls.

"I wonder what the disciples of the Flying Sword Sect are like… I never really had a chance to meet any of them before…" Muttering this to herself as she remembered the fact that their sects would be merging together soon, Shu Yao spread out her divine sense to cover the Flying Sword Sect with a curious expression on her face as she laid down on the couch.

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Chapter 410 - Future Sect Location Decided!

"Hm?" Looking over the Flying Sword Sect with her divine sense, Shu Yao quickly discovered the low number of elders present inside of the sect.

The number of elders currently present inside of the sect was less than half compared to when she had last visited the sect and even more baffling was the fact that most of them were busy with either teaching the disciples or working in one of the profession halls inside the sect.

Remembering the relaxed elders, that she had seen walking around without doing much the last time she visited, Shu Yao could not help growing curious thinking about what had happened over the past few months that had caused such a change to take place.

"Maybe it has something to do with what that Elder Song has been up to…" Muttering this to herself as she remembered how some of the elders from the Spring Flower Sect had informed her about Elder Song from the Flying Sword Sect beginning to stabilize and build up the territory of the Flying Sword Sect.

Normally, doing something like that would be normal. Especially given how much the Flying Sword Sect had grown in strength over the past few months…

But looking the current state of the Flying Sword Sect herself, Shu Yao realized that the one known as Elder Song was far more effective than she had imagined when she had first heard about him from her own elders!

"Shu Yao, what do you think we should do regarding the Seven Fates Sect…?" Having thought through what Shu Yao had told him about the Sect Master of the Seven Fates Sect reaching the Domain Lord Realm, Feng Chen decided to ask Shu Yao.

After all, as someone who had lived next to the Seven Fates Sect for a long time and interacted with them a lot more than himself and the Flying Sword Sect, Feng Chen trusted that she would have a better understanding of them compared to himself.

"Hm? I think we should just ignore them and let them do their own thing. The Seven Fates Sect was never really that bad and given that we both have Domain Lords, I doubt the Sect Master of the Seven Fates Sect would try anything…

On the other hand, I think there is a high likelihood that they will move their sect into the Core Region of the Sky Empire in the future. From what I heard over the years, it seems like the Seven Fates Sect was originally a big sect in the Core Regions of the Continent, but they encountered some kind of disaster along the way and were forced to take refuge in the borders of the Sky Empire…"

"I see…" Letting out a sigh of relief upon hearing that the Seven Fates Sect would likely be leaving for the Core Regions of the Sky Empire in the future, Feng Chen glanced over towards Shu Yao, who was still lazily laying down on the couch without showing any sign of moving.

"Is there still something else?" Asking this with a curious expression on his face, Feng Chen watched Shu Yao slowly sit back up on the couch, as she looked back at him with a serious expression on her face.

"W-what is it…?" Feeling himself begin growing nervous upon witnessing the serious expression on her face, Feng Chen could not comprehend just what had caused such a serious expression. Even when she talked about the Sect Master of the Seven Fates Sect having reached the Domain Lord Realm, she was not that serious looking!

"Have you managed to find a new sect location yet?"

"Sorry?"

"Have you found a location where we can build the new sect for when we merge? After all, both our sects are way too small to hold both of our disciples and elders currently!"

Not too certain he heard correct the first time around, Feng Chen could not help but freeze up when he realized that Shu Yao really was asking about their future sect location! For them to merge together with the Spring Flower Sect into one sect, they would first of all have to at least have a sect that could house everyone!

And currently, neither of the two sects were big enough for that…

How did I forget about that!

Panicking a bit when he saw the serious look on Shu Yao's face clearly expecting an answer, Feng Chen began going over the different locations inside both their territories, but found no place that would be fitting for them to build up a new sect.

What about the Shattered Star Peaks? Xuan Hao went there to scout out the mountain as a potential place for the new sect, I never got to ask him if he found a way for us to deal with the chaotic qi there and move our sect to the Shattered Star Peaks.

Given how large the Nine Star Peaks is, there should be more than enough space for both my sect and the Spring Flower Sect to comfortably stay at a single Star Peak…

"Wait a minute! I will have to ask Elder Xuan about something, he was the one I send out to inspect places for us to build the new sect up, so he is more knowledgeable regarding possible future sect locations!" Throwing out this very clear excuse , Feng Chen hurriedly ran out of the room as he got his hand on a high-grade communication talisman located back in his pavilion before contacting Xuan Hao.

High-grade communication talismans were expensive and in the current Flying Sword Sect, the only people who had access to them were Feng Chen!

Xuan Hao had also been given one by him before leaving for the Iron Sky Kingdom. Just so he could contact him in case anything happened… Not that he would be able to get back in time given how far away the Iron Sky Kingdom was from the Flying Sword Sect…

…

"Hm?"

Back at the Alchemy Room, Xuan Hao was going over what he should teach Qing Yi next, when he suddenly felt the communication talisman given to him by Feng Chen a few days before he left light up. Showing that someone was trying to contact him and given the fact that he only really knew about Feng Chen having a high-grade communication talisman, Xuan Hao could easily guess who was trying to contact him… Now the question became why?

"Hello? Did some something happen…?" Not in the belief that the Flying Sword Sect was in any sort of dangerous situation due to the winged lion being present there, Xuan Hao was relatively calm when he picked up the communication talisman.

"Ah… Elder Xuan… The thing is-"

Listening to Feng Chen's explanation about why he had called him, along with the fact that both Shu Yao and the Sect Master of the Seven Fates Sect had reached the Domain Lord Realm, Xuan Hao understood why Feng Chen sounded a bit anxious when talking. Ñøvl-B1n was the first platform to present this chapter.

But he wants to know if it's possible for us to set one of the Star Peaks as our future sect location…

Thinking about the chaotic qi that covered the Shattered Star Peaks, Xuan Hao knew very well that it was not currently possible for them to move to one of the Nine Star Peaks. After all, currently, the only way he had to deal with the chaotic qi and allow such a thing to happen, was the Qi Gathering Formation…

But he was still not done collecting the required materials for it yet, he still needed to find a wind and metal natural treasure of at least Mystic Grade. Not to mention the Transcendent Grade Natural Treasure that would act as the core of the formation...

"When will the construction for the new sect begin?" Not outright denying the possibility, Xuan Hao instead decided to ask Feng Chen how long there would be until they began construction at the new sect location.

