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 449 - Coral Jellyfish And Endless Sea Of Mist... - Read Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough Chapter 449 - Coral Jellyfish And Endless Sea Of Mist... Online - All Page - Novel Bin

Chapter 449 - Coral Jellyfish And Endless Sea Of Mist...

Proceeding up the narrow mountain path that had appeared after she had finished the second test, Qing Yi soon found herself walking up a set of worn-down stone steps leading up towards an ancient looking platform that had been built into the side of the mountain.

The difference in testing ground compared to the last two test was obvious from the get-go, as Qing Yi had a feeling that the third test would be different from the first two test that had both required her to make a potion of some sort to move on to the next test.

This feeling was soon turned into reality, as Qing Yi made her way up the stone steps and up on the ancient platform.

In front of her, Qing Yi saw no cauldron or spiritual herbs like the last two test. Instead, there was almost nothing on top of the ancient platform.

The only thing that remained the same as the last two test, was the stone slab on the ground that had her information recorded on it. The points she had obtained remained the same as last she checked just before making her way up towards the third test.

Not that she had expected to somehow gain any points from making her way up to the third test…

Outside of this, the only out of the ordinary thing on top of the ancient platform was a small pedestal with a potion bottle on top of it.

Looking over at the potion bottle from a distance with a curious look on her face, Qing Yi could see an almost gaseous liquid that was silver in colour swirling around inside of the potion bottle.

However, this was not what caught Qing Yi's attention. Instead, it was the potion bottle itself!

The potion bottle was in the shape of some sort of coral-like sea creature. Making Qing Yi wonder just how she would even be able to access the liquid inside of the potion given the weird shape of the potion bottle itself…

Was the third test perhaps for her to try and find a way to access the liquid inside the potion? L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøvl--B1n.

Thinking about this, Qing Yi could not help but shake her head. No matter how strange the third test would end up being, Qing Yi didn't expect for it to just be her opening a weirdly shaped potion bottle. After all, it was called an alchemy trial… Not a potion opening trial!

Walking up to the weirdly shaped potion bottle before picking it up and inspecting it, Qing Yi soon found an opening located towards the top of the potion bottle in one of the… Tentacles? Of the weird sea creature that the potion bottle had taken the shape of.

Plop!

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Without waiting around, Qing Yi directly opened the potion bottle. Not that there was much else she could do given the potion bottle was the only thing present so far on the ancient platform and her way further up the mountain was still blocked off by the mist.

Whoosh~

Following the opening of the potion bottle the gaseous silver coloured liquid inside the bottle suddenly turned completely gaseous and floated out of the potion bottle before Qing Yi had the time to react.

"Wha-"

Watching the now silver coloured gas rush out of the potion bottle before forming into a large sea creature eerily similar to the potion bottle in her hand, Qing Yi prepared herself to fight. After all, the appearance of the sea creature formed from the silver-coloured gas looked nothing short of some kind of nightmarish sea monster that would keep most people far away from the sea…

The only reason why Qing Yi did not attack the sea creature that had formed from the silver-coloured gas, was because she had lost most, if not all of her power under the pressure of the mountain.

Even if she fought with the sea creature, Qing Yi doubted she would be much stronger than someone at the later stages of the Qi Condensation Realm in her current state…

Whoosh~

Before Qing Yi even had the time to react, the nightmarish sea creature extended its long tentacles and directly grabbed onto the sides of the ancient looking platform before slowly floating upwards. Carrying the platform along with it…

"…"

Watching the entire thing unfold as the platform slowly moved further up the mountain, Qing Yi remained rooted on the same spot. Looking up towards the giant sea creature floating just above her as it carried the platform upwards.

Looking a bit closer, Qing Yi realized that the now giant sea creature looked a bit like some kind of weird merger between a coral and a jellyfish.

A coral jellyfish?

Bang!

As she was lost in thought thinking about just what kind of creature the weird coral jellyfish floating above her was, the loud sound of the ancient platform being put down on the ground again directly interrupted her train of thought.

Along with the platform being put down again, Qing Yi suddenly felt the weirdly shaped potion bottle still firmly held in her hand fly out her hand before landing at the pedestal at the centre of the ancient platform.

Whoosh~

Before Qing Yi had any time to react, the coral jellyfish floating above her suddenly turned back into a gaseous liquid again before entering the potion bottle.

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Everything happened over only a few seconds and by the time Qing Yi recovered from the shock of what had just happened, the potion bottle had already mysteriously disappeared along with the pedestal at the centre of the ancient platform.

"What in the world just happened…?"

Muttering this quietly to herself as she looked over at the centre of the ancient platform with a bewildered look on her face, Qing Yi felt like she had just witnessed one of the oddest things since she was born…

At the same time, Qing Yi had also realized that the ancient platform was not the place where the third test was going to take place. Instead, it was only a form of transport for her to reach the third test located higher up on the mountain.

Looking out over the edge of the ancient platform, Qing Yi could not help but show an amazed look on her face.

The reason for this was that beyond the mountain she was currently on top of, Qing Yi could see over the mist that surrounded the base of the mountain when she had first made her way up the mountain!

From her point of view, Qing Yi saw an endless sea of mist covering everything as far as the horizon went. Along the way, Qing Yi could see several mountains similar to her own sticking out from the seemingly endless sea of mist that covered everything in sight.

"The other participants should be on one of those mountains…"

Saying this to herself, Qing Yi tried her best to see if she could spot any of the other participants on the other mountains in the endless sea of mist.

However, this only lasted for a short moment, as Qing Yi soon gave up due to how far away the other mountains were and the fact that there were way more than just twenty mountains inside the alchemy trial from what she could see, and she did not feel like spending the next few hours looking over all the mountains just to try and spot one of the other participants…

Turning her attention back towards inspecting the place she had just arrived at; Qing Yi ignored the usual small stone slab with her information on it and began seizing up the cave in front of her.

Different from the last two tests, Qing Yi saw no cauldron or other alchemy related tool inside the cave. Instead, she saw a few words etched into the side of the cave entrance.

"Find your way through the mist and reach the other side… A maze…?"

Muttering this to herself, Qing Yi realized that the cave in front of her was not a cave, but instead an entrance to what she assumed to be some sort of maze.

The only question in her mind at the moment was… How in the world was her finding her way through a maze related to alchemy!?

Only letting out a short sigh as she thought about how weird the third test was, Qing Yi made her way into the maze. Not knowing what awaited her inside.

…

At the same time outside the alchemy trial, Xuan Hao was looking down towards the large cauldron located on the platform with an increasingly curious expression on his face.

Similar to Qing Yi, he had also seen the seemingly endless space inside the alchemy trial and could not help but grow curious about just what kind of artifact the cauldron was.

Even if it was not comparable to an independent space like the secret realm he had been to in the past, Xuan Hao was still amazed at the sheer size of the space inside the cauldron.

He really wanted to figure out just how the cauldron could have such a large space inside of it…

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Chapter 450 - Maze Of Challenges

Back inside the alchemy trial, Qing Yi had taken her first step inside the maze that led inside the mountain. Only to discover that the all too familiar mist had once again appeared and silently covered up the entrance to the maze behind her.

After entering the maze, she had no way back out! Not that she really had any plan to leave, as it would mean she gave up on the alchemy trial!

Having entered the maze, the first thing Qing Yi noticed, was that the cave walls around the entrance had completely disappeared. Replaced by a sea of mist that had formed into high walls reaching far up into the sky.

Even the rocky cave floor had changed to become the same as the sea of mist she had seen surrounding her own along with the other mountains inside the alchemy trial. The only thing catching her off-guard, was the fact that she could walk on top of the mist without sinking through it.

Finished observing her new surroundings, Qing Yi began to make her way deeper into the maze of mist that she now found herself inside of. Hopefully, she would soon find out just what the maze of mist was about… L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøvl--B1n.

…

Observing as Qing Yi entered the maze of mist from the outside, Fang Shi could not help smiling a bit to himself as he looked forward to her performance.

The third test was quite special compared to the last two test where the participants only had to make a pill or potion.

For them to proceed, they would be forced through several different challenges. From something simple like identifying an unknown spiritual herb, to brewing a specific pill within a certain timeframe.

In the end, the main difficulty from the third test came from the different challenges that the participants would encounter inside of the maze itself.

Without completing said challenges, the participants would have no way to move forward!

The only saving grace for the participants was the fact that they would always have more than one challenge to chose from. Instead of just being locked to a single choice.

The main reason why this had been implanted in the alchemy trial, was because the success rate for passing the third test without more than one choice, had dropped to nearly zero percent for alchemists not yet at the peak of the Expert Alchemist Realm…

The third test was only made to test Expert Alchemists! Not Peak Expert Alchemists!

Focusing his attention back onto Qing Yi currently making her way towards the first challenge inside the maze, Fang Shi prepared to closely observe her this time around. At the very least, he did not have too many other people to keep an eye on now that most of them had been eliminated.

Other than that, both the crown prince from the Dark Sky Kingdom and the young girl who had entered the third test before anyone else were stuck at one of the challenges for now and the other participants who had also reached the third test were not really doing too well at the moment…

…

Back inside the maze made up of mist, Qing Yi encountered her first challenge and finally understood what the maze inside the alchemy trial was about, as she quickly decided to pick the easiest challenge presented to her. Identifying an Earth Grade Spiritual Herb.

Even if she did not know about too many spiritual herbs yet, Qing Yi still managed to easily pass through the first challenge as it was not too difficult for her and even if she couldn't figure out what spiritual herb it was, she could always turn back and try the other challenge.

Feeling extremely relaxed as she followed the path opening up in front of her after completing the first challenge, Qing Yi suddenly saw a large hourglass that turned around the moment she passed the first challenge.

"After passing through the first challenge, you will have three hours to pass through the maze of challenges before the time runs out. Good luck… I have a time limit!?" Reading out the words that had formed next to the hourglass, Qing Yi could not help but feel herself panicking a bit before quickly making her way over towards the next challenge.

Now that she knew that she only had a limited amount of time to make it through the maze to complete the third test, Qing Yi felt that she couldn't waste any time just standing around.

The most important thing now was to make it through the maze before the time ran out!

Like this, Qing Yi began making her way through the challenges inside the maze. Given that the participants would only have three hours to make it through the maze, the challenges inside were mostly designed to be short and quick to go through. So, within a short period of time, Qing Yi had soon found herself face to face with her with her first ever dead-end.

"Hah… It is after all a maze…"

Qing Yi who had taken the easiest challenges along the way so far could only let out a sad sigh as she began making her way back towards the other challenge, she had decided to ignore earlier for the easier challenge that just needed her to find a fire based spiritual herb among a few dozen different spiritual herbs…

The challenge really was way too easy for her to ignore and in the end, she had just ended up finding a dead-end on the other side after completing the challenge…

Reaching the crossroad where she had chosen to take the easier path, Qing Yi regretfully made her way over towards the harder challenge that required her to concoct a pill…

Yes! Instead of a potion, the challenge wanted her to concoct a pill!

Even though it was only an Earth Grade Pill, it would still be difficult for Qing Yi. After all, she had spent most of her time making potions instead of pills like most mainstream alchemists did.

Even if the two were pretty much the same when it came to preparation of ingredients, there was still a few unique aspects to pill making that Qing Yi was not so confident in. Mainly the fact that she had to use a pill furnace instead of a cauldron.

"A cauldron is so much easier to use compared to this thing…"

Having made her way to pill furnace, Qing Yi began reading through the instructions for the challenge before looking over the spiritual herbs available to her. At the very least she did not have to learn a new recipe, but just had to use the ingredients already present to make a pill that had reached the Earth Grade.

Remembering the easiest and quickest pill that she could make with the present spiritual herbs, Qing Yi quickly prepared all of them before preparing for the next step.

"I really hate this part…"

Picking up one of the spiritual herbs she needed, Qing Yi conjured forth a small flame and began to slowly refine the already prepared spiritual herb with it.

Compared to potion brewing where she could just directly add in the prepared spiritual herbs, pill making required an extra step, the refining of the prepared spiritual herb to remove any impurities inside of it!

This entire process was completely removed when brewing a potion, as the impurities would automatically be burned off during the brewing phase, but pill making was not the same, as it required the spiritual herbs to be liquified before being slowly formed into a pill shape.

During this process, there was no time to slowly allow the impurities to be burned off. If the impurities were not removed earlier on, they would end up becoming a part of the slowly forming pill inside the pill furnace with no way to escape as they would end up merging together with the pill itself.

After a gruelling half hour of refining the spiritual herbs, Qing Yi finally threw the spiritual herbs inside the pill furnace as she carefully controlled the flames around it to make sure that the pill came out smoothly.

At this point in time, Qing Yi suddenly understood why there were so many fake alchemists out there… If she had to go through the boring and tedious refining process every time, she wanted to make something, she would probably also end up skipping it at some point to save a little time…

The only thing that left her a bit confused, was the fact that those fake alchemists had not turned towards potions instead of pills.

After all, in Qing Yi's eyes, potions were way easier to make compared to pills that required one to go through a gruelling refining process every time one wanted to make something!

"Finally finished!"

After another twenty minutes, Qing Yi let out a sigh of relief as a small pill rolled out of the pill furnace and into her hand.

Whoosh~

Placing the small pill on top of a nearby empty pedestal, Qing Yi watched a path reveal itself. This time around, it was not a dead-end!

She really would not know what to do if she had used close to a third of her time on a dead-end path…

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Chapter 451 - Last Challenge

Having completed the challenge that required her to make a pill, Qing Yi soon passed through a few more challenges, with nothing too hard. However, Qing Yi still began to worry, as she only had one hour left and had yet to find her way out of the maze.

Not to mention finding her way out of the maze, Qing Yi did not even have any idea if there was anything special about the different paths that would indicate that they led towards the exit!

So, all she could do, was try and complete as many challenges as possible and hope to find the way out…

…

"Another time consuming one…"

Looking towards the three different challenges that had appeared in front of her, Qing Yi could not help but smile wryly as she realized that every single one of the challenges were incredibly time consuming.

One of the challenges was for her to concoct a Spirit Grade Pill. Another wanted her to brew a Spirit Grade Potion, while the last of the three challenges wanted her to make both an Earth Grade Pill and an Earth Grade Potion!

No matter how she looked at it, Qing Yi felt that she would only have time to make a single pill or potion. So, without thinking too much about, Qing Yi decided to make the Spirit Grade Potion.

It was after all what she would be most comfortable with and have the easiest time making…

"I wonder what kind of potion it will be…" Muttering this to herself as she made her way over towards the challenge, Qing Yi soon spotted the all too familiar cauldron and other alchemy tools.

Reading through the challenge that was neatly described by a few words on a nearby wall of mist, Qing Yi could not help but let out a sigh of relief.

The challenge only wanted a Spirit Grade Potion made, there was no requirement for a specific potion or anything along that line. On the other hand, there was even a few recipes for different Spirit Grade Potions laid out on a small table that all used the spiritual herbs present for her!

Given that she had just recently become an Expert Alchemist and she did not really know too many Spirit Grade Potion Recipes outside of the one she had used to breakthrough to the Expert Realm. So, the fact that there were recipes present for her was a god sent helping hand.

As without it, she really had no idea what to do, if she ended up not knowing any Spirit Grade Potion Recipes using the spiritual herbs, she had been given for the challenge…

Feeling that the challenge would not be too hard for her to complete, Qing Yi let out a sigh of relief as she began reading over the recipes before deciding on which potion she wanted to make.

However, at this moment, Qing Yi slowly began to realize that things would not be as easy as she had expected and the Reason for this was simple…

All the recipes on the small table were for higher level Spirit Grade Potions! Not a single one of them were for early-stage Expert Alchemists like herself, like she had secretly hoped for!

Let alone making such a potion on the first try, Qing Yi even doubted that she would be able to make such a potion without a time limit!

…

Able to see what was happening inside the alchemy trial, Xuan Hao had also read what Qing Yi's challenge was about and could not help but grow a bit nervous for his disciple. After all, she only had around one hour left to make a completely unfamiliar Spirit Grade Potion!

And from the look on her face, Xuan Hao could instantly tell that it would not be an easy one… At the very least he already knew that his disciple had reached the last challenge, as long as she managed to pass through her current challenge, she would successfully manage to pass through the third test and move on to the fourth test!

Only two people had made it to the fourth test so far, the young girl and the crown prince of the Dark Sky Kingdom…

Not only would she be able to move on to the fourth test of the alchemy trial if she made it through the current challenge, but she would also directly enter the top three in the alchemy competition!

"Qing Yi! You have to make it!"

"Go Qing Yi! If you can make it through the third test, I will give you a few spiritual herbs from my personal collection when we get back!"

"You can do it!"

At the same time, the elders beside him were all cheering as they remained fully focused on what Qing Yi was currently doing.

The same could be said for the rest of the crowd of spectators, as currently, the other two had yet to reach the site of the fourth test.

As for the rest of the participants? They had already been eliminated in the third test. Making Qing Yi the only person left inside the third test!

If not her, who else could the spectators watch at this point?

Seeing everyone having focused their attention on Qing Yi, as there was even a group of people cheering her on among the crowd of spectators, Xuan Hao could not help smiling happily to himself.

The only thing that caused him to feel a bit conflicted over the large amount of attention that his disciple had gotten all of a sudden, was the fact that the Artisan Alchemist, Fang Shi, was also paying quite a bit attention to his disciple.

Even beginning to smile approvingly while nodding his head as Qing Yi began the brewing process!

This old man is having thoughts about my disciple!

Clearly understand the look of the old Artisan Alchemist, Xuan Hao could not help narrowing his eyes as he glanced down towards the old man at the centre of the platform with the large cauldron. Ñøvl-B1n was the first platform to present this chapter.

No matter what, he would have to make sure the old man kept his hands off his disciple…

"Hm? Why do I feel like someone is staring at me? Wait… Could they have discovered the tail?!"

At the same time down at the platform, Fang Shi suddenly felt someone looking at him as he began panicking. Thinking that someone other than his disciple might have discovered his new permanent limb on his back…

"Yi Min…"

Thinking that he had discovered the person looking at him, Fang Shi could not help smiling wryly as he looked up towards the place where Yi Min was located. Only to be met with the laughing eyes of his old friend who had indeed discovered the tail now permanently situated at his behind….

However, even when he knew that Yi Min was the one who had been looking at him, Fang Shi could not help but feel that something was wrong.

The gaze he had felt earlier should have been different from the one Yi Min was giving him… But he could not find out if it really was a different person or just Yi Min having a bit of fun teasing him after finding out about the tail…

"Hah…"

Shaking his head, Fang Shi decided not to think about this any longer as he returned his focus back towards the participants inside the alchemy trial.

Not only had Qing Yi's performance exceeded his expectations, but the young girl that had suddenly appeared as a contender for first place out of nowhere had completely caught him off-guard!

Not only was she the youngest among all of the participants, but she might even be the strongest among them as well!

Such a talent was not something he wanted to miss and for the first time since the start of the alchemy competition, Fang Shi began thinking about whether or not he should take in more than one personal disciple after the end of the alchemy competition…

Even if he ignored the crown prince of the Dark Sky Kingdom, both Qing Yi and the young girl currently at the fourth test, were more than qualified to become his personal disciples!

To top it all off, both of them were girls, so there was no chance of his first personal disciple, Cai Yu, being resistant to him taking both of them under his wing!

Whoosh~

Feeling that he had struck gold with the alchemy competition that he had decided to host, Fang Shi forgot about the fact that he had recently gained a permanent tail on his back, as it unintentionally became visible for the surrounding elders from the Iron Sky Kingdom stationed nearby to see.

Realizing his mistake almost instantly, Fang Shi quickly hid it away, but it was far too late… The elders had already seen the small rabbit tail, as they soon began looking over towards him with a weird look on their faces.

"…"

I need to get this bloody tail removed as quickly as possible!

Not even wanting to think about how his friends back in the capital of the Sky Empire would react to his new tail, Fang Shi became even more determined to remove the tail as quickly as possible after the end of the alchemy competition!

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Chapter 452 - End Of The Third Test!

Faced with the reality that she had less than one hour left before her time ran out; Qing Yi was fully focused on the task of making the potion. Completely ignoring her surroundings, as all that was left in her eyes was the spiritual herbs along with the cauldron. Not that there was much for her to look at given the fact that she was still inside the maze of mist…

With all of this and the attention of the people outside focused on her, Qing Yi slowly progressed as the potion mixture managed to reach the final stage without any issue!

Reaching this point, Qing Yi was extremely nervous, but she did not let even the slightest bit of this show as she carefully controlled the potion mixture inside the cauldron. Beginning to slowly lower the temperature according to the recipe before adding in the final and most important spiritual herb, the Spirit Grade Spiritual Herb!

Blop~

As the spiritual herb entered the almost finished potion mixture, Qing Yi nervously began to lower the temperature of the potion mixture even further until she completely extinguished the flames beneath the cauldron.

Normally, the potion mixture would be finished at this point and could be added to potion bottles for consumption, but the potion she was currently making was quite unique, as it still had one more step left until it was finished and that was…

Whoosh!

Freezing it!

Given that it was her first time freezing up a potion mixture and the fact that she was a cultivator practising fire qi, Qing Yi was forced to borrow some of the spiritual herbs with ice qi inside of them to aid the process.

Far from something she had wanted to do, as her control over the ice qi when it froze the potion mixture would be abysmal…

At the very least, the cauldron with the potion mixture inside of it could not move and she just needed to freeze the potion mixture. Not really something that required any real control so to speak of.

Whoosh~

"Hah… So exhausting… Hah… I hope it succeeded…"

As the potion mixture became solid, Qing Yi exhaustedly sat down on the ground to recover some of her strength before moving on to inspect the inside of the cauldron.

Using the ice qi to freeze the potion mixture was an extremely exhausting endeavour under the pressure of the mountain and at the same time ice qi was an unfamiliar qi to her, as she was a fire cultivator.

Remaining on the ground for a good minute to catch her breath, Qing Yi managed to restore some of her strength.

"I should finish it up before the time runs out…"

Muttering this to herself, Qing Yi stood back up before moving over towards the cauldron where the potion mixture had already turned into a solid block.

Crack!

Picking up a random metal tool from the small table next to the cauldron, Qing Yi broke some of the solid potion mixture into small chunks before finding a potion bottle that she quickly filled up to the brim with the chunks of frozen potion mixture before placing it on top of the pedestal.

Whoosh!

Seeing the potion bottle slowly disappear along with the pedestal, Qing Yi could not help but let out a sigh of relief inside her mind as she watched a new path appear in front of her.

She had succeeded!

Not only had she succeeded, but she had also managed to make such a unique 'potion'!

If it could even be called a potion in the first place. After all, it was just a potion bottle filled with small chunks of potion mixture that could be eaten like pills…

To be honest, Qing Yi felt that the chunks of frozen potion mixture was quite a unique way to make weirdly shaped pills without the use of a pill furnace and she felt that it would be quite interesting to explore some time in the future… But for now, she had to first finish the alchemy trial and with it the alchemy competition!

Not thinking too much more about the weird frozen potion mixture chunks she had just made, Qing Yi rushed over towards the path that had just opened up. Hoping that she would soon be able to finish the maze of mist and challenges, as she had begun to grow quite exhausted over the past few hours that the alchemy trial had lasted so far.

…

Reaching the end of the path, Qing Yi could not help but let a small smile appear on her lips as she discovered an entrance leading out of the maze inside the mountain at the end of the path.

Whoosh~

Not standing around too long after discovering that the path led back out of the maze inside the mountain, Qing Yi soon found herself back outside at a small ledge with the all too familiar and narrow mountain path leading further up the mountain.

For now, Qing Yi ignored the path leading further up the mountain and instead scanned over the small ledge in search of the small stone slab that recorded her points.

Even if she had no idea how many points the other participants had gotten, Qing Yi was still curious about just how many points she had gained from making it through the maze of mist filled with all sorts of challenges inside the mountain…

"Ah- there it is… 137 points!"

Spotting the small stone slab with her information recorded down on it, Qing Yi could not help showing a slightly surprised look on her face. After all, she had gained 102 points just for the third test alone! That was more than a hundred points for only a single test! L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøvl--B1n.

At the first test she had gained 10 points and then on the second test 30 points before finally gaining over a hundred points on the third test…

From this, Qing Yi felt like the number of points she gained from completing each test should be increasing around three times with each test she managed to pass through… With this in mind, she would most likely gain 300 points or more by making it through the fourth test!

Thinking about this, Qing Yi looked over towards the narrow mountain path leading further up the mountain with a bit of hesitation on her face.

She had only barely managed to pass through the third test before the time ran out.

From this alone, Qing Yi could tell that she had already reached her limit and she would likely not have any chance of passing through the fourth test of the alchemy trial.

Even then, giving up at this point in time was really not something she wanted to do and even if she ended up failing in the fourth test, she would not end up losing all her points. At least she would be able to experience the fourth test and maybe even gain something from it.

For example, during the last challenge in the third test, she had learned about the weird chunks of frozen potion mixture.

If she could learn something unique like that during the fourth test, Qing Yi would really regret just giving up at this point without even trying.

Not to mention all of this, she would likely also be given a bunch of free high-level potion recipes whenever she started a new test. This alone was more than enough reason for Qing Yi to try out the fourth test. Even if she knew that she was highly likely to fail…

Her master was also watching her, so there was no way she could just give up without even trying!

Having made up her mind after thinking about it for a short moment, Qing Yi decided to make her way up towards the fourth test.

…

"She passed through the third test!"

"Qing Yi really made it…"

"She managed to enter the top three…? Old Jin, I think I'm dreaming! Quick, pinch me!"

