Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Continuing deeper underground following the spiritual tree root, Xuan Hao was forced to slow down as the ground around him became difficult to move through by simply using a simple earth movement technique.

Not only did different rocks block his path, but the number of spiritual roots present also increased exponentially the further down he went. Forcing him to not only use his divine sense to avoid these roots but also forcing him to cut through some of the smaller ones that blocked his path completely.

However, even when his path was blocked every now and then and moving deeper became more difficult, it only made him more curious as to what might be hidden at the end of the spiritual roots.

Considering how he could now sense that several other equally large spiritual roots to the one he had been following so far, it was clear that he was getting close-

Bang!

And only a short time after noticing the different spiritual roots congregating around him, Xuan Hao found himself breaking through the ceiling of a massive underground cave.

The cave was circular in shape and only had two entrances from where a constant stream of water could be seen flowing into a large lake that took up most of the underground space.

However, the thing Xuan Hao found most interesting wasn't the lake, but instead a small island in the middle of the underground lake.

The reason was rather simple, all the spiritual tree roots congregated on that small island- or more specifically inside the small pavilion at the center of the island.

"So, the origin of mist controlling the demon beasts above isn't some kind of powerful demon beast, but instead some kind of artifact?" Narrowing both his eyes as he guessed this to himself, Xuan Hao could not help feeling a bit relieved on the inside.

If the origin of the mist controlling the demon beasts living above the clouds had been a demon beast, Xuan Hao was certain that its strength would not just far exceed his own, having at least reached the Land Creation Realm in terms of power, but also had a deep comprehension of the Dao of Soul.

No matter how much stronger than a normal Early Stage Sea Formation Realm cultivator he might be, he doubted he would be able to win against a demon beast in the Land Creation Realm. Especially one with a profound comprehension of a complex dao like the Dao of Souls.

The origin of the mist controlling the demon beasts could be considered a best-case scenario, while a second-best scenario would be a non-conscious spiritual plant that wouldn't view him as a threat and attack him.

Even then, he didn't dare to carelessly approach the pavilion at the center of the underground lake. Understanding that there should be some kind of defensive measures in place to protect the artifact inside the pavilion.

However, as he continued to slowly inch closer to the pavilion, he quickly discovered that there was indeed something protecting the pavilion, a formation… And one that was far more advanced than anything he had encountered so far. Only surpassed by the ancient dao seals in terms of complexity and power.

Even with his comprehension of the Dao of Formations having reached the Large Success Realm, he couldn't comprehend anything from the few formation symbols that he could see flowing around inside the barrier that guarded the pavilion.

The only thing he could be certain of was that the formation in front of him was far beyond what he could handle with his current comprehension of the Dao of Formations.

Although he might be able to slowly brute force the formation by slowly going through it and increasing his comprehension along the way, it would at least take months for him to get through such a complicated formation. Not to mention he had no idea if there were any other formations hidden behind the one, he could see on the outside.

For all he knew, there might be several layers of formations stacked up on each other protecting the pavilion, worse, one of those formations might be an offensive formation that would attack him the moment he attempted trying to break the formation guarding the pavilion.

Because of this, he decided to first look around the rest of the cave before trying to investigate the pavilion any closer. Diving into the lake water to see if he could find anything of interest or potentially even find a hole in the formation by following some of the spiritual roots that congregated together inside the pavilion.

Unfortunately, no matter which of the spiritual roots he followed, he found no flaws in the formation to take advantage of. Meaning that the only way for him to get through the formation would be for him to destroy the formation force his way inside, something that he had already decided against.

With that in mind, he could only continue to investigate the underground cave looking for anything that would give him a better idea about the artifact that should be hidden inside the pavilion, while at the same time also looking for clues to the goal of the celestial trial itself. After all, his primary goal was still to complete the celestial trial, something that he had not yet managed to get a single clue on how to do.

The only thing he had managed to guess so far was that the demon beast kingdoms above the clouds and the underground lake pavilion should be related to the celestial trial in some way. Although he had not yet managed to figure out how they were connected.

For all he knew, he would have to free the demon beasts from the mist by severing the spiritual tree roots that connected them to the artifact inside the underground lake pavilion to complete the trial or, on a completely different note, he would have to kill them some obscure demon beast that acted as the guardian of the celestial trial.

No matter what it was, it was certain that he couldn't act recklessly without finding any clues as to how to complete the celestial trial, as doing so might end up causing him to fail the celestial trial…