Jianmu Heart

Beneath a sky filled with silvery-white light, towering trees covered every mountain and valley. As far as the eye could see, everything was lush and green, dotted here and there with clusters of flowers blooming on the giant trees, some red, some yellow, like a breathtaking painting.

Yet beneath the trees lay more than a dozen corpses, and a young man was gathering them up.

After putting away their Storage Rings and other belongings, he casually conjured a small flame and burned the gathered bodies to ashes. Strangely, as soon as they were all consumed, the flame faded and vanished.

Yin Congyang nodded. This was a little trick he had worked out himself from the Law of Fire. It was his first time using it, and it came in handy for destroying the bodies without a trace. There were too many vicious beasts in the forest, and the stench of blood from the corpses could easily attract them in droves.

He went through all the storage spaces. The rings belonging to the other nine Star Level Nine beings held nothing worthwhile, but the young man's ring gave him a pleasant surprise. It was even larger than the one Yin Congyang currently used, and it contained a spaceship that looked to be a high-grade model. Along with the ship, he spotted two horns from Jiaoshi Horses, making three in total with the one he had just obtained—the exact number the mission required.

As the young man had begged for mercy, he had tried to release the spaceship and hide inside to escape. But with Yin Congyang's Domain suppressing him, he hadn't had the chance or time to use his mental power to activate the space inside the ring. After all, he was only Star Level Three.

Yin Congyang sent his mind into the ring and examined it closely. Drawing on the knowledge of the universe he had studied, he recognized it as an E9-Grade standard spaceship, manufactured throughout the various Universe Kingdoms. It accelerated extremely quickly, had excellent defenses, and could reach up to eight times the speed of light in the Dark Universe. It wasn't the most expensive E9-Grade Spaceship, but that was because the priciest ones were custom-built or made of special materials. In terms of value for money, the ship named Forest Ranger was undoubtedly the best.

Though his strength wasn't particularly impressive, after twenty years in the Training Camp, Yin Congyang had gained a fairly broad perspective. At the very least, he knew the appearance and uses of the common treasures and equipment found throughout the universe.

The other items in the young man's ring were decent, too, but mostly useless to Yin Congyang. As usual, he put them away, planning to send everything to Thunder God later for him to deal with.

Since he had all three horns required for the mission, Yin Congyang didn't waste any more time. He headed straight for the heart of Jianmu World. With his current strength, he could fight a Universe Level First- or Second-Order opponent if he went all out. Without a Domain, he could even take on a Universe Level Third Order. So although he remained cautious along the way, he made good time, reaching the vicinity of the central region in less than a month.

In the distance stretched range after range of towering mountains. Every peak was covered in trees of immense height. Even the shortest stood more than ten kilometers tall, while the tallest appeared to reach somewhere between several dozen and nearly a hundred kilometers. Their trunks ranged from one or two kilometers across to a good ten kilometers thick.

Jianmu trees covered every inch of the central region; there wasn't a single tree of any other kind. Each Jianmu was enormous, with an extensive root system, so even the nearest two trees stood at least a hundred kilometers apart. Unfortunately, not every Jianmu grew a Jianmu Heart. Taller trees were more likely to have one, but the tallest trees had necessarily been growing for the longest time, making their trunks even harder—something that gave countless Star Level beings a headache.

The central region of Jianmu World was vast, spanning hundreds of thousands of kilometers in every direction and containing tens of millions of Jianmu trees. Countless Star Level adventurers had come to fell them over the years, hoping to obtain Jianmu Hearts and complete their missions, yet, strangely, the Jianmu never ran out.

The reason was a special rule of this world. These Jianmu embodied the World Lord's understanding of the Law of Wood. He had poured all his insights into the boundless forest, so whenever a Jianmu was felled, another would quickly grow in its place. The Jianmu also grew extremely fast, only slowing down once they reached a height of more than ten kilometers.

Jianmu trunks were enormous, and if a tree had a Jianmu Heart, it was usually about a hundred meters above the ground. One only needed to cut a hole at that height and chop inward toward the center from a single direction. Once the Jianmu Heart had been retrieved, there was no need to fell the tree. The Jianmu, deprived of its heart, would close the hole by itself and recover before long. Whether it could grow another Jianmu Heart, of course, was another matter.

Any Star Level being who made it to the central region, whether alone or in a small team, was extremely cautious. Most had already obtained the Jiaoshi Horse horns required for their missions, and with so many Jianmu trees around, there was little need to fight over them—unless someone was unlucky enough to have gone to tremendous trouble felling tree after tree without finding a single Jianmu Heart.

Yin Congyang found an unoccupied spot nearby, picked a Jianmu about thirty kilometers tall with a trunk three kilometers thick, and got down to his old trade from his previous life—logging!

He flew to a spot about a hundred meters above the ground, cut an opening in the trunk, and started digging toward its center. As he swung the axe, he reflected on how his technique differed from the way he used to chop trees in his previous life.

Suddenly, an unusual tremor stirred in his soul. He immediately stopped swinging the axe, spread his Domain, and sent his mental power sweeping through the surroundings, but found nothing.