At the same time outside the alchemy trial, the elders of the Flying Sword Sect were all overcome with happiness as they watched Qing Yi just barely pass through the third test and solidify her spot in the top three of the alchemy competition!

This was far beyond what any of them had ever imagined beforehand, as back then, most of them would have been more than happy with her making it to the top twenty…

Sitting a short distance away from the elders, as they happily chatted among themselves like a group of excited sport fans cheering on their favourite player, Xuan Hao could not help but smile a bit as he was infected by the happy atmosphere created by the elders.

"Ouch! Old Jin!? Why did you pinch me!?"

"You were the one who asked me to, you old fool!"

"Playing innocent now? Hmph! Watch how I return the favour!"

"…"

Just as quickly, the happy atmosphere disappeared because some of the elders suddenly began fighting among themselves for reasons Xuan Hao didn't want to think about…

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Chapter 453 - Only One Person Left In The Alchemy Trial!

Making her way up the narrow mountain path, Qing Yi soon climbed up a few steep stone steps etched into the rocky mountainside.

"This should be the fourth test…"

Reaching the top of the steep stone steps, Qing Yi could not help widening her eyes in amazement upon witnessing the large open garden that appeared in front of her filled with all sorts of different spiritual herbs.

Feeling a bit confused over why there was suddenly such a large spiritual herb garden in front of her, Qing Yi soon began to inspect the spiritual herbs inside of it.

"Earth Root Flower, Blooming Fire Lotus… Scorching Earth Flower!?"

Not only could she see several Spirit Grade Herbs growing inside the giant herb garden, but she even managed to catch a glimpse of the Scorching Earth Flower, a Soul Grade Spiritual Herb, and the upgraded version of the Spirit Grade Spiritual Herb, Smoldering Earth Flower, that she had used during the second test!

From this alone, Qing Yi realized that the fourth test was already on a level of its own compared to the past three tests she had gone through!

For a Soul Grade Spiritual Herb to be present, it likely meant that the fourth test might require her to make a Soul Grade Potion!

"There is no way…"

Just thinking about making a Soul Grade Potion made Qing Yi lose any confidence she had at making it through the fourth test.

Not to mention making a Soul Grade Potion, Qing Yi had never even seen a Soul Grade Potion before! The strongest alchemist she had seen was her master, who's level she still had no idea about.

Other than that, Qing Yi had only really interacted with the alchemists of the Alchemy Hall, who were all at the Expert Realm, with the best being half a step into the Artisan Realm!

Now that she understood the difficulty of the upcoming fourth test, Qing Yi could not help but feel that her chances of making it to the fifth test was non-existent…

"Hah… No use thinking about it, I will just do my best and make sure master is proud of me!"

Muttering this to herself as she quickly shook her head, Qing Yi made her way up the last stone step and made her way along the small path going through the garden filled with spiritual herbs. Trying her best to control herself from attempting to take away any of the spiritual herbs…

…

"Ei, I got eliminated, I wonder what the fourth test was about. Only three people managed to reach it so far…"

"Everyone! Two of them are out! Let's go and ask about the fourth test!"

At the same time outside the alchemy trial, both the crown prince and the young girl who Qing Yi had been chatting with during the earlier stages of the alchemy competition had come out and were currently being surrounded by the other participants as they asked them about the fourth test of the alchemy trial.

The reason for this was because the light projections showing what was happening inside the alchemy trial were located high in the sky at a relatively awkward angle that prevented those not in the spectator seats from seeing clearly, so all of them were curious about what the fourth test was about.

After all, compared to the elders from the Iron Sky Kingdom, these young alchemists had not yet developed their divine sense and simply had no way to watch what was happening inside the alchemy trial.

All they could do was ask each other or the elders located around the platform with Fang Shi and the giant cauldron on top of it.

In that regard… The elders were less than useful… All the information some of the young alchemists had gathered about the fourth test was that it was something about spiritual herbs…

Truly… The young alchemists had no idea what to say when they got this answer…

It was alchemy! Which part of it doesn't involve spiritual herbs!?

"Haha, both of you did really well during the fourth test! From the looks of it, it will be quite close when it comes to the top three!"

Before any of the participants could make their way over towards the young girl and crown prince who just came out from the alchemy trial, Fang Shi beat them to it, as he came over with a look of praise on his face. Clearly the two young alchemists had managed to impress him during the alchemy trial.

"Thanks a lot for your praise elder!"

Bowing her head politely upon receiving the praise from Fang Shi, the crown prince of the Dark Sky Kingdom had a completely different reaction, as a surprised expression appeared on his face.

"Top three!? How can that be!? I should clearly be the best…"

Quietly muttering this to himself as he gazed down towards the relatively small young girl who had come out along with him, the crown prince did not know what to say as he suddenly realized that his plan of becoming the second personal disciple of Fang Shi no longer seemed as certain as before…

Not to mention first place, from what Fang Shi said, the crown prince quickly realized that he was not only competing with the young girl who came out alongside him, but also someone else!

He really had no idea what to do if he ended up getting third place… That would simply be way too embarrassing!

"Hm? Where is the last person…?"

Realizing that only one person had come out alongside him, the crown prince could not help but turn towards Fang Shi, whom he had ignored until now, to ask him about the person in question while looking over towards the participants who had come out before him and the young girl.

"… She is still inside…"

"Impossible! Is she perhaps a Peak Expert Alchemist!?"

Already feeling quite annoyed at the behaviour of the crown prince, Fang Shi instead turned his attention towards the young girl who had also just come out of the alchemy trial. Ignoring him completely!

If not for the fact that he had some background in the Sky Empire…

"Hello little one, my name is Fang Shi! Might I ask what your name is?"

Having already turned his attention towards the young girl looking like she was between thirteen and fourteen years old, Fang Shi tried to put on his kindest smile as he asked this.

Even if he already knew her name from when he had gone over the list of participants before the start of the alchemy competition, Fang Shi still decided to ask her after introducing himself. After all, there was a high chance that he would be taking the young girl in as his second disciple after the alchemy competition ended.

"I-I'm Li, Li Yao!"

Seeing how nervous the young girl, Li Yao, had become, Fang Shi could not help but smile to himself as he remembered how his first-person disciple was just like that in the past when she was still small…

Ah… How time flies, that young girl is already grown up and is more than happy to cause trouble for her old master…

"Li Yao? That's indeed a fitting name… You can go over to the rest and the participants and wait until the alchemy trial ends, there is still one person left inside on the fourth test!"

Nodding his head smilingly as he said this, Fang Shi soon turned his attention back towards the cauldron as he focused Qing Yi who was about to begin the fourth test.

Compared to the others, she had fallen quite a bit behind due to her struggle during the first test, but Fang Shi did not really mind this, as he had already understood the reason for her slow progress during the first test was likely due to her lacking knowledge on spiritual herbs. Something that he could easily fix with time!

"There is indeed still someone at the fourth test!"

The crown prince of the Dark Sky Kingdom who had been wondering whether the other person was just resting somewhere inside the alchemy trial looked towards Fang Shi who still ignored him with a shocked expression.

The person he had been wondering about was indeed still undergoing the fourth test! Did this not mean that she lasted longer than he did…?

Thinking this far, the crown prince showed an? even more shocked expression.

"Hey, hurry up and get down from the platform!"

Only when one of the elders standing around the platform called out to him, did the young crown prince wake up before listlessly making his way down the platform and sitting down in a corner of the small space prepared for the participants.

The current expression on his face was nothing short of a depressing sight as he longingly looked over towards Cai Yu from time to time…

"What the…"

Cai Yu who was on the receiving end of the longing look quickly hid away behind her master before glancing over towards Li Yao from time to time. L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøvl--B1n.

In her eyes, the innocent looking Li Yao was by far the best choice if she had to chose between who would become her future junior sister or brother…

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Chapter 454 - Nameless Alchemy Technique

Walking through the spiritual herb garden inside the alchemy trial, Qing Yi soon came upon a small open space in the middle of the spiritual herb garden.

"Looks like the fourth test is indeed going to take place here…"

Muttering this to herself, Qing Yi made her way up to the small open space, but quickly came to realize that there was no cauldron or anything she needed to make a potion present. Instead, all that was present in the small open space was what she expected to be a recipe…

"Hm? It's not a recipe?"

Picking up the small piece of paper, Qing Yi could not help but let a slightly surprised voice escape. The piece of paper in the small opening of the spiritual herb garden was not a potion recipe like she had expected but was instead a technique!

Yes! Not a potion or pill recipe, but a technique!

To be more specific, it was a special technique that would allow her to make a potion without the use of a cauldron and just through the manipulation of her qi!

Just looking over the nameless technique gave her quite a headache, as Qing Yi understood just how difficult it was and at the same time, she also understood just how difficult the fourth test was.

After all, from what she managed to guess so far after getting the nameless technique, Qing Yi clearly understood that she would likely have to learn this technique and use it to pass through the fourth test…

Having picked up the technique, Qing Yi continued walking through the spiritual herb garden before finally reaching the end after close to five minutes of walking.

It was also at this point in time that Qing Yi saw the familiar set up for her to make a potion, the only thing missing was the cauldron. Confirming Qing Yi's thoughts about her having to use the nameless technique to make a potion without the use of a cauldron.

At the very least, Qing Yi felt the pressure that had been bearing down on her from the time she stepped onto the narrow mountain path and headed up the mountain lift. Allowing her to regain her full strength in an instant.

However, this did not cause Qing Yi to feel the slightest bit happy, as she knew that the only reason why the pressure on her lifted, was to allow her to use the nameless technique. The qi required for it to work was nothing to scoff at. Even Qing Yi who could be considered to have almost reached the Peak of the Foundation Establishment Realm felt that she would not be able to keep the technique up for even half the duration needed to refine a single potion…

Throwing the thought of her inevitable failure to the back of her mind, Qing Yi made her way over towards the small table that was filled with all sorts of different potion recipes before going over every single one of them.

Even if she ended up failing the fourth test, she would at the very least commit the few high-level potion recipes to memory so she could use them in the future when she was strong enough…

"Even the worst of them uses a Peak Spirit Grade Spiritual Herb as the core…"

Finished reading over the potion recipes, Qing Yi could not help but sigh to herself. For the first time since the start of the alchemy competition, she felt completely helpless. Not knowing what to do, as the recipes presented to her were all far too difficult for someone like her who just broke through to the Expert Alchemist Realm a few hours ago…

Knowing her chances of success was abysmal, Qing Yi randomly chose one of the potion recipes using a Peak Spirit Grade Fire Spiritual Herb and went with it.

"Core Strengthening Liquid… Huh…"

Having decided on what she was going to make, Qing Yi headed into the spiritual herb garden behind her to gather the spiritual herbs she needed. NvεlB¡n: Unleashing Imagination, One Read at a Time.

One part of the fourth test was also about the gathering process of spiritual herbs. The reason why this was important, was because the quality and strength of a spiritual herb could lower if it was done in a wrong way.

However, this was the least of Qing Yi's concerns… After all, one of the things she had studied the most in depth was how to precisely gather spiritual herbs without them losing any of their value!

Qing Yi was really not someone who wanted to chance upon an extremely rare spiritual herb only for her to ruin it when she pulled it out of the ground…

Whoosh~

Dashing from spiritual herb to spiritual herb, Qing Yi quickly managed to gather the spiritual herbs she needed for the Core Strengthening Liquid. The fact that the suppression was lifted also helped, as she could now use her cultivation base to easily move around.

Arriving back at the set up prepared for her, Qing Yi did not say much and quickly prepared the spiritual herbs.

Lucky or not, Qing Yi did not have the slightest issue when it came to preparing the Peak Spirit Grade Spiritual Herb and could begin the process of adding them into the cauldron-

"Ah!"

Realizing that she had momentarily forgotten the fact that she had no caldron, Qing Yi smiled a bit awkwardly to herself before picking up the nameless technique to read through it one last time.

"So, I should hover the water like this and heat it up like this…?"

Doing her best according to the technique, Qing Yi levitated a large clump of spiritual water before using her cultivation base to manifest a flame beneath the mass of levitating water to heat it up.

Having just finished the most basic part of the set up before she could begin the brewing process, Qing Yi suddenly felt an enormous strain on her dantian. The consumption of qi required for her to keep the water floating while heating it up at the same time was simply way too much for her natural recovery to keep up with and as a result, her qi reserves began to empty out at a speed visible to the naked eye…

Knowing that she could not delay for even a second, Qing Yi began adding in the different spiritual herbs in order, but despite that, she didn't even get to add in the Peak Spirit Grade Spiritual herb before she felt that her qi reserves had been completely emptied out and the clump of incomplete potion mixture floating in front of her began to dissolve as parts of the clump of liquid began breaking off before parts of it landed on the ground in front of her.

Splash! Splash! Splash!

Watching as parts of the incomplete potion mixture landed in front of her and almost splashed up on her legs, Qing Yi understood that in a short moment the rest of the potion mixture would follow, and her potion would end up as failure. Eliminating her and sending her out of the alchemy trial!

Knowing all of this, Qing Yi decided to gamble that she would at least be able to get some points if she at the very least presented a potion before being eliminated-

Whoosh~

Throwing the last few spiritual herbs along with the Peak Spirit Grade Spiritual Herb into the incomplete potion mixture, Qing Yi watched the spiritual herbs dissolve almost instantly before the floating ball of liquid turned from a bright green to a crimson red, pure black and finally bright orange colour before she managed to fill up a single potion bottle before losing control over the potion mixture.

SPLASH!

Following the last bit of her qi inside her dantian being used up, Qing Yi barely managed to dodge the boiling hot potion mixture falling down on the ground in front of her before she ended up getting hit by any of it.

Even if she was someone in the Foundation Establishment Realm, it would still be dangerous for her if she got hit by the boiling liquid filled with the qi of all sorts of different spiritual herbs.

Not to mention someone in the Foundation Establishment Realm like herself, even if she had reached the Core Formation Realm, she would still have to dodge the boiling liquid unless she wanted to end up with some serious and perhaps life-threatening injuries…

"At least I managed to fill up a potion bottle…"

Spending a few minutes just laying down on the ground to recover, Qing Yi who had thrown herself to the side to dodge the boiling hot potion mixture got back up and went over to inspect the potion bottle she had managed to fill up with the incomplete potion mixture.

Picking up the still hot potion bottle, Qing Yi directly placed it on top of the pedestal before watching it disappear like she had already seen quite a few times by now.

"Hm?"

Seeing that nothing happened after the potion bottle disappeared, Qing Yi suddenly felt herself growing a little excited.

"Perhaps I managed to-"

Whoosh!

Before she could even entertain the thought of her passing the fourth test for more than a few seconds, Qing Yi directly disappeared from the mountain inside the alchemy trial before reappearing back outside.

"…"

Looks like I got excited too fast…

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Chapter 455 - Qing Yi's Rank Is...

"With that, the last person has left the alchemy trial!"

Coming back out from the alchemy trial located inside the large cauldron, these were the first words Qing Yi heard before seeing all the other participants looking over towards her with both curious and envious looks on their faces.

"Qing Yi, right? You did well during the alchemy trial! You can just go over to the rest of the participants for now, I will be announcing the results of the alchemy trial shortly."

Suddenly seeing the elderly Artisan Alchemist appear in front of her before saying this, Qing Yi only managed to nod her head before already having made her way over to the location where the other participants were waiting. Still feeling a bit bewildered over what had just happened.

"You did really great! I think you will definitely enter the top three together with me!"

"You too, I hope both of us can at least enter the top three…"

Hearing the familiar voice of the young girl she had talked with during the earlier stages of the alchemy competition, Qing Yi smiled cheerfully as she said this. Even if she had only known the young girl for a short time, Qing Yi felt like she was a nice person and got along quite well with her. For her to enter the top three would definitely not be something Qing Yi was against. At least she liked the young girl compared to the other participants that she knew nothing about…

"Yeah! We will definitely do the best among everyone here!"

Listening to the cheerful young girl, Qing Yi could not help but smile as both of them soon turned to look towards Fang Shi. Waiting for him to officially announce the who won the alchemy competition.

"I guess there is no use dragging this out any longer, I will now announce the ranking for the alchemy trial. Starting with the last place before moving towards the first place. First off, in the twentieth place with 34 points is…"

As Fang Shi began announcing their ranking and how many points they got, Qing Yi could not help growing a bit nervous.

I wonder how many points I managed to get in the end… Hopefully the incomplete potion at least gave me a few points for the effort…

Thinking about this, Qing Yi focused all of her attention on Fang Shi.

The rest of the participants were the same, as everyone looked up towards Fang Shi filled with expectations. After all, the higher their rank was, the better rewards they would get and at the same, they would also have more resources focused on their development by their elders when they returned back home!

…

"I wonder what kind of technique she used during the fourth test of the alchemy trial…" At the same time Qing Yi was thrown out of the alchemy trial and Fang Shi began announcing the final ranking of the alchemy competition, Xuan Hao could not help but think about the technique that his disciple had used during the fourth test.

Even if she had failed the fourth test, it was more than enough time for him to understand just how useful the technique that she had been using to brew without a cauldron was!

Feeling a bit excited when he thought about the alchemy technique, Xuan Hao prepared himself to shamelessly ask his disciple for it after the alchemy competition came to an end.

From the alchemy trial, the technique in question also seemed to be an important alchemy technique, as the other two who had made it to the fourth test were also given a similar technique for pill refining…

Thinking about this, Xuan Hao could not help but narrow his eyes as he thought about it. From the knowledge that had been granted to him through the system, Xuan Hao had never seen a technique like the one that his disciple and the other two had used during the fourth test.

Because of this, Xuan Hao could not help thinking that the technique that his disciple had used might actually be something that would be important for a Master Realm Alchemist!

After all, he knew very well that the technique was not related to the Artisan Realm… Especially knowing that he was currently at the Peak of the Artisan Realm and had never learned said alchemy technique…

Not to mention learning it, he never even knew about its existence before witnessing his disciple use it during the fourth test!

"… Xiao Yang, 137 points, fourth place!"

Hearing Fang Shi calling out the fourth place from the platform, Xuan Hao threw the thought of the alchemy technique to the back of his mind for now before focusing back onto what was happening in the alchemy competition.

Qing Yi had yet to be called out, but that was to be expected… After all, only three people had moved on to the fourth test!

The only thing that was a bit surprising was the fact that someone who didn't even make it through the third test had ended up getting more points than his disciple had after she completed the third test.

Perhaps that Xiao Yang was just unlucky and ended up running into dead end after dead end inside the maze of challenges…

…

"… Next up is the top three! Among all of you, these three performed the best and every single one of them even managed to pass through the third test of the alchemy trial and officially make it to the fourth test!"

At the same time that her master had turned his attention back onto Fang Shi announcing the final ranking of the alchemy competition, Qing Yi was no longer nervous after hearing the person in the fourth place being called out.

At the very least she had managed to make it to the top three!

Thinking about this, Qing Yi could not help looking up towards the spectator room that her master and the other elders were located in.

"Master…"

Murmuring this out quietly, as she nervously looked over towards her master sitting in the middle of the other elders, Qing Yi could not help but feel a bit proud of herself upon noticing her master nod his head in her direction with a look of approval on his face.

"!"

Knowing that she had managed to make her master proud with how far she had gone in the alchemy competition, Qing Yi could not help feeling a bit shy all of a sudden.

"Now, let's start with the third place…"

However, just as she was lost in her own world thinking about her master, Fang Shi's voice suddenly echoed out across the entire venue for all to hear. Instantly forcing Qing Yi back to reality, as she quickly forced her attention away from her master and back on to Fang Shi.

"In the third place with 179 points is… Chu Yang! Crown Prince of the Dark Sky Kingdom!"

Hearing that she did not end up in the third place, Qing Yi could not help herself from growing a bit excited before she turned to look over towards the handsome looking young man that the Fang Shi gestured towards while saying this, Qing Yi could not help widening both her eyes in disbelief.

Peak of the Core Formation Realm!

As the young man did not restrain his own aura in the slightest, Qing Yi could easily tell what realm he was currently at without any effort. Not only was the young man at the Peak of the Core Formation Realm, but he looked no more than a few years older than her!

"For the second place is… Qing Yi from the Flying Sword Sect with 181 points!? And lastly, for the first place with a grand total of 238 points is Li Yao from the Sunfire Sect!"

Before Qing Yi could recover from the shock of discovering how strong Chu Yang, the crown prince of the Dark Sky Kingdom was, Fang Shi directly moved on to the announce her as the second place and someone called Li Yao as the first place.

"We did it! We both entered the top three!"

Just as Qing Yi began wondering who this Li Yao was, she heard the young girl standing beside her excitedly exclaim as she happily began jumping around her.

"Li Yao…?"

"Yes!"

Getting a near instant confirmation, Qing Yi suddenly realized that the young girl was actually the Li Yao who had just managed to place first! Ñøvl-B1n was the first platform to present this chapter.

Li Yao should at least be two years younger than her, yet she had still managed to place first in the alchemy competition!

Just thinking about this, was more than enough for Qing Yi to realize just how talented Li Yao was, but she did get jealous knowing that she had been beaten by someone younger than her.

"I never thought you would be that skilled… Perhaps we can meet in the future to discuss alchemy after the alchemy competition ends and we return to our respective sect. This way we can also help each other improve!"

"Sure! It sounds fun!"

Instead of feeling jealous over being beaten by someone younger than herself, Qing Yi was far more interested in establishing a friendship with someone who was likely to be a future Artisan Alchemist! Maybe even a Master Alchemist!

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Chapter 456 - Fang Shi Taking In Two Disciples?

Personally, giving out the rewards to the different participants, Fang Shi soon handed over an interspatial ring to the crown prince of the Dark Sky Kingdom, Chu Yang before signalling for him to leave like the rest of the participants.

Now that he had two potential personal disciples, there was no need to keep someone like that around. Especially given how much his disciple, Cai Yu, disliked him…

"Hmph!"

Frowning angrily before casting a longing look towards Cai Yu, Chu Yang grabbed the interspatial ring before angrily making his way out of the testing ground. Clearly not happy about how things had turned out.

"…"

Seeing this, Fang Shi didn't really care too much as he just decided to ignore him before moving over towards the place where Li Yao and Qing Yi were standing with a large smile on his face.

Compared to how he had treated the other participants, Fang Shi underwent a complete change in both temperament and expression by the point that he arrived in front of the two young girls.

…

Having talked a bit together with Li Yao, Qing Yi soon watched the participants being handed an interspatial ring filled with the rewards that they had won by Fang Shi before leaving the testing ground and making their way back to their elders and seniors waiting for them.

An interspatial ring!

Realizing that she would get a free interspatial ring along with the rewards she had won for getting second place, Qing Yi could not help herself from getting a little excited, as she watched Fang Shi get closer and closer to the place where her and Li Yao were staying.

"Hm? Looks like the elder will give us our rewards personally!"

Noticing what Fang Shi was doing as he got closer to them, Li Yao also looked over towards Fang Shi who slowly made finished up handing out an interspatial ring to the other participants before making his way over towards both of them last.

"Li Yao and Qing Yi, this is your reward for getting the first place and second place, but as you might know, the reason why I-" Ñøvl-B1n was the first platform to present this chapter.

Before Fang Shi could even mention the reason why he had set up an alchemy competition to begin with and start the process of taking in the two talented young girls, Qing Yi had suddenly moved forward and grabbed away the interspatial ring that he was about to hand her.

Even with his cultivation, Fang Shi did not get to react in time before the interspatial ring he was about to hand over to Qing Yi had already disappeared, as the person in question had directly proceeded to hide it away somewhere in her clothes.

More so than Fang Shi not reacting in time, it was more like he simply did not expect for Qing Yi to suddenly snatch away the interspatial ring before he managed to hand it over to her...

"-The reason why I set up this alchemy competition was to find a new personal disciple and both of you are more than talented enough! If both of you are willing, I will be more than happy to take both of you in as my second and third personal disciple! So, what do both of you think…?"

Watching how smoothly Qing Yi had taken away the interspatial ring, Fang Shi decided to pretend nothing happened as he handed Li Yao her interspatial ring before continuing what he was about to say earlier.

Not only did he want to take in Li Yao, the winner of the alchemy competition as his second personal disciple, but he also wanted to take in Qing Yi as his third personal disciple!

Even if Fang Shi had only planned to take in one new disciple at the start, he wouldn't mind getting one more. After all, given his current status inside the Sky Empire, it would be easy for him to raise a dozen or so personal disciples to the Artisan Realm!

"Personal disciple…?"

"I will have to ask my elders first…"

"Haha, its fine, I will give you some time to talk it over with your elders and seniors first!"

Hearing the response from both Qing Yi and Li Yao, Fang Shi smiled understandingly as he motioned for both of them to go back and talk with their elders about it first.

"But… I already have a master…"

Not having fully understood that the elderly alchemist was currently in the process of snatching her away from her master, Qing Yi could not help but say this as she looked up towards Fang Shi standing in front of her with a confused expression on her face.

"This…"

Seeing Qing Yi's expression, Fang Shi had no idea what to say.

He could not just outright say that he was better suited to teach her alchemy than her master and wanted to take her away, could he?

Thinking about this, Fang Shi suddenly had an idea as his lips tugged slightly upwards into a small smile.

"How about this, we can ask your master what he thinks about it, what do you think? If he is not sure of my skills, he can always test out my skills personally if he wants!"

Saying this, Fang Shi looked towards Qing Yi.

No matter what happened, Fang Shi was confident in being able to successfully take in Qing Yi as his personal disciple. After all, in Fang Shi's eyes, there was no way the master of Qing Yi was better than him when it came to alchemy and at the same time, there was no way he would refuse him taking her in as a disciple.