"Hm… From what Elder Song has been saying, one and a half year… Maybe two years." Not knowing why, he asked this, Feng Chen still answered the question truthfully.

"One and a half year or two years' time, I should be able to gather the things needed and set up the formation in that time…

Feng Chen, you can just tell Shu Yao that the new sect location will be one of the Star Peaks. Don't worry about the chaotic qi, I have a way to deal with it!" Muttering the first part to himself as he thought about it for a short moment, Xuan Hao soon nodded his head before informing Feng Chen that they would use on of the Star Peaks as their future sect location.

"Really!? That's great! I will inform Shu Yao about!" Feeling like he had been saved from having to deal with trying to ask Shu Yao for more time to find a future sect location, Feng Chen quickly ended the conversation before rushing back to inform Shu Yao about their future sect location.

"Hm?"

On the other side, Xuan Hao had just put away the communication talisman, when the system suddenly showed signs of life again!

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Chapter 411 - Day Of The Alchemy Competition!

[Limited Time Sect Quest: Gather the rest of the natural treasures needed for the construction of the Qi Gathering Formation and set up the Qi Gathering Formation inside the Shattered Star Peaks within two years' time!]

[Time: 2 years]

[Reward: Cultivation Increase of 1 Minor Realm, ???]

Looking over the quest that he had just managed to trigger, Xuan Hao could not help smiling happily. The limited time sect quest not only hid a reward like it usually tended to do, but it would also allow him to increase his cultivation realm by one minor realm!

Even without being given a quest by the system, he would still have tried to gather the things he needed for the Qi Gathering Formation and set it up before the two years' time period was over and the construction for a new and bigger sect to house both the disciple of the Flying Sword Sect and the Spring Flower Sect started.

"Hm? Looks like Qing Yi is back already…" Pushing the new quest from the system aside as he felt his disciple coming over after having taken a quick break, Xuan Hao returned his focus back to what he would be teaching Qing Yi next.

The time limit for the sect quest was two years… He had more than enough time to look for the last three natural treasures that he needed for the Qi Gathering Formation at another time.

For now, he had to help Qing Yi prepare for the upcoming alchemy competition that was only a single week away!

Other than that, he also had to think up some different measures to deal with the alchemist from the Sky Empire in case he took an interest in his disciple and tried to take her away. No mater what, he could not let that happen!

"Master! I'm back!"

Following the voice of Qing Yi who had just returned to the alchemy room, Xuan Hao soon began teaching her again. Making sure that he covered the important areas of alchemy that she didn't learn about yet, like the preparation of poisonous spiritual herbs that he went over at the start.

Not forgetting to include some more standard alchemy to make sure she would be improving across the board during his teaching sessions.

Like this, the week leading up to the alchemy competition peacefully passed with Xuan Hao diligently teaching Qing Yi for several hours every single day.

During this time, the people scheming against the Iron Sky Kingdom seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Even the thieves coming to steal spiritual metals never returned after Xuan Hao's visit to their underground base.

The capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom was truly peaceful during this week up to the alchemy competition.

…

"We have to hurry! The alchemy competition hosted by one of the Sky Empire's Artisan Alchemist in our capital is going to start in just a few hours! All the seating spots will be gone if we arrive too late!"

"Yes, I heard that even the lord will show up personally! The Artisan Alchemist sure is powerful… Even our lord has to show up!"

"Calm down! Isn't it just an Artisan Alchemist? The Sky Empire has a lot of them… Don't forget who our lord is! How can an Artisan Alchemist compare to our lord?"

Walking along the incredibly busy streets of the Iron Sky Kingdom's capital, Xuan Hao had gone out to get some air before the start of the alchemy competition.

Listening to the conversation of a group made up of three friends, Xuan Hao could not help but notice how excited they were about the alchemy competition.

Not only them, everywhere he looked, people were excitedly talking about the upcoming alchemy competition hosted by the Artisan Alchemy from the Sky Empire!

This made Xuan Hao a bit curious, as this was the first time, he had ever really seen anyone outside of alchemist so excited when it came to alchemy.

Perhaps it was just because he had never really moved too far away from the territory of the Flying Sword Sect before? Alchemy was after all. Not really that developed back in the Flying Sword Sect. Let alone the surrounding sects and kingdoms…

Thinking this, Xuan Hao could not help shaking his head in pity.

Alchemy was incredibly valuable to cultivators, but the disciples back in the Flying Sword Sect had never really shown any profound interest in learning alchemy. This could be seen from the fact that the youngest member of the Alchemy Hall outside of Qing Yi was thirty years old!

How the Alchemy Hall even remained operating with such low numbers was an odd occurrence. The only real reason why it had remained likely had to do with the fact that cultivators could live longer than normal people…

Hopefully they would be able to spark some interest in alchemy with Qing Yi's performance during the alchemy competition.

Thinking this to himself, Xuan Hao had unknowingly ended up with the exact same idea as the elders back at the Alchemy Hall who wanted to use the alchemy competition as a way to possible recruit more disciples into the Alchemy Halls and ensure the future alchemist of the Flying Sword Sect.

"Yeah, I heard about that as well! I never expected for the Artisan Alchemist of the Sky Empire to be-"

"Hm?" Hearing something unexpected as he walked along the streets of the capital, Xuan Hao came to a stop as he carefully began listening. Unwilling to miss anything, as the thing he heard next caused him to frown.

"The Artisan Alchemist of the Sky Empire is actually at the peak of the Artisan Realm and half a step into the Master Realm…?"

This news was nothing short of terrible, as it looked like the Artisan Alchemist from the Sky Empire was way stronger than he had first expected.

The difference between an Artisan Alchemist and a Master Alchemist was like the difference between heaven and earth!

Becoming a Master Alchemist would symbolize that one had reached the peak in alchemy on the Ewaria Continent! The alchemist from the Sky Empire was only half a step away from reaching this legendary realm!

"Hah… I should be fine…" Remembering the fact that he himself could also be considered to have reached the peak of the Artisan Realm, as well as the fact that he was a Domain Lord, Xuan Hao calmed down again.

No matter what, he would never allow anyone to steal away his disciples!

If things came down to it, he could always return the favour! if the person from the Sky Empire really tried to steal his disciple, he would steal away his disciple as well!

Thinking about this, Xuan Hao could not help smiling wryly to himself.

