Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Putting the book away in his interspatial ring, Xuan Hao glanced over towards the hole in the wall of the pagoda leading to the outside before continuing up to the next floor of the pagoda. Not wanting to stay around too long in case he ended up waking the winged lion up by accident.

The faster he finished searching through the pagoda, the faster he would be able to ensure that he didn't accidently wake up the winged lion sleeping just outside…

After all, the last thing Xuan Hao wanted to happen, was for the winged lion to wake up and destroy the ancient pagoda along with everything inside of it.

"Empty…"

Reaching the next floor of the pagoda, Xuan Hao quickly  scanned through the entire floor before showing disappointed expression and continuing onwards towards the next floor after realizing that the second floor of the pagoda was completely empty. Not even simple furniture was present on the second floor as if someone had come along and reduced everything inside to dust before scattering those remains. Leaving behind the completely empty second floor…

…

Continuing onwards through the next few floors of the pagoda, Xuan Hao was only met with similar empty floors. Each no different from the last.

"Now only the last floor remains…"

Having made his way through all the empty floors, Xuan Hao no longer had much hope of finding anything useful inside of the pagoda. From his point of view, it almost seemed like the floors above the first floor had been completely emptied out before the pagoda had been left behind.

Thinking about it, it was most likely related to the ancient war in the past. Perhaps the people living in the pagoda in the past had been found and had decided to evacuate the pagoda before their enemies came for them...

But somewhere along the line, their enemies had shown up before they had managed to pack away all their stuff and thus, the things on the two lowest floors had been left behind as they ran away…

Coming to this conclusion, Xuan Hao felt that it made sense. There was just one thing missing…

"Just how is the giant blue rock filled with divine energy related to all of this… The ancient war should have long since ended by the time that the blue rock fell from above and shattered eight mountain peaks before coming to a stop at the Main Peak… "

Maybe there was something more to the main peak that he just didn't see yet…?

Shaking his head upon thinking about all of this, Xuan Hao decided to just focus on exploring the last floor of the pagoda as he slowly made his way up the spiral staircase before arriving at the top floor of the pagoda.

Entering the top floor of the pagoda, Xuan Hao was surprised upon realizing that it was not empty like the other floors. Instead, it looked completely untouched. Almost like the past owners of the pagoda had forgotten about it when cleaning up the other floors of the pagoda…

"This is…"

Scanning over the top floor of the pagoda, Xuan Hao soon focused on a small pedestal located in the middle of the top floor before a look of a shock appeared on his face.

"Another blue feather…"

Muttering this to himself as he walked over to the pedestal and looked down on the all too familiar looking blue feather on top of it, Xuan Hao could not help growing curious about the origin of the blue feathers.

The two other blue feathers he had found so far had been in locations that were related to the ancient war to some extent and the pagoda was also seemed to be related to the war in question…

Whoosh!

Just as Xuan Hao was about to pick up the blue feather and put it away in his interspatial ring, the blue feather on top of the pedestal suddenly flew towards him before entering the interspatial ring by itself. Ignoring the laws of space as it soon appeared inside Xuan Hao's spatial rings floating quietly beside the two other blue feathers.

"Well, that was-"

Rumble!

A few seconds after the blue feather had settled down inside Xuan Hao's interspatial ring, the surroundings began to shake violently as the pagoda slowly began to collapse around him, causing him to panic for a short moment. Not because the pagoda was collapsing around him, but because he was certain that the collapse would end up waking up the winged lion demon beast sleeping just outside…

ROAR!

As if knowing what Xuan Hao was thinking, a large roar could be heard coming from the outside as a terrifying aura began spreading out across the Main Peak rapidly.

"At least the later stages of the Domain Lord Realm…"

Not worried about accidently waking up the winged lion demon beast, Xuan Hao began analysing its strength. Not surprised in the slightest at the fact that it was in the later stages of the Domain Lord Realm.

ROOOOAAARR!

Having felt Xuan Hao's presence, the moment it woke up, the winged lion did not care even the slightest about keeping the collapsing pagoda intact.

Angrily swinging its giant paw towards the top floor of the pagoda where Xuan Hao was located without holding back.

BANG!

As the enormous paw of the winged lion hit the top floor of the pagoda, a few symbols shone for a brief moment. Stopping the giant paw of the winged lion for an instant before beginning to collapse under the pressure of the winged lion's paw along with the rest of the pagoda.

The few formations still intact on the pagoda itself were clearly in a bad state compared to how strong they had been in the past and could not defend against the attack of the winged lion for more than a few seconds… But this was more than enough time for Xuan Hao to react!

Whoosh~

Flying down the staircase before leaving the pagoda, Xuan Hao easily managed to dodge the paw attack of the winged lion without any effort.

"This is way bigger than before…"

Looking over at the winged lion as it directly destroyed the pagoda, Xuan Hao could not help sucking in a cold breath of air as he finally realized just how massive the winged lion was. Easily being as tall as the pagoda itself! The pagoda was a seven-floor pagoda!

The winged lion demon beast was by far the largest and at the same time the strongest demon beast Xuan Hao had encountered to date and even the demon beast that he had encountered back in the secret realm was nowhere near as strong as the winged lion in front of him…

"Maybe it has reached the Peak of the Domain Lord Realm…?" Whispering this to himself as he felt the winged lion's terrifying aura wash over him, Xuan Hao struggled to truly discern the real cultivation realm of the winged lion demon beast.

The difference between someone at the Peak of the Domain Lord Realm and someone in the later stages was huge, it would be like having someone at the eighth stage of the Nascent Soul Realm fighting against someone at the Half-Step Domain Lord Realm.

Only… The difference between each minor realm in the Domain Lord Realm, was way larger than in the Nascent Soul Realm!

Roar!

Spotting Xuan Hao who had just flown out of the pagoda that it crushed to pieces; the winged lion roared angrily before nimbly moving its massive body in the direction of Xuan Hao.

"Hmph!"

Not planning to just wait around for the winged lion to attack him, Xuan Hao directly used his ice domain to envelop the massive, winged lion charging towards him. Attempting to slow it down, while at the same time using his sword domain to launch a single sword attack towards the winged lion to test out its strength.

Roar?

Letting out a confused roar as it felt the ice domain descend upon it, the winged lion merely shrugged it off as it continued charging forward. Completely unaffected by the ice domain, as it resisted it with its physical body alone!

"Wha-"

Boom!

Letting out a surprised voice upon seeing how easily his ice domain was dealt with, Xuan Hao was once again shocked speechless upon witnessing the winged lion take his sword attack with its physical body. Not even flinching after being hit.

Even if it was merely an attack to test the strength of the winged lion, it was still an attack launched by his sword domain!

For the winged lion to so easily shrug his attack aside without even using its own domain… Xuan Hao suddenly had a feeling that the winged lion would not be so easy to kill…

Roar!

Roaring loudly upon arriving in front of Xuan Hao, the winged lion swung its large paw filled with sharp claws down towards him.

"Hah… This is going to take some time…"

Not affected by the giant paw swinging down towards him, Xuan Hao didn't bother dodging the attack and instead faced it head on as a giant sword materialized next to him before slashing up towards the descending paw of the winged lion.