A Nan Tree in the North Sea

At the dawn of heaven and earth, all things were new. Countless living beings awakened their spiritual intelligence in response to fate, while countless species that defied heaven failed to gain sentience and were thus destroyed in the long river of history!

In the prime of those days, heaven and earth had only just begun to stabilize when a streak of white light descended from the sky. Swift as a startled hare and sweeping like wind scattering the clouds, it shot straight toward the North Sea. Wherever the white light passed, lightning flashed and thunder roared, and heaven and earth changed color.

In but an instant, the white light vanished into the North Sea and fell silent. Heaven and earth gradually returned to normal, as though nothing had happened at all!

At the edge of the North Sea stood a tree named Nan. This nan tree possessed neither spiritual awareness nor intelligence, and it should have been destroyed at the hands of a Demon Race emperor. Yet today, it received a great opportunity; the fortune it would encounter in the future went without saying!

In a hazy daze, Mu Jizi had a dream. He dreamed that he had become a tree and arrived in the Primordial Wilderness world just after heaven and earth first opened, where the ground was strewn with innate treasures!

"Mm, hng!"

With a soft snort, like the swaying sound made by trees rocking in the wind, Mu Jizi awoke from his slumber!

"Mm? Where is this?" The moment his consciousness cleared, Mu Jizi was abruptly startled. Instinctively, he spread out his Primordial Spirit. Everywhere it passed was pitch-black darkness, and his heart could not help but grow cold and desolate.

"Wasn't I undergoing tribulation? How did I end up in a place like this?"

Doubt—boundless doubt wrapped around his heart!

"Could it be that I failed my tribulation and perished?" One possibility flashed through his mind, only for him to reject it immediately. "No. The heavenly tribulation was so powerful that if I had truly perished, my Primordial Spirit could never have remained. What exactly is going on?"

"Could it be that my fleshly body was destroyed in the heavenly tribulation, and some great divine ability wielder captured my Primordial Spirit to refine it into an artifact spirit?" Mu Jizi was startled. A highly plausible guess suddenly surfaced in his mind!

"Right, only that can explain why everything around me is boundless darkness. This place may well be the inner space of some spiritual treasure." Anger gradually appeared on Mu Jizi's face. He was a peerless genius who had reached the peak of Void Refinement and Dao Integration with merely a hundred years of cultivation. Once he passed the heavenly tribulation, he would immediately achieve the Earth Immortal Realm of a terrestrial deity.

For such a person to be refined into the artifact spirit of a magic treasure—how could he possibly accept that?

Cultivation realms: Essence Refinement to Qi Transformation, Qi Refinement to Spirit Transformation, Spirit Refinement to Void Return, Void Refinement and Dao Integration, Earth Immortal, Loose Immortal, Primordial Unity Loose Immortal, Heavenly Immortal, True Immortal, Primordial Unity True Immortal, High Immortal, Golden Immortal, Primordial Unity Golden Immortal, Zenith Heaven Golden Immortal, then the Quasi-Sage Realm of a quasi-sect leader, followed by the Primordial Sage Realm (Sages are further divided into Primordial Supreme Zenith Heaven Golden Immortals, Primordial Infinite Zenith Heaven Golden Immortals, and Primordial Grand Zenith Heaven Golden Immortals), Heavenly Dao, Grand Dao!

"Mm? No, that's not right. An artifact spirit of a spiritual treasure should have its intelligence wiped away, becoming muddleheaded and only reacting by instinct. How could I still possess my own consciousness?"

Mu Jizi's heart stirred. From the instant he woke, one possibility after another appeared in his mind, only to be rejected in quick succession.

Within the boundless darkness, Mu Jizi's Primordial Spirit was like a flickering ball of light, shining with its own radiance. Just then, a streak of white light suddenly appeared out of thin air. It pulsed faintly, giving off dense innate spiritual qi.

In an instant, the white light plunged downward, colliding with the ball of light formed by Mu Jizi's Primordial Spirit in the blink of an eye.