The scene of him and that unknown Artisan Alchemist trying to steal each other's disciples away, was really an interesting thing to imagine…

"Looks like I should get going before the competition starts…" Throwing the thought of him and the unknown Artisan Alchemist stealing each other's disciples to the back of his mind, Xuan Hao left the street and returned to the manor that he, Qing Yi and the rest of the elders from the Alchemy Hall had stayed at during the past week.

…

"Hm? Why did it get cold all of a sudden? Did someone perhaps leave an open window somewhere?"

At the same time inside the palace located at the centre of the Iron Sky Kingdom's capital, Fang Shi, the Artisan Alchemist who would surely try to 'steal' Xuan Hao's disciple, shivered as he looked around himself with a confused look on his face.

"There are no windows inside an underground storage room… Master…" From the side, his disciple Cai Yu, almost facepalmed upon hearing her master's stupid question.

They were a few dozen meters underground getting the last batch of spiritual herbs for the alchemy competition… Why in the world was her master talking about someone having left a window open?

"Ah… I see… Hehe, my bad- By the way, did you find any of the Yellow Heart Spirit Leaves?" Laughing a bit awkwardly when he realized that they were indeed underground, the old man soon changed the topic towards the thing they had come down to search for.

"No, I didn't find any Yellow Heart Spirit Leaves…" Rolling her eyes at how obviously her master switched the topic away, Cai Yu did not bother dealing with him and just went along with it, she knew very well what kind of person her master was… N0v3lTr0ve served as the original host for this chapter's release on N0v3l--B1n.

"Not found… Hm… This is really bad; we haven't found any of the Purple Jewel Flower Roots either! At the very least, these things are for the final. Hopefully I will be able to come up with something different before then. Now that it looks like a few of the spiritual herbs for the pill I planned to make the semi-finalists create is not going to show up…" Frowning sadly when he said this, Fang Shi didn't notice how his disciple rolled her eyes upon hearing what he said.

Those are all Peak Spirit Grade Herbs… If you really make them create a pill using so many different Spirit Grade Herbs, I fear that not a single person in the semi-finals will make it through to the final…

Not saying her thoughts out loud, Cai Yu just silently searched through the underground storage room together with her master.

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Chapter 412 - People From The Core Region Of The Sky Empire!

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Entering the manor, Xuan Hao was met by the sight of all the elders franticly moving around the manor as they were all making sure Qing Yi was ready for the alchemy competition.

Every single one of them wanted Qing Yi to do well, as it would mean an increased popularity for the Alchemy Hall and that in turn would mean more disciples would come to join the Alchemy Hall in the future!

Whoosh~

Seeing her master appear at the entrance to the manor, Qing Yi quickly freed herself from the elders of the Alchemy Hall and ran over to meet him.

"Qing Yi! Wait!"

"Qing Yi, you still have to memorize the exotic spiritual herb codex before the alchemy competition!"

"Master! Help!" Ignoring the elders calling out to her from behind, Qing Yi quickly hid behind her master, as the elders from the Alchemy Hall soon came rushing over.

At the same time, Gong Bo and Chi Hu were standing at the side watching the entire thing play out with a wry smile on their faces.

The elders from the Alchemy Hall had gotten a little too fired up over the past few days…

The close it got to the alchemy competition, the more anxious they became thinking about how the alchemy competition would end up determining whether they would be able to get a new batch of disciples to join the Alchemy Hall.

For these elders who most of the time had no disciples to teach due to how unpopular the Alchemy Hall was. The matter of the alchemy competition was by far one of the most important things in their life ever since they had become elders.

After all, currently they were elders in name only, with no disciples to speak of under them in the Alchemy Hall. Outside of Qing Yi of course…

"All of you, calm down! If you, do it like this, you will just end up stressing her before the start of the competition."

Standing in front of Qing Yi, Xuan Hao stopped the elders from the Alchemy Hall from jumping over and dragging Qing Yi away for a few last-minute preparations.

"Y-yes…"

""…""

Looking a bit unwilling, one of the elders shyly responded while the rest of the looked away embarrassedly after they realized just how they had been acting a few moments ago.

Ah! Just looking at how Qing Yi stared at them now from behind her master was painful!

"Let's get going, it won't hurt to arrive a little earlier."

Ignoring the elders from the Alchemy Hall, Xuan Hao turned his attention back towards Qing Yi as he said this.

"Y-yes, master!" Nodding her head eagerly upon hearing her master, Qing Yi and Xuan Hao soon turned to leave the manor towards the competition ground.

"Indeed, I think Elder Xuan is correct, we should also get going."

"Good idea, Elder Gong Bo!"

Following behind Xuan Hao and Qing Yi, Gong Bo and Chi Hu, who had watched the entire thing from the side hurried out of the manor together.

""…""

Soon, only the elders from the Alchemy Hall who had been insisting on having Qing Yi stay to memorize a few more things before the start of the competition were left behind inside the manor.

"M-maybe we should get going as well…?"

Whoosh~

Without even responding to the elder who said this, the rest of the elders looked at each other before they also made their way out of the manor towards the competition ground.

"Guys…?"

The elder who was left behind looked in the direction everyone had disappeared with a slightly confused look on his face. Not really understanding clearly what had just happened.

"Wait for me!"

Whoosh!

Realizing that everyone had left him alone, the poor elder in question quickly used his cultivation base to rush after them. Not wanting to be left alone in the manor. In the first place, he had to quickly catch up with the rest. After all, without them, how would he even be able to enter the competition ground in the first place?

He was not like Elder Xuan who had a Core Elder Token for identification! All he had on him was a few random herbs that he brought along for practice and trade during his time in the Iron Sky Kingdom!

…

"Let's go before the competition starts! I heard that several young lords and ladies from the various large powers of the Sky Empire joined!"

"Really!? Let's get going!"

The alchemy competition being hosted in the Iron Sky Kingdom was not only a place for smaller sects to show off and gain recognition but was also a gathering for the young genius alchemist across the Sky Empire.

While it was not comparable to an alchemy competition hosted in the capital of the Sky Empire by one of their Master Alchemists, it was not too far off the mark. After all, the person hosting the competition was incredibly close to reaching the Master Realm and would likely end up becoming one of the few Master Realm Alchemist in the Sky Empire in the future!

No matter what, this was an opportunity for the younger alchemist to become the disciple of such an amazing alchemist. Even if the Iron Sky Kingdom was at the borders of the Core Region of the Sky Empire, a few of the young people joining the competition spared no expense to make the journey.

