"Although Li Lu's soul is unstable due to the evil spirit in her body, her cultivation has also risen significantly because of it. This can be considered as a blessing in disguise." Blood Knife Ancestor sighed.
"Li Lu has advanced to Seventh Order Ancestor God Realm; I wonder how that brat Xiaolong is progressing? Mid-Eighth Order Ancient God Realm? Perhaps late-Eighth Order, or even Ninth Order Ancient God Realm?!" Golden Brow Ancestor mused.
Blood Knife Ancestor chuckled as he said, "It has been more than a decade. An average genius would probably break through to mid-Eighth Order Ancient God Realm in this amount of time, therefore, I estimate that Xiaolong could have broken through to Ninth Order Ancient God Realm by now!"
Golden Brow Ancestor was comforted as he thought the same.
"I've received news that the Black Region World's Fortune Gate Chief Liu Mengyuan had gone to the headquarters." Blood Knife Ancestor suddenly changed the subject.
At the mention of this, creases wrinkled Golden Brow Ancestor's brows. He too had learned that Liu Mengyuan had gone to the Fortune Gate's headquarters. It was highly likely that Liu Mengyuan had gone to complain about Huang Xiaolong's ruthless killing of his disciple Jiang Feng as well as report about Wang Yu, who was also severely injured by Huang Xiaolong; so that the headquarter's Punishment Hall would send someone to punish Huang Xiaolong.
"The headquarters mostly ignores the competition between branches' disciples." Golden Brow Ancestor said, and added, "Let him jump around." But inwardly, he wasn't confident as he said this. Generally, the headquarters didn't pay attention to the disputes between branches' disciples, but Liu Mengyuan had a backing in the Fortune Gate's headquarters Punishment Hall.
Liu Mengyuan's backing was an Elder called Wu Zongpeng of the Punishment Hall. Wu Zongpeng has a high status in the Fortune Gate's headquarters. If he lobbied to punish Huang Xiaolong, forget about Golden Brow or Blood Knife , even their venerable Master, who had been missing for a long time, won't be able to save Huang Xiaolong.
"But, I have heard that the headquarters might be interested in nurturing a batch of genius disciples with emperor rank godhead from several world surfaces' branches! I wonder if this is true." Blood Knife Ancestor added, "If Xiaolong can pass the assessment, and gets selected, then would we need to pay attention to a mere Liu Mengyuan?"
Worry crept up Golden Brow Ancestor's eyes. He said, "Recently, various Divine World's top forces are recruiting emperor rank godhead geniuses, therefore, there might be great changes in the near future."
"Great changes?!" Blood Knife Ancestor was shocked.
Golden Brow Ancestor nodded, "Yes. This is my gut feeling. However, even if the headquarters selects emperor rank godhead disciples, they would select those that had broken through to Ancestor God Realm. Xiaolong's cultivation is still too low. Regardless of his potential, he still needs to reach Ancestor God Realm cultivation.'
Blood Knife Ancestor sighed weakly, "It's as you've said ah…"
This was really something that made them feel helpless. But they could understand the reasons for the headquarters' actions.
The Ancestor God Realm was an important ceiling. In the Divine World, the Ancestor God Realm was a benchmark to gauge a disciple's overall potential. Some important factors that were taken into consideration were how many cultivation years it had taken the disciple to breakthrough to Ancestor God Realm, and what level were their avatars. The avatar's talent formed upon advancing to Ancestor God Realm affected future cultivation progress.
Some monstrous geniuses were fortuitous while forming their avatars, that there were occasions where an avatar's talent was higher than the main body. Whereas, other geniuses would rush to breakthrough to Ancestor God Realm, hence, resulting in an avatar with an average talent. This would affect their progress in the future.
...
At this time, Huang Xiaolong's group was flying towards the Soulless Star to find one of the herb ingredients for refining the Brilliant Black Soul Divine Pill.
The Soulless Star was located in the middle-belt of the Extraterritorial Devil Battlefield. Even though the evil spirits and magic beasts living there were not as powerful as those in the deeper region, they were definitely much stronger than the ones in the outer peripheral region.
