Yi Wood Divine Tree

Could it be?!

He recalled the rumors from his previous life that someone had obtained a broken branch of a Divine Plant from the Green Wood Illusion Forest.

Had it come from this cave too?!

Feng Zhuo could no more suppress the Everlasting Spring Scripture, which had begun circulating on its own, than he could the joy boiling in his chest.

The cavern was not large. He could see its boundaries at a glance, let alone when he used his Divine Sense.

Within a few breaths, Feng Zhuo had carefully searched the cavern no fewer than five times.

From formations common in the cultivation world to mechanisms used in the mortal world, Feng Zhuo ran through everything he knew and ruled them out one by one, yet still failed to discover the mystery within.

Just as Feng Zhuo was about to give up... Here?!

After searching it who knew how many times, Feng Zhuo finally discovered something strange in the cave.

Enduring the pain, Feng Zhuo severed a strand of Divine Sense as thin as a hair and sent it toward the spot he had found.

When his Divine Sense touched that area, the impressions it sent back were no different from those of any other place.

But after a few breaths, Feng Zhuo could clearly sense that the strand of Divine Sense was steadily weakening.

A quarter of an hour later, Feng Zhuo lost contact with that strand of Divine Sense entirely.

This was the place!

It was so hard to detect only because the spot devoured so little Divine Sense.

Compared with the Divine Sense of someone at the Early Golden Core Stage, the amount was so small that noticing the difference was as difficult as finding a needle in the ocean.

But the clue was actually based on a cultivator's Divine Sense?

Yet the Green Wood Illusion Forest only allowed Qi Refining Stage cultivators to enter, while only Golden Core Realm cultivators could project their Divine Sense.

Aside from Feng Zhuo, who was an exception, who had spread the rumor in his previous life that there was a broken branch of a Divine Plant in the secret realm?

Feng Zhuo suppressed his doubts, vaguely sensing that a vast conspiracy lay behind the matter.

But cultivators sought fortuitous opportunities from heaven and earth in their pursuit of immortality. Feng Zhuo did not even fear the Heavenly Dao, so he was not afraid of a man-made calamity.

With the Everlasting Spring Scripture giving him a warning, Feng Zhuo was certain that something connected to a Divine Plant lay beneath it.

But how was he to obtain that fortuitous opportunity now?

Feng Zhuo had learned to read at three. From the Feng Household's collection, he had carefully studied every book related to the Dao of Alchemy, from alchemy texts to comprehensive guides to medicinal herbs. He had also read some miscellaneous books that caught his interest.

As it happened, the Feng Household's collection also contained records of formations involving Divine Sense.

Feng Zhuo ruled out the various possibilities that flashed through his mind one by one, settling on the last remaining answer: the Spirit-Devouring Soul-Bewildering Formation!

It was a sinister and vicious formation commonly used by demonic cultivators.

Of course, the one here was only a variation of the Spirit-Devouring Soul-Bewildering Formation.

The Spirit-Devouring Soul-Bewildering Formation used the silk of a sixteenth-tier Demon Beast, the Formless Spider, as its core formation eye, along with several fourth-tier hallucinogenic spiritual objects as its foundation.

Besides devouring a cultivator's Divine Sense, its primary ability was to rouse the demonic thoughts in a cultivator's heart.

By formation grades, it was a fourth-tier grand formation.

But the formation here was second-tier at most.

It had entirely discarded the original formation's sinister power to draw out a person's inner demons. Even its ability to consume a cultivator's Divine Sense was almost nonexistent, serving only as a warning.

The Feng Household's collection contained records of this variation and the ways to break it.

There were many ways to break it, but all told, only one was best suited to Feng Zhuo's current circumstances.

Since the formation wanted to eat Divine Sense, he would let it eat its fill!

Exhausting his Divine Sense would not affect Feng Zhuo's ability to face enemies afterward.

Once he had thought it through...

Feng Zhuo compressed all his Divine Sense into a thin needle with all his might, located the formation eye that devoured Divine Sense, and drove the needle into it!

With a bang, the silver needle plunged all the way in. A piercing sound like tearing silk burst from the formation eye, and spiderweb cracks abruptly spread across the surrounding space.