Because of this, several different flying ships could be seen landing around the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom on the day that the competition started as the young people coming from the Core Region of the Sky Empire coming to join the competition showed up.

Compared to most of the other participants, like Qing Yi, who had to travel over a long distance for serval weeks if not months to reach the Iron Sky Kingdom, these people could get there within a few days of travel through the use of a flying ship! Ñøvl-B1n was the first platform to present this chapter.

"I really wish I could have a flying ship myself in the future… Travel would be so much easier if that was the case…"

"Dream on! Do you know how expensive they are!? Not only that, but they also consume a large amount of spirit stones just to function in the first place!"

Looking over at the many flying ships that had arrived in the air around the capital, the people coming from outside the Core Region could not help but look over filled with envy.

If they just had a flying ship of their own, travelling to the Iron Sky Kingdom would have been much easier and less dangerous!

After all, compared to Xuan Hao's group, they did not have anyone in the Domain Lord Realm to protect them if they were attacked. Not to mention the people who couldn't even get their hands on flying demon beasts and were forced to travel on foot…

Soon enough, everyone participating in the alchemy competition had arrived at the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom as they made their way towards the place that the competition would be hosted.

Of course, there were some unlucky people who didn't make it in time for the competition and the even more unfortunate ones who died on the journey to the Iron Sky Kingdom…

…

"Looks quite a lot of young ones showed up today, I wonder if I can find a new disciple among them…" Looking down at the large crowd of both spectators and participants moving towards the area where the competition was going to be hosted, the old alchemist Fang Shi felt himself grow excited as he began looking forward to the performance of the young alchemist.

"Yeah, there are indeed quite a few interesting ones among the participants. Hm? Not that guy… Master, it looks like the Crown Prince of the Dark Sky Kingdom showed up as well… Do you think he is here to try and become your disciple again…?" Looking down on the crowd of people moving around on the streets below them, Cai Yu frowned deeply upon seeing a certain person making his way towards the competition area with great fanfare.

Smiling wryly as he looked over and spotted a familiar arrogant young man making his way through the crowd with a large group of guards following closely behind him, Fang Shi didn't dare say anything.

The history between his only disciple Cai Yu and the Crown Prince of the Dark Sky Kingdom, he knew all too well that talking about that person would only result in bad things…

"Ahm! I-I think it's time for us to make our way towards the competition grounds. After all, we don't want to be late as the host!" Doing his best to avoid talking about the Crown Prince of the Dark Sky Kingdom, Fang Shi began moving towards the exit of the room. Hoping that Cai Yu would just follow him and not mention anything regarding that Crown Prince…

"Fine…" Not looking the least bit happy after having seen a certain arrogant looking Crown Prince, Cai Yu stopped staring menacingly towards him from the window and made her way out of the room together with her master.

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Chapter 413 - Entering The Competition Ground

Making their way to the competition ground through the busy streets of the capital, Xuan Hao and Qing Yi cam to a stop in front of an enormous mineshaft that had been repurposed for the alchemy competition, with seating spaces being carved out into the sides of the mineshaft itself for the spectators to watch the competition.

The mineshaft itself was not deeper than a few dozen meters and instead covered an extremely large area. Looking at it from another point of view, the mineshaft should not be a finished one, but instead a new mineshaft under construction.

If not for the fact that a few things were still left on the sides of the huge, repurposed mineshaft in construction that indicated the large hole in the ground's true purpose, Xuan Hao would have easily believed that the competition ground had been made just for the purpose of the alchemy competition…

"So large…!" Opening her mouth in surprise upon seeing the huge hole in the ground easily the size of a small town.

In essence, the hole in the ground was not much different from the giant mineshaft that was located beneath the first town they had visited upon entering the Iron Sky Kingdom. The only difference was the fact that the hole in front of them was nowhere near as deep as the mineshaft they had witnessed beneath the town close to the borders of the Iron Sky Kingdom.

That mineshaft was at least a few thousand meters deep… Not like the unfinished one in front of them.

"So, this is where the alchemy competition will be held…"

"It looks quite similar in size to the mineshaft in the town we saw back at the borders…"

Arriving a little later than Xuan Hao and Qing Yi, Chi Hu and Gong Bo both looked at the giant hole in the ground in front of them.

"Let's get going, we still need to get Qing Yi to the other participants before the start of the competition!" Seeing the other elders show up as well behind Chi Hu and Gong Bo, Xuan Hao didn't intend to just stand around at the entrance of the competition ground and made his way inside together with Qing Yi.

""Yes!"" Hearing what Xuan Hao said, the others quickly followed him inside.

The guards at the entrance didn't stop them either after having seen the invitation given to all the participants by the Alchemist from the Sky Empire.

Like this, the group soon split off from Qing Yi, as she made her way towards the area where the participants of the competition would stay until its start, while Xuan Hao, Chi Hu, Gong Bo and the rest of the elders made their way towards a spectating area reserved for the people who came along with the participants.

"Hah… Wait-"

Barely managing to catch a glimpse of one of his friends from the Alchemy Hall as he entered the competition ground, the elder from the Alchemy Hall who left the manor last. Felt a wave of panic running through him as he watched his friend disappear out of view.

"Hm? What are you screaming for?"

Having heard the elder's scream, one of the guards standing at the entrance came over and asked him with a suspicious look on his face.

"I was a little late to show up and my friends entered before me…"

Saying this with a sad look on his face, the elder knew very well that he would likely not have a chance of entering now that the others were already inside…

"Sure, sure… If you want to enter, I recommend using the entrance over there, this one is only used for participants and the people coming together with them!" Rolling his eyes upon hearing what the elder said, the guard pointed towards a giant entrance located a few hundred meters away from the one they were guarding.

"…"

The only problem was the fact that an enormous line of people was currently queued up in front of said giant entrance…

Will I even be able to get a spectator seat by the time it's my turn…?

Knowing very well that he had missed his chances of getting in with the others, the elder sighed deeply to himself before making his way towards the large line of people in front of the giant gate.

No matter what, he would not be able to get anything out of getting angry with the guards or trying to talk his way inside. After all, in their eyes, he was just someone who had come to skip the line and enter without waiting…

Thinking about this, the elder reluctantly lined up at the back of the massive line in front of the giant entrance…

Hopefully he would be able to meet up with the others upon entering…

…

Having separated from her master and the rest of the elders who had come together with her to the Iron Sky Kingdom, Qing Yi felt a bit nervous as she all by herself for the first time since her arrival at the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom.

