Chapter 1168: Guiding Mui

"Mui-"

"Ah!? M-master!?"

Jumping up in surprise after hearing him, Mui spun around before looking at him with a shocked expression on her face, obviously not expecting her master to suddenly appear behind her out of the blue. Especially considering that it had already been a few months since she had last seen him, and she had been too focused on trying to figure out how to use the formation symbol stones in her hands to notice him approaching.

"So, I see that you have grown quite interested in formations during the time I was gone..."

"Ah! Yes! I have been trying my best to learn formations over the past month. Even if its harder than I expected, I'm sure I can learn it with enough time!" Blanking out for a short moment after the sudden appearance of her master, Mui quickly recovered before answering his question with a determined expression plastered all over her face.

Clear to anyone, she had no intention of giving up on learning formations any time soon. Even if she had ended up making no progress over the past month and her skills in formations were worse than the youngest disciples of the sect who had visited the Formation Hall for a little over ten minutes.

"That's... why did you suddenly decide to learn the art of formations?" Not knowing what else to say after seeing the determined look on her face while mentioning the fact that she planned to continue trying to learn the art of formations, Xuan Hao ended up asking her the question that had been on his mind since he heard that she had been trying to learn about formations with no progress over the past month.

"Huh?" Tilting her head in confusion before starting to think about what her master asked with a thoughtful expression on her face, Mui's face soon lit up as she seemed to have thought of an answer. "Master, the reason I started learning about formations is because I heard Senior Brother Bai say that the strength of an artifact can be increased by inscribing formation symbols on to them, so... I wanted to learn more about formations and make my artifacts stronger!"

"..."

Seeing not the slightest bit of hesitation on her face as she said this, Xuan Hao could not help silently cursing Bai Ning for leading his junior sister astray.

Even if using formations could indeed enhance the strength of an artifact, it was only specialized formations unique to blacksmiths that didn't have much to do with the art of formations and the few times where a formation could indeed be used to enhance the power of an artifact, it involved larger artifacts that could normally not be moved around.

An example of such an artifact would be the Combat Hall that most of the disciples of the sect used when training their combat techniques, while another example would be the large formation towers that surrounded the Iron Sky Kingdom.

Although the formation towers were just part of a much larger formation, the towers themselves were each unique artifacts that were covered in countless smaller formations.

"Mui... The formations used for artifacts are a little different..."

With this in mind, Xuan Hao decided to explain the existence of the special formations used by blacksmiths to enhance the strength of their artifacts, while also making sure that she understood that the formations created by formation masters was only something used in the construction of larger artifacts that involved the need for people from more than one profession and took a long time. Not something she should be trying to create on her own. At least not before she became stronger.

All of this was not even mentioning the fact that she had only ever created some weird blobs of random spiritual metals when it came to blacksmithing. Not really skilled enough for Xuan Hao to entrust her with the astronomical number of resources required to create an artifact like the Combat Hall... And even if he did, Elder Song would come out to skin him alive before he had the chance to do so. No matter the difference in strength between the two of them...

"Hm... So, I need to learn these specialized formations to enhance the strength of my artifacts..."

As Mui listened to her master explain the concept of the specialized formations used to enhance the strength of artifacts, she had a look of understanding on her face before she put away the formation symbol stones on her own accord for the first time in a month. Now understanding that she didn't need to learn the formations that she had tried so hard to understand during this time.

"Thank you master! I will make sure to make you a splendid artifact as a gift when I master those blacksmithing formation thingies!" Smiling brightly as she said this, Xuan Hao didn't even have a chance to respond before Mui dashed off in the direction of the Sea of a Thousand Furnaces to practice the blacksmithing formations.

In the end, Bai Ning would most likely end up being the one who had to explain things to her when doubts inevitably popped up during her practice. But, considering that Bai Ning was the one who had ended up mentioning this to her in the first place, it was only right that he acted as a proper senior brother and helped guide his junior sister.

In any case, if he didn't want to teach her or became too annoyed by his little junior sister, he could always send her over to him...

Shaking his head as he thought about this, Xuan Hao could not help looking forward to how Mui's journey into blacksmithing this time around ended up playing out.

Would she finally create a normal artifact, or would she create another abomination? Xuan Hao couldn't wait to find out.

Not feeling too worried about her neglecting her own cultivation, as she always set aside time for it and had demonstrated that compared to someone like Bai Ning, her cultivation speed didn't slow down in the slightest even when she became obsessed with learning something new like formations.

Even reaching the point where her cultivation base had managed to breakthrough to the Seventh Stage of the Core Formation Realm during the four months, he had been gone from the sect. Officially stepping into the Late Stage of the Core Formation Realm.

At the same time, Bai Ning's cultivation base was still at the Fifth Stage of the Core Formation Realm. Only having taken a few steps forward to reach the peak of the realm.

Whoosh~!

Having finished checking up on all of his disciples, Xuan Hao continued to go around the sect to check up on the few elders he knew, while also seeing how much stronger the average disciples of the sect had grown.

Among the different people that Xuan Hao knew among the elders, Peng Yun, Wan Qiu, and Chi Hu were the three who had changed the most since he had last seen them.

Wan Qiu was an old elder that had been one of the people in charge of the Alchemy branch of the Flying Sword Sect and had in turn also ended up as one of the people in charge of the Star Shattering Sect's alchemy branch.

Of course, the thing she did that caught Xuan Hao's attention, was the fact that she had not only managed to reach the Nascent Soul Realm, but her alchemy realm had managed to reach the Master Realm!

The reason for this rapid growth was not just due to the new environment and abundant spiritual herbs for practice, but mainly because she managed to somehow have Pei Yang teach her... And with the help of a Grandmaster Realm Alchemist, it was obvious to see how she had managed to reach the Master Realm in such a short period of time.

On the other hand, Peng Yun, the treasure hunter that had ended up becoming an elder of the Flying Sword Sect and in turn an elder of the Star Shattering Sect, also managed to improve both his alchemy and strength. Reaching the Third Stage of the Nascent Soul Realm. Although... The direction for his alchemy was a bit weird. Developing even more weird potions that seemed to resemble those from the system...

Lastly, Chi Hu, the first person he had brought back to the sect and made an elder after their encounter in the secret realm all the way back when he had still been in the Nascent Soul Realm.

Not only had he managed to fully integrate in the Star Shattering Sect at this point in time, even taking in a few personal disciples of his own, but his strength had also grown to the Eighth Stage of the Nascent Soul Realm.

Although he wasn't among the strongest elders of the sect, he could already be considered to be among the stronger ones with hopes of reaching the Domain Lord Realm in the near future.