No matter what, Fang Shi was still someone who was only a single step away from the Master Alchemist Realm and at the same time he was also a renowned Artisan Alchemist from the Sky Empire!

"I…"

Hearing what Fang Shi said, Qing Yi was just about to look over towards the direction of her master and the other elders from the Flying Sword Sect. Not knowing what to do in her current situation.

…

"That old man really is trying to steal away other people's disciples!"

At the same time Fang Shi had begun trying to steal away his disciple, Xuan Hao instantly knew what was happening as he narrowed both of his eyes and stared down towards the elderly Artisan Alchemist.

There is no way I will let that old man steal away my disciple!

Just as Xuan Hao was about to make his way down to confront the old man, the system inside his sea of consciousness suddenly began moving as a new quest appeared…

[Side Quest: Someone is trying to snatch away one of your disciples! Make sure your disciple does not get taken away!]

[Punishment in case of failure: Cultivation base will be reduced by three minor realms.]

[Reward: Not losing a disciple.]

Reading the quest that he had just gotten from the system the moment Fang Shi began trying to take away his disciple, Xuan Hao could not help frowning.

Not only did he get anything from completing the quest itself, but he would also be punished if he failed!

This was the first time where he would be directly punished by the system if he ended up failing a quest! Not like the survival quest he had gotten back in the secret realm where his death would likely come along with the collapse of the secret realm itself…

Thinking about this, Xuan Hao could not help but let out a sigh internally. No matter what, he should never let his disciples get taken away by someone else…

At least the system was against something like that happened and was more than willing enough to punish him severely if he let it happen.

Losing three minor realms would directly send him back to the First Stage of the Domain Lord Realm and who knows how the system would reduce his cultivation base in the first place.

What if it ended up directly erasing the things, he had comprehended over the last half year? Not to mention the fact that his Ice Domain might also end up getting erased if that were to happen…

No! I can't let that happen!

Whoosh~

Feeling even more motivated to ensure Qing Yi did not get snatched away with the 'kind encouragement' from the system, Xuan Hao directly stood up before moving down toward? the place that Qing Yi, Li Yao, and Fang Shi were standing.

"How about this, we can call your master over and ask what he thinks about it! If he is not sure of my skills, he can always test out my skills personally if he wants!"

"I-"

"No need, I'm already here…"

Arriving beside Qing Yi just as she was about to look up towards the spectator room where he and the other elders from the Flying Sword Sect were sitting, Xuan Hao calmly placed a hand on Qing Yi's shoulder before turning around to confront the elderly Artisan Alchemist.

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Chapter 457 - Qing Yi's Master Appears!

"You are…"

Seeing someone suddenly appear beside Qing Yi all of a sudden, Fang Shi was caught off guard, as he tilted his head with a confused expression slowly appearing in his eyes. Not expecting for someone to suddenly show up beside Qing Yi.

Not to mention the fact that he had not even sensed the person approaching before the other party was already standing there!

From this alone, Fang Shi understood that the other person was likely someone stronger than him! Maybe he was even someone who had already comprehended a pseudo domain!

"Qing Yi's master, I don't think there's a need for her to become your disciple!"

"This…"

Hearing the person who just appeared say this, Fang Shi suddenly smiled wryly as he realized that he had just talked about asking her master regarding him taking her in as his disciple. Even proclaiming that her master could test out his skills if he wanted to… However, from the looks of it, her master was far stronger than he had first expected!

For him to become angry was a given. After all, he had just been talking about taking away his disciple!

"To be honest, I did not expect for Qing Yi's master to be this strong, I wonder if you were the one who taught her alchemy as well?"

Knowing that his cultivation was likely inferior, Fang Shi decided to probe the other party's alchemy skills.

After all, in his eyes, Qing Yi should be someone focused on alchemy and cultivation should be a secondary focus to alchemy. Much like what he himself had been doing over the years…

With this in mind, Fang Shi was confident that he could convince the other party with his alchemy and convince him that he could do a better job in helping Qing Yi's alchemy realm reach a new height!

"Yes, I was the one who taught her! I'm an Artisan Alchemist as well!"

Nodding his head to Fang Shi's question, Xuan Hao directly told him that he was an Artisan Alchemist as well. Hoping the other party would just directly give up any plans he had regarding his disciple.

"I see, I wonder if you would want to have a competition with me...? I'm sure I will be able to impress you-"

"No."

"…"

Not the slightest bit intimidated upon hearing that the other party was also an Artisan Alchemist, Fang Shi tried challenging the other party. Only to be shot down instantly.

Was he not supposed to agree with his challenge and try to use it as an opportunity to show off how in front of his disciple?

"It's already late at this point and I don't think anyone wants to see another drawn-out competition…"

Hearing Xuan Hao follow up with this, Fang Shi suddenly realized that the sun had already disappeared as the stars shone down from above.

Not only that, but he also noticed that the spectators around the competition space were slowly beginning to leave following the end of the alchemy competition.

Having a competition at this point where everyone had already been exhausted and were making their way back home was a little…

"Hah… I understand what you mean... How about this, we can have a small and simple competition using the cauldron here. It will only take a few minutes at most. If I win, I'm sure you will be convinced with me taking Qing Yi as my disciple!"

Still not giving up on competing with Xuan Hao and taking in Qing Yi as his third personal disciple, Fang Shi signalled towards the large cauldron that contained the alchemy trial.

"Fine… But are you willing to give up your disciple if I Win?"

Knowing that the other party would not be convinced to give up with just words and the fact that he was quite interested in the large cauldron with the alchemy trial inside of it, Xuan Hao decided to agree to the old Artisan Alchemist's challenge.

Of course, not forgetting to put forward a small request himself.

"This…"

"Isn't it only fair that you give me your disciple if I win?"

"Fine… But I hope you will uphold your side of the deal in case you lose…"

Not knowing what to say upon hearing the suggestion Xuan Hao had put forward, Fang Shi ended up agreeing to it in the end. No matter what, he was confident in his alchemy and didn't feel like Xuan Hao would have a chance to win against him!

Whoosh!

Following Fang Shi reluctantly agreeing, he waved his hand as Xuan Hao suddenly felt himself getting pulled towards the large cauldron in the middle of the platform.

"How interesting…"

Not resisting the pulling force of the cauldron, Xuan Hao muttered to himself with a smile on his face before he allowed himself to get pulled inside together with Fang Shi.

…

Looking around himself and discovering that he was currently inside of a large ancient hall, Xuan Hao linked it together with the hall that Qing Yi and the other participants should have found themselves inside of before the start of the alchemy trial, though he was not sure, as he had not been there to see it for himself and could only go off what he had heard from the other elders upon returning…

Other than that, he did not get sent somewhere else after appearing inside the large ancient hall like the elders had told him happened to Qing Yi and the other participants, as each of them was transported to a mountain where the alchemy trial itself was located.

"Hm?"

Finished looking around at the ancient hall that he now found himself inside of, Xuan Hao began to observe the shinning symbols that covered the walls and pillars of the ancient hall.

From inspecting the several large symbols covering the walls and pillars, Xuan Hao quickly deduced that he should be inside some sort of formation core… But with his current level, he could not understand how it worked. All he could make out was that it was an incredibly terrifying formation far surpassing his current level in formations.

Even if he used all his strength, Xuan Hao doubted that he would even be able to put a single scratch on the formation! How Fang Shi even managed to get his hands on something like that was a complete mystery to Xuan Hao…

"I will not be showing off what is happening in here to the people outside, so we can have complete privacy in here."

Seeing Xuan Hao lost in thought as he looked at the symbols that covered everything inside the ancient hall, Fang Shi smiled with a look of understanding.

He understood what Xuan Hao was feeling. After all, they were currently inside the core of the small realm located inside the large cauldron and also at the centre of the formation that kept everything running smoothly inside of it. This included the alchemy trial and the many other functions!

From growing the spiritual herbs used in the alchemy trial to keeping the space inside stable. Everything was done by a single massive formation. All of this without requiring someone to manually manage it!

"Let's get this over with… I wonder what kind of competition you planned?"

Hearing what Fang Shi said, Xuan Hao didn't continue inspecting his surroundings any longer, as he returned his attention back towards Fang Shi.

No matter what, he did not forget that he had to make sure this old alchemist stopped coveting other people's disciples and wanted to quickly get done with the competition, so he could quickly take his disciple far away from here before someone new showed up and targeted his disciple…

"Haha, we are going to do a simple pill refinement-"

"I thought you said this would not take a long time…?"

Interrupting Fang Shi before he managed to finish speaking, Xuan Hao narrowed both his eyes as he asked the old man.

The main reason for this was because concocting a pill would easily take a few hours. Especially given that both of them would most likely be making something at the Soul level…

"No need to interrupt me before I finished explaining… We are indeed going be making a pill, but instead of normal pills, we will be making Qi Gathering Pills! We will be competing in who can make the most Soul Grade Qi Gathering Pills within fifteen minutes!"

Listening to what Fang Shi said, Xuan Hao's frown disappeared, as he quickly recalled what little he knew about Qi Gathering Pills.

Qi Gathering Pills, as the name suggested, were used to increase a cultivators cultivation speed. Not only that, but Qi Gathering Pills were one of the most simple and easiest pills to make.

At the same time, it was also a unique pill that did not have a potion version like most other pills!

The pill was in essence just a bunch of spirit stones that had been refined into a pill and became easier to absorb for cultivators.

However, there was a fatal flaw in the creation of Qi Gathering Pills and that was the fact that only 50 percent of the qi inside the spirit stones used would be left after the Qi Gathering Pill had been made!

While the pill did make it easier for someone to absorb the qi contained inside spirit stones, the qi wasted in the process was simply not something anyone was willing to endure. This was also the main reason why the Flying Sword Sect did not use Qi Gathering Pills, as it was simply a waste of spirit stones and didn't really bring about enough benefits so as to be considered worth it.

Only people with too many spirit stones to spent would ever make Qi Gathering Pills-

"Ah…"

Suddenly recalling how the beast tamers of the Flying Sword Sect had given away thousands upon thousands of spirit stones to the demon beasts of the sect on a daily basis, Xuan Hao's expression turned for the worst as he decided not to think about how wasteful Qi Gathering Pills were any longer…

"Hah… Let's get started…" Ñøvl-B1n was the first platform to present this chapter.

Shaking his head as he tried erase the image of demon beast swallowing dozens upon dozens of spirit stones with each mouthful inside the stables of the Flying Sword Sect, Xuan Hao agreed to the competition proposed by Fang Shi.

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Chapter 458 - Alchemy Challenge! Fang Shi Vs Xuan Hao!

"Great! We will just be using a simple pill furnace, the one to make the most Soul Grade Qi Gathering Pills will be the winner!"

Waving his hand as two normal pill furnaces directly appeared in front of them. Following which a large amount of spirit stones rushed out from the interspatial ring he was wearing before stacking up into a small mountain between the two pill furnaces.

The sheer amount of spirit stones that Fang Shi had taken out was more than Xuan Hao had ever seen in one place, that is not to mention the fact that the spirit stones pilled up into a small mountain was not only low-grade spirit stones, but there was also a large amount of high-grade spirit stones present!

"Are you ready?"

Having finished the little preparation required for the quick challenge, Fang Shi turned his attention back towards Xuan Hao.

"Yes, we can start any time."

Not willing to admit that he had momentarily been rendered speechless by the sheer quantity of spirit stones that Fang Shi had brought out with ease, Xuan Hao quickly calmed himself down before making his way towards one of the two pill furnaces.

Even if he mainly made potions due to the fact that his disciple along with the rest of the alchemists in the Flying Sword Sect did so as well, Xuan Hao was no stranger when it came to creating pills. Mostly due to the information he had gained in the past through the system, that included an equal amount of both potion and pill related knowledge at the Artisan Realm.

"The time starts now!"

After hearing Xuan Hao say he was ready, Fang Shi didn't waste any more time, as he announced the official start of the short challenge.

Whoosh~

At the same time, a small artifact in the shape of an hourglass was also thrown out by Fang Shi, as it soon came to a stop mid-air where it remained floating before quickly flipping around. Even Xuan Hao with little knowledge on artifacts understood that the small floating hourglass was used to make sure they only used fifteen minutes.

"At least we are not using something uncertain like an incense stick to measure time…"

Muttering this to himself as he turned his gaze away from the hourglass floating in the air above both of them, Xuan Hao focused on the spirit stones and the pill furnace in front of him.

The process of making a Qi Gathering Pill was incredibly simple and took close to no time to make. The only bad thing about it being the horrible conversion rate of losing around 50 percent of the qi inside the spirit stones in the process, but with Fang Shi providing all the spirit stones, Xuan Hao had no worries when it came to wasting the qi inside the spirit stones.

Not wasting any time, Xuan Hao began making his first Soul Grade Qi Gathering Pill.

"Ten to one… If I remember correctly…"

Muttering this to himself as he recalled what the ratio of low-grade to high-grade spirit stones were in a Soul Grade Qi Gathering Pill, Xuan Hao quickly took out ten low-grade spirit stones and a single high-grade spirt stone from the small mountain of spirit stones.

After which, he proceeded to stuff all of them inside the relatively small pill furnace before using his cultivation base to conjure forth a small flame that instantly caused the temperature inside the pill furnace to soar to a terrifying level.

Along with the increase in temperature inside the pill furnace, the spirit stones inside the pill furnace began melting one by one before all of them turned into a liquid state.

Following this, all Xuan Hao need to do was compress the hot liquid spirit stones into a small pill that could be directly swallowed.

The compression of the liquified spirt stones was the last step of the process and also the most heart wrenching part of the process.

Whoosh!

As he began compressing the spirit stones that had melted and merged together into a single liquid form, Xuan Hao could not help but frown upon watching the qi inside the liquid rapidly decrease, as the compression of it ended up forcing out some of the qi inside the liquid, that in turn instantly got burned up inside the pill furnace…

The sight alone was more than enough to cause even a Domain Lord like himself to feel a bit regretful over how much pure qi inside the spirit stones that ended up just being wasted as it was destroyed the moment it was forced out of the quickly shrinking liquid.

Soon enough, the liquid inside the pill furnace was compressed into the shape a normal round pill before Xuan Hao took it out and directly used his ice domain to cool it down before placing it at the side and beginning the process again, he couldn't be bothered to waste any time inspecting the Qi Gathering Pill, as another dozen or so spirit stones were directly thrown into the pill furnace.

The entire process of making a single Soul Grade Qi Gathering Pill, took no longer than thirty seconds, though during the creation of the second Qi Gathering Pill, Xuan Hao felt his speed increase, as he managed to finish it in only 27 seconds! Three seconds faster than the first time!

…

The challenge proposed by Fang Shi only lasted for 15 minutes and it didn't take long before the time ran out and both of them finished their last Soul Grade Qi Gathering Pill.

"That's 15 minutes! Haha, I wonder how many you managed to finish? Let's just put them on the table here and count them all."

Removing both of the pill furnaces along with the small mountain of spirit stones the moment fifteen minutes had passed, Fang Shi directly brought out a small table before placing the Soul Grade Qi Gathering Pills, he managed to create during the fifteen-minute time span before signalling for Xuan Hao to do the same with a confident smile.

"30… 33… 35!"

Seeing how many Soul Grade Qi Gathering Pills Fang Shi had managed to make within a fifteen-minute timespan, Xuan Hao calmed down as he let out a sigh of relief before putting his own Qi Gathering Pills down onto the table Fang Shi had taken out.

"Hm… Let's see how many you managed to make… 20… 27… 33… 37!? How is this possible?!"

Counting the Qi Gathering Pills Xuan Hao had managed to make, Fang Shi could not help but exclaim loudly as he realized that there were two more than what he had ended up making. Meaning, he had lost the challenge!

"Hah… Looks like I have lost this time around, but I really hope we can have a proper duel at some point in the future…"

Shaking his head before calming down, Fang Shi acknowledged his own defeat. No matter what, there was no use crying when he had already lost to the other person. The only thing he found regretful, was the fact that they didn't have a proper match and instead ended up having a short match on who could make the most Soul Grade Qi Gathering Pills.

This was especially so after he realized Xuan Hao was likely someone at his own level… But in turn, it also made him understand that he most likely didn't have any chance taking Qing Yi as his third personal disciple…

"Well, let's get back out. Don't worry, I won't try to take your disciple anymore… Anyways, I still managed to get a quite splendid new disciple in the end, so everything still ended well-"

"Are you not forgetting about something…?" NvεlB¡n: Unleashing Imagination, One Read at a Time.

Just as Fang Shi was about to send both of them out again while saying this, Xuan Hao suddenly interrupted him.

"Ah… I have no idea what you are talking about! Look, it has already gotten quite late, and your disciple should be worried sick now that her master disappeared for so long, we can't keep her waiting!"

"…"

Not expecting the old alchemist to be shameless enough to ignore his earlier bet of giving away his own disciple in case he lost, Xuan Hao suddenly felt himself getting pulled out of the space inside the cauldron, as he quickly put away the Qi Gathering Pills he had made in his interspatial ring before finding himself back outside again.

"Well… I have some things to check up on, so I will be leaving first! Haha, I won't wait around for you two to have a nice little chat about the alchemy competition!"

"…"

The moment he found himself back outside the cauldron, Xuan Hao didn't even manage to say anything before he discovered that the old alchemist was already in the process of running away…

"Master? What happened…?"

"I will tell you when we get back…"

Seeing Qing Yi look over towards him with a questioning look on her face after seeing her master appear after only fifteen minutes, Xuan Hao decided not to chase after the old alchemist for now and instead decided to go back and rest.

A lot of things had happened during the day of the alchemy competition…

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Chapter 459 - Return Of The 'Missing' Elder...

Along with the end of the alchemy competition, Xuan Hao had met back up with the other elders together with Qing Yi.

The moment that the elders from the Alchemy Hall had seen Qing Yi, all of them had come forward to congratulate Qing Yi on getting second place and at the same time ask her about some of the potions, she had made during the alchemy trial with excitement.

Among all of the elders outside of Xuan Hao himself. Only Gong Bo and Chi Hu acted like an elder should, as the rest of them kept asking Qing Yi about the alchemy competition. Acting like a group of excited children…

"Qing Yi, can you demonstrate the alchemy technique you used during the fourth test!?"

"Qing Yi, what potion did you make during the-"

"Qing Yi-"

Looking at current state of his disciple being bombarded with question by the elders from the Alchemy Hall, Xuan Hao feared that if things continued, Qing Yi would end up collapsing from exhaustion.

Mainly because a few of them had even started to ask her for a demonstration on the alchemy technique she had learned during the fourth test and Qing Yi had ended up relenting to the curious elders, as she had begun to use it for the elders to see!

Even if he also wanted to learn more about the alchemy , there was no way he could allow Qing Yi to continue like this in her current state.

"Enough! You can ask her tomorrow! After she got a proper rest!"

Seeing the exhausted look on his disciple's face, Xuan Hao decided to step forward to stop the elders from asking any more questions.

After all, Qing Yi had just finished a competition that lasted for an entire day and even if she wanted to answer the Alchemy Hall Elders questions for longer, both her body and mind were completely exhausted at this point and wouldn't allow her to do so. L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøvl--B1n.

Not to mention she had just exhausted what little qi she had managed to recover over the last fifteen minutes demonstrating the nameless alchemy technique for the elders to see…

""…""

Stopping the barrage of questions the moment they heard Xuan Hao's voice, the elders quickly discovered just how exhausted the current Qing Yi was, as all of them smiled apologetically towards Qing Yi.

"Now, with that out of the way. Let's get back to the manor before it gets any darker outside."

Seeing everyone quiet down, Xuan Hao informed them about this before taking Qing Yi out of the spectator room before making his way back towards the manor.

Gong Bo and Chi Hu soon followed Xuan Hao and Qing Yi back towards the manor, as the rest of the elders were left behind.

…

"Hah… Let's get out here…"

With one of the elders taking the lead, the rest of the elders soon left the spectator room and made their way back towards the manor like Xuan Hao and the others.

"Elder Tian…? Is that you? What are you doing out here?! W-what on earth happened for you to end up like that?!"

However, the moment they left the place where the alchemy competition was hosted, they were shocked to find a familiar figure coming out from a nearby dark alleyway with torn clothes and a half dead expression.

"Ah…? Y-you guys! How could leave me like that!? Do you even know what I had to go through during the time all of you were just sitting in there!?"

Seeing that it was indeed a fellow elder that had come out from the dark alleyway looking like some dead animal the cat had dragged home from god knows where, the other elders quickly rushed over to examine him and ask about what happened for him to end up like that.

However, no matter how they asked, the half dead elder refused to answer any of their questions on how he had ended up like that, so in the end the elders could only push it aside for now as they all made their way back towards the manor together.

…

At the same time that Xuan Hao, Qing Yi, and the rest of the elders from the Flying Sword Sect had made their way back towards the manor that had been reserved for them during the alchemy competition. Two figures had met up just outside the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom, one short and one tall, both covered by a dark robe that seemingly merged together with the darkness of the night, while their faces were covered by a large hood. Preventing anyone from seeing the faces hidden beneath them.

just outside the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom, as they talked to each other in low voices to avoid anyone who happened to pass by from hearing them.

"Are you really sure what you just said is true!?"

"Yes, I'm one hundred percent certain!"

As the two figures talked to each other in low voices to avoid any of the miners passing by from hearing them, the tall one of the two figures asked in a serious voice before shorter one responded in a confident tone to the question asked.

"Hah… Looks like we will only have one opportunity to act when the target leaves the capital and is about to leave. After that, we might not get another opportunity again before it's too late."

"Y-you mean we are going to do it here!? What if-"

"Don't worry about it, we will only proceed when the target is outside the city and its formation. By the point that the lord notices anything happening outside, we will already be gone…"

Calming down the other party, the tall one of the two hidden figures proceed to explain this in a confident tone.

But… To escape from someone like that was easier said than done…

For him to claim that he would be able to get away from the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom before Yi Min managed to respond, was more than enough to tell how strong he was… Or maybe he was just someone seeking death!

After all, a Domain Lord at the level of Yi Min, could easily cover hundreds of miles around her with her divine sense whenever she noticed something happening. Not to mention she could also use the formation around the capital to further enhance her divine sense. Allowing her divine sense to momentarily reach an even higher level!

"But… How are we going to escape?"

The shorter of the two hidden figures also knew about this and couldn't help himself from asking. After all, it was a matter of life and death for him…

"Still not convinced when I tell you not to worry about it? Do you think I would willingly send all of us to our death and perish with the target?"

"…"

Seeing the expression of his companion under the large hood he was wearing, the tall one of the two of them could not help frowning.

His companion very clearly believed that he would indeed sent them in to die with their target!

"Hah… We will talk about this tomorrow! For now, return to the others and make sure they are ready tomorrow morning, I will keep an eye on the target inside the city and will contact you when the target is about to leave!"

Sighing a bit to himself as he realised that he would not be able to convince his companion that he was not just sending him and others in to die, the taller one among the two quickly sent his companion back to inform the others that they would act tomorrow when the target was most likely be leaving the city now that the alchemy competition had officially come to an end…

"Yes, Sir!"

Giving a quick formal bow before leaving, the short one of the hidden figures very clearly knew that they would not be talking over how they would be escaping before they had already launched an attack!

Not to mention, his leader had actually told him they would talk it over tomorrow, while at the same time telling him that they were going to act tomorrow morning. Not to mention his leader was going to be keeping an eye on the target this entire time inside the capital itself…

With one person beginning to resolve himself for death as he left towards somewhere hidden where the others were hiding, the tall figure remained in the same place before narrowing his eyes while staring at the figure of his companion slowly disappearing in the distance, as a small amount of killing intent began leaking out.

"Looks like they have already begun noticing that there is no way out for them… However, as long as they don't get any ideas of leaving before tomorrow, everything will be fine…"

Muttering this to himself as he watched the figure of the short man who he had just talked with disappear in the distance, the tall figure turned around to face a large gate leading into the capital before slowly making his way over towards said gate.

At the very least, he had to make sure everything went according to plan, or he would likely not be able to get out alive…

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Chapter 460 - Elder Tian's Ill-fated Encounter...

After Xuan Hao and Qing Yi had made it back to the manor, they quickly went back to their own room to rest for the night, while Gong Bo and Chi Hu decided to wait for the rest of the elders before returning to their room to rest.

"What happened? Did you happen to fight someone on your way back…?"

The moment the other elders returned with the half dead looking elder being supported by one of them, Gong Bo could not help but exclaim in a surprised tone as he asked with a curious look on his face. Wondering just how the elders had managed to get into a fight during the short period of time that they had separated…

"Elder Gong… It's not like that at all! Actually-"

Hearing what Gong Bo said, one of the elders smiled wryly before stepping forward to explain what had happened. Not forgetting to mention the fact that the injured party had refused to talk about what happened to him during the time he had been trying to get into the alchemy competition and watch.

"Hm… I understand… Elder Tian, would you like to explain what happened to you?"

"This… Can we talk privately…?"

Knowing that he would not be able to refuse someone like Gong Bo, who was one of the leading elders of the Alchemy Hall, Elder Tian agreed to talk about what had happened to him. Only, he requested for it to be done privately, so the other elders could not listen in.

"That's fine with me. Follow me and we will talk in my room."

Realizing that it might be something embarrassing, Gong Bo felt his curiosity grow, as he readily agreed to Elder Tian's request before both of them left the other elders and made their way towards Gong Bo's room in the large manor.

"So, what on earth happened to you…?"

Sitting down at a small table inside the room without any of the other elders around, Gong Bo once again asked Elder Tian.

"This is… After I separated from the rest of you and was refused entrance to the-"

Looking around and making sure none of the other elders were listening in from the side, Elder Tian slowly began to retell the events that led up to his current situation.