Walking along a mostly empty corridor inside the rocky wall surrounding the enormous hole in the ground that had been repurposed for the alchemy competition, Qing Yi finally came to a halt in front of a small doorway with the words [Participant Registration] written on it.

"This should be the place…" Muttering this to herself, Qing Yi opened the door and entered the room behind it.

Creak~

"Hm?"

Upon entering the room, the first thing that caught her eyes, was a few other young people like herself sitting down as they curiously looked over towards a young man that could be seen talking to an elderly man sitting with a small book in front of him writing something down.

"So, you are Luo Jin from the Fire Sky Kingdom?"

"Yes!"

"I see, go through the second door over there and the person on the other side will instruct you on what to do next!"

Nodding his head upon hearing what the elderly man said, the young man soon disappeared through one of the four doors located behind the elderly man.

"Next one!" Seeing that the young man had left, the elderly man pointed towards a girl sitting down just a few meters away from Qing Yi.

Soon enough, the young girl was asked a few questions about where she was from, he name, age and so on before she was also sent towards one of the four doors behind the elderly man.

As this continued for the next few minutes, Qing Yi noticed that most of the people inside the room were all weaker than her when it came to cultivation.

The strongest outside of herself was another girl who had reached the Fourth Stage of the Foundation Establishment Realm…

Thinking a bit about this, Qing Yi realized that the people around her had most likely spent all their time on alchemy. In turn, the girl who had reached the Fourth Stage of the Foundation Establishment Realm might actually be worse than the other young people inside the room when it came to alchemy…

This thought caused Qing Yi to grow a bit nervous. After all, she herself had not spent more than a year or so learning alchemy!

Would she really be able to go up against someone who had focused on learning alchemy far before? her…?

"Next one!"

Feeling the gaze of the elderly man focus on her, Qing Yi flinched slightly as she quickly got up from the chair, she had found for herself to sit on after entering the room. Dive into Stories, Embrace Enchantment: NvεlB¡n.

"What is your name and where are you from?"

"Qing Yi, I'm from the Flying Sword Sect!"

Feeling herself grow nervous being stared at by the elderly man in front of her, Qing Yi bit her tongue to calm herself down a bit before answering the question.

"Qing Yi, Flying Sword Sect…" Muttering these things, the elderly man quickly scanned through the book in front of him before writing down a few things.

"Qing Yi, what part of alchemy are you the most proficient in? The Art of Potions or the Art of Pills?"

"The Art of Potions!" Hearing the question, Qing Yi did not hesitate in the slightest as she answered.

Alchemy could be split up into two major sides, the alchemist making potions and the ones making pills.

Although there was really no difference between the two overall, there still was a few unique aspects to both sides.

When talking about this, Qing Yi had practiced making potions way more than pills. Even when she had been taught by her master over the past week, it had mostly been in regard to potions.

From the start, she had not learnt too much when it came to pills and had mostly been focusing on the aspect of potions when it came to alchemy.

"I see, go through the fourth door over there and the person on the other side will instruct you on what to do next!"

Getting almost the exact same line she had heard when she had first entered the room, Qing Yi nervously made her way towards the fourth door behind the elderly man.

Creak~

Opening the door and seeing a long empty corridor appear in front of her, Qing Yi slowly made her way into the corridor…

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Chapter 414 - Alchemy Competition, Begin!

Following the long corridor that seemed to go on forever, Qing Yi soon found herself in the middle of a large open space.

Looking around herself, Qing Yi quickly realized that she had made her way into the large hole in the ground that had been refitted for the alchemy competition. Looking up and seeing several hundred, if not more people looking down on her from above, was quite a nerve-wracking experience…

"Are you Qing Yi?"

"Ah!?"

Hearing someone suddenly call out to her, as she was just about to scan through the spectators above for her master and the other elders, Qing Yi almost jumped backwards in shock before turning towards the person that called out to her.

"Y-yes, I'm Qing Yi…" Seeing that it was an older person like the one she had given her identity to just a short time ago, Qing Yi quickly calmed down before answering with a somewhat flustered look on her face.

"Great! You should be the last person for this group… For now, you can just go over there and wait until the first part of the competition begins." Smiling happily upon hearing her name as he looked through a small notebook in his hand, the old man pointed her towards a place a few meters away from her where a group of people much like herself were nervously waiting for the start of the alchemy competition.

Whoosh~

"…"

Not even having a chance to say anything as the old man directly disappeared in front of her, Qing Yi made her way over towards the other participants and found a place to sit down and wait until the competition began.

All she could do now was wait and think about what the first part of the competition would be about.

At least from what she had managed to see so far, she and the rest of the participants had been split up into four groups, most likely to be competing differently based on whether they were more skilled in potion making or pill making.

Gazing over towards what could be considered the four other corners of the competition ground, Qing Yi could not help but feel a bit confused upon noticing the fact that the other groups were far larger than the one she had been placed in.

The other three groups having roughly a little over a hundred people in them, while hers only had a little over 10 people… And from what the older man from earlier had said, she was the last person in this group. Meaning there would not be any more people coming to join her group…

Maybe they expected more people to join the competition and just ended up like this due to some people not showing up on time…?

Not being able to come to any other conclusion about why her group was so small compared to the other three groups, Qing Yi once again turned her attention towards trying to figure out what the first part of the competition might be about.

…

"This should be it…"

Having found the spectating room that had been designated to them after asking a few of the guards, Xuan Hao could not help showing a slightly surprised expression on his face upon realizing just how large and luxurious the spectating room was compared to the other spectating rooms for the other participants guardians and elders that he had seen on his way over.

Perhaps the Iron Sky Kingdom already knew about the fact that he had reached the Domain Lord Realm and didn't dare to treat him and the rest of the Flying Sword Sect badly…

Thinking about this, Xuan Hao felt that it made sense. After all, given the large formation surrounding the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom, the ruler of the Iron Sky Kingdom had most likely already noticed the fact that someone in the Domain Lord Realm had entered. Ñøvl-B1n was the first platform to present this chapter.

