Enlightenment! The Opened Door of Evolution (Seeking Clicks, Seeking Favorites)

In the pitch-black forest, there was a willow tree emitting a faint green light, appearing quite beautiful.

But soon, Su Heng realized.

For a willow tree like this to grow, the difficulty would be much greater than for Gamia, his first template.

After all, Gamia could move freely in the forest, searching for prey. Even if it encountered an opponent it couldn't defeat temporarily, it could use its highly developed serpentine sense of smell and perception to avoid danger in advance.

It could then return a few days later to devour those opponents.

But the willow tree couldn't.

For now, the willow tree couldn't dodge enemies, and its growth through light and speed wasn't as monstrous as Gamia's through devouring.

"Hmm, and my current vision..."

Su Heng's current vision was also peculiar. All scenes within a 360-degree radius around the willow tree were presented to him without any blind spots.

Even in the pitch-black night, he could see clearly.

This was a valley with flat terrain, flanked by high, rising hills. Wildflowers bloomed all around, and a stream gurgled as it flowed through the rock crevices.

At the bottom of the valley, many tall trees grew, ranging from over ten meters to dozens of meters high.

In such an environment, the willow tree Su Heng had possessed was not very conspicuous.

Of course...

That was, if one ignored its leaves that emitted a faint glow in the darkness.

Looking at the willow tree again.

Hundreds of soft branches dangled down, swaying gently in the night breeze, like a waterfall.

The willow tree's crown was spread out and sparse, its bark grayish-black with some irregular cracks. If he wasn't mistaken, this should be a relatively common ornamental tree species.

A weeping willow.

Mature weeping willows were generally twelve to eighteen meters tall, lived in damp soil, and had a lifespan of about thirty years. A very small number could live for over a hundred years.

Weeping willow branches were very resilient and could be used to weave baskets. Its leaves also had some medicinal value.

This willow tree was about three to four meters tall.

Roughly estimating based on a growth rate of two meters per year, this willow tree was less than two years old.

"And if I remember correctly, weeping willows are generally distributed on the Ardis Continent where Qingcheng is located. This means this willow tree isn't too far from me?"

Su Heng had such a guess in his mind.

However, he also knew that this was only a possibility, and the probability was not high.

The Ardis Continent had an area of tens of millions of square kilometers, much larger than the Eurasian continent combined in his previous life.

As the forbidden zones expanded, human activity areas had been compressed into a very small portion.

Let alone Qingcheng.

In this dark mountain range, it wasn't easy to even encounter humans.

"Activate second template state."

Su Heng issued the command in his mind, and the familiar panel appeared before him.

[Second Template: Willow Tree]

[State: Weak]

[Life Level: 1]

[Vitality: 1.32 (Average 3)]

[Tree Height: 3.26 meters (Average 15)]

[Age: 2.1 years]

[Bond Level: 1 (The higher the Bond Level, the greater the bonus obtained in the template fusion state. Current level bonus is thirty percent.)]

[Template Trait: Life Enlightenment (Rare: Wielding branches full of vitality can guide lower-level creatures to awaken. Awakened creatures will have a natural affinity for the host. However, the template itself will also be more easily attacked and devoured by other mutated beasts.)]

"This willow tree... can actually guide creatures to become Awakened Ones."

Unlike the Little Boa's Devour Talent, the willow tree's talent couldn't bring it rapid growth, but its effect was still extraordinarily powerful.

Awakened creatures were a level below the extraordinary tier.

For ordinary humans, beasts, or even plants to grow into Awakened creatures, their vitality might not increase significantly immediately.

But this process was a transformation of life level from zero to one.

Since the arrival of the Red Moon Era, countless scientists and martial artists had been trying to find a way to stably promote human awakening to counter natural disasters.

However, unfortunately.

After a full three hundred years, even when the Red Moon first appeared and inherited most of the Golden Age's human scientific research capabilities.

Those top-tier researchers at the time couldn't develop a sufficiently stable and effective method.

And now, after hundreds of years, with cities falling into forbidden zones one after another, and the surviving humans being divided by the Red Moon, losing most of their scientific research innovation capabilities.

Finding the key to unlock the door of Awakening seemed to have long ago become an unrealistic fantasy.

Never mind that some biological companies boasted daily about developing stable Gene Awakening Potions. Not only were these potions, which concentrated Red Moon radiation in large quantities, prohibitively expensive, but their success rate was also extremely low.

Furthermore, if they failed, the price paid was very likely to be one's life.

They were often sarcastically called expensive poison.

There were also other scholars who believed that by pushing the human body to its limits through fitness and martial arts, and then accepting Red Moon radiation, one could increase the probability of Awakening.

But Su Heng always felt that these scholars had taken money from certain martial arts gyms. They repeated the same few phrases, used the same few examples, and lacked much factual basis.

But now...

After the Red Moon Era arrived, Su Heng discovered the key that billions of humans had desperately sought for a hundred years in such a remote and unfamiliar mountain valley.

The door of evolution, as distant as the starry sky, was now within reach.

Even a homebody like Su Heng immediately recognized the value of this Willow Tree.

"However, I can't get too happy too soon," Su Heng sighed. "In such a dangerous environment, surviving and developing is not an easy task."

He hadn't forgotten the system's warning.

While the Life Enlightenment talent possessed wondrous power, it also attracted many unwelcome guests.

Most of the beasts affected by the Red Moon became more sadistic and brutal.

Just like the group of evil spirits Su Heng saw in the mountain village earlier, concepts like sustainable development and friendly coexistence were incomprehensible to these mad monsters.

The immediate priority.

It was to cultivate the Willow Tree template as quickly as possible. Once he possessed the ability to protect himself, he could then see how to maximize the effects of the Life Enlightenment talent.

"Life that has been enlightened will naturally feel a sense of goodwill towards the Willow Tree... Based on this, perhaps I can become a forbidden zone, creating a paradise revered by all demons."

Su Heng couldn't help but imagine such a scene...

Under a sky with low-hanging dark clouds.

A giant Willow Tree, enveloped in a hazy radiance, like a deity.

With a wave of its branches, thousands upon thousands of exotic beasts surged and roared, like mountain torrents, crushing all strangeness and ill omens that stood in their way.