The morning light in the Southern Realm Ancient Tree Array was dimmer than on their last visit. As the Youth Camp stepped into the familiar woods, they found that the once towering ancient trees had become twisted—the branches intertwined to form an impenetrable wall, the leaves shimmered with an eerie gray-green light, and the moss on the ground changed color with each step, as if silently marking the location of the "intruders." The Star-Track Token in Loran's hand glowed with a pale golden light, the patterns on its surface pointing to the depths of the forest, where the faint rustling of leaves could be heard, but there was no trace of the warmth of flowing spiritual energy.
"It's the ' Symbiotic Illusion Forest.'" Lei Lin transformed into human form, a fallen gray-green leaf clinging to his dark hair, turning into a wisp of smoke the moment it touched his skin—his Golden Crystal Power repelled the surrounding trees. "These trees can sense emotions, projecting obsessions into illusions. The more you care about something, the more real the illusion becomes." Before he finished speaking, A Mu suddenly stopped, his eyes fixed on the scene ahead: before him appeared the scene of the Flamelight Cave. The image of his childhood mistake causing the Flame Crystal Cluster to shatter repeatedly played out in the forest. The Ice-Fire Entwining Pattern on the New Sprout Sword glowed with a faint orange light, yet it couldn't shatter the illusory image.
" A Mu! Don't stare!" A Ya quickly threw out a clump of Symbiotic Fiber, which wrapped around A Mu's wrist. A pale green light spread along the veins, snapping him back to reality. His forehead was covered in cold sweat. "Just now... I thought I was going to mess up again." Loran gripped Lei Lin's hand tightly, feeling a slight tremor from his spirit core through her fingertips—she could clearly sense Lei Lin's unease, which rippled through the Spirit Core Symbiosis. "You saw the illusion too?" Lei Lin nodded, his voice barely perceptible with tension. "I saw you entangled in the turbid energy of the rift, but I couldn't move..."
The bond of Spirit Core Symbiosis allowed them to share each other's obsessions in the Illusion Forest. Loran felt a warmth in her heart and placed the Star-Track Token in her palm onto Lei Lin's hand. Pale golden light mingled with the Golden Crystal Power, forming a thin radiance around them. "This time, we'll face it together. We won't let the illusion trap us again."
Passing through the twisted forest wall, the view suddenly opened up—in a circular clearing, stood an Ancient Mother Tree that required more than ten people to encircle. Its trunk was covered with contract patterns of the same origin as those found in the Crystal-Word Ruins, only these patterns were thick with a layer of grayish-green " Obsession Dust." At the top of the mother tree sat an elderly woman draped in vines, her hair intertwined with the branches, her eyes a deep green, like jade dipped in ink—the guardian of the second contract, the " Tree Spirit Elder."
"A promise made a thousand years ago, and you still dare to mention it?" The elder's voice was like the wind rustling through withered branches. As soon as it fell, the surrounding Illusion Forest suddenly stirred, countless tree shadows transforming into phantoms wielding weapons, pointing them at the group. " The Ice Spirit Clan promised to help us repair our spiritual veins, but disappeared after the contract was signed, leaving us alone to fight the turbid energy of the rift!"
A Shi quickly pulled out his crystal pattern record book and flipped to the ancient seal text he had previously copied. "Elder, the Ice Spirit Clan didn't break their promise a thousand years ago. They all went to the Far North to suppress the disaster because of the rift's anomaly!" But the elder didn't even look at it. With a flick of his vine-woven sleeve, a gray-green light swept towards A Shi. Lei Lin immediately stood in front of him, Golden Crystal Power formed a barrier. At the moment the light collided, the Illusion Forest suddenly reflected a scene from a thousand years ago: the Ice Spirit Clan's envoy signed a contract with the tree spirits, promising to bring tools to repair the spiritual veins three months later, but never appeared again; the tree spirits guarded the Contract Stele, watching the spiritual veins of the Ancient Mother Tree wither away little by little, until the elder used his own spiritual core to temporarily stabilize the rift.
"Anyone can talk big." Tears welled in the elder's eyes, yet his expression remained taut. "Unless you can prove that humanity today is different from that of a thousand years ago—for example, by repairing the mother tree's spiritual veins and allowing the withered branches to sprout anew."
The first step in repairing the spiritual veins is to cleanse the mother tree of the Obsession Dust —dust formed from the tree spirits' disappointment and wariness over thousands of years, which ordinary spiritual energy cannot remove. A Ya tried to wipe it with Symbiotic Fiber, but the fibers turned grayish-green as soon as they touched the dust, losing their spiritual energy; A Mu used the ice and fire power of the New Sprout Sword to burn it, but the dust only grew thicker as it burned, making the mother tree's spiritual vein fluctuations even weaker.