Chapter 2195: Information Gathering

Feeling the immense pressure of finding some way to increase his own carving speed before those ancient dao seals gave in, Xuan Hao could only let out a quiet sigh to himself as he slowly closed his eyes and focused on his internal situation following his breakthrough to the Peak of the Land Creation Realm. Deeply aware of the fact that no matter how much he wanted to speed up his own cultivation through the Star Creation Realm, he first had to reach the Star Creation Realm... And for now, before he could start thinking about taking advantage of his current situation to carve the first dao rune into his dao lotus, he had to stabilize his cultivation base. A process that would at least take a few weeks to accomplish, as while his breakthrough might not have caused any external fluctuations, it had ravaged his dantian.

Although the overall size of his dantian had doubled and with it the stability of his internal world that now had a much larger spiritual sea to support it. The spiritual sea in question was far from calm and even with the increase in strength he had experienced following his breakthrough to the Peak of the Land Creation Realm, it would take time to calm it down again. Not to mention, his internal world had also suffered various degrees of damage that needed to be repaired and fixed up to avoid leaving any future problems behind.

At the same time, he had exhausted every bit of his strength during his breakthrough and would need a few days to fully recover before he would even be able to start thinking about repairing the damage that had been done.

All this combined ended up with the original seclusion time that he originally only thought would last a few weeks ending up lasting a little over two months by the time everything was over. Leaving him a bit surprised once he learnt just how long he had ended up being in seclusion. Not having felt the passage of time before he was already done and got up to leave his cultivation chambers for a quick walk around the sect before going back into seclusion to start trying to carve the first dao rune into his dao lotus and officially break through to the Star Creation Realm.

Unsurprisingly, by the time he left seclusion to take a walk around the sect and at the same time also check up on his disciples, quite a bit had changed since he had left the tower and entered seclusion.

...

Two months earlier, just as Xuan Hao had made it out of the tower and secluded himself to focus on breaking through to the Peak of the Land Creation Realm, several cloaked figures arrived at the edge of Bright Stone City. One of them glancing around the place with a visible disdain. "Is this the city established by this... Star Shattering Sect, was it?"

"Yes, and don’t expose us when we enter later, our job is just to investigate this sect. Nothing more. Not to mention, this can’t be considered a city just under the management of the Star Shattering Sect. From what I can tell, the Star Shattering Sect only manages safety along with some shops at the center of the city, the rest of the city is run by wandering cultivators coming here to trade or cultivate in a spiritually rich environment. The actual city under them is the Falling Star City but entering that place undetected is far harder with the formations guarding the place and not just anyone can enter freely."

"I see.... That is understandable. So, Bright Stone City is a free city with a bit of backing. Although it won’t reveal much when it comes to the actual strength of this Star Shattering Sect, it should at least be useful in gathering more information on this sect that popped up out of nowhere in the northern region of all places." Disdain lessening somewhat upon hearing what one of his companions said, the disdainful cloaked figure lowered his head somewhat as he muttered this to himself while glancing towards the entrance of Bright Stone City that saw a seemingly constant stream of wandering cultivators entering and leaving even in the early hours of the day before the sun had properly risen.

"Indeed, the emergence of a hidden ancient sect is already something major, let alone one that is rumored to have someone at the Star Creation Realm presiding over it. If we are lucky, we might be able to establish friendly relations with them and trade for the dao rune inheritance in their possession. After all, these ancient hidden sects have far more complete dao rune blueprints compared to anyone else..." Nodding head in agreement, the one who had ended up speaking up for the Star Shattering Sect calmed down visibly upon seeing this companion of his drop his disdainful streak.

After all, the last thing he wanted was an arrogant team member who ended up exposing them before they had the time to properly investigate the Star Shattering Sect.

Not that they had any hostile intentions regarding the Star Shattering Sect, as their main purpose was to learn more about the Star Shattering Sect before using the information to help them in establishing friendly relations with the sect with the goal of buying their dao rune inheritance.

Of course, buying everything was the grand goal, but more realistically, they hoped to at least get their hands on one or two dao rune blueprints, as even a single dao rune blueprint was of immense value. Especially so because the dao rune blueprint of an ancient hidden sect was bound to be far more complete and perfect compared to any haphazardly put together dao rune blueprint.

The main reason behind this being that for any sect to be considered an ancient hidden sect meant that they had at the very least had someone at the Venerable Realm in the past, something that in turn also meant their dao rune inheritance had been proven to work.

Unknown to Xuan Hao, who had ended up picking up a dao rune inheritance that wasn’t just complete but also of an extremely high quality, dao rune blueprints were far rarer and harder to obtain than he understood.

Not to mention a complete inheritance, even a single complete dao rune blueprint on its own would be enough to make two Star Creation Realm cultivators fight to the death.

For this reason, even though the current state of the Southern Central Region was tumultuous and the few powers there that learnt about the existence of the Star Shattering Sect were preoccupied with other things, the emergence of a new hidden ancient sect still ended up drawing the attention of a particular force within the Southern Central Region. The very force that these cloaked figures belonged to...

"You two, let’s get going. Entering this place isn’t difficult and there aren’t any obvious guards from the Star Shattering Sect within this city from what I can sense." Back to the cloaked figures, seeing how the two walking ahead had started chatting with each other without any regard for their surroundings, a third cloaked figure stepped forward and separated the two before taking the lead in entering Bright Stone City.

"Wow, taking the lead? Truly not scared that there might be some old fossil lurking around inside?"

"If there really was such a person around, we would have already been spotted long ago. From what I learnt over the past few weeks, the only ones visiting this place outside the wandering cultivators are a few of the younger disciples of the Star Shattering Sect along with a few newly promoted outer elders of the sect. Well... I say elders, but they should only be a hundred or so years older than most of the sect disciples. If I’m not wrong, they should have just been promoted earlier on to help them get familiar with teaching younger members of the sect."

"Correct, this is the best possible place for us to gather information without running the risk of discovery midway through."

Following the rest adding their own commentary, they soon enough followed the third figure who had taken the lead into Bright Stone City. Not standing out in the slightest even with their figures fully hidden by dark cloaks. After all, this was a city whose main population consisted of wandering cultivators and to such individuals, keeping themselves hidden while out buying was second nature. Resulting in most of those who weren’t overconfident in their own strength or only there for the better cultivation environment keeping themselves hidden as they wandered the streets.

In turn, this also made the job of these cloaked figures far easier, as disciples from the Star Shattering Sect weren’t exactly difficult to spot in this kind of environment, as the disciples of the sect saw no reason to keep themselves hidden. In fact, hiding themselves might be more dangerous considering how someone might think they were a fat sheep and attempt to ambush them later when they left Bright Stone City and made their way back towards Falling Star City where the sect gate was located.