…

A few hours ago, Elder Tian had made his way to the long line of people waiting to pay a small fee to get in and watch the alchemy competition taking place.

Like this, Elder Tian had spent a good 30 minutes before finally reaching the entrance-

"Sorry, there is no more available seating spots inside…"

Only to be refused at the entrance by one of the guards, who informed him and the other people behind him. About the fact that there were no more seating spots left inside.

If they still wanted to enter, they could wait for someone to leave, but Elder Tian did not really see that happening any time soon and with this in mind, Elder Tian decided to give up on waiting for what would likely be few hours. Already having wasted half an hour in line and instead decided to make his way around the capital now that he had a lot of free time at hand. At the very least he would not feel too regretful if he manged to find some good spiritual herbs being sold cheaply and even if he didn't, he would still be able to explore the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom and see all the large artifact shops that had made this city so popular in the first place...

This would soon come to be a decision he would come to regret, as Elder Tian made his way over towards what could be considered the centre of the capital where all of the shops were located.

Only to suddenly end up catching the sight of an older madam also moving in the same direction as him.

At first, Elder Tian had not paid much attention to this older woman tailing him from behind. However, in hindsight, he should have remembered to be more cautious. After all, he was in a completely unfamiliar place all alone…

"Ara? Who is this cutie?" L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøvl--B1n.

As he had arrived at the centre of the capital, the older woman had suddenly approached him and called out to him in a seductive way as she slowly began moving closer.

"Me?"

Even at this point, Elder Tian had no sense of danger. Only feeling surprised over how the older madam had referred to him, an elder already close to a hundred years of age. Looking like he was close to reaching his sixties, while not having the same sagely old man appearance as Elder Song, he was not too far away. Only lacking the splendid beard…

"Yes you! I wonder if it's your first time to the capital… If you want, this big sister can show you around, I know all the shops around here. Hehe~"

"Really? Sure, if you want to."

Ignoring the creepy laughter at the end, Elder Tian had examined the older woman and falsely determined meant no harm before agreeing to her request.

In the end, the older woman had ended up showing him around the place for some time before they ended up visiting a small teashop owned by her.

"Hm? I-I suddenly feel really tired…"

After having only, a single cup of tea, Elder Tian had only felt both his eyelids grow heavy as he felt himself slowly falling into a deep sleep.

Knowing that something was wrong, Elder Tian was still an experienced Expert Alchemist and quickly managed to deduce what had happened to him, so in one swift and secret motion, a small needle appeared in his hand before he secretly pierced it into his thigh.

A sleep-inducing potion of the Spirt Grade… I hope the antidote will take effect in time and allow me to wake up before she does anything…

Thinking this to himself as he slowly felt himself losing consciousness, Elder Tian barely looked over towards the older woman.

The last thing he remembered seeing before everything went dark, was the older woman suddenly smiling at him sinisterly before he lost consciousness.

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Chapter 461 - Female Demonic Cultivator~

Following Elder Tian telling Gong Bo how he had been knocked out at the teashop, the other party's interest had increased, as he wondered just what had happened to Elder Tian after he had been knocked out.

"Elder Gong… Do I really need to-"

"Yes! You just got to the interesting part! How can you think of stopping here? How will I even know if you got away safely if you stop now?"

Hearing the words of his senior the moment he tried to stop the story, as it was getting to the more uncomfortable part, Elder Tian could only smile wryly before reluctantly beginning to talk about what had happened after he had been knock out could inside the small teahouse…

…

Following the fact that he had been knocked out by the sleep-inducing potion that had been secretly added to his tea, Elder Tian soon woke up.

However, he was no longer inside the small teashop. Instead, he was inside some kind of underground dungeon.

"Wh-where is this…?" Looking around himself after fully waking up, Elder Tian saw several dried-up corpses next to him. All of them elderly men like himself.

"J-just what on earth happened here!?"

Seeing the corpses next to him, Elder Tian could not help but shiver,

If he had not been able to wake up in time, Elder Tian could easily see how he would end up like the dried-up corpses all around him, as he realized the small anti poison needle that he always carried around had ended up saving his life!

Creak-!

Someone is coming!

Hearing the creaking sound of a door located at the other end of the dungeon, Elder Tian quickly decided to pretend he was still asleep. The reason for this being the fact that he had found out most of his strength was in a weakened state. Requiring at least a few minutes for him to recover his strength back to what it normally was.

All in all, in his current state, Elder Tian was no stronger than some young kids who had just entered the Qi Condensation Realm a few days ago…

"Ah~ I can finally savour this little cutie~"

Hearing the familiar female voice, Elder Tian felt a shiver run down his spine listening to her footsteps slowly moving closer and closer to where he was pretending to still be knocked out cold by the sleep-inducing potion.

Rustle~

Suddenly, the footsteps came to an end, as Elder Tian heard the older woman searching around for something.

After close to two minutes passed with the older woman searching for something, Elder Tian managed to recover his strength back to the Peak of the Foundation Establishment Realm, while still needing another minute to recover his strength back up to the Peak of the Core Formation Realm again…

It was also at this moment that Elder Tian realized the older woman was only a single step away from the Nascent Soul Realm! She was stronger than him. After realizing this, Elder Tian knew very well that he would have to take the other party by surprise if he wanted to escape. Given the fact that the older woman was stronger than him!

The difference between someone at the Peak of the Core Formation Realm and someone only a single step away from the Nascent Soul Realm was extremely large. Even if both of them were still in the same realm.

Especially so given that Elder Tian was an Alchemist with far less combat strength compared to someone who solely focused on cultivation…

"Ah! Here it is~"

Hearing the voice of the older woman once again, Elder Tian focused on recovering his strength. Even as he felt the older woman come over towards him after she had found the thing she was searching for.

"Hehe~ Little cutie~"

Suddenly feeling the older woman beginning to rip apart the clothes he was wearing, while sensually running her hands through his hair and beard, Elder Tian tried his best to stop himself from jumping up and fighting the old woman to death.

"Hah… I will make sure… Hah… to squeeze all your life essence… Hah… out of you~ Hehe~"

I can't take this anymore!

Feeling the older woman's heavy breathing along with her beginning to move her hands further downwards, Elder Tian couldn't hold himself back any longer, as he directly launched an attack towards the older woman who had already begun ripping apart his pants.

Before the older woman even had the time to react to Elder Tian suddenly launching an all-out attack. Three small needles appeared in each of his hands before piercing into the older woman.

"Little cutie!? What is this!?"

Whoosh!

Seeing the older woman with a long whip in one hand suddenly realize that she had been poisoned and was unable to move after being pierced by a total of six poisonous needles that had been hidden in Elder Tian's sleeves, Elder Tian launched a second attack filled with killing intent towards the older woman.

Bang!

Easily killing the now unmoving target!

Thump~

"What was that!?" L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøvl--B1n.

"Did something happen, senior sister?"

"Let's go and check what happened!"

Hearing a myriad of voices from the entrance that the older woman had entered from, Elder Tian didn't dare stay any around any longer. Only glancing once towards the old woman to make sure she was dead before scanning his surroundings for an escape path. Soon spotting a second door a little hidden away in the corner of the underground dungeon.

"Of course, it's an entrance to the sewers…"

Met with the horrible smell the moment he opened the door. Along with the rapidly approaching auras of several Core Formation Realm Experts, Elder Tian didn't have time to hesitate as he entered the sewers.

…

"… After that I managed to make my way back towards the alchemy competition, where I managed to meet the other elders."

Finished telling Gong Bo what had happened, Elder Tian smiled awkwardly before looking away.

"I-I see, I never imagined for you to encounter a demonic cultivator proficient in sucking out other people's life force, we will have to inform the guards about this before we leave… You can go back for now."

Barely able to hold himself back from laughing after hearing how an old woman had nearly managed to take advantage of Elder Tian. Even referring to him as her little cutie, Gong Bo quickly sent him out of his room while trying to keep a serious and understanding look on his face the entire time.

"Thank you, Elder Gong! I hope you won't talk about this to the other elders, as it's quite embarrassing for me to get take advantage of like that…"

"No worries! Y-your secret is safe with me!"

Nodding his head, Gong Bo reassured Elder Tian one last time before the other party soon showed a relieved expression before leaving the room.

"Haha, I never imagined something like that to happen to Elder Tian!" Unable to stop himself from laughing the moment the other party had left, Gong Bo soon calmed down again before leaving the manor to inform some of the guards about what happened.

Normally a female demonic cultivator focused on sucking the life essence out of male cultivators, would focus on the younger ones instead of the older ones…

However, Elder Tian had been unlucky enough to encounter one with a quite… Unique taste…

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Chapter 462 - Meeting With Yi Min... Again!

After Gong Bo had informed one of the guards patrolling around the area just outside the manor, he had returned back to the manor again where all the others had already returned back to their own rooms and settled down for the night. L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøvl--B1n.

"I should get some rest as well…"

Muttering this to himself while looking around the empty manor, Gong Bo soon returned to his own room like the others and soon enough.

Like this, the night slowly passed with a tranquil atmosphere settling over the quiet manor.

…

"Hmh!"

Stretching herself after waking up, Qing Yi looked over the edge of the bed she was laying in before remembering what had happened yesterday.

"That's right! The interspatial ring!"

Remembering the interspatial ring that had been handed to her, Qing Yi quickly fumbled her way out of her bed before searching the small table next to the bed.

Rustle~

"Hah… It's still here…" Letting out a sigh of relief upon discovering the small interspatial ring still filled with all sorts of spiritual herbs and a small mountain of spirit stone, Qing Yi soon got dressed before making her way out of her room to meet up with her master and the other elders.

From what they had planned, she already knew that they would be leaving the morning at the day after the alchemy competition.

"Hello Qing Yi, how are you doing? Got enough rest?"

Hearing an old voice echo out from behind her the moment she stepped out of her room, Qing Yi quickly turned towards the origin of the voice.

"I'm fine Elder Gong, a good night's sleep was enough to clear away all my exhaustion from the competition! By the way are the other elders already preparing to leave?"

"That's great to hear and the other elders are indeed preparing to leave, it's just that your master had something to do before leaving, so I think we might have to wait a bit until he returns again. Well, I still have to see if I can help the others, you can just relax in your room until we leave."

Watching Elder Gong turn to leave after saying this, Qing Yi could not help but feel a little curious.

Where was her master and what was it that he needed to do before leaving…?

"Hah… No use thinking about it, I will just check out my rewards before master returns…!"

Shaking her head as she knew that it would be impossible for her to find out where her master had gone, Qing Yi instead returned to her room with an excited expression, while looking at the interspatial ring she had won.

Before her master returned and they left the Iron Sky Kingdom, Qing Yi wanted to check out all the rewards she had gotten from getting second place in the alchemy competition!

Among which, the first thing to enter her eyes was the small mountain of spirit stones…

…

A little earlier when the sun had just come up and Qing Yi was still asleep, Xuan Hao had suddenly felt Yi Min contacting him through her divine sense asking him to meet her at the large place located at the centre of the capital city where she resided.

This was not really out of his expectations, as he had already expected for her to contact him at some point before he left. The subject of said meeting was very likely going to be something about the people who had attacked the capital earlier!

Thinking about this, Xuan Hao thought that the main reason why she did not ask him to follow her back to talk about this earlier, was likely because she already knew that his disciple was participating in the alchemy competition, and she didn't want him to miss it for something that could wait.

After all, she did not really expect for her enemies to return within a few hours of them having been beaten up by the demonic beast that they had likely planned to use against her at some point…

Whoosh~

Standing up from where he had been meditating through the night, Xuan Hao disappeared from the room. Only to reappear directly in front of the palace at the centre of the capital in the next moment.

Given that the other party already knew about his cultivation realm and the fact that she was not an enemy, Xuan Hao didn't bother hiding his aura when he appeared.

"Who is-!?

"This aura…!"

The two guards at the Nascent Soul Realm standing guard at the entrance to the palace both wore a shocked expression the moment they felt this aura, as both of them instantly understood that the other party was someone similar to their lord! Someone above the Nascent Soul Realm, a Domain Lord!

"Come to the top floor in the west wing of the palace!"

Before any of the two guards could even say anything, the familiar voice of Yi Min flowed out from inside the palace.

Whoosh!

Disappearing in front of the two guards, Xuan Hao moved through the large palace before reaching a beautifully decorated room at the west wing of the palace with a great view of the capital city.

Seeing the person that had called him over in the first place sitting in a small corner of the room nibbling away on a few snacks with a cup of tea next to her, Xuan Hao walked over and found a chair already prepared for him as he quickly sat down.

"I wonder what you called me to talk about?"

Asking this even though he already had some idea what she wanted to talk about, Xuan Hao curiously looked over Yi Min, who was still busy nibbling away on a small cookie in her hand.

"Yes, I called you over to talk about the people who attacked my capital yesterday and wanted to ask you about a few things regarding that, I wonder if you are curious about why they even decided to attack me in the first place?"

Reluctantly putting the half-eaten cookie down, Yi Min put on a serious face before asking this.

"…"

The very clear pieces from the cookie she had just eaten covering parts of the dress along with a few pieces still left around her mouth, did not really fit very well with her current serious expression…

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Chapter 463 - Factions Of The Sky Empire

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

Whoosh~

"Ahm! I called you over to talk about the people who attacked my capital yesterday and if you are curious about why they even decided to attack me in the first place?"

Realizing that her face was still covered with the remains of the snacks she had eaten before Xuan Hao's arrival, Yi Min quickly used her power to erase said snack remains before asking Xuan Hao again. Pretending nothing had happened…

"I am indeed quite interested in knowing who attacked yesterday… Although I did manage to hear that one of them was a general from the Sky Empire…" Ignoring the little cleaning Yi Min did, Xuan Hao nodded his head and responded.

Even if he already knew that one of the people who had been there yesterday was a General of the Sky Empire, he still had no clue who the others were. Not to mention the demonic cultivator that Yi Min dealt with, there was a high likelihood that the people who had come together with General Guan, were very likely from a demonic sect of some sort.

Given that he would very likely have ended up offending them by standing on the same side as Yi Min, Xuan Hao really wanted to find out just who they were, so he knew who to look out for.

Even if there was a chance that they had not noticed him behind the barrier and the two people staying behind had already perished, Xuan Hao didn't want to take any chances and wanted to be prepared, just in case they came to attack him at some point in the future…

"Haha, I thought so!"

Smiling happily upon hearing him say that he was indeed interested, Yi Min stood up before dashing towards a small bookshelf a short distance away before coming back with a beautifully decorated book with a drawing of a large open sky as its cover.

"This is…?"

Seeing the book that Yi Min had suddenly placed handed over to him, Xuan Hao could not help showing a slightly confused expression. Not understanding why, he had been given a book when asking about the people who had attacked the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom yesterday.

"It's a basic introduction to the Sky Empire given to everyone inside the Sky Empire who reaches the Domain Lord Realm! Of course, it also gives a simple explanation of the different factions inside the Sky Empire itself. The ones who attacked yesterday are noted down in there as being on 'bad terms' with me…"

Listening attentively to Yi Min's explanation, Xuan Hao felt like he understood why she had given the book to him.

Not only would he be able to find out about the people who had attacked Yi Min's capital yesterday, he would also be able to get a clearer picture of the current situation of the Sky Empire as a whole.

"Ah! I forgot to mention, you can just keep the book after reading through it, I have quite a lot of them laying around. Also! The book is a special artifact linked to the original in the capital of the Sky Empire. From what I know, it's updated every 10 or so years. However, if something major, like another empire launching a full-blown invasion on the Sky Empire, it will also be updated."

"Really!? What kind of artifact is it?"

"Don't think too much about it, the book itself is not really a rare artifact and can at most be considered an Earth Grade Artifact. The original on the other hand… I have no idea about its rank, but it should at the very least have reached the Transcendent grade!"

Hearing this, Xuan Hao did not feel disappointed as he opened the book before slowly beginning to read through it.

Yi Min did not mind this at all and just picked the half-eaten cookie back up before she began nibbling away at it once again while looking out the window next to her.

…

Reading through the book, the first thing Xuan Hao focused on was the part that talked about the different factions located inside the Sky Empire. Outside of the imperial family members that were not listed anywhere in the book.

At least it looked like the book did not mention anything about the different princes and princess's factions…

However, even with this, Xuan Hao could not help but feel shocked when he saw just how many factions there was inside the Sky Empire. At the same time, it also made him feel a bit sceptical regarding the book he had read through back at the Flying Sword Sect about the different Domain Lords inside the Sky Empire…

From that book, Xuan Hao expected for there to be between around a hundred or so Domain Lords inside the Sky Empire, but looking over the many factions, Xuan Hao felt like there should be far more Domain Lords inside the Sky Empire!

After all, it did not make sense that a family clan without any Domain Lord could be enemies with a kingdom that had a Domain Lord King at the helm…

Looking through the list of factions, Xuan Hao could not help but feel more surprised the more he read about the different faction of the Sky Empire.

Not to mention the churches that he had already known about beforehand, there was also several large noble families that had taken root inside the capital of the Sky Empire. From the writing in the book, Xuan Hao had quickly realized that the large noble families seemed to have a lot of power in the Sky Empire. Albeit, still weaker compared to the churches….

Speaking of the churches, Xuan Hao learned that there were three main faiths inside the Sky Empire.

The Order of the Sky God.

Followers of the Fire God.

And lastly, Cult of the Scarlet Moon.

Among the three, Xuan Hao could not help but read the last one again.

Cult of the Scarlet Moon…

Seeing that there was no description under the three largest faiths of the Sky Empire, Xuan Hao could only throw aside his growing curiosity for now, as he continued reading through the different factions of the Sky Empire before finally finding the Iron Sky Kingdom!

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Chapter 464 - General Guan's Backer And The Frost Devil Sect

Having found the Iron Sky Kingdom under the faction part of the book, Xuan Hao began slowly reading through the long and in-depth description that was attached to it.

Not to mention the fact that Yi Min was far older than he had first expected. Noticing the fact that the Iron Sky Kingdom had built up by her some 2000 years ago…

Outside of the fact that he now knew that Yi Min was someone over 2000 years old, there was no real list of factions that the Iron Sky Kingdom was hostile towards, but Xuan Hao quickly managed to pick up that it was mention that Yi Min had once destroyed over a dozen branches of a demonic sect.

The sect in question, was called the Frost Devil Sect!

Thinking about it, the members of the Frost Devil Sect should have been working together with General Guan to get revenge on Yi Min for destroying so many of their branches in the past!

Now, the only question that remained was…

Why did General Guan work together with members of a demonic sect to attack Yi Min?

Even after reading through everything mentioned in the book about the Iron Sky Kingdom, Xuan Hao still had no clue why a general from the Sky Empire would do something like that.

"Curious about why General Guan teamed up with them?"

Hearing the voice of Yi Min sitting just across him, Xuan Hao turned away from the book in his hand and looked over towards her, just in time to see her finish up the remaining half of the cookie she had been nibbling on when he had arrived.

"Yes, I'm quite curious why a general of the Sky Empire is working together with someone from a demonic sect!"

Nodding his head as he said this, Xuan Hao gazed over towards Yi Min sitting directly in front of him-

Whoosh~

Who in turn quickly cleaned up after having finished the rest of the cookie from earlier.

"General Guan is loyal to one of the many princes of the Sky Empire currently fighting for a chance to become the next emperor. The specific one he serves under is quite hostile to me after I refused said prince's attempt at recruiting me in the past… Hah… And being a prince, he has enough power to get away with cooperating with a demonic sect. Even if it became public knowledge, I doubt it would even affect him…"

Hearing just how petty the prince General Guan served under was, Xuan Hao understood why Yi Min's expression had slowly begun to look a bit hostile.

After all, she had only refused to join him and had never attacked him or anything along that line, yet he had suddenly gotten one of his subordinates to team up with a group of demonic cultivators to kill her…

"Then what about the Frost Devil Sect? There is no way such a strong demonic sect would be able to run inside the Sky Empire without being discovered…"

Having realized that it was likely not a good idea to continue asking about the prince that General Guan served under, Xuan Hao decided to ask about the Frost Devil Sect.

"The reason for this is actually quite simple, while demonic sects are normally destroyed the moment they appear inside the Sky Empire, the same can not be said for demonic sect located outside the Sky Empire!"

"The Frost Devil Sect is not located in the Sky Empire?"

"Indeed… Even though I don't know where the main sect is located, I'm sure that it's not anywhere inside the Sky Empire! From what I managed to find out, they should be located somewhere in the enormous frozen wasteland at our borders. Now that I think about it, you're Flying Sword Sect should not be too far away from where it is..."

Listening to what Yi Min said, Xuan Hao could not help showing a slightly confused expression before he tried to remember anything he could about the frozen wasteland that Yi Min had mentioned.

If he was not wrong, the Azure Sky Kingdom should be bordering a frozen wasteland of some sort and was struggling with demonic cultivators coming from there and trying to take over their land from time to time… But he had no idea if it was the frozen wasteland that Yi Min talked about…

The reason for this, was that the frozen wasteland located beside the Azure Sky Kingdom had a far worse environment for cultivation compared to the border region of the Sky Empire where the Flying Sword Sect was located.

Xuan Hao could simply not imagine a demonic sect with more than one Domain Lord setting up a sect in a place like that…

However, after thinking about it, Xuan Hao realized that the reason why they would set up a sect in a place like that, was most likely to avoid being found by the Sky Empire. The moment they were found, the Sky Empire would not hesitate to send an army down to erase them…

All of a sudden, Xuan Hao felt like he began to understand the struggles of a demonic cultivator…

"Is there anything else you want to know?"

Having finished her short explanation about the person behind General Guan and the Frost Devil Sect, Yi Min asked Xuan Hao before picking up a brand-new cookie to begin nibbling on from the table in front of her.

"Yes, I actually wanted to hear if I could get a sword made. You are after all a quite renowned blacksmith, and I don't really have a weapon…"

"I understand, here!"

Swish~

Before Xuan Hao managed to say anything more, Yi Min waved her hand as a beautiful silver sword appeared and floated directly in front of him.

"Consider it a thank you for your help yesterday… Now, is there anything else you want to ask? If its anything about the Sky Empire, you can just look it up in the book I gave you."

"I also wanted to know where to find a Transcendent Grade Spiritual Herb or Metal… Really, just any kind of natural treasure should do fine…"

Putting away the beautiful looking silver sword that Yi Min had given him, Xuan Hao did not inspect it for now, as he decided to ask Yi Min about the main thing, he had been concerned about regarding getting the Qi Gathering Formation made in time.

"A Transcendent Grade Natural Treasure? Hm… Let me guess, it's for a formation core?"

"Yes..."

Smiling a bit wryly when he heard Yi Min ask this, Xuan Hao did not really see any reason to hide what he needed a Transcendent Grade Natural Treasure for.

"I see! I do indeed know the location of a Transcendent Grade Natural Treasure, a quite special spiritual herb so to speak… But I would need something in return for telling you it's location!"

"Really!? What do you need in return…?"

Hearing that she did indeed know where to find a Transcendent Grade Spiritual Herb, Xuan Hao excitedly nodded his head. Waiting for her to say what she wanted in return for the information about the Transcendent Grade Spiritual Herb's location.

"Great! Actually, the Transcendent Grade Spiritual Herb just so happens to be located in a quite dangerous place inside the frozen wasteland and… I was hoping you could try and look around for the Frost Devil Sect for me and help me find the location of their main sect!"

"This…"

Hearing Yi Min's request, Xuan Hao could not help hesitating. No matter what, he had already understood just how strong the Frost Devil Sect was given the fact that they could send two Domain Lords to attack Yi Min inside the Sky Empire.

Even if he found the location of the main sect, he was very likely going to be discovered and would inevitably end up being chased down by the Domain Lords from the Frost Devil Sect!

"Hah… Fine, but I will not be heading there immediately."

Having thought about it and remembering the movement technique he had just received through the system, Xuan Hao decided to agree with Yi Min's request.

"That's fine! As long as you can find the location of their main sect, I will be more than happy! If not for the fact that so many people wanted to destroy my little kingdom, I would have gone to search for them and get the Transcendent Grade Spiritual Herb myself…"

Saying the last part with no small amount of regret, Xuan Hao watched Yi Min take out a large map before handing it over to him.

"This is a map of the frozen wasteland; the location of the Transcendent Grade Spiritual Herb is also noted down on there… Though a little bit of advice, be careful when trying to get the spiritual herb, as there should be a guardian demon beast of some sort around it." L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøvl--B1n.

"Thank you, for both the sword and the trust."

Whoosh~

"At least don't let it go to waste…"

Muttering this to herself as she stared towards the direction Xuan Hao had left in, Yi Min soon stared back outside the window next.

Nom~ Nom~

Slowly nibbling away on the small cookie in her hand.

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Chapter 465 - Encountering Li Yao

Having left the palace after getting so many different things from Yi Min, Xuan Hao decided to wait until he made it back to the Flying Sword Sect before reading through the rest of the book. The same with the map of the frozen wasteland he had been given. After all, he did not really have much use for any of those things at the moment…

The only thing he wanted to inspect immediately, was the beautiful silver sword Yi Min had given him as a thanks for helping out yesterday.

First and foremost, he did not want to end up encountering a powerful enemy on the way back. Only to be unable to fully use the sword that he had just obtained…

With this in mind, Xuan Hao took out the silver sword as he slowly made his way back towards the manor.

The silver sword that Yi Min had given him was not a Transcendent Grade Sword, something like that was simply way too precious and Xuan Hao did not really expect for her give him such a high grade sword in the first place.