The weakest magical beasts in the middle-belt had the minimum strength of low-level First Order Ancestor God Realm, while there were quite a few mid-level and high-level Ancestor God Realm level beasts.
Then again, against void devil beast Xu Baisheng, Feng Er, Gui Yi, and Gui Er, these magical beasts and evil spirits were of no concern for Huang Xiaolong. However, apart from these beasts, their journey was laden with remnants of ancient formations as well as devil's curses. Even high-level Ancestor God Realm masters would pale at the mention of these remnants of ancient formations and devil's curses, therefore, Huang Xiaolong and his group acted with caution.
Along the way, Huang Xiaolong did not stop the surrounding devil qi.
After he had broken through to peak late-Tenth Order Ancient God Realm, his energy absorption speed was a thousand times faster. On top of that, the shrunken chaos Golden Dragon Lightning Pool between his brows was self absorbing the chaos lightning energy from the air, while channeling it into Huang Xiaolong's body. Chaos lightning energy was tempering his body at all times.
It could be said that, even if Huang Xiaolong was not consuming any divine pills or sitting down to cultivate, he was still cultivating every second of the day.
The chaos lightning energy was the purest form of lightning energy absorbed by the Golden Dragon Lightning Pool. Not to mention, the amount of energy that was channeled by the chaos lightning pool into Huang Xiaolong's body was equivalent to the amount that could be absorbed by a group of cultivating ten to fifteen peak late-Tenth Order Ancient God Realm masters during cultivation.
"Erm, Master, can we enter the Golden Dragon Lightning Pool's space to cultivate?" The little cow asked repeatedly as they traveled.
Huang Xiaolong was speechless, since he had already answered this question over three times.
"Although I have begun comprehending the Golden Dragon Lightning Pool's esoteric, I can't activate the Golden Dragon Lightning Pool's grand formation as my cultivation is still too low, hence you can't enter." Huang Xiaolong explained patiently. He too was feeling frustrated and helpless about it.
He understood how the little cow was feeling. It was analogous to simply look at a mountain of gold without being able to touch it. He felt the same way; if they could enter the Golden Dragon Lightning Pool's space and cultivate, everyone's strength would rise significantly, among other benefits.
During the past decade, their cultivation had risen by one order as they had cultivated in the Golden Dragon Lightning Pool's space. What if they could cultivate inside the Golden Dragon Lightning Pool's space for several hundred years, or even several thousand years?
"Xiaoniu, what is the realm above Ancestor God Realm?!" Out of nowhere, Huang Xiaolong asked the little cow.
The little cow blanked, 'Why is Huang Xiaolong suddenly asking this question?'
"Above the Ancestor God is God King; meaning the king of gods, the gods' king!" The little cow answered frankly, despite her curiosity as to why he wanted to know this.
"God King!" Huang Xiaolong's eyes glimmered.
The king of gods, the gods' king!
Reaching this realm meant acquiring the qualifications to participate in the Battle of the Heavenly Court.
"Then, has Xu Baisheng's strength recovered until God King Realm?" Huang Xiaolong looked over towards Xu Baisheng as he asked.
Void devil beast Xu Baisheng respectfully replied, "It is so, Master. I am now a Second Order God King Realm, which is two-tenths of my peak strength."
As expected, God King Realm! Huang Xiaolong was happy hearing that. He knew what that represented.
With a God King Realm master by his side, the sea tribe looked insignificant to Huang Xiaolong.
Huang Xiaolong's mood was even better when he heard Xu Baisheng's answer.
Huang Xiaolong cultivated as his group continued travelling towards the Soulless Star, at the same time, he released his grandmist godforce as he tried to sense if there was any grandmist aura nearby.
But he was disappointed. He had collected various herbs along the way, but had not found any grandmist aura. On their way they also killed more than a few Ancestor God Realm magical beasts, and occasionally, chaos spiritual beasts, which Huang Xiaolong ordered the little cow to subjugate. Hence, a month later, when they reached the Soulless Star, there were six chaos spiritual beast lackeys behind the little cow. Though small in number, all of them had Ancestor God Realm strength.