After which his identity as a member of the Flying Sword Sect had likely been uncovered…

"This is!? So many refreshments…"

Showing up just a few seconds after him, Chi Hu exclaimed in surprise upon seeing the luxurious and spacious spectating room… Focusing most of his attention towards the large variety of refreshments and snacks readily laid out inside the room for them.

"Wow…"

"This is so much bigger than the other rooms!"

"So many snacks…"

As the other elders showed up, each of them had a look of amazement on their face as they entered the room.

The only person not acting too surprised was Gong Bo, as he just silently entered the room before finding a good place to sit from where he had a full view of the large space for the competition below.

Sitting down on a seat besides Gong Bo, Xuan Hao quickly scanned through the large space below them before locking onto his disciple.

"Qing Yi is over there."

Seeing Gong Bo very clearly searching for Qing Yi among the large number of participants below, Xuan Hao kindly pointed out where she was, as Gong Bo gave a quick thanks before focusing his full attention onto Qing Yi and the small group of participants, she was placed in.

From this alone, Xuan Hao realized just how much importance Gong Bo had placed on Qing Yi doing well in the alchemy competition. Not to mention that she would help allow their sect to become more well known, her doing well in a large competition hosted by someone from the Sky Empire was sure to help the elders of the Alchemy Hall take in a few more disciples.

"Hm? Looks like the competition is about to start…" Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao focused on a large platform located at the centre of the space below as an elderly man along with a young girl appeared at the centre of the platform.

Focusing on the elderly man, Xuan Hao directly ignored the young girl beside him. From what he could see, the young girl was only in the Core Formation Realm.

The elderly man on the other hand…

Bang!

Before Xuan Hao could finish his thoughts, the elderly man on the large platform waved his hand as large cauldron appeared in the air a few meters above him before slamming down into the large platform. Instantly causing everyone to quiet down as they focused their attention on the large platform in the middle of the large space below.

"Hello everyone! I see that I got your attention! I'm Fang Shi, the host of the alchemy competition and also an Artisan Alchemist of the Sky Empire. The competition will begin shortly, as all the participants are already here!" Smiling widely as he said this, the elderly man waited for a short moment as several people appeared before they brought out a large number of spiritual herbs before proceeding to set up several alchemy stations within only a few minutes in the large space.

"The alchemy competition will be split into four groups, three for those specializing in pills and one for those specializing in potions. Each group will be given a recipe for a potion or pill, both the potion and pill recipe require the exact same spiritual herbs! Shortly, when the competition begins, a limited amount of time will be given to each of you to make the potion or pill!"

Back in the small group of people only numbering a little over 10, Qing Yi felt herself grow nervous upon hearing that they would only have a limited time to complete what was likely to be a brand-new potion or pill for them, but what caused her to fell even more nervous was what the alchemist from the Sky Empire said next-

"The different spiritual herbs you need to make the potion or pill can be found here!" Pointing towards several large tables filled up with spiritual herbs surrounding the large platform in the middle of the large space that had been set up during the time he started speaking, the elderly Fang Shi smiled brightly before continuing with an even brighter smile on his face.

"You will have to search for them yourselves. Ah… I forgot to mention, there are over 3000 different spiritual herbs here. All looking quite similar to the one you need and there is only enough of the correct spiritual herbs for around two hundred of you… Only those successfully making the pill or potion before the time ends, will pass through to the next round!"

Listening to Fang Shi saying all of this with a bright smile on his face, Qing Yi and the other participants beside her could not help growing nervous as they knew that most of them would not survive through the first round of the competition.

Making a brand-new potion or pill without any practice before-hand was difficult enough. Now they would also have to identify the correct spiritual herb required among over 3000 spiritual herbs!

…

There were more than 3000 spiritual herbs on those large tables, and they would have to find the correct ones?

At present, a lot of the participants felt grief at their current situation.

There were more than 300 people participating in this competition.. No one could guarantee that there wouldn't be any conflict between the spiritual herbs need by the participants. After all, there were only enough for around 200 people!

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Chapter 415 - Trouble Brewing~

Carefully observing the spiritual herbs that had been placed on the several large tables around the platform that the Artisan Alchemist from the Sky Empire was currently standing on top of, Qing Yi tried her best to identify the different spiritual herbs on the large tables.

However, this was to no avail as she quickly realized that she at most had the ability to identify a few dozen of the spiritual herbs present of the large tables. The rest of the spiritual herbs seemingly blended together with the others, as she found it hard to tell them apart from each other.

"H-how are we going to find the spiritual herbs we need?"

"I can only identify a few dozen of the spiritual herbs in there…" Ñøvl-B1n was the first platform to present this chapter.

"I really hope that I know the spiritual herbs we will have to find…"

Listening in on the other participants nervous talking about the upcoming first part of the competition, Qing Yi knew that she was not alone in her thoughts about how difficult it would be to identify the correct spiritual herbs among the thousands other spiritual herbs that looked similar to the one they would need.

"Haha, I see that all of you are getting quite nervous now! The recipe will be given to all of you shortly, along with an in-depth description of the different spiritual herbs you will need. No need to worry about someone already knowing the recipe beforehand, as its one of my personal recipes that I finished just yesterday for today's competition!"

Hearing the Artisan Alchemist laughing upon seeing how nervous everyone had gotten before he proceeded to motion for a group of people to hand over the recipe along with a description of the different spiritual herbs, Qing Yi and the other participants immediately began reading through both of them.

The recipe in question was split into two, one for a pill and another for a potion. The name of the pill and potion in the recipe, was Dragon Force Pill, or Dragon Force Potion.

According to the short description of the pill/potions effect, it would momentarily raise a cultivator's strength by three minor realms! The side-effect of such an increase in strength being that the user would enter a state of weakness lasting a few days.

Other than that, the only real limit to the Dragon Force Pill/Potion, was the fact that it could only be used by people in the Core Formation Realm and below.

Even then, Qing Yi still understood just how valuable the Dragon Force Pill/Potion was for a cultivator!

Caught in a dangerous situation, a momentary increase in strength comparable to raising one's strength by three minor realms, would in some cases be the determining factor between life and death.

"Now that all of you have the recipe and description of the spiritual herbs needed, the competition will officially begin! You have three hours to make either a Dragon Force Pill or a Dragon Force Potion! Those unsuccessful, will be disqualified!"