However, even if it was not a Transcendent Grade Sword, it was by no means a bad sword. On the other hand, the silver sword should be at the Peak of the Mystic Grade just below the Transcendent Grade! Even if he surpassed the Domain Lord Realm in the future, he should be more than fine using the silver sword…

Not to mention, given the fact that Yi Min had made something like the silver sword, Xuan Hao believed that she might not be too far away from surpassing the Master Blacksmith Realm!

If she really managed to surpass the Master Blacksmith Realm, Xuan Hao could always come back and ask for a Transcendent Grade Sword in the future!

Thinking about all of this as he put away the silver sword, Xuan Hao felt like it was a good idea to get closer with Yi Min in the future…

…

"Let's get going, we should at least get out of the Iron Sky Kingdom before it starts getting dark!"

""Yes!""

Returning to the manor where Qing Yi and the rest of the elders were already waiting for him to return before leaving the capital city of the Iron Sky Kingdom, Xuan Hao did not intend to let them wait for any longer, as the group soon left the manor under his command.

"Li Yao!? Are you also leaving today? Didn't the Artisan Alchemist take you in as a disciple?" Ñøvl-B1n was the first platform to present this chapter.

Having left the manor, the group abruptly came to a stop almost the moment they had taken their first step out of the manor, as Qing Yi exclaimed loudly while making her way over to greet a young girl coming out from a similar manor to theirs located directly across from them.

"Q-Qing Yi?! Y-yeah, we are leaving today as well, I first need to talk with my parents before they can agree to let me study under Elder Fang…"

Watching the young girl nervously answer Qing Yi as she had run over, Xuan Hao did not know what to say, as he soon realized that the girl was none other than the young girl who had managed to place first in the alchemy competition!

She was even younger than Qing Yi, yet she had managed to take the first place in the alchemy competition!

Even if Xuan Hao had not witnessed how well she did in the competition, as most of his attention was on Qing Yi during the time he was there, Xuan Hao still felt impressed by the achievements of the young girl.

Not only that, but from the looks of it, Qing Yi seemed to have become quite good friends with the young Li Yao during the short period of time they had interacted with each other over the duration of the alchemy competition.

Thinking about this, Xuan Hao looked over towards the people walking together with Li Yao. From the looks of it, they should be Li Yao's elders or maybe family members who had come along with her.

"Hm?"

However, inspecting the group of old people on Li Yao's side, Xuan Hao could not help but frown. The group of old men and women looked extremely on edge, like someone was going to attack them at any given moment!

Not to mention the fact that almost all of them had reached the Nascent Soul Realm, there was also the formation that covered the capital. Any attack at the Nascent Soul Realm or above would cause it to instantly activate and at the same time alert Yi Min…

"Master! Can we go together with Li Yao? She said that her group are also leaving, and they will be moving in the same direction as us!"

"That's fine with me, but what did Li Yao's elders say about this?"

"Ehm…"

Seeing his disciple come up to him and ask him this, Xuan Hao could not help but smile a bit as he watched her make her way back over towards Li Yao currently talking with one of the elders walking just behind her.

"…"

Seeing Qing Yi make her way over the old man stopped talking, as he suddenly raised his head to stare at Xuan Hao with an unfriendly expression.

"Hah…"

Not knowing what to do when faced with the death stare of the random old man he had never seen before, Xuan Hao could not help but sigh to himself as he watched Qing Yi make her way back towards him after a small conversation with Li Yao.

"Master! Li Yao said it would be fine for us to go together with them!"

"Really?"

"Yes!"

Hearing his disciple say this, Xuan Hao could not help looking over towards the unfriendly looking old man who had stopped giving him a death stare and was instead talking with Li Yao with the expression of a kind old man.

He really had no idea what was up with the elders from Li Yao's side, but he decided to not really care about it for the moment. After all, for his disciple to make a new friend was a good thing and he wouldn't be the one to ruin it.

Li Yao also seemed like a kind girl compared to the older people who had come along with her…

"Well then, you can go over and chat with Li Yao, me and the other elders will go over and have a chat with the ones on Li Yao's side."

"Thank you master!"

Like this, the two groups of people making their way out of the capital merged into one.

After beginning to move together with the elders from Li Yao's side, Xuan Hao took the opportunity to talk with the old man who had given him what could almost be considered a death stare just a few minutes earlier.

Talking with him, Xuan Hao quickly learned the reason why they were so on edge. Even when still inside the formation that covered the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom.

According to him, Li Yao, and the rest of them were a part of a large sect inside the Sky Empire called the Sunfire Sect. The reason that they were so on edge, was because several of the small kingdoms neighbouring the Sunfire Sect had turned hostile after discovering that Li Yao's mother, the sect master, had been injured during a battle with a powerful demon beast.

However, what had truly caused them to risk it all and offend a Domain Lord, was because it was rumoured that Li Yao's mother had gotten her hand on a source crystal!

In the end, they wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to destroy the Sunfire Sect and size the source crystal for an attempt to breakthrough to the Domain Lord Realm!

Things, however, did not go as planned… As even if she had been injured, Li Yao's mother was still a Domain Lord and had easily managed to repel the small kingdoms combined attack on her sect!

"… And, with things not going according to plan, these smaller kingdoms turned their attention towards her daughter that was currently on her way to the Iron Sky Kingdom. Wanting to kidnap her and use her to force the Sect Master to hand over the source crystal!"

"I understand, but how can you say something like that to me without fear? Are you not scared that we take the opportunity to kidnap Li Yao after hearing this?"

Hearing the joking tone in Xuan Hao's voice, the old man could not help rolling his eyes.

"Please… If the sect master really did have a source crystal, she would have already used it to recover from her injuries…"

"Haha, indeed, it's a wonder those kingdoms did not realize something simple like that yet."

"Maybe they did, maybe not… From what I can see, someone should be controlling those small kingdoms from behind the scenes!"

Talking with the old man, Xuan Hao could not help but feel a bit of pity towards Li Yao, it seemed like she would have quite a dangerous journey back home…

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Chapter 466 - Fang Shi!?

Now that I think about it, it seems like someone has been following us for quite a while…

Feeling a unique presence seemingly hesitantly approaching them from time to time before backing off again. Only to resume the hesitant approach a few seconds later, Xuan Hao could not help but chuckle to himself.

While the person might be able to escape the senses of someone in the Nascent Soul Realm, it was impossible for him to escape the senses of a Domain Lord like Xuan Hao!

The only reason why he did not care about this presence, was that he could not feel any killing intent or other malicious intent from it. However, in the end, he was still quite curious about who it was…

So, with this in mind, Xuan Hao used his divine sense to inspect the person following behind them.

"This is… Fang Shi?!"

Realizing that the person following behind was none other than the old Artisan Alchemist who had wanted to snatch his disciple away less than a day ago, Xuan Hao could not help smiling wryly.

Was the reason why he was following them because he knew about Li Yao's situation and wanted to secretly ensure her safety on her journey back home, or maybe the old man wanted to fulfil his part of the bet they had yesterday…

"Hehe~"

Thinking about this, Xuan Hao could not help but chuckle a bit to himself without anyone noticing.

From what he saw, it looked like the chances of the old alchemist secretly showing up was to make sure his new disciple made it back safely. Not to come and give away his first disciple!

The reason why he was hesitating to get any closer, was likely because he had seen him and remembered their bet yesterday!

The bet itself was nothing more than a joke in his eyes. After all, there was no way Fang Shi's disciple would just agree to a stranger that she had no idea who was, taking her away from her current master.

At that point, it would just be him kidnapping some random girl…

However, from the looks of it, Fang Shi did not see things the same way he did, as he seemed to seriously think that he wanted to take away his first disciple now that he had lost the bet to him. For this reason, he did not dare to approach Li Yao's group while he was still nearby.

The current situation was quite funny to Xuan Hao. Especially given the fact that the old Artisan Alchemist had yet to discover the fact that the person he was hiding from had already discovered him.

"Looks like we will be parting ways here, it was nice meeting you and I hope we can meet again sometime in the future, as it seems the young mistress is getting along quite well with your disciple…"

Before Xuan Hao could hatch any plan to get a little revenge on the old alchemist who had tried to steal away his disciple yesterday, the old man from Li Yao's side whom he had been talking to during the duration of their journey to the gate leading out of the capital came to a stop as he said this.

The other elders from Li Yao's side were the same, as some of them even directly took out their weapons just in case they were attacked on their short journey to their flying ship floating a few dozen meters off the ground a short distance from the city gate.

"Indeed, looks like we will be parting ways already… I will make sure to come by and visit with Qing Yi in the future, if an opportunity presents itself."

Saying this as he signalled for Qing Yi to come over to his side, Xuan Hao watched as Li Yao and her group gathered together before slowly and cautiously making their way towards the place where the flying ship was located.

Looking at them moving forward so cautiously was quite a comical thing, as many of the miners and guards passing by them looked towards the group with a slightly weird expression on their faces. Not really understanding what they were up to.

"Master… Are they going to be fine…?"

Having somewhat understood that Li Yao was potentially being targeted by someone over the course of their short journey to the gate, Qing Yi could not help asking her master in a slightly worried tone.

After all, Qing Yi already considered Li Yao to be her friend and she did not want for her to get hurt. Especially so when she was there and could help out in case something really did happen!

"No worries, they should be fine, we should also get going."

Feeling the old alchemist having already sneaked past him and left the capital to follow behind the group, Xuan Hao knew that the group should be more than safe.

The main reason for this was that, even though Fang Shi was an alchemist, he was by no means weak. Having already reached the Peak of the Nascent Soul Realm with a pseudo domain, being just a single step away from forming a true domain to become a Domain Lord.

Given the many different potions and pills at his disposable along with the fact that he would surely have gotten his hands on many different powerful artifacts over the years as an Artisan Alchemist, Xuan Hao didn't doubt that the old man should be more than capable of fighting with a Domain Lord Realm Expert for some time! NvεlB¡n: Unleashing Imagination, One Read at a Time.

Even if he could not beat the other party, holding off long enough until Yi Min showed up should be more than enough… Not that he really expected for the other party to send any Domain Lords given what he had learned about Li Yao's enemies from the old man.

In the end, if things really did end up getting dangerous for Li Yao, Xuan Hao could always step in himself to resolve the issue. However, it was after all Fang Shi's new disciple so he should… give…

Wait… Why do I need to give that old thief the chance to show off in front of his new disciple!?

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Chapter 467 - Not Allowing Fang Shi To Show Off~

"It looks like he didn't discover me…"

Having just left the city as he secretly followed behind his future second disciple's group, while remaining hidden by his pseudo domain, Fang Shi could not help but let out a sigh of relief as he looked towards Xuan Hao's figure still standing at the gate to the capital city. Waiting for the other elders from his side to get their hands on a few demon beasts for them to use on their way back.

As for how Fang Shi even knew about Li Yao's current situation, he was still an Artisan Alchemist with quite a large number of connections spread throughout the Sky Empire. Investigating Li Yao was an incredibly simple thing. Not to mention he already knew where she was from…

At this point, Fang Shi hoped that nothing would happen, and Li Yao and her group could safely make their way back onto the flying ship before flying back home.

This way, Xuan Hao would not be able to try and get him to fulfil his promise from yesterday's bet!

However, things did not go according to Fang Shi's wishes, as he suddenly felt several hostile presences rushing over towards his future second disciple and her group. Even worse, he very clearly felt that the group of people rushing over, were stronger than his future second disciple's group of elders… From the looks of it, it looked like he would need to step in and reveal himself.

Even if he got to show off in front of his future second disciple, Fang Shi did not feel the slightest bit happy about this. After all, when he revealed himself, Xuan Hao would instantly spot him!

But… Looking at the people? approaching Li Yao's group from all sides just as they were about to reach the flying ship that had begun descending down towards them, Fang Shi knew that he would have to come out and protect Li Yao.

Unless he wanted to end up losing a disciple just after finding one…

"However,… How do they plan to get away? There is no way they don't know that such a commotion just outside the capital would alert Yi min. Unless, they don't plan to kidnap Li Yao!"

Muttering this to himself as he realized that the people approaching might very well be a group coming to sacrifice their own lives to take down his future second disciple Li Yao, Fang Shi narrowed both his eyes as he secretly moved closer to Li Yao. Making sure he could protect her properly during the upcoming battle!

Fwoosh!

Just as he managed to position himself close enough so that he could protect Li Yao in case her elders couldn't hold back the slowly approaching attackers, a powerful aura similar to his own suddenly flared up from the direction of the gate to the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom just a few hundred meters away from him and Li Yao's group before directly charging towards Li Yao currently located in the middle of the group of Nascent Soul Realm elders.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Followed by the powerful aura of someone at the Peak of the Nascent Soul Realm along with a pseudo domain, several dozen auras at the Nascent Soul Realm erupted around Li Yao's group from all directions before charging over filled with killing intent.

From the looks of it, the fear of the old man and the rest of the elders came true, as they were indeed attack on their way back from the alchemy competition!

The only thing causing them to feel slightly surprised, was the fact that their enemies did not wait until they had left the territory of the Iron Sky Kingdom, but instead decided to attack them before they had even managed to reach the flying ship.

Thinking about it, it was understandable to some degree, as fighting in the air was way riskier. Especially given the fact that none of the people rushing over had reached the Domain Lord Realm. Meaning if their flying demon beasts died while trying to approach the flying ship, they would fall straight to the ground and likely end up losing their physical body…

In the end, it seemed like they thought that it was a better option to attack Li Yao and her group when they were still on the ground. The only problem that remained, was the fact that they were currently just outside the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom.

Escaping was pretty much impossible, as they were far too weak to run away from a Peak Domain Lord like Yi Min!

Attacking them in front of the capital was pretty much a death sentence…

"Who dares to behave so brazenly in front of the capital!?"

Followed by the appearances of a group of Nascent Soul Realm cultivators full of killing intent charging over towards Li Yao's group, the few Nascent Soul Realm guards secretly guarding the gate were instantly alerted.

Already knowing that the group targeted was the winner of the alchemy competition and a future disciple of the Artisan Alchemist Fang Shi, the few Nascent Soul Realm Experts at the gate quickly alert their superiors before rushing over to reinforce the group even before the attacks had managed to launch a single attack yet.

Whoosh!

Everything happened extremely quickly, as the Peak Nascent Soul Realm Expert with a pseudo domain who had charged over first ignored everyone and went directly for Li Yao.

Given the fact that he had a pseudo domain, it was easy for him to pass through the Nascent Soul Realm Experts without them having a chance to block him.

"No, you don't-"

Bang! Ñøvl-B1n was the first platform to present this chapter.

Just as Fang Shi revealed himself and was about to protect Li Yao from the Peak Nascent Soul Realm Expert who had passed through the tight formation of elders, an all too familiar figure appeared in front of Li Yao.

"Oh? You were here as well Fang Shi? I wonder if you remember our bet from yesterday?"

Casually blocking the Peak Nascent Soul Realm Expert who was just about to grab onto Li Yao, while at the same time rendering his pseudo domain useless, Xuan Hao chuckled light-heartedly as he smiled over towards the speechless Fang Shi just a few meters away.

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Chapter 468 - Thousand-Mile Talisman~

"Wha-what!? Who!?"

Seeing someone appear directly in front of him before casual stopping him from grabbing hold of Li Yao, the leader among the attackers could not help exclaiming in a both fearful and surprised voice.

He had just been about to grab hold of Li Yao before someone had suddenly appeared in front of him without any prior warning, it had to be known that he had not even seen the other party move before he was already in front of him!

Not to mention the fact that he had very clearly felt his pseudo domain being rendered completely? useless by the other party before he even had a chance to truly use it…

From this alone, the leader of the attacks quickly realized that the other part was someone far stronger than him and for someone to be stronger than him… Meant that the other party should be someone who had reached the Domain Lord Realm!

This thought alone was more than enough to terrify the leader of the attackers, to the point that he still hadn't noticed Fang Shi standing just a few meters away from him also about to try and stop him…

"Oh? You were here as well Fang Shi? I wonder if you remember our bet from yesterday?"

It was only when he heard the person who had stopped him talk that he discovered Fang Shi was also there.

Someone who was very likely to have reached the Domain Lord Realm and a famous Artisan Alchemist only a single step away from the Domain Lord Realm!

No, I have to get out of here!

Understanding that he would not be able to complete his mission of kidnapping Li Yao, the leader of the attack brought out a small talisman and before Xuan Hao could react in time, managed to activate it.

Whoosh!

Followed by the talisman being activated, both Xuan Hao and Fang Shi showed a surprised expression, as the leader of the group of attackers suddenly disappeared into thin air. Not leaving behind any traces of him having even been present in the first place.

Even Xuan Hao didn't have any time to react, as it was a first for him to suddenly see someone just disappear in front of him all of a sudden…

…

"What was that…?"

Unknowingly muttering this to himself, as he just watched the leader of the group of attackers disappear in front of him, Xuan Hao looked over towards the other attackers who had already stopped their attack also looking over with a similarly shocked expression.

Looks like they have no idea about what happened either…

Thinking this to himself, Xuan Hao used his ice domain to freeze up the group of attackers before they even had any time to react and began observing his surroundings. Trying to find out just what had happened to the leader of the attackers.

However, his search came to nothing, as he still had no clue what had happened to the leader of the attackers.

Well… Not completely useless as he had still managed to discover some changes to the space around the place the leader of the attackers had been standing just a few seconds ago, it was just that his comprehension regarding spatial manipulation was way too shallow to understand just what had happened.

All he could see with his current level, was that some changes had taken place in the surrounding space.

Maybe if he was stronger or had dedicated some more time to understand spatial manipulation, outside of making interspatial rings to throw around wherever he went, he might have an idea as to what had caused the leader of the attackers suddenly disappear in front of him.

"A thousand-mile talisman!? Impossible!"

As the fight had stopped before it even managed to start, Fang Shi's voice could? clearly be heard by everyone standing around, as the old man himself looked over towards the location where the leader of the attackers had been standing just a few seconds ago with a look of disbelief.

"You know what the talisman that he used?"

Hearing Fang Shi's exclamation of surprise after having remained silent for a short moment, Xuan Hao asked the old alchemist.

"Yes, a thousand-mile talisman is a teleportation talisman that can be used once to randomly teleport the user somewhere a thousand miles away… But a thousand-mile talisman is not something easy to acquire.

Even a Domain Lord will have a hard time acquiring a thousand-mile talisman due to the expensive materials involved in making one. Not to mention the fact that it also requires a Peak Domain Lord skilled in the art of talismans!"

Listening to Fang Shi explanation of a thousand-mile talisman, Xuan Hao understood why he was so surprised after he recognized the talisman used by the leader of the attackers.

The fact that it required someone at the Peak of the Domain Lord Realm to make, was more than enough for Xuan Hao to understand just how precious a thousand-mile talisman was.

Not to mention the fact that the talisman could be considered lifesaving. Allowing one to escape in case one encountered a dangerous situation.

Like the leader of the group of attackers who had escaped after realizing that he had no way to fight back against Xuan Hao…

"Hah… If only I knew about it beforehand…" NvεlB¡n: Unleashing Imagination, One Read at a Time.

Only able to shake his head with regret over the fact that he had not killed the enemy before he escaped, Xuan Hao resolved himself to not make such a mistake in the future. At the very least he now knew about the existence of things like the thousand-mile talisman!

At the same time that Xuan Hao was thinking about the thousand-mile talisman, the first of the Nascent Soul Realm Experts from the Iron Sky Kingdom's side arrived.

"Senior, do you have any plan on how to deal with those people? If not, we can take care of them!"

"Sure, I don't have any use for them, and it seems like you already have something planned…"

Already having realized that the remaining Nascent Soul Realm Experts were likely just someone who had been hired by the person who had run away, Xuan Hao allowed for the Nascent Soul Realm Expert from the Iron Sky Kingdom to take away the frozen Nascent Soul Realm Experts…

Even though they were still alive, they could not move a single muscle, as even their Nascent Soul had been frozen in place inside their bodies.

"What happened to them…?"

"They turned into ice sculptures… Is this perhaps a special defensive technique?"

It was also at this moment that Li Yao and her group of elders realized that the people who had just been rushing over towards them filled with killing intent a moment ago, had been turned into human popsicles.

"E-elder Grandpa, what happened…?"

Li Yao, who was just about to get snatched away by the unknown man a few seconds ago, looked up towards the elderly man standing beside her.

"We were attacked by some bad guys, and it looks like Elder Xuan, Qing Yi's master, saved us…"

"Wow! Qing Yi's master is really strong!"

Listening in from the side, Fang Shi could not help feeling a wave of sadness wash over him as he watched how his future second disciple was looking towards Xuan Hao filled with admiration.

Not only did he end up revealing himself to Xuan Hao, but he also didn't even manage to anything other than provide a bit of information regarding how the enemy leader had escaped…

"Thank you… For protecting the young lady, the Sunfire Sect will make sure to repay the favour in the future!"

"No problem, Li Yao is still a friend of Qing Yi, so it's only a given that I help out."

"…"

Remaining silent on the side as this short conversation between Xuan Hao and the elder at Li Yao's side, Fang Shi decided to escape while he still had time.

There was no way he was going to stay around and wait for Xuan Hao to come and ask him to uphold his bet from yesterday!

Whoosh!

Just before Fang Shi managed to leave the area, he suddenly realized that he could not move his body any longer.

"W-what is this!?"

Feeling something bad was about to happen, Fang Shi was just about to use his pseudo domain to run away, when the familiar voice of Xuan Hao echoed out from behind him.

"Oh… Leaving already, Fang Shi…?"

"Hehe, of course not! I just wanted to check up on the other elders over here. After all, I'm an alchemist and have quite a few healing potions and pills on hand."

Not knowing what to say as he had been caught trying to run away this time around, Fang Shi decided to play ignorant as he said this before showing off a few different Qi Recovery Pills he was carrying with him.

"They didn't even fight yet, so I don't think there is a need for that… More importantly, how about we discuss the bet from yesterday? I wanted to talk about this yesterday, but you suddenly disappeared after we left the cauldron…"

Smiling happily while saying this, Xuan Hao arrived beside Fang Shi.

This time around, he was not going to let him run away…

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Chapter 469 - Extorting Fang Shi~

I almost let that old man get away again! I really can't let my guard down around someone like that or I would never be able to stop him from running away!

Thinking this to himself as he had just barely managed to stop Fang Shi with his domain before the other party escaped back into the city, Xuan Hao could not help but curse at the thought of the old man running away like he did yesterday.

Even his future second disciple was not important enough for the old man to stay behind for too long, as he tried running away the moment, he saw that she was safe!

"First of all, let's get some privacy."

Whoosh!

Before Fang Shi even had time to react to his words, Xuan Hao directly used his domains to isolate the area around them. Making sure no one would be able to hear them talking and at the same time making sure that the old alchemist couldn't just run away.

"So… According to our bet, if you won, you would be able to take in my disciple, Qing Yi, as your own… On the other hand, if I won, I would be able to take in your disciple! Is the reason you ran away last time perhaps because you wanted talk it over with your disciple? Don't worry too much about it, I will make sure to treat her just like my other disciples in the future!"

Smiling a bit sarcastically towards the end as he watched Fang Shi's face go through several different, but equally interesting expressions.

The old man had probably never expected to lose in the first place and the fact that he had bet his own disciple would surely make said disciple quite angry when she found out about it… Not to mention her master had ended up losing…

"Ehm-! Can we perhaps discuss this…? I have quite a lot of treasurers-"

"Great! We will just do it like that! Don't worry, as long as you can take out treasures of equivalent value, I will be more than happy to do it like that! After all, taking away another person's disciple is never something I would want to do…"

Hearing Fang Shi mention the thing he originally wanted out of him, Xuan Hao quickly agreed as both his eyes shone for a brief moment.

Saying that he would be fine as long as he could bring out something of equivalent value to their bet, Xuan Hao was essential asking him to show how much he valued his first and currently only disciple!

Given the old man's status, he was sure to have quite a few treasures on him. Not to mention the fact that he might even have some of the natural treasures that he required for the Qi Gathering Formation!

No matter what, the old man would not be able to get away without paying a sufficient price for daring to try and steal away his disciple!

Understanding what Xuan Hao meant, Fang Shi could not help letting out a sigh as he looked over towards the happily smiling Xuan Hao standing in front of him.

"Hah… Is there anything specific you are looking for?"

Letting out a sigh as he began to regret his bet yesterday even more, Fang Shi could only agree to the other party as he asked this with a reluctant look on his face.

"I'm glad you asked! Actually…"

Following what Fang Shi said, Xuan Hao's eyes once again shone as he began to list out several things that would be needed for the Flying Sword Sect and his future residence when he and the Flying Sword Sect moved in the future. Not just limited to the two remaining Mystic Grade Natural Treasures for the Qi Gathering Formation…

"…"

Hearing the long list of rare and precious materials being listed by the other party, Fang Shi suddenly felt his vision go dark for a short moment.

The sheer amount of precious resources Xuan Hao asked for was more than enough to bankrupt a normal Domain Lord! Even someone like Fang Shi, who was far richer than a normal Domain Lord due to his profession, would not easily be able to gather the thing Xuan Hao asked for!

Why are you asking me for so much!? Can't you just rob me instead at this point!?

…

At the same time that Li Yao's group talked with a few of the Nascent Soul Realm guards on the Iron Sky Kingdom's side, Fang Shi was forced to take out several different treasures. Among which was a Seven Petal Sky Flower and a large chunk of Spiritual Dark Metal Ore!

The Seven Petal Sky Flower filled with a dense amount of pure wind qi, while a heavy earthen qi enveloped the Spiritual Dark Metal Ore!

