After a while, Xu Qianghua was done searching for the things that he needed, but what caught his eye was a small pond at the heart of the secret realm.
The water glowed with a soft, silvery light that seemed to pulse, almost alive. As he approached it, he sensed a powerful concentration of Spiritual Qi radiating from it.
This surprised him a bit, but then he thought about this being the first-ever secret realm and knew that this was most likely the final prize and gift the World's Will gave to whoever found this secret realm.
Realizing its significance, he recognized it as a Spirit Essence Pool, a rare natural reservoir of dense Spiritual Qi.
These pools were highly valuable, especially for those in the Foundation and Golden Core realms, as they offered a direct boost to cultivation, sometimes even leading to breakthroughs.
For the Empyrean Harmony Sect and the Xuzhong Empire, access to a Spirit Essence Pool could mean rapid growth for their young cultivators.
This is something he had been thinking about for a while as many of the people in all of the Xu family forces are still in their early stages, which means that most of them are in the Foundation realm and few geniuses have broken through Golden Core even after they were given unlimited resources.
This is mainly because of the short amount of time, but this is a normal occurrence as none of them is the protagonist who can speed up their realms in just a few months.
"This secret realm has a lot more value than I initially thought," Xu Qianghua muttered to himself. Just having this Spirit Essence Pool alone would make the realm a prized resource. It was exactly the kind of discovery that would provide long-term benefits for those training here.
But this did not cause many fluctuations in his mood because although he was happy about this pond it would mean that he would not have to take one out from their own subspace.
Then he would slowly extend the time as this would give the secret realm time to heal itself and have time to improve the contents inside.
Back at the portal, Xu Qianghua took a final look around. He had left a layer of protection on the Spirit Essence Pool, observed the formations, and scouted out areas for training and gathering resources.
In his mind, he began forming the plan to hand this realm over to both the Empyrean Harmony Sect and the Xuzhong Empire. His idea about placing it in between was something the four of them had discussed before, as that way, it would be easier if they ever wanted to invite more people.
Yes, they have also thought about this, but they would not just open it to anyone; it will mainly be to their subordinate forces and some friendly ones who have exchanged some of the same values.
With a final sweep of his Spiritual Qi to ensure the portal was stable, he left the realm. He walked back through the valley, happy that he had found the first-ever secret realm.
As soon as he got out, he formed a seal and locked the secret realm before waving his hand and letting the secret realm enter the system space.
After this, Xu Qianghua made his way toward the Sect. He planned to hand over the secret realm to the two Sect leaders and see what they thought about this gift and how they planned to use it in the future.
Just like that, he spent the next two months going around the Central Continent while forgetting about his work, which is now left to Bai Lingyun to deal with.
And she is not happy with this as she has already planned what to do when he arrives.
"Leave me with all the work while you take a holiday, huh? My dear son-in-law, just wait to see how I deal with you," she mumbled as she finished singing off a report.