"Bzzzzzz—"

The violent explosion he had expected never came. Instead, with a buzzing sound, ripples spread outward. Once the ripples faded, the two balls of white light slowly dissolved into one another, finally merging into a star-like gleam the size of a bean.

That starlight seemed like gathered aurora, its spiritual qi pressing against the senses. It did not resemble a Primordial Spirit, but rather a cocoon of light, as though it were nurturing something! Mu Jizi's consciousness, which had only just awakened, fell asleep once more at that moment!

No one knew how much time passed. It seemed like hundreds of millions of years, yet also like a single instant. The ball of starlight within the boundless darkness suddenly filled with cracks. Like a spider's web, the cracks spread across the entire starlight. In an instant, with a boom, the starlight scattered, and a human figure manifested in the darkness!

Upon closer inspection, that figure seemed to gather the refined essence of heaven and earth. Looking upon him was like washing in a spiritual spring; raising one's eyes to him was like bathing in a clear breeze. His brows and eyes were bright, black hair drifting freely. His eyes were shut, his brows slightly furrowed, and his face carried authority without anger. He was truly a fine sight to behold!

After a long while, the brows and eyes of the figure in the darkness twitched. Then he opened his eyes, revealing a hazy gaze. The haze gradually faded, clarity emerging within it. Mu Jizi's consciousness awakened once again!

"I understand. I understand it all! That ball of light was actually information recorded by my original body from the very beginning of creation!" His thoughts raced, and Mu Jizi looked almost mad. Stormy waves churned in his heart; no words could describe his feelings at this moment. "For some unknown reason, I actually transmigrated to the Primordial Wilderness, where heaven and earth had just opened and the Heavenly Dao had only begun to evolve! I became a nan tree at the edge of the North Sea!"

He had originally been an ordinary person in the twenty-first century. Later, through a chance stroke of fortune, he embarked upon the path of cultivation. In the end, relying on his talent, he reached the peak of Void Refinement and Dao Integration after a hundred years of cultivation.

Before cultivating, he had loved reading all kinds of books and novels, imagining that one day he too would become one of those people—perhaps cultivating, perhaps transmigrating.

After he began cultivating, his dream of cultivation had come true, and such thoughts gradually faded away. Who would have thought that during his heavenly tribulation, he would transmigrate for no reason at all—and even transmigrate to the era when heaven and earth had just opened, the Heavenly Dao had only begun to evolve, Heavenly Immortals were less valuable than dogs, and Golden Immortals walked everywhere in the Primordial Wilderness!

"This... I wonder whether it is fortune or disaster?" Mu Jizi examined his own Primordial Spirit, and a bitter smile could not help rising at the corner of his mouth. "In the Primordial Wilderness era, great divine beings are as numerous as the hairs of an ox. With my little bit of cultivation, I am not even fit to serve as someone's vanguard!"

On Earth in his previous life, spiritual qi had been scarce. Mu Jizi's cultivation at Void Refinement and Dao Integration had placed him at the top of the food chain. Yet although his Primordial Spirit had somehow reached the Earth Immortal Realm, in this Primordial Wilderness where heaven and earth had just opened, even some random little demon probably possessed cultivation far beyond his own!

"Heavenly Immortals are less valuable than dogs? With my Earth Immortal cultivation, I might not even count as an ant!" Mu Jizi could not help feeling slightly disappointed. After the disappointment came faint resignation. "Forget it. Since I have already come to the Primordial Wilderness, complaining is useless. I might as well hide here and cultivate properly. Perhaps I can cultivate a Dao Fruit and roam freely between heaven and earth from then on!"

Where there was an idea, there was motivation. After pondering for a long time, Mu Jizi could only resign himself to fate.

Ever since absorbing that ball of light, Mu Jizi's divine consciousness had gained the recognition of his original body. No longer buried in darkness, it attached itself to his original body!