Even though Xuan Hao had already expected Fang Shi to be rich given the fact that he was an old Peak Artisan Realm Alchemist who had been around for hundreds of years, he did not expect the old man to casually pull out two mystic grade natural treasures!

Not to mention that the two mystic grade natural treasures were just what he needed, a wind and metal related mystic grade natural treasure. Now he just needed to go and get the Transcendent Grade Spiritual Herb Yi Min had given him the coordinates to and he could officially begin to set up the qi gathering formation at one of the Shattered Star Peaks.

Whoosh~

Watching the old man run away the moment he handed over the last treasure and the domain around them disappeared, Xuan Hao suddenly felt like he should have asked for more. Given how easily the old man handed out those treasurers just a moment ago, he should have a lot more-

"Master-!"

As Xuan Hao was just about to pull the escaping Fang Shi back with his domain and ask him for a few more things, his disciple suddenly arrived beside him with a relieved expression.

"What happened to you and Elder Fang…?"

Hearing Qing Yi's question, Xuan Hao could not help but smile a bit awkwardly.

When extorti- talking with Fang Shi earlier, he not only made sure nobody could listen in, but he also made sure nobody could see what they were doing, as he did not really plan for others to see him what was happening…

So… In the eyes of his disciple and the others looking at him and Fang Shi, it had looked like both of them had disappeared into thin air like the leader of the attackers had just a few moments ago.

This in turn, had caused Qing Yi to grow worried. Not knowing where her master had suddenly disappeared to. Only relaxing upon seeing that her master had reappeared again.

"I just had to talk about something private with Fang Shi. So, I isolated the area around us. Don't worry so much about it."

"Yes…"

Seeing that she understood that nothing had happened, Xuan Hao smiled as he ruffled her hair, causing a small blush from her as both of them soon made their way back towards the area beside the gate where the other elders from the Flying Sword Sect were waiting with a few newly acquired demon beast mounts for them to use on their way back.

The only bad thing was the fact that the demon beasts were not flying demon beast. Meaning their way back to the Flying Sword Sect, would most likely take a few weeks longer than expected…

Why was there no flying demon beast available in such a large kingdom like the Iron Sky Kingdom?

Well… It just so happened that most of the demon beasts had been killed by someone over the past few days, their bodies completely drained of blood…

For this reason. Only some of the weaker land demon beasts were still alive, though if they had been any slower, there might not even be a single land demon beast left as well!

Thinking about this, Xuan Hao could not help recalling the tentacle cocoons that had sucked out the blood of its victims to grow strong.

With this in mind, Xuan Hao had a feeling that the recent disappearance of demon beasts inside the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom most likely had something to do with a demonic cultivator.

"Let's get going, we have already been away from the sect for way too long…" Ñøvl-B1n was the first platform to present this chapter.

Shaking his head as he ordered the rest to move out after seeing that everyone had mounted up on a demon beast, Xuan Hao decided not to get involved in any more of the Iron Sky Kingdom's problems!

At least Yi Min should be more than capable of dealing with something like that by herself, or she would not have been able to rule the Iron Sky Kingdom for such a long period of time!

Thump- Thump!

Thump- Thump!

Following Xuan Hao's orders, the group from the Flying Sword Sect soon began their long journey back to the Flying Sword Sect.

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Chapter 470 - Hollow Mountain

At the same time Xuan Hao, Qing Yi, and the rest of the elders from the Flying Sword Sect who had come along with them to the Iron Sky Kingdom were beginning their journey back towards the Flying Sword Sect, Chu Yang had just made his way out of the pavilion with the help of Zhi Ruo.

"I'm so close… I just need an opportunity and I should be able to breakthrough to the Core Formation Realm!"

Muttering this to himself as he stared at the clouds gently floating by below him, Chu Yang felt that it was time for him to go out again.

Without going out and experiencing the world, he didn't know how long it would take for him to breakthrough the Core Formation Realm by just sitting around. Not to mention, Qing Yi had already managed to go out together with their master!

"Hah…"

Thinking about Qing Yi and the fact that she and her master had gone to some powerful kingdom for an alchemy competition, Chu Yang could not help feeling a little jealous of her…

"If you want to go out, I think you should go visit the Mission Hall. Recently they put up a lot of new missions and most of them are for Foundation Establishment Realm Disciples."

Hearing Zhi Ruo's voice, Chu Yang looked towards the young girl with a curious expression.

"I still haven't reached the Core Formation Realm; can I really leave the sect without master's approval…?

"Yes! From what I heard, most of the missions are related to Elder Song? and him slowly increasing our control over the territory under our sect. From what I heard; the missions are not too dangerous. At this point, most of the other personal disciple below the Core Formation Realm under the Core Elders have taken up one of the missions issued by Elder Song!"

Listening to Zhi Ruo's explanation, Chu Yang could not help growing a little excited. If what she said was really true, he would be able to take on a mission and gain some real-world experience without waiting for his master to come back!

Maybe he could even breakthrough to the Core Formation Realm and surprise his master when he came back!

"I see… Looks like I will have to visit the Mission Hall! Thanks for the information, Zhi Ruo!"

"No problem, you can always come and ask me if you are ever curious about what the current situation in the sect is!"

Thinking about how wonderful it would be if he could reach the Core Formation Realm before his master returned, Chu Yang did not pay too much attention to his surroundings, as he began making his way down the mountain towards the Mission Hall.

"Ah! That's the wron-"

Crack~

"Huh…?"

Before Zhi Ruo even had time to warn him, Chu Yang had already stepped down the wrong side of the mountain, as the ground beneath his feet suddenly cracked apart-

Rumble!

Before the rocky surface Chu Yang was standing on broke apart and he began falling downwards!

All of a sudden Chu Yang had found himself falling freely! Even worse, a small forest of spiky rocks was located directly below him!

Just how unlucky can I get…

Realizing just how dangerous his current situation was, Chu Yang focused on finding a way to get out of his current situation without ending up getting pierced by the spiky rocks below.

"A ledge!"

Whoosh!

Spotting a ledge just below him rapidly approaching, Chu Yang focused all his energy to propel him towards the small ledge.

Bang!

Just barely managing to land on it.

"Are you okay down there!?"

"Yes! I just need a bit of time…"

Hearing the worried voice of Zhi Ruo coming from above, Chu Yang quickly informed her that everything was fine before laying down on what little space was available to him on the small ledge.

He really needed a few seconds to understand what had just happened…

"In the future, I should watch where I walk more carefully…"

Muttering these few words to himself, Chu Yang got back up before slowly climbing down towards the forest of spikey rocks below him.

He had to at least he had to remove those dangerous things before making his way to the Mission Hall…

Just in case someone happened to fall down here in the future…

…

Bang!

"That should be the last of them!" Having finished tearing down all the dangerous looking spiky rocks, Chu Yang smiled happily to himself as he looked at the empty place that the spiky rock forest had been just a few moments ago.

"But I wonder… Where is this…?"

Looking around himself, Chu Yang had long since realized that he was not anywhere at the side of the mountain after beginning to tear down the spikey rock forest. Currently, he was inside the mountain itself!

To be honest, Chu Yang didn't even know that his master's mountain had been hollow in the first place!

"Maybe I should explore this place first before going to the Mission Hall…"

Feeling himself getting more and more excited over the prospect of exploring just what was hidden inside his master's mountain peak.

During his earlier destruction of the spikey rock forest, he had also managed to spot a few demon beasts running around the place, though the strongest of them had only reached the Fifth Stage of the Qi Condensation Realm. Nothing that would pose a threat to him with his current strength!

The demon beast he encountered, also seemed to understand this, as they had run away immediately upon spotting him…

Having made up his mind, Chu Yang slowly began moving away from the remains of the spiky rock forest and began exploring the space inside his master's mountain. Not forgetting to look out for any demon beast that might try and launch a sneak attack on him.

Even if he was currently inside the Flying Sword Sect and the demon beasts, he had seen so far were only in the Qi Condensation Realm, Chu Yang did not dare to be slightest bit careless. After all, he had no idea what he would end up finding inside the hollow mountain…

…

"What happened to senior brother Chu Yang?"

At the same time Chu Yang had begun exploring the hollowed-out part of the mountain, Bai Ning had just returned from the Blacksmithing Hall, as he asked about his senior brother's whereabouts.

"He fell into the hole at the side of the pavilion, just over there."

"Thanks, big sister Zhi!"

Seeing where Zhi Ruo pointed, Bai Ning quickly made his way over towards a large hole that was located just a few meters away from the outer walls on the side of the pavilion.

The hole was by no means small and had a diameter of at least a few meters.

"How did he even fall into such a big hole to begin with…?"

Making Bai Ning wonder just how his senior brother had ended up falling into such a large hole to begin with…

"Senior brother! Are you there!"

Calling out for his senior brother for a few minutes, Bai Ning got no response.

"Big sister Zhi, can you help me get down to the bottom of the hole? I want to go down and see if senior brother is alright…"

Feeling a bit worried after not hearing from his senior brother that was supposed to be down in the hole, Bai Ning made his way back to Zhi Ruo before asking her for help.

"Sure, we can just use a rope to lower you down, its far easier than trying to climb all the way down."

Not refusing Bai Ning's request, Zhi Ruo instead went to get a strong rope from the pavilion before both of them made their way to the hole that Zhu Yang had fallen into. Ñøvl-B1n was the first platform to present this chapter.

"Are you ready?"

"Yes!"

Having the rope bound around his waist, Bai Ning showed no signs of fear, as Zhi Ruo slowly began lowering him down into the large hole in the ground.

It was also at this point in time that Bai Ning realized that he was not going down a large hole in the ground, but instead found himself inside a large open space.

"Big sister Zhi! This is not a hole! It… It looks like the entire mountain is hollow!"

"Really!?"

"Yes!"

Hearing the surprised voice of Zhi Ruo from above after he had informed her about his discovery, Bai Ning responded affirmatively before reaching the ground.

"Maybe your senior brother went to explore the place?"

Having calmed down after discovering that the mountain she had been living on this entire time was hollow, Zhi Ruo suggested where his senior brother might have disappeared to.

"Big Sister Zhi, I will go look for senior brother, you don't need to stay around waiting, as I think it might take some time to find him… This place is quite big…"

"Okay, I will fasten the rope somewhere so you can climb up by yourself after finding your senior brother. Remember to be careful!"

Along with the warning from Zhi Ruo, Bai Ning began exploring the inside of his master's hollow mountain. The only difference from Chu Yang's experience… Was the fact that the demon beasts were not afraid of attacking Bai Ning!

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Chapter 471 - Blood Pond

After walking around the inside of the mountain for close to two hours, Chu Yang finally managed to find something different from the usual rocky terrain with a few large rocks appearing every now and then.

Not only that, but Chu Yang had also realized that the inside of the mountain was far larger than the mountain itself. If he was walking around outside, he would have at least managed to reach the edge of the sect given his current speed, yet the inside of the mountain did not seem to have any end in sight…

The thing in question was a large complex of ruins!

The ruins themselves looked like the remains of what had once been an ancient city, of which only a few pillars and walls remained intact over the long passage of time.

"I wonder what a city is doing inside a mountain…"

Saying his thoughts out loud as he made his way inside what little remained of the ancient city, Chu Yang began looking through the ruins. Trying his best to find anything that could help him figure out just why the city was there in the first place.

Walking through the empty streets of the ruins of the ancient city, Chu Yang soon arrived in front of the largest of all the buildings and also the one which remained the most intact over the years. Given the fact that it was located at the centre of the city, Chu Yang easily deduced that the building should have once belonged to the lord of the ancient city.

Looking around the premise of the large ruins resembling a small palace, Chu Yang could not help but feel a bit weird.

After having walked through the ancient city, Chu Yang saw no signs of combat having taken place inside the ancient city in the past. Even the buildings had no signs of being attacked, they had simply stood there over a long period of time and had slowly begun decaying and breaking apart without any maintenance.

As for the people who had once lived inside the ancient city, it seemed like they had just left. Leaving behind the city to slowly decay on its own…

Why they had just decided to leave their city, Chu Yang really had no idea. Maybe looking through the estate in the form of a decaying palace that belonged to the past lord of the city would have some clues as to what had happened, though he did not have too many hopes. After all, just from looking at the state of the ancient city, Chu Yang could tell just how long ago it had been since someone had truly lived inside the ruined ancient city!

Thump-! Crack~

Having made up his mind before entering the decaying small palace located at the centre of the city, Chu Yang was caught slightly off guard by the oversized rock eating rats inside the palace itself.

From the looks of it, it appeared that the oversized rock eating rats had made the abandoned and decaying palace into their home, as it should be quite hard for the stronger and more aggressive demon beasts to enter

"…"

Gazing over towards the oversized rock eating rats peacefully going about their own business without paying any attention to him, Chu Yang decided to also ignore them, as he slowly moved around them before making his way into the deeper parts of the decaying palace.

Rock eating rats were not hostile demon beasts and were instead the kind of demon beast that did not really care about humans unless they were attacked. Instead preferring to spend all their time eating rocks.

There was no reason for him to just start randomly attacking the peaceful oversized rock eating rats!

… L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøvl--B1n.

"W-What in the world is this!?"

Reaching the deeper parts of the decaying palace, Chu Yang could not help opening his mouth slightly as he exclaimed with a both confused and surprised expression on his face.

Inside of what was supposed to be the centre room of the small decaying palace stood a large artificial pond of blood with human bones lining the sides of the pond itself. Even after an unknown number of years had passed since its construction, the blood pond at the centre of the decaying palace remained completely intact.

Not only that, but the blood inside of the pool itself also seemed like it was new. As though it had been gathered just a few minutes ago!

Of course, Chu? Yang knew this was not possible, as the ancient city had long since been abandoned! However, looking at the giant pool of blood that had been dug into the ground and lined with human bones in front of him, he had a feeling that he found out what happened to the people of the ancient city in the past…

As he walked a bit closer to get a better look of the blood pond, Chu Yang suddenly felt the Devil Immortal Jade that he was always carrying around with him begin to move.

"Wai-"

Whoosh~

Before Chu Yang even had time to react, the Devil Immortal Jade suddenly flew out before diving into the blood pond in front of him. Disappearing from sight.

"…"

Not knowing what to say upon witnessing the jade that helped increase his cultivation speed suddenly fly away before disappearing into the blood pond, Chu Yang could only walk up to the blood pond and see if he could find out what had happened to the Devil Immortal Jade.

Hoping that he would be able to get it back again, or his cultivation speed would end up decreasing without the help of the Devil Immortal Jade! Not really something he wanted to happen when he was so close to breaking through to the Core Formation Realm…

"Lotus flowers?"

Seeing a few small but beautiful red lotus flowers growing inside the blood pond after getting up beside the blood pond itself, Chu Yang could not help wondering just what kind of lotus flowers grew inside a pond made of blood.

They truly are beautiful; I should be able to get them if I enter-

Smack!

Slapping himself, Chu Yang instantly retreated from the blood pond. Fearfully looking towards the blood red lotus flowers inside the blood pond.

Looking at the blood red lotus flowers inside the blood pond, he had felt himself losing control of both his body and mind! If he was even a second later to regain control over his body and mind again, he would have entered the blood pond!

Dangerous!

That was the only word that he could describe the blood pond in front of him!

To think I lost the Devil Immortal Jade just like that-

Whoosh!

Just as Chu Yang was about to get as far away from the blood pond as possible while lamenting over losing his Devil Immortal Jade, the jade in question suddenly flew back up from the blood pond before landing in front of him covered in blood.

First you fly off and dive into the blood pond, then when I decide to leave, you come back again?

Looking speechlessly at the Devil Immortal Jade that had just landed in front of him, Chu Yang didn't know what to say.

About to pick the Devil Immortal Jade back up after it had come back out of the blood pond, Chu Yang was about to grab hold of it when he suddenly felt a terrifying force repel him.

Whoosh!

Bang!

Sending his body flying a few meters back before slamming into one of the nearby walls.

"Ah-! What in the world is that blood!?"

Getting back up, Chu Yang could not help looking towards the blood pond with an even more fearful expression on his face.

When he felt the terrifying force earlier that had suddenly sent him flying, Chu Yang had very clearly seen that the terrifying force in question, was nothing more than a bit of remnant power contained inside the blood!

For the blood to contain such strong power, Chu Yang could only imagine how powerful the person in question was. Not to mention, there was an entire pool of blood inside the small decaying palace!

"It looks like the Devil Immortal Jade has absorbed the blood… I wonder if something changed after it absorbed the blood…"

Muttering this to himself as he arrived back at the place where the Devil Immortal Jade had landed after leaving the blood pond, Chu Yang cautiously picked up the now clean Devil Immortal Jade before testing it out to see if there had been any changes to it after it absorbed the blood from the blood pond.

Fwoosh!

"This!? I-I'm about to breakthrough!?"

Suddenly feeling his bottleneck loosen, as blood red qi entered his dantian the moment he used the Devil Immortal Jade to cultivate like he had done in the past, Chu Yang quickly found a place as far away from the blood pond as he could go before sitting down in a meditation position to breakthrough to the Core Formation Realm.

Even if he wanted to move further away from the blood pond, he did not dare to delay his breakthrough for too long, as even a single mistake might end up with his breakthrough failing!

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Chapter 472: Dangerous Breakthrough!

Focusing on the red qi that had just entered his dantian after he cultivated using the Devil Immortal Jade, Chu Yang did not have any ability to stop the red qi from merging together with the nine foundational pillars made up of qi inside his dantian.

The moment that the red qi merged together with the nine pillars of qi that he had condensed inside his dantian, Chu Yang felt an unbearable pain spread through his entire body.

"Argh!"

As the pain slowly increased in intensity, Chu Yang could not help letting out a scream as he slowly felt the strength of the nine pillars increase rapidly along with the increase in pain.

Soon enough, Chu Yang turned all of his attention towards breaking through to the Core Formation Realm.

Starting the most dangerous part of the breakthrough to the Core Formation Realm. Breaking down the nine pillars to form the golden core!

Failure at this point could result in his qi going out of control while he was forming the golden core. In the best-case scenario, he would end up losing his entire cultivation base, being forced to start over again. The worst-case scenario was death!

Crack~

Feeling the pillars all begin breaking apart inside his dantian under both his own guidance and the help of the blood red qi from the Devil Immortal Jade, Chu Yang carefully controlled the enormous qi from the nine pillars into the centre of his dantian where it slowly began forming into the shape of a giant sphere of qi.

At this point, he only needed to compress the qi into a golden core, and he could be considered to have successfully reached the Core Formation Realm!

However, all of this was easy said than done, as controlling such a large amount of qi was extremely hard for the current Chu Yang, let alone given the fact that he would have to compress the massive amount of qi into a golden core!

The blood red qi from the Devil Immortal Jade did not help much with this either, as it instead only increase the difficulty of keeping the massive amount of qi inside his dantian under control.

"Hah!"

Knowing that he would not have enough energy to slowly compress the qi inside his dantian into a golden core normally, Chu Yang instead decided to increase the speed at which he compressed the qi inside his dantian.

At this point, Chu Yang felt a mind-numbing pain spread through his body as he felt his control over the now massive vortex of qi that had formed inside his dantian going out of control.

Focusing on compressing his qi into a golden core was close to impossible given the sheer amount of pain currently coursing through his body. Making him feel like being eaten up by a thousand ants, while at the same time being burned alive.

Psh!

In the end, this caused an increased strain on his body, as Chu Yang immediately spit out a mouthful of blood. Followed by two thin lines of blood running down his both his cheeks, as blood slowly began flowing out from his seven orifices.

As he slowly felt himself lose more and more control over his own qi, Chu Yang finally realized just how dangerous his current situation was and the fact that he might actually end up as one of the unlucky people who ended up dying during their breakthrough to the Core Formation Realm!

No!

Unwilling to fail just like that, Chu Yang barely managed to ignore the pain as he regained control over the qi inside his dantian and began compressing it rapidly. Soon the outline of his golden core could be seen as the qi inside his dantian slowly began solidifying into a solid core.

Even through all the pain wrecking through his body at the moment, Chu Yang could not help smiling to himself when he saw that he was about to succeed.

Whoosh~

It was at this moment that the blood red qi inside his dantian finally made its move and forcefully merged together with his golden core that had yet to solidify.

"Ah-!"

The pain brought along by the blood red qi forcefully merging together with his unfinished golden core was way too much for the current Chu Yang to endue, as he instantly let out a blood-curdling scream filled with anguish before fainting without having any time to react to what was happening.

The pain was way too much, and he ended up fainting on the spot.

Feeling that Chu Yang had fainted, several blood red tendrils emerged from the blood pond just a few dozen meters away from his current location before rapidly approaching the now unconscious Chu Yang.

BOOM!

Before the tendrils had any time to retreat, a terrifying aura suddenly erupted from the Devil Immortal Jade laying in Chu Yang's hand. Instantly reducing the approaching tendrils from the blood pond to nothing more than dust.

Screech!

A terrified inhumane screech could be heard from the blood pond before everything went quiet around the blood pond.NvεlB¡n: Unleashing Imagination, One Read at a Time.

Like nothing had happened. Only the unconscious Chu Yang remained laying quietly on the ground, his breathing had slowly stabilized after the appearance of the terrifying aura from the Devil Immortal Jade, as his bleeding had also come to a stop.

Currently, Chu Yang looked like he was sleeping peacefully… If one could ignore that he was covered in his own blood from head to toe…

…

"Wh-what happened- Ah! My cultivation!"

Waking up after having remained unconscious for an unknown period of time, Chu Yang quickly remembered what had happened before checking his cultivation base.

"My golden core… Formed successfully?"

Feeling the core floating around at the centre of his dantian, Chu Yang could not help tilting his head as a confused expression slowly began forming on his face.

He could clearly remember the terrifying pain running through his body as he slowly began losing control of the qi inside his dantian, then-

"The blood red qi from the Devil Immortal Jade merged together with my golden core…"

Muttering this to himself as he very clearly remembered how the pain barely manageable pain had suddenly increased by several fold after the blood red qi forcefully merged together with his unfinished golden core.

From this alone, Chu Yang realized that his current situation likely had something to do with the blood red qi from the Devil Immortal Jade. The only problem was the fact that he had no clue what kind of change the blood red qi had caused.

At the moment, he could not inspect his golden core first hand to see if there was anything wrong with it, as that would require him to develop his own divine sense… There was still quite some time left before he could reach the Peak of the Core Formation Realm and develop his own divine sense in preparation for breaking through to the Nascent Soul Realm…

Throwing these thoughts aside for the moment, Chu Yang instead focused on the most important discovery.

He had successfully managed to form his golden core!

Even when he thought he would end up dying during his breakthrough towards the end, he had somehow still managed to get through it and successfully reach the Core Formation Realm!

Thinking about this, Chu Yang could not help smiling happily to himself. The mystery of how he had reached the Core Formation Realm and what the blood red qi from the Devil Immortal Jade could wait for now.

"Senior brother! Are you there!"

"Bai Ning? What is he doing down here…?"

Hearing the familiar voice of his junior brother suddenly echo out from somewhere outside, Chu Yang could not help frowning as he remembered the many Qi Condensation Realm demon beasts he had encountered along the way to the ancient ruined city.

Not only that, but he had also spotted a few Foundation Establishment demon beasts!

What in the world was his junior brother thinking? Coming to such a dangerous place all alone!

"Ah!"

Hearing the scream of his junior brother, Chu Yang knew that he should have encountered one of the stronger Qi Condensation Realm demon beasts or in the worst case. One of the Foundation Establishment Realm demon beasts!

Whoosh!

Not thinking about too much upon hearing the scream of his junior brother, Chu Yang directly rushed out of the decaying palace. Leaving behind the blood pond and whatever mysterious were hidden away inside of it.

Not that he could even wish to explore what was hidden inside with his current strength…

…

Boom!

Arriving just outside the ancient ruins after leaving the ancient decaying palace, Chu Yang easily obliterated a large worm like demon beast just about to swallow the small Bai Ning in front of it.

"Junior brother… Just what in the world are you doing down here!?"

"I-I just wanted to find senior brother… Zhi Ruo said you went down here and went missing for quite some time, so I felt worried something might have happened to you and- Ah! Senior brother! Just what happened to you!?"

Beginning to explain his reasons for why he was there, Bai Ning suddenly turned around to face his senior brother. Only to see the other party covered in blood from head to toe.

"This… Let's just go back for now…"

Not knowing what to say when he saw his little junior brother's worried expression along with the fact that he had just come here to search for him after he went missing, Chu Yang decided not to be too harsh to Bai Ning and instead just decided to go back for now.

Even if he wanted to investigate and explore the hollow part of his master's mountain further, he knew that he had just broken through and would need some time to stabilize his cultivation realm.

Other than that, he would also need to clean up and bring his little junior brother back.

Who knew how lucky the little one had been to make it all the way to the ancient ruins without encountering any dangers outside of the one he had just dealt with!

"Okay…"

Seeing the little guy nod his head approvingly upon hearing what he said, Chu Yang began making his way back towards the place that he had entered the hollow part of the mountain through.

Bai Ning following closely behind!

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Chapter 473: Finally... Main Quest Completed!

[Main Quest: Any disciple reaches the Core Formation realm. (Complete)]

[Reward: Cultivation increase of 2 minor realms (redeem within 48 hours), 5 low-grade Qi Springs, 1 mid-grade Qi Spring.]

[Redeem: Y/N]

"Hm?"

Riding through one of the few forests inside the Iron Sky Kingdom on top of a demon beast a short distance from the border of the Iron Sky Kingdom, Xuan Hao who had been spending most of his time during their journey so far cultivating. Focused intently on the system prompt that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

After such a long time, he had finally completed a main quest!

