Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Having left the manor that, they had been given to stay in during the alchemy competition, Xuan Hao quickly made his way through the capital and soon left the southern part and soon found himself inside the Iron Sky Market located at the gate he had entered the capital through during the day.

"Hm?" Walking through the Iron Sky Market, Xuan Hao immediately noticed a stark difference in the people that were walking around compared to when the sun was still out.

The main difference was the fact that the people he had sensed earlier in the Nascent Soul Realm had left. Leaving the current strongest person inside the Iron Sky Market to be someone around the Peak of the Core Formation Realm… Not really what Xuan Hao had expected to happen to this busy market during night-time.

But from another point of view, it might have something to do with the fact that the business being done inside the Iron Sky Market currently was not really something that would interest most people just here looking for a specific spiritual metal…

Glancing over the shady looking stall selling all kinds of different not safe to consume potions and other substances, Xuan Hao could not help shaking his head.

From his knowledge, he could clearly discern the effects of the potions and other things currently being sold in the Iron Sky Market and calling them not safe was an understatement… None of the products were produced by legitimate alchemist and was instead clearly created by fake alchemist!

In turn, the products in question were extremely unsafe for anyone to consume!

Given the fact that the Iron Sky Kingdom was such a strong kingdom and enjoyed a great reputation, Xuan Hao did not expect to see any products or other things related to fake alchemists and he had at first not seen any when entering… However, from the looks of it, they came out during the night to sell their dangerous products.

Looking around, Xuan Hao spotted a few guards deciding to just ignore the whole thing as they went on with their work.

The Iron Sky Market turning into a place for fake alchemists to gather and sell their products was likely a normal and accepted occurrence from the small group of guards reaction…

"Hah…" Shaking his head as he watched this, Xuan Hao just decided to ignore it as he passed through the Iron Sky Market and headed towards the eastern part of the capital.

No matter where one went, fake alchemists could always be found doing shady stuff and selling unsafe products!

If it was in the Flying Sword Sect or Flying Sword City, Xuan Hao would have done something about it, but this was the Iron Sky Kingdom's capital. Not the Flying Sword Sect's territory! How they handled things was none of his business…

Whoosh~

With one last look over in the direction of the Iron Sky Market, Xuan Hao slowly disappeared down the mostly empty road leading down towards the eastern part of the capital.

…

The eastern part of the capital was different from the southern part and the Iron Sky Market he had seen so far and just after entering it, Xuan Hao was taken aback by the several large holes in the ground that were filled out with small houses build off the side of the large holes in the ground.

The holes were likely past mineshafts that had been transformed into places for people to live after they had outlived their use…

Looking down one of the holes with extremely small and dangerous paths going from house to house, Xuan Hao could not help but feel a bit curious over what had caused people to build their houses in such dangerous locations, but he soon came to understand as the houses around him was slowly replaced with enormous storage buildings taking up most of the space.

Observing the different and well-guarded warehouses a little more closely, Xuan Hao soon realized that each of them were filled to the brim with all sorts of different spiritual metals and other more normal ores that had been brought out from one of the many mineshafts that were located around the capital.

The eastern part of the capital is where most of the spiritual metals and ores mined are stored… Are they perhaps also processed here? Maybe it happens below the surface…

Remembering how the ores and other spiritual metals he had seen before entering the capital being moved through underground tunnels, Xuan Hao thought that it would be reasonable for the Iron Sky Kingdom to have some sort of large underground facility where all the ores and different spiritual metals they mined were processed before being stored in different warehouses across the capital, with the eastern part being the main location for storage!

"They are empty…?"

Walking along a somewhat rundown road that moved deeper into the eastern part of the capital, Xuan Hao quickly came to realize that while the number of warehouses around had not decreased in the slightest and instead only increased in number. The warehouses that had anything inside of them had come to a stop as all the warehouses beyond a certain point were completely empty with nothing inside of them.

"Hm?"

Feeling curious about this, Xuan Hao soon caught the sight of a few people dressed like the guards he had seen at the gate loading up several different spiritual metals and ores inside large boxes similar to an interspatial ring, just with a way higher capacity before moving the boxes onto a small carriage that soon headed out towards the south.

Using the same road, he had been using to enter the eastern part of the capital in the first place.

The group of guards was not alone and soon, Xuan Hao discovered that the same thing was happening across many of the warehouses that covered the eastern part of the capital.

The warehouses were slowly being emptied out before the things inside were moved towards somewhere south of the eastern part of the capital…