The Willow Tree

Lin Shan jumped into the valley.

The sight before him immediately filled him with wonder at nature's marvels.

He truly had no idea how to describe what he saw. Before him lay an enormous valley, its boundaries stretching out for an unknown distance. The valley floor was packed with all kinds of plants, tens of thousands of them, growing so densely that they seemed afraid there would be no room left once the place filled up.

Most importantly, many transcendent plants were mixed in among them.

He spotted the Mercury Grass he needed at a glance. It grew everywhere like ordinary weeds, standing only ten centimeters tall, its seven pointed leaves swaying in the wind.

Beside it grew Mercury Grass with eight or even nine leaves, but the Parchment had marked only the seven-leafed plant.

He did not greedily pick the nine-leafed Mercury Grass. Sequence Potions were not about how potent the ingredients were; an overly powerful ingredient could upset the balance of the entire potion.

"With so many transcendent plants in this valley, could there be any that increase spirituality?"

Seeing the sheer variety of transcendent plants here, Lin Shan immediately had an idea.

His speculation had a basis. He had already discovered that both specters and the fallen came in two categories: one could serve as ingredients for Sequence Potions, while the other could be put to human use, merely under a different name. Specters became Spectral Objects, and the fallen became beasts. Could there also be a corresponding distinction between potions and spirit herbs?

At this point, only the Parchment could help him. Although he worried that it might grow stronger and turn against him, his own growth took priority over everything else. As long as he remained stronger than the Parchment, it could only ever work for him, with a little lifespan paid out as its wages.

With that thought, Lin Shan no longer hesitated. He took out the Parchment and wrote:

Lin Shan: [Are there any spirit herbs nearby that can increase spirituality?]

Parchment: [Searching... Eighteen spirit herbs suitable for direct consumption found, including one sequence 8 spirit herb.]

Parchment: [Payment of two years and three months of lifespan required to obtain their locations.]

Looking at the writing on the Parchment, Lin Shan did the calculations. The locations of these spirit herbs cost one month of lifespan each, while the sequence 8 herb cost ten months. There had to be some pattern to the Parchment's fees, but he could not figure it out yet.

Lin Shan: [Pay.]

Nineteen dots immediately appeared on the Parchment. The largest one in the center represented him, while the surrounding dots marked the spirit herbs. The farthest was a full eighty kilometers away, and the nearest was only four hundred meters away.

He walked over to one of the herbs. It bore a pair of white flowers with only three petals, surrounded by constantly flickering motes of white light. Lin Shan pulled it straight out by the roots.

He glanced at the Parchment in his mind.

The Parchment obligingly displayed its writing at once.

Parchment: [The correct method of consumption is to divide it into thirty equal portions and finish them over one month. For a specter physique, swallowing the entire plant at once is recommended.]

Lin Shan frowned, but still swallowed the whole flowering plant in one gulp, dirt and all.

The next second.

Crack!

Lin Shan seemed to hear something shatter. Looking within himself, he saw that his entire heart had split into pieces.

A second later, his mind went blank, and he passed out.

When he woke again, it was already night.

Looking within himself, Lin Shan found that his heart had recovered and the golden area had expanded by another ring, though he was still far from the third stage.

One month later.

He had finally found and swallowed all seventeen spirit herbs. After passing out almost once a day, nearly four-tenths of his heart had now been stained pale gold.

By the stages he had defined himself, he was now in the third stage of sequence 9, and very close to the fourth.

If his spirituality in the first stage had been one, it was now 3.9.

Now only the final sequence 8 potion ingredient remained. It was the farthest away, seemingly at the center of the valley floor.

With ample spirituality, Lin Shan flew on his sword the whole way.

It was worth mentioning that his flight speed had not changed at all. It was still a turtle's crawl.

His endurance, however, had undergone a qualitative change. Although his total spirituality had increased, it still took only an hour to replenish completely. Now, his natural recovery alone could sustain the consumption of sword flight, and he no longer had to worry about flying exhausting his spirituality.

Lin Shan sat cross-legged on the broad sword, his arms folded across his chest. He could feel the fluctuations of spirituality around him growing stronger, faintly exerting pressure on him. Spiritual pressure! It compressed space through pure spirituality. The last time he had experienced this feeling, he had been crushed straight into scraps of flesh! Fortunately, this time he was facing a plant.

From far away, he saw a towering tree hundreds of meters tall!

It was a huge willow whose trunk might be too wide even for ten people to encircle with their arms. Its branches hung down from the crown, each a hundred meters long. Looking up from beneath it was even more breathtaking. The willow blotted out the sky and sun, and not a single ray of sunlight could reach anywhere within a hundred-meter radius.

"This is that sequence 8 spirit herb? Isn't calling it an 'herb' a little inappropriate?"

Taking an entire willow this huge with him was unrealistic. He could only see whether he could scrape off a few bits.

Lin Shan directed an axe formed from heart light to hack fiercely at the willow, but it failed to leave even the slightest mark.

Unable to cut the trunk below, he tried chopping the hanging branches above. This time, he managed to leave a faint white mark.

Lin Shan rejoiced inwardly. As long as he could leave a mark, that was enough. With enough perseverance, even an iron pestle could be ground into a needle!

Three hours later, a willow branch nearly a hundred meters long fell from the tree.

Lin Shan picked up the branch and looked at the Parchment.

This time, the Parchment seemed not to get what Lin Shan meant.

Helpless, Lin Shan could only take out the Parchment and write with the Quill.

Lin Shan: [Can I eat the willow branch?]

Parchment: [Yes, but its spirituality cannot be absorbed, and your body will immediately burst apart. Resurrection will take time.]

Since the Parchment had mentioned resurrection, Lin Shan immediately wrote again:

Lin Shan: [Why do I come back to life every time I die?]

This question had puzzled him all along.

Parchment: [Payment of three months of lifespan required.]

Lin Shan: [Pay.]

Parchment: [A specter physique is undying and indestructible unless its lifespan is exhausted.]

It was just as he had thought. Everything was because of his specter physique. It seemed he would no longer have to worry about being beaten to death.

No sooner had he thought that than the Parchment doused him with a bucket of cold water.

Parchment: [Although a specter physique cannot die, every recovery consumes its essence. If its essence is exhausted all at once, it will enter a "crashed" state, no different from death. After crashing, it requires a lengthy period to recover its essence, as well as an external force to restart it before resurrection is possible. Without external intervention, it will remain in that state until the end of its lifespan.]

The writing on the Parchment reminded Lin Shan of the "crashed" Spectral Object he had encountered in the footprint pit some time ago. That state was almost indistinguishable from death. As for what external force was needed to restart it, Lin Shan did not ask. Knowing this much was enough.

He also noticed something else. No wonder the Parchment traded in lifespan: even an undying, indestructible specter physique would perish once its lifespan ran out, and lifespan was bound to the soul. From that perspective, the soul was the true essence governing everything. Specter physique, fallen physique, life physique-perhaps all these constitutions were subordinate to the soul.

Putting away the Parchment, he turned his gaze back to the willow branch in his hand.