Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Observing curiously from the side, Xuan Hao watched with interest as Huo Fen got up and began leaving on his own while Meng Jie remained behind together with him, a clear plan for drawing the Celestial Immortal Realm cultivators away from his disciple. After all, the spatial fluctuations would only grow stronger with time and reach a point where they would be noticed even if the Celestial Immortal Realm cultivators weren't specifically focusing their attention on Meng Jie herself.

As for the fact that there was a potentially far more terrifying entity around his disciple that had clearly already noticed how he and his disciple were planning to escape from their current predicament… Huo Fen had clearly chosen to ignore it. Bringing a somewhat wry smile to his face.

From a glance, it was clear that someone like himself showing up was not at all within the plans of Huo Fen and to ensure that everything played out according to his original plan, he ended up just pretending like he didn't exist.

Although he understood why he reacted in this kind of way, as a Middle Stage Dao Seed Realm cultivator like Huo Fen had no way to deal with an unknown entity that he was already starting to suspect had surpassed the Middle Stage of the Celestial Immortal Realm, Xuan Hao did feel a bit taken aback by how little of a reaction Huo Fen showed upon learning this.

But… Then again, it was also understandable, as any kind of reaction would have immediately been picked up by the Celestial Immortal Realm cultivators who had begun watching his every move since the one from the Explorer Union left the private box.

If anything, the thing that was more surprising was the reaction from Huo Fen's disciple, as she genuinely showed no reaction to what had happened. Almost like she had already known, or, more likely, just didn't care, being far more focused on the delicious spiritual fruits that had been presented when the Celestial Immortal Realm cultivator from the Explorer Union had shown up to hand over the Stardusk Essence.

And even after her master stepped out to draw the attention of the Celestial Immortal Realm cultivators away from her and the spatial artifact, she continued happily munching down on the spiritual fruits.

How… Curious…

Not knowing what else to think faced with this kind of situation, he ultimately decided to just remain passive for now and see how the situation played out. Not just because he was curious about how the two would manage to activate the spatial artifact before the Celestial Immortal Realm cultivators had the opportunity to stop, but also because observing the spatial fluctuations created by the spatial artifact was somewhat beneficial to his own comprehension of the Dao of Space.

…

Everything is going well so far. The only real worry is that guy…

Lost in thought as he began wandering around the auction house on his own with the Celestial Immortal Realm cultivators on the third floor following his every move in case he left and tried to escape, Huo Fen could not help feeling nervous as his thoughts inevitably began wandering towards the sudden revelation that the harmless person he had been chatting with before and during the auction had turned into an existence that even someone at the Middle Stage of the Celestial Immortal Realm showed a great degree of respect towards.

The only thing that kept him somewhat calm was the fact that this person hadn't done anything to hostile so far and had shown no intention of seizing the Stardusk Essence from him when he had been presented with a clear opportunity to do so.

However, this did not make Huo Fen feel any less worried. For the simple reason that someone capable of giving up something like the Stardusk Essence was far from ordinary.

After all, even though the main purpose of the Stardusk Essence was in helping someone in the Middle Stage of the Celestial Immortal Realm break through to the Late Stage of the Celestial Immortal Realm, it was still useful for stronger cultivators.

For there to not even be a hint of interest along with the fact that none of the other Celestial Immortal Realm cultivators outside the one from the Explorer Union had noticed him… Huo Fen felt that this person was far more terrifying than just someone at the Late Stage of the Celestial Immortal Realm.

No, I can't think like this! I can't just give up! Not to mention, that person does not seem to be hostile. Maybe running into him was just a coincidence and me hiding my true cultivation back then happened to catch his attention, thus leading to later interest…

Narrowing both his eyes as he convinced himself about this, Huo Fen focused entirely on his objective of drawing the attention of the Celestial Immortal Realm cultivators away from his disciple.

Of course, with the people he was trying to fool of being in the Celestial Immortal Realm, it wouldn't be that simple to keep their attention on him, as they would inevitably grow suspicious if he just randomly moved around the auction house while doing nothing.

For this reason, he had already prearranged an elaborate second escape plan that could potentially work but was likely to be noticed by the Celestial Immortal Realm cultivators before it could be used… And this escape plan required him to move around the auction house like he wanted to.

The main difference from just moving in circles around the auction house being that he would discreetly allow prearranged talisman paper to slip down his leg beneath his robes and onto the floor before it automatically attached itself to the floor and hid itself from the divine sense of the Celestial Immortal Realm cultivators before he even moved. Everything happening in an instant. Giving even the Celestial Immortal Realm cultivators a hard time detecting the small talisman papers being scattered throughout the auction house-

"Hm? Something is not right… Ah! Talisman papers? How… Unexpected…"

But, with one of the Celestial Immortal Realm cultivators being significantly stronger than the rest, it didn't take long before this little trick was seen through.

However, this had long since been an expected outcome, even in the case that this secondary escape path had to be used, as the true purpose of the talisman paper was hard to discern from a simple glance. Even picking up the talisman paper and destroying it wouldn't affect the plan itself.

The reason being that these talisman papers was nothing short of yet another elaborate distraction aimed to draw the attention of the Celestial Immortal Realm cultivators towards trying to figure out the purpose of the talisman paper, while the true plan was focused on the even harder to detect formation symbols that he engraved into the wooden floor of the auction house while releasing the talisman paper to act as both a distraction and a coverup for the faint energy fluctuations created during the short engraving time.

Although the overall power of these small formation symbols was negligible and couldn't even threaten someone in the Qi Condensation Realm, their purpose had nothing to do with their power, but was instead about connecting his current location in the form of the auction house to a much larger formation he had laid down months in advance the second he managed to learn about the auction being hosted at the small city.

If it was a normal city with a formation guarding it, this would have been impossible to lay down a formation discreetly without being noticed, but the Western Central Region didn't use normal formations but instead relied on the protection from the temples at the center of the cities to guard them in a similar way.

Of course, it also depended on the strength of the person in control of the small temple, as someone in the Soul Ascension Realm that had originally been in charge of the small temple could be avoided, but the one currently in charge at the Celestial Immortal Realm couldn't, as the detection ability of the small temple itself was heavily reliant on the divine sense of the one in charge for detection.

Luckily, he had long prepared, so the formation now covering the small city had long since been deeply hidden and was essentially undetectable if it wasn't activated.

As for the purpose of this city scale formation? Trap and confuse the Celestial Immortal Realm cultivators inside for long enough that he and his disciple could either use a teleportation talisman to escape, or in this case use the much safer spatial artifact that would both be faster and harder to track.

How did he, as someone only in the Dao Seed Realm manage to set up this kind of elaborate formation that even had the ability to trap someone in the Celestial Immortal Realm? Simple, he didn't, he used a formation disk that had been left behind by a long dead Saint Realm formation master to set up the formation.

Although this did significantly weaken the overall strength of the formation due to his lousy skill compared to a Saint Realm Formation Master, it was still more than powerful enough to deal with a group of Early Stage Celestial Immortal Realm cultivators.

The main reason for his confidence in this being that the original formation had been designed to trap someone in the Land Creation Realm, a terrifying existence that far exceeded the Celestial Immortal Realm.

Even if the formation had been weakened down to 1% of its original strength due to his shoddy handling, it would be more than enough to buy himself and his disciple enough time to escape.

The only real worry in this regard was a certain someone who had turned out to be far more powerful than he had originally thought…