The Birth of the Mastermind

The little girl blinked.

Yet not a trace of surprise showed in her eyes.

Instead, she smiled sweetly, as though she had long been waiting for Meng Chao to expose her true nature.

Suddenly, she leaped off the cliff.

Meng Chao narrowed his eyes and jumped after her, trying to stir the power of Magnetic Levitation and overtake her from behind, catching the mysterious girl.

But the world around them warped in light and shadow, as though even the laws of gravity were under her control. The two of them slowly drifted into the jungle.

The little girl vanished ahead of him.

Amid the dense branches came only waves of rustling.

Spirit Flame blazed wildly around Meng Chao, burning a path through the thick jungle.

Countless branches and vines recoiled with hissing cries like venomous snakes scorched by fire, revealing at the end of the passage a small tree that was dazzlingly multicolored, crystalline and translucent, breathtakingly beautiful.

It resembled a luminous jellyfish living deep within a pitch-black primeval forest.

Countless supple willow-like branches danced gracefully like tentacles.

It also resembled a crystal-carved coral, except its brilliantly colored coral polyps were still alive, writhing with eerie motions.

This form was somewhat like the Wisdom Tree at the center of Peach Blossom Paradise Town.

Yet it was vastly smaller, only as tall as a person. Delicate and exquisite, it did not seem like a natural creation of this planet.

Perhaps this was the Wisdom Tree's true body.

"What exactly are you?" Meng Chao asked in a deep voice, full of vigilance.

A silver-bell-like laugh came from the Wisdom Tree's core.

Immediately afterward, a green tide made of countless lichens, mosses, fungi, and flowers spread upward from its Tree Root, wrapping around the trunk.

A young girl's face emerged from the green