Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

"YOU! HOW DARE YOU!"

Watching the scene of the raging leader of the thieves beat up one of his underlings, Xuan Hao smiled a bit embarrassedly.

After all, the one who had stolen the Soul Rank spiritual metals was him, he had done it at the time that they had gone through the things they had managed to steal away. Not expecting them to look inside any of three boxes before reaching their base.

Well... He was not wrong, as they had indeed reached the base. Even if he was discovered now, he already found their base...

Whoosh~

Not bothering to stay behind and watch the drama that was currently unfolding between the leader of the thieves, and another thief, Xuan Hao directly moved past the group of thieves before reaching the entrance to the base located just a few meters away from the place that the thieves had decided to stop and look through the boxes before entering the base.

Even this late at night, the mineshaft around the capital of the Iron Sky Kingdom were still in full swing as the miners worked without rest. The base itself was nothing much on the outside, just a small building located next to a busy mineshaft brimming with activity.

Looking at it from a distance, the small building looked out of place in the area around the busy mineshaft.

The only thing that made it stand out was the fact that a dozen or so people surrounded the entire building. Guarding it from anyone getting too curious about what was inside the seemingly ordinary building.

Given the fact that the people surrounding the building to guard could all be seen wearing the guard uniforms of the Iron Sky Kingdom's capital. The miners going back and forth did not question why they were there and merely believed that the small building was a meeting place, where some of their higher ups in charge of the different mineshafts would come to discuss how things were going.

Going over what kind of metals they had managed to mine out over a certain period of time and how they could improve their efficiency and the safety of the people working down in the mines.

This idea was not too out of place. After all, in the area around the capital, there were several such buildings that were used for precisely this!

Most of them having been built as a place for the higher ups of the Iron Sky Kingdom a place to stay when inspecting the different mineshaft leading down into the large underground network of tunnels below the surface of the Iron Sky Kingdom.

Whoosh~

Ignoring the people standing guard in front of the building, Xuan Hao directly entered without any problem.

Other than the guards standing outside who were all around the middle to late stages of the Core Formation Realm, Xuan Hao was not the least surprised upon discovering someone in the early stages of the Nascent Soul Realm upon entering the building.

Looking around the inside of the small building, Xuan Hao suddenly found himself stuck as he saw the Nascent Soul Realm Expert in question sitting quietly on top of a trap door leading downwards into what he presumed to be the core part of the base.

The problem now, was how he could enter without letting the Nascent Soul Realm Expert find out?

After all, compared to someone in the Core Formation Realm, someone in the Nascent Soul Realm had already developed their own divine sense and were way more observant of what was happening around themselves.

While he could indeed hide from a Nascent Soul Realm Expert with his domain, Xuan Hao doubted he would be able to enter through the trapdoor that the Nascent Soul Realm Expert was sitting on top of without alerting said Nascent Soul Realm Expert...

Maybe I should just wait for the thieves to come...?

Thinking this, Xuan Hao quickly used his divine sense to check up on the thieves a few dozen meters away from the small building.

"..."

However, what he saw did not look promising in the slightest as the leader of the thieves was in the process of beating up his underling.

At some point during the beating, a few of the thieves had also gone through the belongings of said thief and had managed to uncover a small diary with several plans on how he was going to runaway together with the leader of the thief's wife after they had gotten back to the base...

At this point, all of the thieves had already come to believe that it was indeed the last thief currently being beaten up that had stolen the Soul Rank spiritual metals. Wanting to runaway and needing something to sell for some spirit stones to make life easier...

In the end, the rest of the thieves had to intervene so that their boss did not end up beating him to death before he showed them where he had hidden the Soul Rank spiritual metals.

The thief being beaten up of course had no idea where the spiritual metals were, but the rest of the thieves didn't bother listening to his words. Just making sure that their boss didn't end up beating him to death.

Rustle~

Just as Xuan Hao was about to settle down and try to wait until the group of thieves showed up. The Nascent Soul Realm Expert sitting on top of the trapdoor leading down towards what he suspected to be the real base opened his eyes as he glanced towards the direction of the group of thieves with an annoyed expression on his face.

"Hah... Those damn things are making quite a mess out there... Don't they know that they should keep things quite to not have too much attention on this location?" Listening to the Nascent Soul Realm Expert muttering this to himself, Xuan Hao happily watched him stand up before walking out of the small building with an increasingly more annoyed expression with each passing second.

The Nascent Soul Realm Expert coming out from the small building instantly caught the eyes of some of the thieves, while Xuan Hao used this opportunity to sneak through the trapdoor leading down into the base below.

Breaking a small seal on the trapdoor in the process.

Whoosh!

Using his domain to isolate the small seal that had been destroyed as he opened up the trapdoor, Xuan Hao could not help but curse a bit to himself.

The seal was likely part of an alarm system set up and it was quite well made. Even he only barely managed to notice it after he had already triggered it.

At the very least, he had managed to directly freeze the seal with his ice domain and prevent it from alerting those inside the base... But this was only a matter of time, when the Nascent Soul Realm Expert from above returned back to the trapdoor and noticed that the seal was frozen over, the entire base would know someone had entered...

Sneaking a peak at what was happening a few dozen meters from the building after the arrival of the Nascent Soul Realm Expert, Xuan Hao smiled happily to himself upon seeing how the thieves were all complaining about the stolen Soul Rank spiritual metal. Helping him keep the Nascent Soul Realm Expert distracted.

I should at least have a few minutes before he returns back and finds out someone entered...

Calculating how much time he would have before he was discovered, Xuan Hao didn't bother going slowly, as he instantly made his way through the tunnel under the small building heading downwards at a close to ninety-degree angle.

As for just killing off or knocking out the Nascent Soul Realm Expert along with the rest of the people guarding the small building?

Xuan Hao did not dare to do it in case some other seals like the one at the trapdoor was placed on them and he would be too slow to stop them from activating and alerting the people below that something was wrong at the entrance.

For the matter of only having a few minutes, to Xuan Hao, this would be more than enough time to reach the base and find out who it belonged to before they ever had a chance to destroy anything that would help him find out.

The main reason for his confidence in this regard, was simply because he was someone in the Domain Lord Realm. Even if there was someone in the Domain Lord Realm waiting in the base, he should be more than capable of keeping himself safe.

Other than that, Domain Lords were not just a common day expert and if there really was a Domain Lord present, he should be able to easily find out which power he or she belonged to!

Fighting was not what he had come for anyway. The main reason he had showed up was to find out who it was that was stealing from the Iron Sky Kingdom and given what he had seen so far, might even be the one planning to attack the Iron Sky Kingdom!