Heaven and earth spun, and Feng Zhuo fell into a world of scorched earth.

Cracks spread from beneath his feet, and spiritual mist so dense it had taken solid form rose from every fissure.

The concentration of Spiritual Qi in this space could actually compare with that of the Feng Household's ancestral grounds!

As if sensing something, Feng Zhuo looked up.

Nine eclipsed moons hung in the vault of the sky. Their cold light spilled over a colossal tree in the center that stretched from earth to heaven, illuminating ancient gilded patterns flowing through the cracks in its bark.

How strange.

Feng Zhuo had never heard of any continent in the three thousand worlds having nine moons at once. He took out several Thunderclap Bombs and clutched them in his hand, and a sense of security immediately arose.

As for the ancient tree that reached the heavens, Feng Zhuo recognized it as the Divine Plant Yi Wood!

Feng Zhuo could not tell its tier, but he could roughly sense that the pressure it exerted was considerably weaker than that of the Wutong-Roosting Divine Tree in the Feng Household's ancestral grounds.

It should have been below the seventh tier.

When he came closer, he saw that it was not because its tier was lower than the Wutong-Roosting Divine Tree's.

Like the broken branch Feng Zhuo had obtained not long ago, this Yi Wood was already in the twilight of its years!

For no apparent reason, a sense of sorrow and loneliness arose in Feng Zhuo's heart. Even a Divine Plant that could live almost as long as heaven and earth would one day die; where, then, were cultivators like them, who contended against the heavens, to go?

Still, such melancholy was not suited to Feng Zhuo, who was only thirteen.

After a moment's daze, Feng Zhuo steadied himself and approached the Divine Tree.

The impact was beyond words. The moment Feng Zhuo placed his palm against the trunk, he seemed to feel the tremors of ten thousand years beneath it.

The branches and leaves hanging from the crown were exquisite, like silver flecks formed from a collapsed galaxy.

Then a streak of scarlet entered Feng Zhuo's sight.

Countless blood vines had suddenly erupted from deep beneath the earth! Dark red vines had dug deep into the Yi Wood's trunk, and what gushed from the breaks was not sap, but blood burning with black flames.

The strangest part, however, lay at the tips of the vines.

Hundreds upon thousands of blood vines converged on the Divine Plant's trunk, twisting together like a tangle of serpents and pythons. Their tips, however, were swollen like pregnant women about to give birth, with countless different human faces bulging across their surfaces.

Feng Zhuo snatched his hand back and quickly retreated half a step!

A bloody light suddenly spread across the vines covering the tree. He seemed to hear a sigh from deep within the Yi Wood, mingled with a thick stench of blood.

"Child, don't be afraid."

The voice from high in the heavens entered his sea of consciousness directly. Feng Zhuo could not make out what language it spoke.

Yet somehow, he understood its meaning.

"Divine Tree?"

Feng Zhuo did not stop backing away. However sacred the voice in his mind sounded, the scene just now had appeared plainly before his eyes.

"It is I."

The holy voice carried deep exhaustion and a trace of relief that was almost imperceptible. "Don't be afraid, child."

"I am the Yi Wood before you. The cultivation method you practice should be able to recognize my presence."

Feng Zhuo stopped at a relatively safe distance. "Cultivation method? You mean the Everlasting Spring Scripture? I didn't know it could recognize a Divine Plant's presence."

He truly had not known.

If the Everlasting Spring Scripture had not reacted to the Yi Wood Broken Branch on its own last time, Feng Zhuo would still have thought it was merely a cultivation method with an exceptionally abundant power of vitality.

"Then where did the power of Yi Wood in your body come from?"

The voice paused for a second, then seemed to notice something. "So it is the Yi Wood Sacred Physique?"

"These old eyes of mine were mistaken. But how was your physique damaged to this extent?"

People with the Yi Wood Sacred Physique had Yi Wood Qi in their bodies?

Why had he never heard his father mention it?!

Feng Zhuo concealed his surprise. With no idea whether the voice in his mind was friend or foe, saying too much would leave openings.