"Rustle, rustle, rustle—"

In the North Sea, a nan tree grew alone. As a gentle breeze passed, the tree swayed lightly, and a human face appeared upon its trunk.

This nan tree was Mu Jizi's original body. It was not particularly tall by Primordial Wilderness standards, standing only several dozen zhang high and so thick that more than a dozen people would be needed to encircle it. Its branches spread out lushly, and nine small fruits grew upon it. Each fruit was wrapped in halos and brimming with spiritual qi, clearly extraordinary. Within the halos, the fruits were translucent green and unripe, evidently having grown only recently!

With a slight shake, the tree swayed. Mu Jizi could not help examining the nine small fruits upon it, only to discover that although they contained excess essence from his original body, he could not consume them due to his own limitations!

"Alas—"

With a soft sigh, Mu Jizi did not force the matter. The power of his Primordial Spirit gradually spread out, and in an instant, dense innate spiritual qi accompanied by a faint pressure swept into his heart. His heart trembled, then gradually calmed.

"Great God Pangu was truly extraordinary! He transformed his body into heaven and earth and opened the Primordial Wilderness. Even after so long, his pressure still remains within heaven and earth. With such cultivation, even ordinary Sages could not compare to him even if they whipped their horses to the limit!"

Feeling the faint pressure within heaven and earth, Mu Jizi had never witnessed Pangu's divine abilities, yet he could still sense a little of them.

His divine consciousness gradually spread outward, only stopping at a distance of ten li. Within its range, aside from astonishing spiritual qi, there was only an ocean of boundless size! He himself grew on a small island several li across at the heart of those waters.

"Uh... this... I am actually all alone, growing by myself amid these boundless waters!" Mu Jizi was dumbfounded for a moment, then gave another bitter smile!

"In my previous life, I was an orphan. In this life, I am once again a solitary thing. Amid the unseen changes of the world, there truly is the will of heaven!" Indifference filled Mu Jizi's eyes, but suddenly, the pupils revealed in his tree trunk shrank sharply. Within his divine consciousness swam a creature that seemed neither fish nor fish.

The creature had fins like wings and claws, scales like feathers, and a mouth like a beak. It resembled both bird and fish, and was truly strange!

When the creature entered the range of Mu Jizi's divine consciousness, it seemed to sense something. It raised its head and glanced toward the island where Mu Jizi stood. Suddenly, it leaped into the air, transformed into a peng, and soared upward, circling Mu Jizi's nan tree several times. At last, it settled upon the nan tree, rubbing its beak against the trunk as though it were deeply dependent on him.

Mu Jizi immediately felt a sense of closeness, followed by curiosity. His divine consciousness inspected it slightly!

He discovered that this peng was not large. After rubbing its beak against the tree for a while, it buried its head beneath its wings. With its wings folded, its body was no more than several meters long...

"This peng feels strangely familiar!"

Just as Mu Jizi was about to inspect it more closely—

Boom!

A deafening explosion erupted from nowhere. Then came crackling thunder, flashing lightning, and changing winds and clouds. The previously clear sky turned gray in an instant, and moments later, heavy rain came pouring down!

The falling raindrops were as large as dippers. With a slap, one landed on the peng's body. Its wings flapped about in disarray, clearly making it uncomfortable. Mu Jizi laughed silently, then moved his branches, gathering them into the shape of an umbrella above the peng!

With that, the nan tree's branches blocked the rain. The peng was no longer battered by raindrops, and before long, soft snores sounded. The peng had actually fallen fast asleep!

Seeing this, the face on Mu Jizi's tree trunk could not help revealing a trace of concern. Then he froze, suddenly realizing that this little thing had influenced his emotions in only a short while!

"Interesting! Interesting!" Coming back to himself, Mu Jizi shook his tree body. Then he glanced at the peng resting upon his original body. With a movement of his divine consciousness, he left something within the peng's mind!

After doing all this, he closed his eyes and began his first cultivation session since arriving in the Primordial Wilderness...