Just as she was about to look over the spiritual herbs she needed for the Dragon Force Potion, along with the in-depth description of the spiritual herbs in question. The Artisan Alchemist from the Sky Empire interrupted her train of thought, as he officially announced the start of the alchemy competition.

Whoosh!

Along with the start of the competition, a large portion of the participants rushed towards the large tables placed around the platform at the centre of the competition ground.

"…"

Qing Yi did not do this, as she instead just looked over at the flock of people rushing towards the large tables filled with spiritual herbs for a short while before focusing her attention onto the recipe of the Dragon Force Potion.

Looking over the recipe, Qing Yi quickly focused onto the spiritual herbs she needed before turning to look at the in-depth description of the spiritual herbs.

Overall, she needed five different spiritual herbs for the Dragon Force Potion, each of them being Earth Grade Spiritual Herbs!

The first spiritual herb she needed was a spiritual herb called Red Dragon Sage…

Reading through the description on how to identify the spiritual herb, Qing Yi quickly continued on wards and before long, she had remembered the different characteristics of the five spiritual herbs that was needed for the Dragon Force Potion.

Whoosh~

Not wasting any time, Qing Yi quickly rushed towards the large tables filled with spiritual herbs as she joined the other participants in searching through the large pile of spiritual herbs, while she tried to find the correct spiritual herbs among the large quantity of similar looking spiritual herbs.

Searching through the large pile of similar looking spiritual herbs, Qing Yi for the first time since she had started on the path of alchemy. Realized just how many different spiritual herbs were out there…

Just the number of herbs looking extremely similar to the five that she and the rest of the participants needed to find. Numbered over 3000!

Through this, Qing Yi resolved herself to read up on more spiritual herb encyclopaedias when she got back to the sect…

…

Watching how Qing Yi had begun to search through the large pile of spiritual herbs on top of the large tables around the main platform below, Xuan Hao could not help feeling a bit worried for her.

After all, he had no idea how knowledgeable Qing Yi was when it came to spiritual herbs. However, she was clearly at a disadvantage compared to the other participants, as she had only been learning alchemy for a year.

Knowledge on spiritual herbs? was not something that could be done in a short time.

Well, outside how he had gained knowledge of different spiritual herbs with the help of the system…

Thinking about this, Xuan Hao felt even more nervous when he watched her pick up a wrong herb before she soon put it down and searched somewhere different to his relief.

How did he know the spiritual herbs needed for the Dragon Force Potion that Qing Yi was going to make?

Well… Given his current cultivation realm, he could easily peek at the recipe from a distance. Even without using his divine sense…

As for knowing about the spiritual herbs… The knowledge about spiritual herbs he had gained from the system was no laughing matter and out of the over 3000 spiritual herbs piled up onto the different large tables, Xuan Hao could easily identify most of them!

All of which, were used in all sorts of different potions and pills.

Take the Red Dragon Sage Spiritual Herb as an example, it was used in a potion that… Allowed someone to burp like a dragon, as for what a dragon burp looked like, Xuan Hao had no clue and at the same time. Not plan to find out…

Not really the most useful thing an Earth Grade Spiritual Herb could be used for…

…

Time slowly passed and after half an hour, Qing Yi had successfully managed to get the spiritual herbs needed to make the Dragon Force Potion, as she began getting ready to make the potion.

Thump!

"Hm?" As he was keeping an eye on Qing Yi together with the rest of the elders, Xuan Hao was suddenly alerted by the quiet sound of something hitting the ground.

Looking around at the other elders, Xuan Hao quickly realized that none of them seemed to have heard anything, as they were completely focused on Qing Yi's performance.

Elder Gong Bo was the most focused, as Xuan Hao clearly saw the clear look of terror on his face whenever Qing Yi was about to make a small mistake before showing a blissful look on his face when she corrected herself just in time.

To be honest, it was quite entertaining to watch how much his expression changed from watching Qing Yi compete below…

"…"

Not saying anything about what he heard just a moment ago, Xuan Hao quietly stood up from his seat before making his way over towards the entrance to their room to check out where the sound had come from.

"Come on! Qing Yi! You can do it!"

"That's right! Show them how it's done! Make the Alchemy Hall proud!"

"Ah-! Don't do it! You should never cut Blood Spirit Leaves like that!"

Casting one last glance over towards the Qing Yi fan group compromised of a bunch of old men and women. The youngest being at least 60 or so years old, Xuan Hao could not help smiling wryly to himself.

At least, Qing Yi did not have to watch her elders act in such a shameful manner. Looking like a group of fangirls cheering on their favourite idol…

Thinking this to himself, Xuan Hao soon heard yet another sound similar to before. The only difference being that it was fainter and more distant than before.

"How troublesome…" Upon leaving the room, Xuan Hao could not help muttering this to himself as he saw a guard laying in a small pool of blood only a few dozen meters away from him.

At least he manged to find out where the sound of something quietly hitting the ground had come from…

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Chapter 416 - Brawl For The Last Few Spiritual Herbs!

Walking up to inspect the dead body of the guard laying only a few dozen meters away from him, Xuan Hao could not help but feel a bit cautious.

The Guard had been at the Peak of the Core Formation Realm and from the looks of the small wound across his neck, he had been killed within a single strike!

Doing something like this and without causing any disturbance, was not possible if the opponent had been someone in the Core Formation Realm. Meaning, the person who had killed the guard should at the very least have reached the Nascent Soul Realm!

"If just there wasn't any formation covering up the capital, I would have easily been able to sense anyone nearby with my divine sense…" Muttering this to himself as he realized just how blind he felt without being capable of using his divine sense freely, Xuan Hao moved towards the direction that the perpetrator had gone.

No matter what, he at least wanted to find out what was happening and make sure that it would not end up affecting his disciple or the alchemy competition.

Hopefully, the Domain Lord from the Iron Sky Kingdom was not sleeping and at the very least had their divine sense activated. This way, he might not even need to deal with the perpetrator himself…

But given the fact that nothing had happened, Xuan Hao realized that even if the Domain Lord had their divine sense activated, they clearly did not cover a large area. This was also normal, as constantly monitoring everything within several thousand meters of oneself, was quite an exhausting endeavour in the long run.

Even he himself would normally not have his divine sense cover an area more than a hundred or so meters around himself normally. Unless he was searching for someone or something…

Whoosh!

