With his first lecture having concluded, Xuan Hao began to focus on increasing his knowledge and familiarity with alchemy for the upcoming alchemy competition that Qing Yi would be participating in only a few months' time. Putting aside the matter of using the Pure Heart Spiritual Water for training with formations until after the alchemy competition.

For now, the most important thing, was to fully assimilate the knowledge of alchemy that he hadn't truly put to use yet.

Like this, Xuan Hao's time was filled with teaching the outer and inner disciples once a week, teaching his own disciples for a few hours every day and finally spend the rest of his time getting better at alchemy and at the same time helping Qing Yi whenever she came with any alchemy related questions.

As time slowly began passing with Qing Yi and Chu Yang returning to the sect again after successfully completing their two missions in the River Sect's territory. The kingdoms surrounding the Flying Sword Sect began learning more about what had happened to the Heavenly Sky Kingdom.

The destruction of the Heavenly Sky Kingdom was not too much of a surprise to these kingdoms, but the fact that it was not done by one of the sects and instead the Azure Sky Kingdom, was the most surprising fact about it.

However, this did not change that the Heavenly Sky Kingdoms territory had suddenly lost the kingdom that formerly ruled over it. Now, any kingdom could come a claim a bit of territory for free without too much of a loss. Even if the sects wanted to break free, they would not be able to take over the entire territory by themselves.

At least, that was what the different kingdoms had thought before news of someone from the Flying Sword Sect having reached the Domain Lord Realm! With the appearance of a Domain Lord within the Flying Sword Sect. The surrounding kingdoms not only decided not to involve themselves with the sects of the former Heavenly Sky Kingdom, but instead became worried about the upcoming expansion of the Flying Sword Sect.

After all, a sect that could produce a Domain Lord, would be far more valued than a kingdom with someone at the Peak of the Nascent Soul Realm

While kingdoms were way more valued than a sect in the current day of the Ewaria Continent, a sect that could produce someone at the Domain Lord Realm was still far more valued than a kingdom where the strongest person was in the Nascent Soul Realm

People in the Domain Lord Realm were rare enough in the first place and given how long their lifespan was, some even being able to live up to ten thousand years, Domain Lords were the main players and strength inside of an Empire!

In turn, this had also resulted in most wars between empires being fought between the Domain Lords of the empires involved. Rarely would the Soul Ascension Realm Experts act themselves.

After all, they were the true core of an empire! Even a single Soul Ascension Realm Expert dying, would be a disaster no matter which empire it was!

If the empire in question only had a single person at the Soul Ascension Realm, his or her death would directly spell the end of said empire!

Take the Sky Empire as an example.

The Sky Empire was known for being one of the stronger empires on the Ewaria Continent. Having at least two people at the Soul Ascension Realm. Namely the Great Sky Emperor, current ruler of the Sky Empire and the ancestor of the Sky Empire's royal family.

If even a single one of the two Soul Ascension Realm Experts perished, the Sky Empire would directly lose half of their combat potential in one go.

Other than weakening the Sky Empire, it would also cause the Domain Lords under them to leave and join another stronger empire. After all, the main reason some of them had joined the Sky Empire in the first place, was because it was one of the strongest empires on the continent!

In the worst-case scenario. Not only would the Domain Lords begin leaving, but the vassal kingdoms under them would try to break free and join another empire

In essence, fighting between Soul Ascension Realm Experts was extremely rare and both parties tended to avoid it unless absolutely necessary.

The other part of it, was that the battle between people at the Soul Ascension Realm being way more destructive and all-encompassing compared to people at the Domain Lord Realm.

If a fight between to Domain Lords could easily result in the destruction of an entire kingdom if drawn out, a fight between Soul Ascension Realm Experts could result in the destruction of an entire empire!

With all of this considered, empires would normally try to confine the battles between themselves to fights between their Domain Lords.

In a sense, the highest level of fighting force in a war between empires would be Domain Lords, therefore, the more Domain Lords you had, the higher your chances of winning.

Finally, the more Domain Lords you had, the higher the chance that one of them would one day end up reaching the Soul Ascension Realm!

With all these things in mind, the surrounding kingdoms knew that they could not mess with the Flying Sword Sect.

Even if the Flying Sword Sect was not a direct vassal to the Sky Empire like they were, it would be stupid for them to try and use the name of the Sky Empire to take over the territory of the now gone Heavenly Sky Kingdom.

All things being considered, the Flying Sword Sect was now a force that they couldn't mess with. Now or in the future.

The main thing on these kingdoms mind at the moment being whether or not the Flying Sword Sect was going to expand outwards and begin taking over their territory now that they had someone in the Domain Lord Realm backing them up