Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Looking up at the sky above where he knew the guardian formation was hidden, Xuan Hao could not help feeling a bit hesitant when it came to testing out his strength against the lightning serpent hidden inside the thunderstorm. After all, even a slight movement in his current realm would cause an enormous change that affected an area far larger than the area covered by the thunderstorm in front of him.

This wasn't that much of a problem as the guardian formation wouldn't activate to kill him, but the same couldn't be said for the lightning serpent hidden inside the thunderstorm, as it would almost certainly be discovered the moment it tried to fight back against him, something that would in turn cause the guardian formation to activate and strike it down.

The most he could hope for before he would have to escape the response from the guardian formation would be a single clash with the lightning serpent.

All things considered; this was far from enough to allow him to get a proper understanding of his current strength after breaking through to the Sea Formation Realm of the Profound Immortal Realm.

If anything, it would only end up putting him in a far worse position, as he would also have to worry about being caught up in the response from the guardian formation that would be striking the lightning serpent with far more power than it had done with the cloud demon beast in the past.

After all, the strength difference between the cloud demon beast and the lightning serpent was enormous and he personally didn't know if he even had the ability to escape from the attack that the guardian formation would send down. Especially if the guardian formation decided to seal the space around the lightning serpent to prevent it from escaping, something that would also end up trapping him in place depending on how large an area the sealing of space might cover.

"Now that I'm thinking about it, it might be best to just ignore the lightning serpent…" Muttering this to himself as he realized just how dangerous it would be for him to try and clash with the lightning serpent, Xuan Hao ultimately decided against his first idea of using the lightning serpent to test out his strength. Understanding that doing so could potentially get himself killed.

After all, he wasn't under any delusion that the power of the guardian formation of the mystic realm was any weaker than that of the celestial gates inside the mystic realm.

On the other hand, it was more logical to think that the strength of the guardian formation of the mystic realm exceeded that of the ones protecting the celestial gates. In other words, the guardian formations true power likely exceeded that of the Profound Immortal Realm. Even if the current guardian formation was in a damaged state…

Whoosh~

Knowing that testing his strength against the lightning serpent hidden in the thunder clouds was no longer an option, Xuan Hao didn't continue lingering around the edge of the thunder clouds and instead plunged right into them.

Now that he understood the strength of the lightning serpent, he also no longer had any reason to fear it, as it should also understand what would happen to it if it decided to clash with him. After all, he wasn't deliberately concealing his presence. Allowing the lightning serpent to understand that he was also in the Sea Formation Realm.

Swish~

In the end, outside of curiously following him up to the celestial gate at the core of the thunderstorm, the lightning serpent didn't do anything else and soon returned to aimlessly swimming through the thunder clouds without a single care in the world.

Although it should have reached a realm capable of speech, it didn't seem to have any interest in communicating with him and just wanted to float around while absorbing the dense lightning qi around itself to slowly enhance the strength of its spiritual sea.

Of course, even though this seemed like a possible path to advance through the Sea Formation Realm, it wasn't hard to discover that this carried with it a significant weakness, as the lightning serpent couldn't absorb any other kinds of spiritual qi outside of the pure lightning qi found inside the thunderstorm.

There might be other weaknesses as well, but he couldn't be certain about them at the current moment as the lightning serpent was the only being outside of himself, he had encountered in the Sea Formation Realm.

Though… He partially believed that the weak spiritual sea of the lightning serpent had something to do with its cultivation method. Not that he planned to blame the lightning serpent for taking the wrong path or something along that line, as it seemed to be doing fine on its own.

No matter what, it was still a demon beast in the Late Stage of the Sea Formation Realm, a being that had far surpassed any cultivator or demon beast he had encountered so far.

Calling its path wrong just because his spiritual sea was slightly stronger while still being in the Early Stage of the Sea Formation Realm seemed wrong…

Shaking his head as he turned his attention away from the lightning serpent after seeing that it had no intention of paying any more attention to him, Xuan Hao focused on the celestial gate in front of him.

Different from any of the celestial gates he had encountered so far, the one currently in front of him seemed to be the most complete celestial gate, as the thunderstorm that had formed around it originated from the gate itself.

If he wasn't wrong, the other celestial gates should have had a similar presence to the one currently in front of him in the past when they had all been fully operational without any damage.

Although, it did bring about a new question… How in the world would someone in the Dao Seed Realm enter this kind of celestial gate? After all, the thunderstorm surrounding it was more than powerful enough to kill someone in the Celestial Immortal Realm, let alone someone in the Dao Seed Realm.

Perhaps there was some kind of infrastructure in place to allow weaker cultivators to approach the celestial gates in the past. Only that with time, the past structures that would have allowed weaker cultivators to approach and enter the celestial gates disappeared or was destroyed under the might of the celestial gates themselves…

Narrowing both his eyes as he thought about this, Xuan Hao unconsciously began scanning the ground below the celestial gate for any signs of ancient structures that might have plummeted to the ground after years of being left alone to endure the terrifying thunderstorm surrounding the celestial gate without anyone repairing them.

Indeed, when looking more closely at the ground beneath the thunderstorm, he did spot what looked like remnants from some kind of ancient platforms and other structures. Only, they had decayed far too much for him to make out what they might have been and how they might have resisted the terrifying thunderstorm.

At least, it did somewhat confirm that there had been some kind of structures in place in the past to allow weaker cultivator access to the celestial gates.

No… Not just access, but it was likely that the area around the celestial gates were also used as a location for cultivators to comprehend the Dao.

After all, just staying inside the thunderstorm and looking around at the environment was more than enough for Xuan Hao to understand that the thunderstorm was a perfect environment for comprehending the Dao of Lightning.

Even to him, it would be useful if he ever wanted to start trying to comprehend the Dao of Lightning in the future.

Unfortunately, he was a bit focused on other things at the current moment. Not planning to settle down and start trying to comprehend a brand-new Dao, but… If the celestial gates and the special environments around them could be restored in the future, it would be a perfect location for the Star Shattering Sect's elders and disciples to comprehend the Dao.

"A matter for the future… For now, I should focus on getting through this celestial gate and challenging the two remaining celestial gates before thinking about anything else…" Shaking his head as he threw the idea of using the celestial gates to the back of his mind for now, Xuan Hao took a step forward and entered the celestial gate without any hesitation.

Although he wanted to use the celestial gates to benefit the Star Shattering Sect, he also understood that this was impossible to do with his current strength. Not to mention, his status inside the system that was left behind by the Mirage Sect would have to increase by a lot if he wanted to ever have a chance of truly gaining control of the celestial gates that had been left behind in the mystic realm, something that would take a long time to accomplish…