Named: Cultivation

In fact, Yu An had already tried after learning about fetal movement.

But no matter how firmly he clung to the green mountain, he still couldn't sense the rhythm of heaven and earth, let alone merge with it and transform himself under its guidance.

Could it be that the human way of cultivation wasn't suited to him?

The problem was, he didn't know how plants—especially Rare Species, or even Spiritual Roots—cultivated and evolved.

For the past six months, he had basked in the sun every day and drawn nourishment from the earth, yet his growth remained painfully slow.

When his consciousness first awakened and his trunk was less than half a meter tall, the panel had shown him to be at Early Stage One of his growth. Now he was over two meters tall, and still at Early Stage One.

When would he ever grow up?

If the plants in this world could only rely on instinct, passively transforming and evolving under the ravages of the Black Annihilation Wind Disaster, it would probably take decades, perhaps even centuries, for them to have the slightest chance of becoming a Spiritual Root.

Leaving aside the fact that this kind of evolution was like gambling on a stroke of luck, and the slightest misstep could mean the tree withering and dying, the sheer length of time involved was more than he could bear.

Besides, even if he himself was tenacious, a favorable location was also crucial.

Any place capable of producing a Spiritual Root had to be at least a Spirit Field, or somewhere with an Earth Vein Spirit Cave.

But the little courtyard where he had taken root in the Yu Family was just an ordinary, barren patch of land.

Under these conditions, he wouldn't even survive this year's Black Annihilation Wind Disaster. And even if he somehow managed to, what made him think he could evolve into a Spiritual Root?

Just because he had been human in his previous life?

Unfortunately, he couldn't be human again in this life.

Still, Yu An had no intention of giving up. No matter what, he had to take a chance.

Then he began to tally his advantages.

Yu Xiaoshan had said he hadn't found any trees like him on Ox Ridge. Yu An wasn't sure whether this world had Elm Trees, but he felt that, most likely, he was one of a kind.

If he was unique in this world, shouldn't he get some special treatment?

Next, he had a panel like a Golden Finger, which gave him a clear understanding of himself, and he had a [Town Protection] Divine Ability.

Finally, although he was a tree, he was a tree that could think and possessed a human soul.

That might even be his greatest advantage.

If he could think, then he should be able to transform and evolve of his own accord. He was surely stronger than plants, and even Spiritual Roots, that could evolve only by instinct.

But that brought him back to the original question.

How could he evolve on his own?

Simply absorbing sunlight and drawing nourishment from the earth was definitely unreliable.

And even if he desperately tried to draw nutrients from the land where he had taken root, it would be a mere drop in the bucket.

In the end, Yu An had to admit that he still had only one path before him.

He had to cultivate like a human.

He had failed before, so he would keep trying until he succeeded.

In his previous life, it had been that same unyielding spirit that had taken him from the bottom of his elementary school class, to the upper ranks in middle school, and then to the top in high school. He had stubbornly turned himself into a small-town exam machine, and eventually made it into a top university.

It was that same refusal to give up that had led him to one success after another once he entered the working world. At last, he had secured a place for himself in a big city, achieving near financial freedom in his thirties.

If he could do it in his previous life, why couldn't he do it in this one?

At the thought, Yu An's restless mind slowly settled.

A few more days passed in the blink of an eye.

But the atmosphere in the settlement grew increasingly tense.

From the Old Man Yu family, he heard that someone had sneaked out at night to steal Spirit Medicine, that someone else had been slain by the settlement guards, and that people were selling their sons and daughters.

Everything was for the sake of entering the Blessed Land and staying alive.

Even the Old Man Yu family grew more and more silent.

Amid this atmosphere, Yu An never gave up hope. He kept persevering.

Yu Ershan persevered just as he did. He spent longer and longer staring blankly beneath the Elm Tree, as if he had made up his mind about something.

That night, Old Man Yu and Yu Xiaoshan kept watch in the Spirit Field, while Yu Dashan and Yu Ershan went inside early to rest, preparing to take over in the second half of the night.

Beneath the cold moonlight, Ox Ridge looked like a giant beast crouching low.

Yu An stood there in silence. Perhaps it was the chill of the night that made the leaves hanging from his branches curl slightly.

Though he couldn't move or speak, Yu An could still "see" everything around him, as if eyes covered his entire body, giving him a complete three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view.

Even at night, his vision was hardly any different from what it was during the day.

Actually, what he called seeing was more like a state of perception. It was just that he had been human in his previous life and was used to seeing with his eyes, so his perceptions took on the sensation of sight.

These past few days, Yu An had never given up, but an unseen sense of danger kept closing in on him, trying to drown him.

Yet he was like a reef standing firm amid the waves, tenaciously resisting the terror of death drawing ever closer.

The moon in this world was much larger than the one in his previous world. Strangely, it never became a crescent. It moved across the sky, yet always remained a full disc.

Before he knew it, the moon had climbed above the treetops.

Bathed in moonlight, Yu An numbly sensed the faint rhythm between heaven and earth, almost by instinct.

He didn't know how long it had been. Just as he felt his consciousness was about to fade away—

Suddenly, a sound like a heartbeat seemed to imprint itself in his heart. In an instant, the resonance made his body, now an Elm Tree, tremble. Every leaf on his branches unfurled at once, reaching toward the moonlight as if straining to swallow something in.

"Is this... fetal movement?"

The sudden change jolted Yu An awake. Before he could even feel joy, his trunk grew feverishly hot, while his roots underground seemed to come alive, desperately driving deeper into the earth.

A thread of coolness seemed to be swallowed by his leaves. It didn't douse the fever in his body; instead, it was like oil poured onto a fire.

At that moment, Yu An didn't dare be careless for even an instant. He once more threw himself into it wholeheartedly, continuing to sense the rhythm he had just felt.

Thump!

Another sound like a heartbeat rang out, steadily driving the changes in his body.

Only then did Yu An finally understand what fetal movement meant.

It was a kind of creation imprinted in heaven and earth. Once he sensed this rhythm, he could unlock the treasure buried deep within his body and set his life on the path of evolution.

In this regard, heaven and earth were impartial.

Fetal movement was the beginning of cultivation.

At that moment, Yu An, a tree with a human soul, gained a clear understanding of cultivation.

Humans, Demonic Beasts, trees, and plants were all the same in the eyes of heaven and earth. It treated them all equally.

The opportunities and blessings it left for all creation had always been laid out in plain sight. It was simply a matter of who could seize them.

It was just that humans called themselves the foremost of all living things. They had been the first to find the path and summarize it into a way of cultivation.

It was called: cultivating immortality!

Immersed in the joy of experiencing fetal movement for the first time, and wholly absorbed in it, Yu An failed to notice that a figure had quietly appeared in the courtyard.