Chapter 9: The Tree of Life

  "Huh?" Ye Qing was surprised that the previous grab, which used 40% of his strength, had been easily dodged. This time, Ye Qing didn't hold back and grabbed at the book with full force. The book couldn't escape its fate of being caught.

  As soon as Ye Qing grasped the book, he began to refine it on the spot. As he continued to refine it, Ye Qing learned about the origins of this spiritual treasure. This spiritual treasure was called the Earth Spirit Treasure Book, a high-quality pre-heavenly spiritual treasure with 36 layers of seals. It was formed from the chaotic soil, chaotic spirit water, and a chaotic embryo in the primordial chaos.

  This spiritual treasure had no other functions for attack or defense; it only had one function: to provide the best growth environment for pre-heavenly spiritual roots. Even if a pre-heavenly spiritual root was on the verge of death, it could be revived.

  The Earth Spirit Treasure Book had 36 pages, each corresponding to a layer of seals. Each page represented a space filled with dense pre-heavenly spiritual energy. The first page's space was about 100 square kilometers in size, and as you turned the pages, the spaces grew larger and the pre-heavenly spiritual energy became more abundant.

  The last page's space was nearly 1 billion square kilometers, and the pre-heavenly spiritual energy was so dense that it almost liquefied.

  Thirty thousand years later, Ye Qing had refined the 34th layer of prohibition on the Divine Spirit Treasure Book. This was still due to Ye Qing's powerful soul. Otherwise, Ye Qing would not have been able to refine the 34 layers of prohibition on the Divine Spirit Treasure Book in the early stages of the Mahayana Golden Immortal realm. From the Divine Spirit Treasure Book, Ye Qing also obtained a hint of information about the Dao of Creation. As a result, Ye Qing's cultivation had also reached the peak of the early stages of the Mahayana Golden Immortal realm.

  After obtaining the Xiantian Lingbao and the Dilingbao Book, Ye Qing has been traveling in the sea to find Tiancai and Dibao. The vastness of the four seas is unimaginable, and although there are fewer Tiancai and Dibao than on the mainland, there are still many. In addition, the number of Xiantian gods on the mainland is far less than that in the four seas. The energy and matter in the four seas are highly condensed, much more so than on the mainland, and few creatures can survive here. Therefore, the probability of obtaining Xiantian Lingbao and Xiantian Linggen in the four seas is much higher than on the mainland.

  Within less than a hundred years, Ye Qing discovered a congenital spiritual root, which was an extremely rare congenital spiritual root called the Life Source Tree. Every 90,000 years, it would produce one drop of Life Source Liquid, which could restore the damaged life source. What is the life source? It's what cultivators value most. If a cultivator's life source is damaged, their cultivation will be difficult to improve, and in severe cases, they may even regress. The life source is hard to recover, sometimes taking tens of thousands of years to recover just a little bit, showing how important the life source is.

  This life source liquid is even more precious than the ginseng fruit of the Town Temple, extremely rare. Ye Qing discovered that this life source tree was protected by a natural large array when he found it, otherwise it would have been destroyed long ago. After breaking through the array, Ye Qing found a small pool of life source liquid at the bottom of the life source tree, which had accumulated over tens of billions of years.

  Like this, Ye Qing's Earth Spirit Treasure Book welcomed its first guest. Ye Qing stored the Life Source Tree and a small pool of Life Source Liquid at the bottom into the 34th page of the Earth Spirit Treasure Book that he could currently open. He would wait until he fully refined the 36-layered seal before transplanting the Life Source Tree to the last page. As soon as the Life Source Tree entered the treasure book, it automatically adjusted its living environment. The leaves of the Life Source Tree became even more lush and green.

  Ye Qing remained in the sea for another thousand years. After storing the Life Source Tree in the Earth Spirit Treasure Book, Ye Qing continued to search for treasures in the sea. This went on for several hundred years, during which time Ye Qing only found a few Pre-Heavenly Law Treasures and a few Post-Heavenly Spiritual Roots, none of which were of very good quality. As Ye Qing wandered through the sea, he suddenly sensed a massive energy fluctuation in the distance. Rushing over to take a look, he saw that it was two gigantic beasts engaged in a fierce battle. One beast had three heads, while the other resembled a shark from later generations, but was much more ferocious. The two beasts continued to exchange blows, stirring up the seawater into massive waves. These two beasts were roughly at the level of Taiyi True Immortals, but they hadn't opened their spiritual wisdom and were simply acting on instinct, without any techniques or skills, relying solely on their powerful bodies to fight each other.