From the looks of it, it seemed like Chu Yang had managed to breakthrough to the Core Formation Realm during the time that he and Qing Yi had been to the Iron Sky Kingdom for the Alchemy Competition…

"Hehe."

Thinking about this, Xuan Hao could not help but chuckle a bit to himself as he looked over towards Qing Yi, he really looked forward to seeing the little girl's reaction when she realized that Chu Yang had already reached the Core Formation Realm.

Now… The rewards for the main quest…

Cultivation realms was something he had already expected, but the Qi Springs were not something he had seen before.

Feeling increasingly curious about what the Qi Springs were, Xuan Hao could only stop himself from taking out one of them after a small warning from the system. Telling him that the Qi Spring would have to be fixed to a permanent location by him before being redeemed…

Given that he was not even back at the Flying Sword Sect yet and the fact that the sect would soon move to another location, Xuan Hao realized that he would most likely not see the Qi Springs in action.

At the very least they did not have a time limit in which he needed to redeem them like the cultivation increase part of the reward…

"Did anything happen master?"

"No, I was just thinking about something funny and accidently laughed as a result."

"I see…"

Seeing Qing Yi move her demon beasts closer to him before coming over to ask this, Xuan Hao quickly came up with an excuse. In the end, Qing Yi could only glance suspiciously at her master before focusing back on riding her demon beast.

Compared to Xuan Hao's demon beast that had been thoroughly intimidated to follow behind some the other elders from the Flying Sword Sect riding just in front of him, Qing Yi still needed to focus some of her attention towards controlling her demon beast.

It was not that Xuan Hao had not tried to intimidate Qing Yi's demon beast into listening, it was just that her demon beast was… Special… As only a few minutes after he had intimidated it, it seemed to forget all about it and became unruly again.

After going through this for a dozen or so times already, he gave up trying to scare Qing Yi's demon beast into just following the others without Qing Yi having to control it…

"The border is up ahead!"

Hearing the voice from one of the Flying Sword Sect Elders in front of the group call out, both Xuan Hao and Qing Yi turned their attention towards the path ahead, where the large towers surrounding the Iron Sky Kingdom slowly started to become visible as the forest came to an end.

Even though it had only been a little over a week since he had seen the large towers located at the border of the Iron Sky Kingdom, Xuan Hao still felt impressed upon seeing them.

The towers were not only to spot incoming enemies but were also a part of some kind of defensive formation that Yi Min should have spent quite a large quantity of resources to set up.

Thinking about the fact that the large formation should be covering the entire Iron Sky Kingdom, Xuan Hao could not help thinking back to the attack that had taken place just a day ago.

Maybe the formation was not completed yet…

After all, if it had been completed, it should have encompassed the entire Iron Sky Kingdom and would be far more powerful than the formation covering the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom! At that point in time, there would not be any way for General Guan or his friends to cause any trouble in front of the capital!

Coming to this conclusion, Xuan Hao could not help wondering just what level a formation that covered an entire kingdom had reached.

Maybe it had reached the level of being able to contend against someone in the Soul Formation Realm…?

This thought alone caused Xuan Hao to feel a shiver run down his spine, as he realized just how scary the Renowned Master Blacksmith Yi Min was and it also seemed like she was a formation master on top of that…

At this point, Xuan Hao no longer felt bad joining Yi Min's side and establishing a friendly relation with her.NvεlB¡n: Unleashing Imagination, One Read at a Time.

…

During the next few hours, Xuan Hao, Qing Yi, and the rest of the group crossed the border of the Iron Sky Kingdom and officially left territory of the Iron Sky Kingdom. Signalling an end to their mostly peaceful journey so far.

From this point onwards, they would have to deal with bandits coming to rob them and demon beasts jumping at the opportunity to devour them.

Not to mention that they would have a way harder time passing through the many kingdoms on their way back to the Flying Sword Sect.

At least that would be the case if they did not have someone in the Domain Lord Realm around, who could sense said troublemakers approaching from miles away. Easily dealing with them before any others even had a clue that somebody had planned to attack them just moments ago…

As for having a harder time passing through the kingdoms on the way back to the Flying Sword Sect?

Well… Xuan Hao just had to show his cultivation realm and they would be more than willing to let them pass through!

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Chapter 474: Sixth Stage of the Domain Lord Realm!

A day after Xuan Hao had completed the main quest, they had managed to make it halfway through a weaker kingdom neighbouring the Iron Sky Kingdom.Ñøvl-B1n was the first platform to present this chapter.

During this time, they had encountered a few bandits and demon beasts along the way, but Xuan Hao had dealt with most of them before they managed to reach the group. Only letting a few weaker bandits or demon beasts through for Qing Yi.

Of course, even these weaker bandits and demon beasts had been quite difficult for the current Qing Yi to deal with, as she had ended up in a life and death struggle most of the time. The number of times she was close to dying during this short time period was above a dozen times!

In the end, those bandits and demon beasts had been slain by Qing Yi. Increasing her experience when it came to fighting with her life on the line.

"Let's stop here for the night, we will continue our journey in the morning. I will go out and look around the area to make sure it's safe."

Having come to a small opening inside a small forest, Xuan Hao did not bother waiting for the others to respond, as he directly left them to find a place where he could redeem the cultivation reward from the system.

""…""

The elders did not really have anything to say regarding their sudden break, as they thought Xuan Hao's reason for doing it, was because Qing Yi had been exhausted to the extreme after having fought with all sorts of demon beasts and bandits over the past day. Looking like she was only a single step away from collapsing.

To be honest, if it was not for the fact that Xuan Hao had prevented them from helping her out during those battles, they would have long since stepped in to help her fight off the bandits and demon beasts that Xuan Hao allowed to approach.

However, they also understood that this experience would be extremely beneficial to Qing Yi in the future when she encountered a life and death situation and didn't have her master or any of the elders around to help her out.

With this in mind, the elders slowly began setting up for the night, while Chi Hu specially came over to help the exhausted Qing Yi down her demon beast before finding a nice place for her to sit down and meditate in the opening.

…

At the same time that the elders were taking care of Qing Yi and making sure she was fine and had a good spot to recover from her earlier battles, Xuan Hao found a small empty cave located just a few hundred meters away from the opening in the forest.

"This should do…"

Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao entered the small empty cave before hiding the entrance with his domain.

[Redeem cultivation of two minor realms: [Y/N]

"Yes!"

Sitting down inside the small cave, Xuan Hao cleared his head of any distracting thoughts before redeeming the cultivation increase part of the main quest reward.

Fwoosh!

Following the cultivation reward being redeemed, Xuan Hao felt a terrifying energy appear inside his dantian before it directly began merging together with his soul, refreshing his mind immediately.

With that, he was incredibly focused as his brain began to process information at an even faster rate than before. At the same time, Xuan Hao also felt his comprehension had increased by a terrifying degree. Even more than the time he had consumed the Source Crystal to breakthrough to the Domain Lord Realm!

Whoosh~!

It felt as though a brand-new world had appeared before his eyes, as the strength of both his sword and ice domain suddenly began increasing rapidly.

In a short moment, Xuan Hao's cultivation passed through the barrier separating the Fourth Stage of the Domain Lord Realm and the Fifth Stage of the Domain Lord Realm before continuing towards the Sixth Stage of the Domain Lord Realm!

During this short period of time, his dantian had begun expanding at a terrifying speed to accommodate the sudden increase in qi that seemingly appeared out of nowhere through the help of the system.

Boom!

Not long after breaking through to the Fifth Stage of the Domain Lord Realm, Xuan Hao directly passed through the barrier separating the Fifth Stage and the Sixth Stage of the Domain Lord Realm. Officially reaching the Sixth stage of the Domain Lord Realm!

However, this was not the end as his cultivation continued increasing even further, until it finally came to a stop at the Peak of the Sixth Stage of the Domain Lord Realm.

"Not enough…"

Feeling a bit reluctant upon realizing that he was only a single step away from the seventh stage of the Domain Lord Realm, yet the help from the system that had increased his comprehension had slowly begun to disappear after he reached Sixth Stage of the Domain Lord Realm.

Not only that, but he also felt that the endless stream of pure qi that had been supplying him during his breakthrough drying up.

"No, I can't just stop here!"

Not wanting to give up when he was already so close to reaching the seventh stage of the Domain Lord Realm, Xuan Hao wanted to breakthrough to the seventh stage!

Even if his cultivation base was extremely unstable after directly breaking through two minor realms within the span of only a few short minutes, Xuan Hao did not want to stop when he was so close to reaching the seventh stage…

Not to mention, the seventh stage of the Domain Lord Realm was considered one of the three major thresholds of the Domain Lord Realm, with the barrier between the third and fourth stage being one and the last being the barrier between the eighth and ninth stage.

Whoosh!

Having made up his mind, Xuan Hao took out the Soul Grade Qi Gathering Pills that he had made during the small challenge with Fang Shi before directly swallowing all of them at once.

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Chapter 475: Unkown Change

Rumble~

After swallowing the qi gathering pills that he had grabbed after the challenge with Fang Shi, Xuan Hao felt like he managed to breakthrough some kind of barrier inside his dantian as for the first time since he reached the Domain Lord Realm, he once again felt his soul begin to undergo a transformation.

Following his soul beginning to change, the inside of his soul that resembled the void between worlds that he had seen during his visit to the secret realm, where chaos and nothingness reigned supreme. Began to change!

BOOM!

In just a moment, a sudden violent change occurred inside this place as something slowly began to take shape inside his soul.

Not only was his soul going through such dramatic changes, but his body was experiencing similar dramatic changes, as the qi inside his dantian from the Qi Gathering Pills began draining up rapidly.

"I need more qi…"

Knowing that he would soon run out of qi inside his dantian to fuel the transformation he was going through, Xuan Hao's mind went into overdrive thinking about what to do as he began searching through his interspatial ring for any spirit stones he had.

Only to realize just how poor he was, as he had close to no spirit stones on him and the spirit stones, he had were way too few to match up with the amount required for the transformation. Even the thirty plus Soul Grade Qi Gathering would at most last him for a few minutes before all the qi inside of them had been consumed!

"Maybe… No, she doesn't have enough in the first place…"

Thinking about his disciples recently won spirit stones for a short moment, Xuan Hao soon shook his head, as the spirit stones Qing Yi had won would still be far from enough to help him successfully make it through the transformation that his soul and body had decided to go through.

"At least I can still move… Guess I should check out the surroundings and see if there are any spirit stone mine around here…"

Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao ignored the pain wrecking through his entire body with every single step he took, as he left the small cave.

Whoosh!

"There really is one, three or so hundred miles to the west of here…"

Using his full strength to extend his divine sense hundred of miles in all directions in search of a spirit stone mine, Xuan Hao quickly found what he was looking for.

There was only one problem… And that was the fact that the spirit stone mine had already been discovered by the kingdom they were currently inside of and was in the process of being mined out!Ñøvl-B1n was the first platform to present this chapter.

Normally, this would not be a problem given that the strongest person in the kingdom was someone at the Peak of the Nascent Soul Realm, but his current situation was less than ideal. Even using his domains was difficult in his current state, let alone fighting…

"Hah… Looks like I will have to try and sneak inside…"

Not left with any other choice as the qi inside his dantian was quickly being consumed by both his soul and body, Xuan Hao used what strength he could muster to fly towards the spirit stone mine he had located.

…

"Of course, there is someone at the Nascent Soul Realm guarding the mine!"

Arriving a few miles from the spirit stone mine, Xuan Hao could not help cursing upon discovering that someone in the Nascent Soul Realm was personally guarding the spirit stone mine.

At first, he had thought that he would at most have to hide from someone in the Core Formation Realm while he absorbed the massive amount of qi present in the spirt stone mine, but now that would become close to impossible with a Nascent Soul Realm Expert present.

The main reason for this, was the fact that the Nascent Soul Realm Expert had divine sense, while a Core Formation Realm cultivator did not. Unless he had reached the absolute pinnacle of the realm and was about to breakthrough to the Nascent Soul Realm…

Now that someone with divine sense was present in the spirit stone mine, Xuan Hao would not be able to easily absorb the qi contained in the spirit stones without being noticed and given his current situation. Even someone in the Core Formation Realm might be able to win against him in his current state if he didn't run away…

Boom!

"Hm? Fighting?"

Hearing a large explosion from the direction of the spirit stone mine, Xuan Hao's eyes began shining brightly.

Normally, he might not be able to succeed in absorbing the qi from the spirit stones yet to be mined inside the spirit stone mine… But thing would be different if the Nascent Soul Realm Expert guarding the mine was distracted!

Whoosh!

Knowing that he could not let such an opportunity pass, Xuan Hao used what little strength he could in his current situation and hid himself with his domain while flying over towards the spirit stone mine where the earlier explosion had just occurred.

At this point, he was already dangerously close to running out of qi inside his dantian and due to that, Xuan Hao had managed to discover that the transformation process that he was currently going through, was not something that could be stopped by him simply running out of qi…

If there was no qi left, it would simply begin absorbing his life force!

Life force was essentially what made up his lifespan. Meaning, if he lost all his life force, he would lose all his remaining lifespan and… Die…

Even if the transformation process had yet to truly begin absorbing his life force yet, Xuan Hao had already felt himself losing what would essentially be equivalent to 10 years of his lifespan!

If it truly began absorbing his life force in full force… Xuan Hao didn't dare to think about this…

BOOM!

"Die demon!"

Making his way over to the entrance of the spirit stone mine, Xuan Hao could not help showing a slightly surprised expression on his face upon discovering a demonic cultivator currently locked in combat with the person who he guessed to be the Nascent Soul Realm Expert in charge of defending the spirit stone mine.

"Another demonic cultivator? How come there are so many of them showing up now all of a sudden…?"

Not thinking too deeply about it, Xuan Hao had more important things to do, as the last bit of qi inside his dantian dried up. Following which, a terrifying feeling spread throughout his body, as he felt his life force being absorbed by his body and soul!

Why his body decided to also join in and absorb his life force when it just ended up weakening in the process was a mystery…

Whoosh~

Barely glancing at the two, Xuan Hao rushed into the spirit stone mine.

…

Entering the spirit stone mine, Xuan Hao rushed towards the deeper parts of the mine where the higher grade spirt stones would be located before finding a good place to sit down and absorb the qi from the spirt stones inside the mine.

Whoosh!

Like a dam had broken, as the qi from the spirit stones suddenly rushed out from the walls around Xuan Hao before directly entering his body under the guidance of his domain.

At the very least, there was not any miners around to see what was happening, as all of them had long since fled far away with the battle taking place outside the spirit stone mine.

"Hah… I hope this will be enough…"

Feeling the massive amount of qi entering his body being devoured the moment it entered his dantian without even needing him to refine it, Xuan Hao could not help shivering as he realized that there might not even be enough qi for the transformation. Even after he had absorbed an entire spirit stone mine worth…

It had to be known that even if the number of high-grade spirts stones only numbered in a few dozen or a few hundred depending on the size of the mine. The sheer number of low-grade spirit stones inside a spirit stone mine would easily number in the tens of millions!

The amount of qi inside that many spirit stones was simply incomprehensible for Xuan Hao. However, the absorption speed did not slow down in the slightest, as Xuan Hao could only extend the range of his domain to absorb more qi.

…

"It stopped…?"

After unknown period of time had passed, Xuan Hao slowly opened his eyes before carefully observing both his dantian and body for any abnormalities. Making sure that everything had really come to an end.

In the end, he had ended up directly absorbing close to seventy percent of the spirit stone mine before the transformation finally ended.

"What in the world?!"

Finishing his inspection of the current situation of his body, dantian and soul, Xuan Hao could not help exclaiming loudly as he finally discovered just what had changed.

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Chapter 476: Seventh Stage of the Domain Lord Realm and Return of the Blue Feather~

First of all, two small objects had materialized inside his soul. The first was a small silver sword, while the other was a small ice flower. Even just looking at the two objects, Xuan Hao could clearly feel his connection with both of them.

Through the small silver sword floating around inside his soul, he could feel his sword domain, while the same could be said for the ice flower and his ice domain. The silver sword and ice flower inside his soul seemed to be a physical shape taken on by his two domains!

Before Xuan Hao could inspect the ice flower and silver sword inside his soul more closely, he suddenly felt the fighting taking place outside the spirit stone mine come to a stop as he felt the aura of both the Nascent Soul Realm Expert guarding the spirit stone mine and the demonic cultivator rush over towards his current direction.

"Ah-! Looks like they finally managed to discover the fact that most of the spirit stone mine suddenly dried up, I should get away here before those two shows up…"

Whoosh~

Smiling a bit awkwardly as he looked around the empty tunnel, he was currently sitting down inside, Xuan Hao postponed going over the situation of his dantian and body for now, as he began leaving the dried-up spirit stone mine.

BOOM!

Unfortunately for Xuan Hao, his plan of leaving without the other party finding out ended up in a complete failure, as he tired using his ice domain to hide himself from the two Nascent Soul Realm Experts rushing over. Only to end up causing a small snowstorm inside the spirit stone mine…

It was also at this that Xuan Hao realized that his domains seemed to have also gone through an upgrade. Increasing their strength to another level, but at the same time also becoming harder to control.

Not only that, but Xuan Hao also very clearly felt that his cultivation base was extremely unstable at the moment. Fighting before he stabilized his foundation would not only be risky, but also have a potential to damage his foundation if he fought for too long!

With all of this in mind, Xuan Hao didn't really want to fight with the two Nascent Soul Realm Experts.

Mainly because he had no way to properly control his strength…

Even using one of his domains to supress them was not doable, as it would most likely just end up with him killing both of them. Not that he would feel too much regret over the dead demonic cultivator, but there was still another Nascent Soul Realm Expert around…

Other than that, Xuan Hao did just steal a crucial resource for his kingdom… If he also killed one of their core experts without even knowing the other party, that seemed a little out of line. Especially given that the kingdom in question was just next to the Iron Sky Kingdom and was likely a vassal of sorts.L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøvl--B1n.

"Who!?"

"There really was someone in here…! How dare you sneak inside while we are fighting! Coward!"

Guess I will just run away before they see me…

Feeling two powerful divine senses, one belonging to each of the two Nascent Soul Realm Experts rushing over, Xuan Hao no longer bothered trying to hide himself.

Bang!

Whoosh!

Repelling both the incoming divine senses before they managed to reach him, Xuan Hao used his full strength to run away from the spirit stone mine.

"Wha-"

"…"

Leaving behind a grievously wounded Nascent Soul Realm Expert and a half-dead demonic cultivator…

…

"This should be far enough…"

Muttering this to himself as he looked towards the direction of the spirit stone mine with an awkward expression, Xuan Hao did not know what to say.

Earlier when running away, he had just intended to repel the two's divine sense, but in the end, he had grievously wounded one, while leaving the other half-dead with one step into the grave!

At least the one in a half-dead state was the demonic cultivator and not the Nascent Soul Realm Expert who had been protecting the spirit stone mine that he had mostly emptied out…

Deciding not to think about this anymore, Xuan Hao returned to the small cave a few hundred meters from where Qing Yi and the other elders were located before checking out the situation of his dantian.

Compared to his soul, the changes to his dantian were far more drastic, as the dantian had expanded by more than double as to what it was when he just reached the Peak of the Sixth Stage of the Domain Lord Realm!

However, this was not the most shocking change that had taken place inside his dantian. Instead, it was the fact that two giant vortexes of qi had formed, one silver, another deep blue in colour.

Both of them orbited around his soul located at the centre, as a massive amount of qi gushed out from both of the vortexes. Slowly beginning to fill up his dantian.

Even if he did nothing, Xuan Hao felt like it would at most be a year or even less before his dantian was filled up and he would breakthrough without doing anything…

"So that's where the qi from the spirit stone mine went…"

Understanding where the massive amount of qi was coming from, Xuan Hao still felt a bit confused about why the two vortexes had suddenly appeared inside his dantian. More importantly, he felt like something was hidden inside the two vortexes, but he could not see just what it was with his current strength.

Turning his attention away from his dantian after realizing that he had no way to find out what was hidden inside the two vortexes, Xuan Hao finally focused on the most visible change that had taken place during his earlier transformation… His body…

Not only had his soul and dantian changed, but his body had also undergone quite a few changes…

"I wonder if this is a good or bad thing…"

Using his divine sense to look over his body, Xuan Hao had no idea how to react to the changes that had taken place.

If before he looked like an average young man in his early twenties, he had now grown a bit more good looking, while also growing a bit older.

Of course, this was not the main thing Xuan Hao was focused on. Instead, it was the small blue feather imprint currently located directly between his brows, that looked eerily similar to the blue feathers he had been finding over the past year or so…

"Maybe the system will know something…?"

Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao quickly entered his sea of consciousness before checking out his status after a long time.

Name: Xuan Hao

Domain: Sword Domain, Ice Domain

Talent: ???

Physique: ??? (Criteria for awakening not met, recommended to increase cultivation realm)

Realm: Seventh Stage Domain Lord

Outside of the fact that his cultivation realm had been updated from the Peak of the Fourth Stage of the Domain Lord Realm to the Seventh Stage of the Domain Lord Realm, Xuan Hao focused his attention on the small note next to his physique. Criteria for awakening not met, recommended to increase cultivation realm after noticing that there was nothing about the blue feather currently located between his brows.

Compared to it just being question marks, Xuan Hao finally managed to confirm that he did indeed have a special physique of sorts like his first disciple, Qing Yi.

What the physique was, he still had no idea, but from the looks of it he would be might be able to find out after increasing his cultivation realm… As for how much he needed to increase it before he would find out anything about his physique, he had no idea…

"Hah…"

Shaking his head upon thinking about this, Xuan Hao sat down and began stabilizing his cultivation base.

No matter what, he at the very least needed to get his domains under control before returning to Qing Yi and the other elders… After all, Xuan Hao did not want to accidently end up injuring or even killing them…

…

A few hours after he had returned to the small cave a short distance away from where the others were resting, Xuan Hao was prepared to make his way back, when he suddenly remembered the blue feather imprint located between his on his face smacked in directly between his brows.

"Can I hide this…?"

Muttering this to himself as he touched the blue feather located between his brows, Xuan Hao suddenly realized that the blue feather imprint had disappeared.

"This…"

Not knowing what to say upon feeling the imprint disappear the moment he wanted it to, Xuan Hao tried to summon it again and soon enough, it reappeared again.

"At least I don't have to worry about walking around with a weird feather imprint on my face…"

Letting out a sigh of relief after discovering that he could make the blue feather imprint disappear, Xuan Hao made his way back towards the place where Qing Yi and the other elders were waiting.

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Chapter 477: Escaping the Mystic Realm

"Master! Hm? Did something happen? You look somewhat different…"

"Ah, I just happened to have a small breakthrough that changed my body a bit."

Hearing Qing Yi call out the moment she spotted him coming over, Xuan Hao just casually answered her without clearly giving a reason as to what had happened to him during the few hours, he had gone missing.

"Really!? That's great! Now master is even stronger!"

Smiling happily when she heard that her master had broken through and become even stronger, Qing Yi no longer though about the changes that had taken place in regard to her master's body.

After all, she knew very well what kind of changes a breakthrough could bring to the body. Especially given the fact that she was currently in the Foundation Establishment Realm and had to go through said change every time she broke through as her body was cleansed for impurities…

Not to mention the fact that her master was way stronger than her, so the changes brought about by him breaking through should be way bigger compared to the changes she experienced!

"Indeed, your master is even stronger now! Let's get going, we still need to get back to the sect again at some point, I think both Chu Yang and Bai Ning are quite lonely now that both of us have been missing for so long!"

Feeling happy upon seeing his Qing Yi's reaction, Xuan Hao fluffed her hair much to her embarrassment before both of them joined up with the elders watching the scene from afar.

Soon enough, they resumed their journey back towards the Flying Sword Sect. The only difference this time around, was the fact that Xuan Hao no longer dealt with any of the bandits or monsters on the way and instead let Chi Hu deal with them.

At the moment, it was way more important for him to fully familiarize himself with his newfound strength and at the same time stabilize his foundation so he could fully utilize his strength without having to worry about accidently using too much strength.

In the end, the fact that Xuan Hao was no longer the one dealing with the incoming bandits and demon beasts, was nothing short of a great thing to Qing Yi, as Chi Hu dealt with all the bandits and demon beast coming at them along the way.

No longer leaving any behind for her to enter a life and death struggle with! Truly, she hoped her master would take a little longer to stabilize his foundation…

…

While Xuan Hao, Qing Yi and the rest of the elders were making their way back to the Flying Sword Sect, a young man hiding inside a large tree crown of a giant tree towering several hundred meters into the air let out a sigh filled with despair as he looked down towards a large demon beast moving around just below him.

The young man was none other than the young man who had jumped into the mystic realm to escape from the Nascent Soul Realm Experts of the Azure Sky Kingdom!

Not only was he not dead after having entered the mystic realm, but he had also managed to locate a way out of the mystic realm!

The only problem was the fact that when he had just been about to reach the exit, a demon beast at the Nascent Soul Realm had suddenly shown up!

At that time, he had barely managed to avoid getting detected by the demon beast, as he had hidden inside the tree crown of one of the enormous trees that covered the mystic realm.

However,… Even after a few days, the Nascent Soul Realm demon beast had not shown any signs of leaving and had instead stayed just below the giant tree he was hiding in.

"Looks like I will really have to leave this place, or I will simply starve to death… Hah… How I wish my cultivation was strong enough to sustain me off the qi floating in between heaven and earth…"

Muttering this to himself as he scanned his surroundings for a way out like he had done so many times before, the young man from the Ascendant Frost Hall could only let out another sigh of despair.

No matter what he did, as long as he moved from his current hiding spot, the Nascent Soul Realm demon beast below him would find out!

