Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

As the last few hours of the night passed with Xuan Hao preparing to teach his first disciple Qing Yi alchemy, the first rays of light passed through the windows leading into the room, that he by this point had transformed into an alchemy room. Having everything that he or Qing Yi would need to practice alchemy!

Other than that, Xuan Hao had also managed to get his hand on a few different spiritual herbs that they could use for practice by asking a few of the elders from the Alchemy Hall that had come together with them.

One thing was for certain, if he ever found himself in need of any spiritual herbs in the future, just asking an elder from the Alchemy Hall would be more than enough to get him a few.

How they even managed to carry around such a large number of spiritual herbs without an interspatial ring, Xuan Hao had no clue, but at the very least it had been a good thing for him, as he did not need to go out and buy any spiritual herbs for his practice sessions with Qing Yi...

"Talking about alchemy practice, looks like Qing Yi just got up..." Muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao left his room and headed over towards the room where Qing Yi was staying inside the manor.

Knock kncok~

"Who...?" Hearing someone knock on her door just when she had woken up, Qing Yi looked around her room in confused state before quickly putting on a new set of clothes before walking over to the door.

"Master...? Master!" Opening the door to her room, Qing Yi tilted her head in confusion when she saw her master standing there like he was waiting for her, it was only after a few second of staring at him for a few seconds that she remembered how she would be training together with her master from today onwards. All the way until the start of the alchemy competition in a week.

"Are you going to teach me alchemy now!?" Feeling herself grow excited upon thinking about her master teaching her, Qing Yi could not help but ask as she looked up at Xuan Hao with an increasingly excited expression on her face.

After all, from what she knew, her master should be a really skilled alchemist. Far better than the elders of the alchemy hall that she had learned from so far!

"Yes! Let's go to the room I prepared for us to use in the next week up until the start of the alchemy competition." Nodding his head in agreement to his excited disciple's question, Xuan Hao soon made his way towards the room he had transformed into a usable alchemy room during the last few hours.

"Yes, master!" Hearing what her master said, Qing Yi excitedly travelled behind him towards the alchemy room where they would be spending a majority of their time over the next week.

She knew very well that this might be her only chance to breakthrough and become an Expert Alchemist before the start of the alchemy competition!

Although she did not really expect herself to be able to do so. After all, the current best alchemist in the entire Flying Sword Sect was an Expert Alchemist!

If she could breakthrough and become an Expert Alchemist, she would automatically be among the best alchemists of the Flying Sword Sect after only having begun her study less than a year ago!

Even if she knew how slim her chances were of becoming an Expert Alchemist, Qing Yi still hoped deep down that she would be able to become one.

The main reason for this being that she had heard from some of the elders in the Alchemy Hall, that some of the younger alchemists participating in the alchemy competition would already have reached the Expert Alchemist Realm!

For Qing Yi who deep down wanted to win the entire Alchemy competition and take the lucrative prize offered up by the Artisan Alchemist, becoming an Expert Alchemist would be a requirement!

...

At the same time Xuan Hao and Qing Yi were making their way to the newly created alchemy room, somewhere at the eastern part of the capital where a crack had been formed in the wall that Xuan Hao had followed the thieves through last night, a figure slowly appeared next to the crack in the wall.

"Looks like there is indeed something hidden here, it looks like it was a good idea for me to secretly monitor that new Domain Lord from the Flying Sword Sect, he truly helped me out a lot this time..."

The figure in question slowly revealed itself to be the current ruler of the Iron Sky Kingdom, Yi Min, who had been keeping a close eye on Xuan Hao entered the capital. At some point even being close to launching an attack towards him if not for her old friend Fang Shi stopping her.

"But how did they manage to make such a large crack in the wall without me noticing...? The crack itself is even slowly expanding with each passing second at an increasingly fast pace! If this continued for another month or so, the entire formation around the capital would likely have been completely destroyed without me even knowing it!" Saying this to herself, Yi Min could not help but shiver at just how dangerous her situation would have been if she did not discover this.

Given her cultivation realm, she could easily imagine how things would play out in case she was attacked by someone and decided to rely on her formation to protect her and the capital from damage while fighting. Only to suddenly realize that the formation she relied on for protection was gone...

The result of possibly taking a full-on attack of someone at her realm would be easy to imagine! Even if she survived, she would be way too injured to fight back at that point in time and her opponent would most likely be able to easily overwhelm her and kill her before she had the chance to escape!

Thinking about this, Yi Min felt even more thankful towards Xuan Hao. Even if he had no idea that he had ended up helping her so much, Yi Min would still remember the fact that he had ended helping her out. Knowingly or not.

"But how should I deal with this crack...? I don't want it to continue destroying the foundation I spend so long on laying down. At the same time. Dealing with this crack is likely to warn the other party that I'm aware of what is happening, likely causing them to retreat once again and bide their time like in the past..." Muttering this to herself as she realized just how hopeless she was when it came to dealing with the crack in front of her without alerting the people after her life, Yi Min ultimately decided not to deal with the crack.

In some way, this might be her only opportunity to deal with the people after her life!

Now that she had some idea on how they planned to kill her, she would be able to prepare for it!

Other than that, she also had time to secretly call over a few of her trusted friends to help her out. Given the speed at which the crack in the wall was widening, Yi Min could easily calculate that her enemy did not plan to attack anytime soon, as there would still be some time left before the formation had been damaged enough to render it useless.

"There is also finding out the origin of that weird explosion from earlier... From its strength alone, its likely another one of those peoples plans to deal with me! Just... How did they manage to isolate an area inside the capital from my formation and just how many more of those things are hidden inside the capital?" Having come up with a plan for dealing with the crack in the wall, Yi Min now focused on the other thing that Xuan Hao had managed to uncover for her.

The origin of the explosion could not be found. Even when she had searched through the wrecked mineshaft that it had been located inside of.

At this point, the origin of the explosion was the thing that worried her the most, as she had already some idea on how to deal with the crack in the wall slowly weakening her formation.

The explosion on the other hand was different, it clearly had more than enough strength to injure someone in the Domain Lord Realm and at the same time had the ability to remain hidden inside of the capital. Even her formation had been completely useless when it came to finding out about the origin of the explosion!

In the future during her fight, she might accidently end up being drawn into one of the areas where this explosive device was located and without even realizing it, she would be caught in an explosion and end up being badly wounded... Not something she ever wanted to experience!

"I have to find out just where that explosion came from!" Muttering this to herself, Yi Min glanced one last time at the crack in the wall before disappearing.