  Ye Qing watched as the two beasts engaged in a bloody and intense battle, but as time passed, the massive shark-like creature slowly began to weaken. As its blood continued to flow, it grew weaker and weaker. The shark-like creature realized its own weakness and gradually became frenzied, launching a desperate and crazy attack on the three-headed beast, forcing it to abandon its hunt. However, the three-headed beast was not deterred by the shark-like creature's ferocious counterattack; instead, it intensified its assault. As the three-headed beast bit down on the shark-like creature's neck, holding it firmly in place, the latter slowly stopped struggling.

  Ye Qing watched as the two giant beasts parted ways, and was about to leave when he was suddenly confronted by three more giant beasts. The three beasts had discovered Ye Qing in their territory and turned to attack him. Ye Qing looked at one of the smaller Taiyi True Immortal cultivation beasts that dared to attack him with reckless abandon.

  "Hmph, just a tiny ant." Ye Qing's cold and indifferent voice echoed through this space.

  The surging blade intent brewed in his chest, the overbearing blade intent burst out of his body. The three-headed giant beast felt an extremely dangerous aura and quickly fled far away.

  "Hmph, think you can escape? Can you really get away?" Ye Qing watched with interest as the three giant beasts fled into the distance.

  Without any sound, a pitch-black knife light pierced through the sky and earth. At a speed that surpassed thought, it fell from the distant sky, from top to bottom. It split the seawater in two, with the knife energy passing through. From the sea surface to the seafloor, a huge rift appeared, and the sky rippled like water for a moment. Then, on both sides of the massive rift that spanned the sky and earth, all objects silently disappeared - the three-headed giant beast's 100,000-zhang-long body and soul. Everything was completely destroyed under this overbearing knife, without a sound. The seafloor, the Ye Qing boundary, and the seawater on both sides all silently disintegrated into powder. Under this one knife, a massive canyon appeared at the bottom of the sea, stretching tens of thousands of miles away. The seawater was split in two by this knife.

  Even Ye Qing had seen the power of Jie Mo Dao before, but he was still shocked by the destructive power it generated.

  Ye Qing soon woke up from the power of Jie Mo Dao, looked at the destruction caused by Jie Mo Dao and left without saying a word, continuing to search for treasure in the direction of Hongyuan Continent.

  In the endless search for treasure at the bottom of the sea, another ten thousand years passed unknowingly. In these ten thousand years, Ye Qing only found a low-grade pre-heavenly spiritual treasure, a sword-shaped pre-heavenly spiritual treasure with only twenty-five layers of prohibition. Ye Qing simply put it away and didn't refine it, planning to give it to his disciples or as a gift. Ye Qing also found some heavenly materials and earthly treasures and planted them in the Earth Spiritual Treasure Book. Later, he found several stalks of post-heavenly spiritual roots, but only one low-grade pre-heavenly spiritual root. He also found several pre-heavenly law treasures. In this ten thousand years of searching for treasure, Ye Qing's heart gradually became disenchanted.

  Ye Qing had been traveling through the Desolate Continent for nearly a few tens of thousands of years, but he still hadn't even seen its shadow. Ye Qing thought to himself that he was really not good at flying, his flight speed was just too slow. At his current flight speed, if he were to encounter a powerful opponent, he might not even be able to run away. Moreover, the Desolate Continent was just too vast, taking tens of thousands of years to travel to one place, it was just too time-consuming. Therefore, Ye Qing decided to create a flying divine technique.

  Ye Qing casually found a small island in the sea, set up the Thirty-six Heavenly Array to protect himself, and then began his closed-door meditation. Ye Qing knew that his physical body was not good at flying, so he created a flying divine ability starting from the spatial aspect. Since Ye Qing had absorbed a large amount of spatial energy in the spatial tunnel, he found it easier to comprehend the spatial aspect and had a deeper sense of space. Then, Ye Qing used his powerful soul to continuously deduce the flying divine ability that satisfied him.

  In the vast and desolate world, the life of the Primordial God was too long. A single closed-door meditation could last for tens of thousands or even hundreds of millions of years. Ye Qing had been in seclusion on a small island for an unknown number of years, but when he finally opened his tightly closed eyes, a flash of divine light flickered across them before returning to normal. During this period of time, Ye Qing created a flying divine technique called Void Slash, which was twice as fast as the Kunpeng's 180,000 miles per breath and 120,000 miles faster than the Emperor Jiang's 240,000 miles per breath. In addition to creating Void Slash, Ye Qing also gained a preliminary understanding of spatial rules during this period, and his cultivation naturally broke through to the mid-stage of the Mahayana Golden Immortal realm. Overall, Ye Qing's closed-door meditation achieved the expected results, even surpassing them.

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