Even if he had a chance to escape from it in the past, the situation was not the same now, as he had pretty much destroyed his cultivation while escaping from the Azure Sky Kingdom Nascent Soul Realm Expert Earlier.

The only reason why he had even survived for so long was because he had found a spiritual fruit just after entering the mystic realm, while it didn't help him recover his cultivation realm or anything along that line, it at least stopped the backlash of the forbidden technique from killing him.

"Maybe I can eat the leaves-"

Rumble~!

Roar!

Just when the young man from the Ascendant Frost Hall was about to try and eat the leaves of the tree to satiate his hunger, a powerful earthquake suddenly occurred, causing the earth below him to split apart as the Nascent Soul Realm demon beast below him roared fearfully before running away.

"This is my chance!"

Knowing that he might not get such a great opportunity in the future, the young man rushed down the enormous tree the moment the Nascent Soul Realm demon beast had left. Making his way towards the exit of the mystic realm that he had found just when he entered the mystic realm.

RUMBLE!

Crack~!

The shaking from the earthquake and the ground beneath his feet cracking apart. Revealing a seemingly bottomless abyss below, was not enough to deter the young man, as he barely managed to keep himself stable rushing towards the exit of the mystic realm.

Crack!

"There it is!"

Along with the ground just behind him cracking apart, the young man completely ignored what was happening around him as his gaze was focused on a small pond with a similarly small whirlpool in the middle of it.

Through the small whirlpool, a large frozen lake with several people standing around it saying something while several different runes were drawn mid-air could be seen.

"Oh no, they are about to seal off the mystic realm!"

Instantly realizing that the people on the other side were his elders and the fact that they were about to seal of the mystic realm with him still inside, the young man could not help himself from panicking slightly.

Whoosh~

The sound of the whirlpool inside the small pond suddenly starting to shrink instantly caused the young man to panic even further. Using all the strength left in his body to rush over towards the small pond.

Roar!

However, just as he was about to jump into the small whirlpool in the pond, a familiar roar sounded out just behind him…

"No! Not like this!"

Realizing that he couldn't move his body in the slightest under the terrifying aura of the Nascent Soul Realm demon beast, the young man could not help calling out in despair as he struggled to no avail.

Having no cultivation at all at the moment, he could not even put up the slightest resistance!

Swish~

Roar-

Seeing a flash of green before suddenly hearing the demon beast behind him roar out in despair before falling silent, the young man didn't even bother finding out what happened as he dived headfirst into the small whirlpool the moment the pressure restricting his movement disappeared.

Whoosh!

Following the young man of the Ascendant Frost Hall entering the small whirlpool, it disappeared from the small pond. Leaving behind no trace of it ever being there in the first place!

…

"You go up first junior brother."

Back at the Flying Sword Sect, Chu Yang and Bai Ning had managed to make their way back to the place where the hole out of the hollow part of the mountain was located, as Chu Yang hurried for Bai Ning to climb up the rope first.NvεlB¡n: Unleashing Imagination, One Read at a Time.

"If you say so…"

Not waiting around after listening to his senior brother's encouragement, Bai Ning began climbing up the rope first before reached the top a few minutes later.

"Senior brother! I'm up now! You can come!"

Yelling so Chu Yang below could hear him after having made his way to the top, Bai Ning sat around and waited for another few minutes until Chu Yang's head popped out of the hole.

Rustle~

Climbing the rest of the way out of the hole, Chu Yang glanced back towards the hole in the ground that he had created just a few hours earlier.

"We should get this hole sealed up so nobody ends up falling down there in the future…"

Muttering this just loud enough for Bai Ning to hear what he was saying, Chu Yang turned around and was just about to say something to Bai Ning, when-

Crack~

Hurriedly taking a step back from the ground beneath his feet that had suddenly breaking apart, Bai Ning just managed to make eye contact with Chu Yang as the ground beneath his feet cracked apart way faster for some reason. Compared to him, Chu Yang didn't have enough time to escape like he did...

"…"

"…"

Whoosh!

Watching directly as his senior brother disappeared into the darkness below, Bai Ning could not help smiling a bit awkwardly.

From the looks of it, his senior brother not only had a bad sense of directions, but he was also quite unlucky…

At least he should be fine falling from such a height with his cultivation realm, he could also grab onto the rope while falling if-

Snap!

"… Looks like I will have to find big sister Zhi and see if we have another rope…"

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Chapter 478: Cloud Sky Kingdom

Over the next few weeks, Xuan Hao, Qing Yi and the rest of the elders slowly made their way back towards the Flying Sword Sect on the demon beasts they had bought before leaving the Iron Sky Kingdom.

During this period of time, Qing Yi had fought a lot of different opponents under the guidance of her master, as she had even managed to breakthrough again within a short period of time. Reaching the Ninth Stage of the Foundation Establishment Realm. Only a single step away from reaching the Core Formation Realm!

This, however, did not mean that Xuan Hao spent all his time on Qing Yi's training after he had managed to stabilize his cultivation.

Instead, he once again put focus back onto making interspatial rings for the quest before randomly throwing them out along the way according to the instructions of the system.

At this point, it had become far easier and faster for him to make interspatial rings and by the time they reached the Cloud Sky Kingdom just next to the territory of the Flying Sword Sect, he had already managed to scatter 571 interspatial rings in total. Allowing him to already be more than halfway done with the quest!

"Now that I think about it, I wonder how that old man is doing…"

Remembering his meeting with the former elder of the Black Rose Sect back in the secret realm, Xuan Hao could not help recalling the fact that the old man should have settled down in the Cloud Sky Kingdom under one of the sects there.

"Hm, if I'm not wrong, he should have joined the Flowing Cloud Sect…"

Muttering this to himself as they officially entered the territory of the Cloud Sky Kingdom without being stopped, Xuan Hao thought about whether or not he should pay the old man a visit or not.

After all, the old man was someone who had once been an elder of a demonic sect, so Xuan Hao was quite curious about how he was doing at the moment.

Not to mention the fact that he had reached the Nascent Soul Realm the last time he had met him without using the demonic cultivation technique he had been practicing when he had first met him!

How he had escaped the influence of the demonic technique and even managed to cultivate normally again was quite an interesting thing. After all, when one walked down the demonic path, one would normally not have a way out again…

"Chi Hu, can you take charge for the rest of the journey back to the sect?"

"Hm? S-sure, but why?"

"I have an old friend here in the Cloud Sky Kingdom and was planning to visit him before making my way back to the sect, it might take a while, so I didn't want to hold all of you up when we are almost back home."

"I see… Then don't mind us and leave, we should be more than safe so close to the sect. At most we will just have to say we are from the Flying Sword Sect! I doubt anyone in the Cloud Sky Kingdom would dare attack us at that point! Hehe!"

Feeling his curiosity towards the current situation of old Ji as he was called last time, he saw him; Xuan Hao did not stay around for long after finishing his conversation with Chi Hu. Only talking a bit with Qing Yi to inform her about him leaving before flying towards the direction of the Cloud Sky Kingdom's capital to find out where the Flowing Cloud Sect that old Ji was now a part of was located.

"Though, it looks like I might have been a bit harsh to Qing Yi during the past few weeks…"

Flying through the air, Xuan hao could not help frowning unhappily upon remembering the happy expression on Qing Yi's face the moment he mentioned that he would be leaving to visit an old friend in the Cloud Sky Kingdom.

Not thinking about this for too long as the capital of the Cloud Sky Kingdom appeared in the distance, Xuan Hao could not help feeling a bit amazed upon witnessing the capital of the Cloud Sky Kingdom.

The capital city was located next to a small mountain range with a large river located directly next to it where dozens if not hundreds of large merchant ships could be seen sailing in towards a large harbour connected to the capital city of the Cloud Sky Kingdom through several large roads.

Looking at the sheer size of the capital city of the Cloud Sky Kingdom, Xuan Hao could not help but wonder just how strong the Cloud Sky Kingdom actually was.

After all, while still smaller than Yi Min's capital city, it was not by much.

Maybe they actually have a Domain Lord…?

Thinking about this, Xuan Hao decided to be a bit more cautious as he landed a few thousand meters from the capital city and began making his way over on foot instead of flying. Not wanting to accidently end up offending the Cloud Sky Kingdom in case they really did have a Domain Lord watching over them.

…

Whoosh~

Having made his way inside the capital of the Cloud Sky Kingdom, the first thing Xuan Hao did, was to use his divine sense to scan the entire capital city. Trying his best to find out whether or not there really was a Domain Lord inside the capital city of the Cloud Sky Kingdom.

"No Domain Lord…"

After having his divine sense sweep through the capital city a few times, Xuan Hao could only shake his head upon realizing that there was not any Domain Lord inside the Cloud Sky Kingdom

However, even if he had not found any Domain Lords, the capital was still very clearly powerful. The sheer amount of Nascent Soul Realm Experts present was far above what the Heavenly Sky Kingdom had; this was even including the different sects inside their territory!

At the same time, the strongest person inside the capital was not someone at the Peak of the Nascent Soul Realm but was instead someone who had reached the Half-Step Domain Lord Realm. Already having comprehended his own pseudo domain!

"Hm… It seems like there really isn't any Domain Lord inside the capital of the Cloud Sky Kingdom, I wonder how the city got so big without a Domain Lord to back it up, a Half-Step Domain Lord should not be able to do it…"

Muttering this to himself as he walked down the busy streets of the capital city, Xuan Hao could not help feeling a bit curious about how the capital of the Cloud Sky Kingdom had managed to grow so large and powerful without the backing of a Domain Lord.

Currently, the only thing he knew about the Cloud Sky Kingdom, was the fact that it was neutral when it came to conflicts involving any of the other nearby kingdoms. Even when the Azure Sky Kingdom and the Heavenly Sky Kingdom had fought, it had not tried taking advantage of the situation to expand its borders or gain any benefits by helping one of the two kingdoms.

Other than the neutrality and no conflict attitude of the Cloud Sky Kingdom, Xuan Hao also knew that there were a few strong sects inside of it. One of them being the Flowing Cloud Sect that the former Elder Skinling of the Black Rose Sect, now known as Old Ji or Ji Yichuan had joined.

"Now all I need to do is find someone who knows where the Flowing Cloud Sect is located…"

Walking along the street, Xuan Hao checked out the different shops along the way, as he thought about how to go about finding the location of the Flowing Cloud Sect before long reaching the end of the street.

"This is…"

Seeing the gigantic building that was located at the end of the street going from the main gate of the capital city, Xuan Hao could not help opening his eyes as a look of amazement appeared on his face.

Not to mention just how big the building in front of him was, through his divine sense, he had also discovered that the building in front of him was far larger than the castle of the Cloud Sky Kingdom at the centre of the capital city!NvεlB¡n: Unleashing Imagination, One Read at a Time.

"The Explorer Unions?"

Spotting the familiar two pickaxes crossing each other above the entrance to the large building, Xuan Hao instantly realized that the building belonged to the Explorer Union. Not only that, but after scanning through the building in front of him with his divine sense, Xuan Hao also realized that the Half-Step Domain Lord inside the capital city was not inside the capital at the centre of the city but was instead inside the branch of the Explorer Union currently in front of him!

"Interesting… Looks like the Explorer Union's branch here is quite strong…"

Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao didn't stand around looking at the large building for too long before entering.

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Chapter 479: The Sect That Rules Over the Swamp...

Entering the large branch of the Explorer Union, Xuan Hao was amazed by the sheer size and amount of people walking around inside the building. The branch he had been to in the past during the time that the Heavenly Sky Kingdom was still around, was nowhere near the level of the one he currently found himself inside of.

Even the strength of the people inside was far higher, with even the weakest person inside having reached the Foundation Establishment Realm, while the stronger ones had reached the earlier stages of the Nascent Soul Realm!

From this alone, it was easy to see just how strong the Explorer Union was inside the Cloud Sky Kingdom… Not to mention the fact that there was still a Half-Step Domain Lord present inside the branch!

The Explorer Union sole purpose was exploring secret realms, mystic realms, ancient ruins and so on. Not involving themselves with any of the kingdoms or empires across the Ewaria Continent in an attempt to not get involved in any of their wars and conflicts. At least not anything he had heard about.

For them to have such a large branch inside the Cloud Sky Kingdom, Xuan Hao could only think of one reason…

"Hah… When will we go back and try to explore that place again? So far, we have still not managed to enter the inner part of that place. Even the branch leader only reached the border between the outer and inner area…"

"Calm down, your sister still needs to recover before we can move anywhere near that place any time soon!"

Listening in on the conversation between two of the Nascent Soul Realm Experts inside the branch, Xuan Hao felt like the place that the Nascent Soul Realm Experts were talking about, was likely the reason for the Explorer Union's presence in the Cloud Sky Kingdom!

Thinking about it, it was most likely an ancient ruin or something along that line. After all, a secret realm would have not only caught the attention of the Sky Empire, but also the nearby empires.

At that point, it would not just be the Explorer Union that was present in the Cloud Sky Kingdom…

Similar to what had ended up happening with the secret realm that appeared in the Heavenly Sky Kingdom, where Domain Lords from both the Onyx Empire and the Sky Empire showed up within a short period of time.

If not for the fact that the secret realm had been destroyed so quickly, other empires would have likely also begun showing up to explore the newly discovered secret realm. At that point, the Heavenly Sky Kingdom along with the Flying Sword Sect might get drawn into a conflict between these great powers!

Shaking his head as this thought passed through his mind, Xuan Hao knew that it was truly a lucky thing that the secret realm had been destroyed back then…

"Hello! Is there something I can help with?"

"Yeah, I wanted to know where the Flowing Cloud Sect is located."

Hearing a voice calling out to him, Xuan Hao realized he had already made his way over to the counter of the Explorer Union, as he quickly responded before the other party had time to realize that he was spacing out.

"The Flowing Cloud Sect? It's located…"

Not even a second after hearing his question, the person behind the counter gave him a detailed explanation of where the Flowing Cloud Sect was located. Even mentioning a few different caravans going towards the Flowing Cloud Sect that he could travel together with for safety. Only requiring him to pay a small fee.

Not that he would need to travel with some random caravan for safety in the first place…

The reason why the clerk behind the counter had mentioned it, was most likely because he had hidden his cultivation base. Looking no different than a normal person with no cultivation.

Given his age, she might even think that he was someone who was trying to enter-

"… If you take of in the next 3 days, you should be able to make it for their entrance examination! I heard that they are also taking in people above the age of eighteen if they are talented enough! If you are not successful, you can always join the Explorer Union! We accept everyone and even allow you to choose a free cultivation mantra when joining!"

"… Thanks… I will get going then…"

Listening to the clerk behind the counter confirm his thoughts about him, Xuan Hao could not help smiling wryly before taking his leave.

"Good luck!"

"…"

Ignoring the clerks call, Xuan Hao quickly left the Explorer Union branch.

Next time, he should not completely hide his cultivation base. Maybe showing something around the level of the Core Formation Realm… At least that way, he would not have to encounter a similar situation in the future…

"Hah…"

Letting out a sigh as he stepped outside, Xuan Hao directly left the capital city of the Cloud Sky Kingdom without finding out the reason why the Explorer Union had built such a large branch there.

In the first place, he just wanted to check up on Old Ji as he was now called before returning to the sect to see his two disciples, Chu Yang and Bai Ning again.

Finding out the reason why the Explorer Union was in the Cloud Sky Kingdom would surely end up with him getting side tracked and only returning a few weeks after Qing Yi and the other elders had made their way back to the sect.

This was not really something he wanted to do at the moment… After all, he could always come back to the Cloud Sky Kingdom in the future and find out why the Explorer Union was so active there.

Whoosh~

Having made up his mind to not investigate the Explorer Union and just what they had found inside the Cloud Sky Kingdom, Xuan Hao flew into the air hidden beneath his domain before flying towards the location of the Flowing Cloud Sect that the clerk had described to him.

"Though… I do wonder why the Flowing Cloud Sect would be located in such a hostile location…"

Muttering this to himself as he flew through the air, Xuan Hao could not help remembering the map that the clerk had pulled out while explaining how to get to and where the Flowing Cloud Sect was located inside the Cloud Sky Kingdom.

The area in question, was a large swamp located at the borders of the Cloud Sky Kingdom. Not only was this swamp dangerous according to the clerk, but it was also massive enough to cover a good ten percent of the entire Cloud Sky Kingdom!

Just seeing it on the map, Xuan Hao could easily understand just how large the swamp was.

If put into the past Heavenly Sky Kingdom, the swamp itself would cover around the same area as the territory of the Flying Sword Sect!

For the Flowing Cloud Sect to be in control of such a large swamp… It caused Xuan Hao to wonder why they had even ended up calling themselves the Flowing Cloud Sect instead of something like the Great Swamp Sect or Muddy Water Sect!

On the other hand, perhaps it was for the better that they were called the Flowing Cloud Sect…

Whoosh!

No longer thinking too much about the name choice of the Flowing Cloud Sect, Xuan Hao increased his speed after getting far enough away from the capital city. No longer bothering to hide himself with his domain.

The only reason he had hidden himself, as because he didn't want to accidently cause a panic inside the capital city…L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøvl--B1n.

…

"Is that so… Looks like they are really not giving up that easily!"

At the same time that Xuan Hao was making his way over towards the Flowing Cloud Sect, somewhere inside the large swamp of the Cloud Sky Kingdom, a middle-aged man looked towards the ruins of a large temple, an overwhelming killing intent overflowing from both his eyes.

Currently, a large dome shaped barrier covered the temple as several people in front of the middle-aged man could be seen attacking the large dome surrounding the temple ruins. All of them were at least in the Foundation Establishment Realm, while the stronger ones had already reached the Core Formation Realm!

"We have to leave soon leader… The help from the Flowing Cloud Sect is sure to arrive any minute now! If one of the Core Elders of the Flowing Cloud Sect shows up-"

"Shut up! I know already! Just help bring this damnable formation down!"

Half of the temple had already sunken into the soft swamp soil over the years, but even with all of this, the formation that conjured forth the dome shaped barrier had somehow still been fine after all of that…

"…"

Seeing his leader act like that, the man who had tried to warn his leader about the approaching danger could only keep quiet before joining the others in attacking the barrier around the temple ruins.

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Chapter 480: A Burning Sensation

"So, this is the swamp that the Flowing Cloud Sect is located inside of…"

Arriving in front of the swamp that the clerk had told him about, Xuan Hao could not help feeling amazed upon seeing the dozen or so narrow paths connected across the swamp with small wooden bridge.

Even more impressive was the enormous swamp cypress trees that had almost ended up becoming the only species of trees inside the swamp in front of him.

Other than that, Xuan Hao also inspected the different demon beasts hiding away in between the roots of the swamp cypress trees along with those hidden below the muddy waters.

The strongest among them was by far the alligator demon beasts, where even at the entrance to the swamp, the weakest among the group he had spotted, had already reached the later stages of the Qi Condensation Realm!

Whoosh~

Only staying around the entrance to the swamp for a few moments to appreciate the beauty of the cypress trees and get a grasp over what kind of demon beasts would likely be present inside the deeper parts of the swamp where the Flowing Cloud Sect was located, Xuan Hao once again flew into the sky before heading towards the Flowing Cloud Sect's location.

At the same time, he also began realizing just how hard it would be for the Flowing Cloud Sect to recruit new disciples and somewhat began to understand why they also accepted new disciples who were above the age of eighteen.

After all, it was not really easy to reach the Flowing Cloud Sect, as even the outer parts of the swamp already brimmed with demon beasts in the later stages of the Qi Condensation Realm.

Given how dangerous the outer parts of the swamp were, there should be quite a few demon beasts in the Foundation Establishment Realm, if not the Core Formation Realm in the deeper parts of the swamp.

Not really something a young child seeking to enter a sect had any way to deal with…

Travelling through the swamp, Xuan Hao saw many different and unique demon beasts that he had never seen before. However, he had come to realize that the most terrifying thing about the swamp was not the demon beasts, but the large quantity of insects present.

Not to mention the sheer number of insects flying all over the place, they were also extremely poisonous!

During the short period of time that he had spent flying through the swamp, he had already witnessed close to a dozen strong demon beasts collapse dead on the ground after being stung by these poisonous insects. The strongest of which had already reached the Foundation Establishment Realm!

Inside the swamp, the apex predator was not the strong alligator demon beasts he had seen, but was instead the small poisonous insects flying all over the place…

Thump!

Coming to a stop mid-air before landing on one of the many small wooden bridges below him, Xuan Hao frowned as he touched his forehead.

The reason for this, was that he had suddenly begun to feel a slight burning sensation from the place between his brows where the feather imprint was located.

Whoosh!

Using his divine sense, Xuan Hao quickly realized the fact that the feather imprint between his brows suddenly showed itself and began shinning with a pale blue light.

"The feather imprint is showing itself…?"

Muttering this to himself as he touched the now feather imprint between his brows shinning with a pale blue light, Xuan Hao quickly realized that he could not hide it like he had done before…

Other than that, Xuan Hao also began to feel something calling out to him from afar.

How weird… I wonder what it is…

Whoosh!

Looking towards the direction that the calling was coming from; Xuan Hao did not stay around waiting for long before moving towards the thing that was calling out to him.

For better or worse, he had a feeling that the burning sensation and the imprint of a feather between his brows would not disappear before he found the thing calling out to him. At the very least, he could tell that it was not too far away and was still somewhere inside the swamp…

…

At the same time, Xuan Hao began searching for the thing that was calling out to him and had caused the feather imprint between his brows to show itself, the formation around the temple ruins deeper inside the swamp was beginning to crack, as a few of the temple pillars covered in cracks began breaking apart.

Bang!

Along with each of the pillars breaking apart, the formation that formed the dome shaped barrier around the temple ruins weakened even further.

"Finally, that damnable formation is breaking! Haha, they won't be able to hide away for long!"

The middle-aged man in the lead of the people currently attacking the dome shaped barrier smiled happily upon seeing this.

Even if he had angrily dismissed one of his subordinates earlier upon hearing the mention of the Flowing Cloud Sect's possible reinforcements showing up, he knew very well that his subordinate was right.

In the first place, the reason why he was so nervous, was because he understood that he would have no way to fight back when one of the Flowing Cloud Sect's Nascent Soul Realm Experts arrived.Discover, Devour, Delight: NvεlB¡n.

The only reason why he had dared to stay for so long with the Flowing Cloud Sect not being located too far away from his current location, was because a giant swarm of death poison mosquitos had appeared between the temple ruins and the Flowing Cloud Sect.

The death poison mosquitos were not something to be taken lightly, as their special soul poison was strong enough to even kill someone in the Nascent Soul Realm!

Given that these terrifying insects were blocking the main path between the Flowing Cloud Sect and the temple ruins, the Nascent Soul Realm Expert from the Flowing Cloud Sect would have no choice but to take a detour around them.

Crack~

"Haha! Looks like it won't be able to hold for much longer! Everyone, begin spreading out, we can't let any of them escape!"

Seeing one of the main pillars of the temple shatter as several large cracks began appearing on the dome shaped barrier, the middle-aged man laughed happily to himself before informing his subordinates to surround the temple.

Whoosh!

It did not take long for his subordinates to spread out and completely surround the temple ruins before once again resuming their attack.

"Hm… This should be the place…"

"Ah-!"

Hearing someone's voice just behind him, the middle-aged man jumped up in a fearful manner before turning towards the direction of the voice.

Having remained completely focused on the temple ruins and the people inside of the temple, he did not even notice that someone had suddenly appeared behind him.

Who is that…? It should not be someone from the Flowing Cloud Sect, we should still have a few minutes before their Nascent Soul Realm Expert arrives…

Thinking this to himself as he inspected the young man that had suddenly appeared behind him, the first thing that stood out was the weird feather imprint located between his brows shinning with a pale blue light.

Staring at the feather imprint between the young man's eyebrows, the middle-aged man felt a shiver run down his spine, as he suddenly realized that he could not move a single muscle in his body.

The rest of his subordinates was no better, as everything suddenly seemed to have frozen in place. The attacks traveling towards the dome shaped barrier covering the ancient temple had at some point dissipated mid-air before reaching their target.

"Looks like there is also someone inside the temple ruins."

Watching as the young man suddenly took a step forward before disappearing in front of him, the middle-aged man barely managed to force his body to turn around after the young man had disappeared.

However, when he turned around, he just managed to see the young man lightly taping the dome shaped barrier.

Crack~

Bang!

This… What in the world!? Who is that person!?

Seeing the barrier that would at least have taken them another minute or so to break apart, being destroyed by a light tap from the young man, made the middle-aged man realize just how terrifying the young man was.

"Hah… I can… Hah… Move again…"

As the figure of the young man disappeared into the temple ruins, the middle-aged man collapsed onto the ground sweating all over. The restrictions keeping him from moving had disappeared, but this was only followed by an overwhelming sense of terror.

"L-leader, w-what should we do…?"

"We leave! Immediately!"

"But what about…"

"You want to enter the temple ruins with that person around!? You should be happy you are still alive! Let's leave before that person returns!"

Angrily rebuking the subordinate who had come over to him, the middle-aged man did not dare stay around the temple ruins for even a second longer, as he directly left without waiting for his subordinates to follow.

"L-leader!"

"Wait for me!"

Soon everyone surrounding the temple ruins ran away with their tails between their legs. Not daring to stay around after seeing their leader escape.

"First you want to stay and now you want to leave?"

Muttering this to himself before following the others. The subordinate who had asked what to do, could only sigh to himself as he began to wonder when his leader had become so cowardly.

However, in the end, he did not have anything to say regarding his decision. After all, the young man who had suddenly appeared, was simply way too scary…

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