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Regarding that Guide to Elementary Formations book Xiao Lin had purchased, he had actually skimmed through it once while still at the Mittel Auction House, though not very carefully.
This time, back in his own courtyard, after spending some time with his son Xiao Zhan, he began to study the book in earnest. Even though Xiao Lin read it slowly, it took less than half an hour to finish the entire thing.
"It really lives up to its title, Guide to Elementary Formations. There isn't even a single small formation diagram in here; it only teaches you how to set up formations and some history. Isn't this just a scam?"
"No wonder no one bid even when the starting price was ten thousand gold coins. It turns out it's truly useless? Does this mean I really became a sucker?"
After finishing the Guide to Elementary Formations, Xiao Lin's face was full of gloom. He had thought his protagonist halo had flared up, allowing him to pick up a hidden treasure.
It turned out he could now stick a red ball on his nose and go work at a circus. This book only taught the theory of how to arrange formations and what to pay attention to during the process, without any other useful information.
What was the use of this? You have to realize, he didn't even have a single formation diagram right now. What was the point of knowing how to set them up?
Ultimately, Xiao Lin sullenly tossed the Guide to Elementary Formations into a corner of his storage ring's space.
"If there's a chance in the future, I'll use it to prop up a table leg. Sure enough, picking up hidden treasures isn't something that happens to me. I don't have the life of a protagonist, but I've caught the protagonist's delusions... that describes me perfectly right now..."
Xiao Lin, who basically had zero harvest, had now learned to mock himself.
Clearly, regarding the purchase of those basic formation annotations, Xiao Lin was so frustrated he wanted to vomit blood. Although ten thousand gold coins were a mere drop in the bucket for the Xiao Clan, the feeling of being swindled was still very unpleasant.
After giving up on the study of that book, Xiao Lin threw himself back into cultivation. There were still three months before the trip to the Secret Realm, which was enough for his strength to rise another notch.
In the first year after the war between the Jia Ma Empire and the Chu Yun Empire ended, Xiao Lin's hidden cultivation had advanced from Four-Star Dou Huang to Six-Star Dou Huang, while his surface cultivation broke through from Nine-Star Dou Ling to One-Star Dou Wang.
Later, another year passed; Nalan Jie and Mu Chen both broke through to the Dou Wang realm, and Xiao Lin's hidden cultivation rose by another star, reaching the Seven-Star Dou Huang realm.
Furthermore, Xiao Lin had already stayed at the Seven-Star Dou Huang level for some time. Thus, he decided to use the three months before the Secret Realm trip to break through to the Eight-Star Dou Huang realm!
As for Xiao Lin's surface cultivation, there was no need to continue breaking through for the time being. Xiao Lin did this to create the illusion that his talent was actually about the same as Nalan Jie and Mu Chen's.
In reality, ever since Xiao Lin awakened his past-life memories, his cultivation talent had long since become incomparable. He could feel this every time he practiced.
How should he put it? It was as if every time Xiao Lin practiced, he felt like his past self and his current self were practicing at the same time!
To put it bluntly, it was the stack of two lifetimes' worth of cultivation talent. This was why, after awakening his memories, it only took Xiao Lin eight short years to break through from Four-Star Dou Ling to his current Seven-Star Dou Huang realm.
This was even with Xiao Lin spending five years in the middle creating his cultivation technique.
From this, it was evident that the benefits of awakening his memories didn't just give him a Heaven Realm soul; they also made his cultivation talent high enough to rival the young geniuses of the Eight Ancient Clans!
For Xiao Lin, this was definitely an unexpected surprise!
However, time waits for no one.
Don't look at the fact that there are still about thirty years before the original plot begins. Under normal circumstances, that amount of time was absolutely not enough for Xiao Lin to become one of the continent's peak experts.
Whether he could even become a Dou Sheng was still a question.
This was why the goal Xiao Lin set for himself from the very beginning was to rely on his grandson. After all, Xiao Lin, who couldn't practice the Flame Mantra, no matter how outstanding his talent was, clearly wouldn't be able to wrestle with Hun Tiandi in just thirty short years.
One must know that even Xiao Xuan, Hun Tiandi, and Gu Yuan—the owners of Divine-Grade Bloodlines—spent hundreds of years to achieve the Nine-Star Dou Sheng level. Even if Xiao Lin's talent rivaled theirs, where would he get hundreds of years to develop?
So, it wasn't that Xiao Lin wanted to rely on his grandson.
It was a choice made out of necessity!
As a fellow transmigrator, who would consider themselves inferior to anyone else? If there were a chance, he also wanted to become the strongest person on the continent and be his grandson's backer!
But reality was right in front of him; he had to choose to compromise. After all, if Hun Tiandi defeated Xiao Yan, the Xiao Clan would undoubtedly vanish into the dust of history.
Xiao Lin remembered clearly that the author of BTTH himself admitted that whether Xiao Yan defeated Hun Tiandi or vice versa, the winner would become one of the three people in the Great Thousand World to defeat the Heavenly Evil Monarch.
This clearly proved that the future was not absolute; Hun Tiandi had a possibility of winning. What Xiao Lin had to do now was turn the possibility of Hun Tiandi winning into zero, nothing more.
Time slowly flowed by during Xiao Lin's cultivation.
Ultimately, Xiao Lin spent only about two months to successfully break through to the Eight-Star Dou Huang level.
Then, in the remaining month, while consolidating his cultivation, Xiao Lin taught his son Xiao Zhan how to practice and occasionally took time to guide the Xiao Clan's younger generation. In this manner, the day for the various forces of the Jia Ma Empire to gather finally arrived.
Xiao Lin didn't drag his feet or play the protagonist's trick of arriving at the last second; instead, he led the Xiao Clan's ten Da Dou Shi and one Dou Ling to the East Gate of the Jia Ma Capital early to gather.
After waiting for about half an hour, basically all the forces had arrived. Most of the forces made choices similar to the Xiao Clan, bringing about a dozen clansmen to explore the Secret Realm.
Only the four Dou Huang level powers brought slightly more people, each family having about twenty to thirty, with the lowest being at the Da Dou Shi level, and even including Dou Ling and Dou Wang!
After waiting another half hour, a group of about several hundred people set off in a grand procession. Their destination for this trip was a "no-man's land" between the Jia Ma Empire and the Luo Yan Empire.
No wonder the Luo Yan Empire was also able to discover this Secret Realm.
Because the group basically consisted of people at the Da Dou Shi level or above, it only took about half a day for them to arrive at the destination. However, when the Jia Ma Empire's group arrived, there was already a crowd of people here.
The other party also numbered several hundred!
Clearly, these people were from the Luo Yan Empire.
Although there were some other scattered people around, if nothing unexpected happened, these people were the forces behind the small countries that had participated in the auction held by the Mittel Clan. In the Northwestern Region, there were hundreds of countries in total.
Nations like the Jia Ma Empire, Chu Yun Empire, and Luo Yan Empire were considered mid-tier countries. Below mid-tier countries, there were smaller nations. These small nations generally survived by attaching themselves to mid-tier countries or first-rate empires.
Therefore, the large-scale auctions held by the Mittel Clan would occasionally attract certain forces from these small countries. Although the strength of the forces in these small countries was mediocre, they could be used to muddy the waters!
See, for this Secret Realm exploration, besides the hundreds of troops deployed by both the Jia Ma and Luo Yan Empires, the combined forces of these small nations also numbered two to three hundred. These people could perfectly play the role of troublemakers!
Compared to the Jia Ma Empire, which was slightly weaker in overall strength, these troublemakers would clearly be even more disgusting to the Luo Yan Empire!
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