After standing still for a moment, he examined himself. Then, as if struck by an idea, he reached into the ring that had previously held the Mysterious Seed and took out a clone about the size of a human head, jellylike in appearance.

Yes, even after using a thousand units of Universe Crystals, the clone had only grown to the size of a human head. It still hadn't taken shape and looked just like jelly.

The tremor in his soul had come from the clone.

He sensed it carefully. The clone radiated a faint feeling of urgency, as though it wanted to merge with the Jianmu.

Yin Congyang furrowed his brow and thought in silence for a moment, forming a tentative guess.

The Soul Container for this clone had been made by transforming one-third of Yin Congyang's liver. In the Five Elements of the human body, the liver belonged to Wood. Could that make the clone more receptive to the Law of Wood? And the World Lord who had created Jianmu World had also comprehended the Law of Wood, turning all his insights into this endless forest.

The clone needed to absorb energy to grow. It could absorb Universe Crystals, treasures, or anything else that contained energy. But was the Law of Wood itself a kind of energy? Yin Congyang wasn't sure yet. Still, the Jianmu undoubtedly contained energy—otherwise, how could they grow so huge? But the energy within the trees was latent, so it would surely be extremely difficult for the clone to absorb. That explained its faint urgency. What if it were a Jianmu Heart? The clone would probably have lunged at it already!

To prove this guess, he would need to obtain a Jianmu Heart and see whether the clone could absorb it.

Yin Congyang once again swung the Heaven-Opening Axe with all his strength, cutting straight toward the trunk's center. Empowered by his Domain and laws, the blade was incredibly sharp. A few days later, he was nearing the center of the trunk when he sensed a faint trace of the Law of Wood ahead.

His heart leaped with delight. He had been lucky: the very first Jianmu he had chosen possessed a Jianmu Heart. He chopped forward a few more meters, and a glimmer of emerald light appeared. A fist-sized, diamond-shaped Jianmu Heart lay before him. He pried it out and put it straight into the ring containing the clone.

As soon as the fist-sized Jianmu Heart entered the ring, the jellylike clone rolled toward it and wrapped itself around it. Within the translucent clone, the emerald heart released wisps of Wood Law that seeped into its body. The jellylike clone began to take on a faint green hue, and it slowly swelled in size.

Yin Congyang's heart stirred. He immediately sat cross-legged as the clone transmitted, through their shared soul, the slight increase in its understanding of the Wood Law gained from absorbing the Jianmu Heart.

Once the fist-sized Jianmu Heart had been completely absorbed, the clone had grown from the size of a human head to about the size of a basketball. Its growth was equivalent to absorbing five or six hundred units of Universe Crystals.

He leaped out of the hole in the tree and saw that the opening he had made was already slowly closing, so gradually that it was almost imperceptible. It probably wouldn't take long for it to heal completely.

Turning to look at the boundless Jianmu forest, a fiery gleam flashed through Yin Congyang's eyes. He needed more Jianmu Hearts to speed up the clone's growth.

The Jianmu trees nearby were soon in for it. In less than two months, Yin Congyang had performed "puncture surgery" on more than twenty of them. But perhaps he had used up all his luck on the first tree, because those twenty-plus trees yielded only seven Jianmu Hearts. After absorbing them, the clone had grown to the size of a millstone.

He estimated that it would need to absorb at least a dozen more Jianmu Hearts before it reached the stage of transformation.

So he found another direction and continued tirelessly performing "puncture surgery" on the Jianmu. Whenever he obtained a Jianmu Heart, he tossed it into the ring, absorbed the insights into the Wood Law that came through, and moved on to the next tree.

Finally, after more than a year of ceaseless chopping, he had obtained sixteen Jianmu Hearts.

After absorbing fourteen more Jianmu Hearts, the clone was finally nearing its growth limit. It now measured about a meter across. He estimated that one more would be enough for it to transform, and set aside another to complete the mission.

Yin Congyang found a remote spot with few traces of people and few vicious beasts nearby. He took the Forest Ranger out of the ring, flew it into the sky, and activated its stealth system to block all detection. Only then did he release the clone inside the cabin and toss it the fifteenth Jianmu Heart.

The clone seemed to open its mouth, splitting into a fissure, and swallowed the Jianmu Heart. As the heart was absorbed, a feeling of satisfied fullness finally came from the clone's soul.

The most crucial—and simplest—step of the Clone Secret Technique was to make a copy of one's Spiritual Consciousness. Through the mysterious connection between their souls, the copied Spiritual Consciousness was fused with the clone's soul. From then on, the two bodies would be independent yet perfectly one, sharing a single soul, Spiritual Consciousness, and will. If either one fell, it could be re-formed.

Following the instructions in the technique, Yin Congyang's powerful soul completed the step with ease. The round clone began to change shape, slowly growing a head and limbs. Its translucent exterior became opaque, while organs, bones, muscles, blood vessels, and blood began to form within it...

"Thump-thump... thump-thump..."