Moving through the long corridors going around the large competition space, Xuan Hao came across several similarly dead bodies before he manged to catch up with the perpetrator just as he slashed through the neck of yet another poor Core Formation Realm guard who had just been slacking off. Happily enjoying a few snacks, he had just taken from a nearby empty spectator room. Ñøvl-B1n was the first platform to present this chapter.

"That should be the last guard on the northern section… Moving any closer, I will risk being spotted…"

Listening to the perpetrator as he muttered this quietly to himself after killing the Core Formation Realm guard before taking out a communication talisman to contact someone, Xuan Hao felt a bit surprised.

He… Looks like one of the two guards from the underground base… Did my attack on their base perhaps cause them to launch an attack towards the Iron Sky Kingdom now? But this doesn't make sense, I clearly looked through some of their internal documents and they should still be quite far away from being capable of launching an attack…

Thinking all of this to himself as he quietly kept an eye on the Nascent Soul Realm Expert from the side, Xuan Hao could not help but feel that whatever was currently happening was his fault to some degree…

"Yes… I know… I will head towards the agreed location!"

The Nascent Soul Realm Expert did not discover the fact that he was currently being observed by someone standing just a few meters away from him, as he quickly put away his communication talisman before rushing towards a nearby exit leading out towards the city.

"Hm?"

Stopping himself just as he was about to follow after the Nascent Soul Realm Expert, Xuan Hao felt a shiver run down his spine as he very clearly felt a terrifying divine sense lock on to him all of a sudden.

"Meet me at the spectator room located at the centre of the southern section!"

Hearing the powerful and authoritarian female voice echoing out inside his head, along with the powerful the divine sense, Xuan Hao instantly realized that the person who had stopped him from following the Nascent Soul Realm Expert, was none other than the Domain Lord of the Iron Sky Kingdom!

It looked like the Domain Lord from the Iron Sky Kingdom had already discovered the Nascent Soul Realm Expert long ago, but if that was the case, why had she not acted when he began killing the guards located in the corridors and instead opted to let him go?

Thinking this, Xuan Hao watched with a shocked expression on his face as the guards who had very clearly been lying dead on the ground just a moment ago turned into metal puppets that soon stood up before they merged into the ground below them. Completely disappearing…

If not for the fact he had seen it himself, Xuan Hao doubted that he would have believed what he had just witnessed...

Not to mention the fact that he had not even noticed the fact that the guards were normal humans just a few moments ago!

"No need to act so shocked, you would have realized what they were if you used your divine sense to examine them!"

Hearing the female voice echo out inside his head through voice transmission once again, Xuan Hao could not help but smile a bit awkwardly upon hearing the impatience in the voice before he quickly moved towards the southern section of the competition ground. The opposite location compared to where he and the elders from the Flying Sword Sect had been placed.

Whoosh!

Along the way towards the southern section, Xuan Hao could not help but feel shocked inwardly as he began using his divine sense to examine all the guards on his way and to his shock, he noticed that every single one of them was a metal puppet disguised as a real human!

Not a single one of the guards in the corridors were normal humans!

Is this perhaps the ability of a Master Blacksmith? All of these metal puppets have strength similar to someone at the Peak of the Core Formation Realm… Are there perhaps even stronger metal puppets? Nascent Soul Realm Metal Puppets? Or… Perhaps Domain Lord Realm Metal Puppets?

Thinking this to himself as he arrived in front of a large and extravagant door with two guards at the Nascent Soul Realm standing solemnly in front of it.

"Come in…"

Just as Xuan Hao was just about to examine the two guards to check if they were also metal puppets, the voice he had heard reach out to him just a few moments ago echoed out from inside the room beyond the large doors.

"…"

Not saying anything as he slowly entered the room, Xuan Hao suddenly felt himself grow a bit nervous.

After all, the ruler of the Iron Sky Kingdom was someone at the Peak of the Domain Lord Realm! Even he had no idea if he would be able to fight against someone like in a normal fight. Let alone when the other party had the home ground advantage in the shape of a giant formation constructed through the use of several Transcendent Grade Natural Treasures…

…

At the same time, Qing Yi was currently trying her best to successfully make the Dragon Force Potion that she and the rest of the participants had been tasked with. Unaware of what had just happened inside the corridors for the spectator rooms. Located below the normal spectator seats where the normal people without special invitations were located.

"I was quite lucky getting the spiritual herbs so quickly…" Gazing over towards the large tables filled with spiritual herbs just as she finished preparing her herbs, Qing Yi could not help but let out a sigh of relief as she watched how the remaining participants had begun snatching the spiritual herbs from each other.

If not for the fact that they were not allowed to fight, Qing Yi did not doubt that a few of the participants would have already begun fighting.

After all, who could endure having the last spiritual herb they needed, get snatched just in front of their faces by one of the participants…?

"Not again! How dare you steal from me twice in a row?!"

Just as Qing Yi was about to begin the brewing process for the Dragon Force Potion, a loud roar filled with anger could be heard before one of the participants directly launched an attack towards another participant, who had just snatched away a spiritual herb from him.

Bang!

Under the shocked eyes of both Qing Yi and the rest of the participants who had just been disturbed by the sudden outburst. None of the guards from the Iron Sky Kingdom, nor the Artisan Alchemist himself did anything to stop the attack, as the disciple who had just stolen away the spiritual herb was suddenly sent flying through the air before crashing into the ground a few meters away.

""…""

Fighting for the spiritual herbs… Was, okay?

"Yes, I never said anything about not being able to fight for the spiritual herbs… As long as someone steals a spiritual herb from you, you are free to try and steal it back before they finish collecting all the required spiritual herbs!"

Hearing this, all the participants felt shocked. After all, they did not expect that they would have to fight during an alchemy competition…

At the very least, it has nothing to do with me…

Thinking this, Qing Yi and the rest of the participants who had already managed to gather the spiritual herbs they needed all breathed a sigh of relief upon realizing that the fighting would not affect them.

"You! You stole my herb just a moment ago! It's time for you to return it!"

Following this one shout from one of the participants who also had their spiritual herbs stolen, the entire space around the platform at the centre suddenly turned chaotic.

The disciples who had their spiritual herbs taken away in front of them launched an attack to regain their spiritual herbs, while the thieves in question fought back to keep their stolen spiritual herbs.

All of a sudden, the relatively calm alchemy competition had ended up turning into a brawl between the last remaining participants still searching for the spiritual herbs they needed to refine the Dragon Force Pill or Potion…

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