Tempering Through Suppression

"Woah! I'm at the ninth level!"

"I'm at the tenth!"

The disciples that were at the sixth level were all brought up to the eighth level, with a few being at the ninth. All the ones at the seventh level had advanced to the tenth level, as were the disciples at the eighth level.

However, it is the 4 disciples who were once at the ninth level who took the limelight. 3 young men and 1 woman emitted the distinctive aura of the 11th stage, even nearing the 12th stage bottleneck.

Sheng Tian nodded, "Not bad"

While a bit lacking in his opinion, Sheng Tian was confident that he could raise this group to become a force to be reckoned with.

Now that everyone was awake and their cultivations had stabilized, Sheng Tian told them to stand up on the cloud.

"Stand behind me," he said to Long Chen.

As soon as Long Chen was behind him, Sheng Tian let his draconic might run loose.

"Ugh!"

"Ack!"

Almost immediately, several people fell down while others were on their knees. The few that remained standing struggled to move a muscle.

"It seems that you all need to work on your resistance," Sheng Tian said coldly, "I want every single one of you to be able to walk under this pressure in 10 days!"

Long Chen had a worried expression on his face, "Is it necessary for you to be this harsh? Their growth right now isn't too bad"

Sheng Tian shook his head, "If they want to have a higher chance at survival, they must push themselves to the limit. This is part of the reason everyone's cultivation bases are stagnant! If they don't push themselves, they won't have the motivation to continue cultivating"

Hearing Sheng Tian's words, light seemed to have returned to Long Chen's eyes. He was one of the people who had no motivation and he knew it for a long time. Yet his fear of acknowledging it led to his cultivation stagnating.

Weng!

Long Chen's cultivation steadily rose until it reached the pinnacle of the 12th level. He was like a rusty sword that had been unsheathed, ready to bathe in blood once more. With a bit of tempering, Long Chen should have no problems with his cultivation in the future.

He looked at the struggling disciples and then at Sheng Tian, "Alright, but don't break them. It might be better to steadily increase the pressure every so often"

Sheng Tian complied and lowered the pressure to about half. This allowed most of the disciples to stand up with a bit of difficulty. The few that didn't manage to stand went into a meditative position to get used to the pressure.

Sheng Tian pointed at a few people, "You, you 2 over there, and the 4 of you"

Those that he had pointed at looked at Sheng Tian nervously.

"Start doing push ups"

""What?!""

"What's the matter? Don't feel like it? Do you want me to increase the pressure just for you all?"

"N-no..."

"Then start doing push ups!"

Those disciples complied and got down to do push ups. This was naturally no easy feat to do while under Sheng Tian's draconic suppression, and those disciples fell many times.

The disciples that Sheng Tian had pointed out had much stronger wills than the others, thus, he had to put them through more pressure.

After an hour of enduring the suppression, all the disciples had managed to stand up. A few had even started to move around a bit, though it looked like they were walking through mud.

Sheng Tian stealthily increased the pressure by a bit. He planned on slowly increasing the pressure by 25% over the course of an hour.

Suddenly, Long Chen, who was piloting the huge cloud, reeled back.

"Everyone watch out!"

Bang!

The moment he called out, Sheng Tian lifted the suppression and flew into the air. A large pillar of water had shot up and pierced the cloud.

Whoosh!

Everyone managed to react in time and disperse. They looked down and found a hundred meter tall fish with a massive maw containing rows upon rows of teeth, and on top of it, several humanoid figures controlled the beast.

Seeing their attack miss, the assailants flew up and confronted the group.

Their leader was a young man with deep blue skin and fins protruding from his limbs. His hair was long and green like seaweed and his teeth were sharp.

Long Chen's eyes constricted, "You're from the one of the royal sea races!"

The fish man grinned with all his teeth, "Yes, the Blood Finned Shark Race to be exact"

Long Chen frowned, "Aren't you supposed to be one of the few neutral sea races? Why did you attack us?"

"Ah yes, about that"

The man took out a silver medallion with an image of a shark on it, "My foolish father made the poor choice to stay out of the conflict. I, the Second Prince Xue Sha, shall change that and become the new ruler of the Blood Finned Shark Race!"

Putting away the medallion, Xue Sha turned around, "Kill them all!"

"Charge!"

Long Chen formed a shield dome that covered his disciples, "Battle Formation!"

Sheng Tian raised an eyebrow, "We had a battle formation?"

The 46 disciples split into 2 groups. The 2 groups of 23 then formed 2 circular formations around each other.

Wu Di decided that now was a good time for commentary, 'Not bad, that battle formation is at least a black ranked formation"

At this moment, the shield dome broke and the sea beasts charged at them. They themselves formed a 32 person formation in the shape of a trident, while 8 others charged at Long Chen and Sheng Tian.

"Ha!"

The trident formation was a purely offensive formation while the Sky Sword Sect's circular formation was much more versatile.

As the sea people tried to get past the formation, they were repeatedly repelled. The outer circle held back several sea people, and those that wanted to get by or launch a killing blow were immediately blocked by someone in the inner circle.

Furthermore, with their boosted cultivation bases, the Sky Sword Sect Disciples disciples were able to fight back against the sea people.

However, it was apparent to everyone that they were tired, as being under Sheng Tian's suppression for such a long time already put them in a weakened state. Thus, they were slowly being pushed back.

The 8 that had charged at Sheng Tian and Long Chen held spears made of silver. Sheng Tian snorted and took out the Devouring Sword.

Swish! Swish!

2 of the sea people were directly cut down without warning, prompting the rest of them to become more wary.

Xue Sha frowned seeing Sheng Tian cut down his people so easily. He took out a round mirror with a silver frame and embedded with blue gemstones.

Long Chen's eyes dilated, "That's the Pure Ocean Mirror!"