Chapter 686: The Broken Branches Transformed into Ancient Trees
"It's..." Li Fan frowned slightly, as if he was trying hard to recall.
Ximen Yu stared at him and listened attentively.
"I can't remember." After a long time, Li Fan shrugged and said helplessly.
"You..." Ximen Yu's face froze, "How could you easily forget such a strange thing?"
He looked at Li Fan with disbelief on his face.
"Fellow Daoist Ximen, why don't you tell me what this dead branch is. Maybe as you talk, I will remember it." Li Fan suggested with a smile.
Hearing this, Ximen Yu narrowed his eyes and glanced back and forth at Li Fan.
Li Fan, on the other hand, was not afraid at all and looked at him calmly.
As if he was unsure of Li Fan's strength, Ximen Yu finally decided not to act rashly.
He turned his body, and the dead branches that were protecting him appeared in front of Li Fan again.
After a moment of silence, he said, "I don't really know the origin of this thing. At that time, my research on the earth veins had reached a bottleneck."
"Under the rule of the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance, the power of the earth veins is firmly locked by a protective array covering the entire territory. Without authorization, it is extremely difficult to use and study it. I have tried many methods, but it is still difficult to find a breakthrough. Just when I was about to change the research direction..."
"About two years ago, the power of the earth veins here suddenly rioted for some reason. It was as if a disaster that could destroy an entire state had occurred thousands of miles away. It caused a chain reaction. I was overjoyed to see this, and of course I seized this rare opportunity to absorb the overflowing power of the earth veins."
"And this dead branch is what I found from the power of the earth veins."
Ximen Yu spoke slowly, but Li Fan seemed to be thinking about something after listening to him.
"Two years ago, it seems that the time when the red flames burned the sea was the node. Was it because Hongxi forcibly extracted the earth veins in order to force out the red flames hidden in the earth veins?"
The Xuanhuang earth veins are connected as one. Even though they are thousands of miles apart, they may still affect each other. Previously, there was a sunken island in the sea of clouds. It was affected by the "hundreds of mountains turning into plains" in the distance and emerged from the seabed.
The unusual movement of the earth veins observed by Ximen Yu here might be caused by the aftermath of the battle with Chi Yan that year.
Li Fan looked at the dead branch that was still emitting the earth-yellow earth vein power, and asked in confusion: "The earth vein power is extremely pure. How could there be a dead branch stuck in it? Ordinary trees would be crushed into powder by the strong pressure in the depths of the earth veins in just a few breaths. Where did this dead branch come from? Not only can it survive in the earth veins for a long time, but it can also attract and absorb the imprisoned earth vein power?"
Li Fan looked at Ximen Yu again: "The ground veins here are moving abnormally, I guess the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance hasn't discovered it yet. Otherwise, it concerns the safety of the protective formation, and they will definitely send people to solve the hidden danger here."
Ximen Yu's expression changed slightly, but he did not refute.
"This dead branch does have some kind of magical power. It seems to have the same origin as the earth veins, so I am extracting some of it on a small scale for research, and it will only be regarded as the normal fluctuation of the earth veins themselves."
The dead branches erupted the power of the earth veins, which seemed to be intermittent and contained some kind of pattern. At this moment, it gradually weakened, and finally no more earth vein energy flowed out.
Ximen Yu carefully put away the jade bottle.
"Same origin as the earth veins?" Li Fan savored this sentence carefully.
Ximen Yu took out a stone slab from his storage ring. It seemed to have been peeled off from a rock wall somewhere, and the traces were extremely ancient.
The lines are also quite abstract, but you can roughly understand what they depict.
Many small dots represent human beings, worshipping and living on the earth.
And underground, there is a big upside-down tree growing.
The tree roots are densely spread and take root in every corner of the earth.
The tree crowns extend deep into the ground, reaching the center of the earth.
"I found this in a geological fault when I was studying the changes in ancient and modern terrain. It should have been left by ancient mortal tribes."
"It's not just this mural. I've found similar records from ancient times in various places in Xuanhuang Realm."
"I suspect that the so-called earth veins are derived from the roots of this ancient tree. And this dead branch of mine belongs to that ancient tree."
Ximen Yu explained.
"Although the information left by these mortals is extremely simple. And it is seen from the perspective of mortals, and may not be the whole picture. But precisely because it is something left by mortals, we cultivators often ignore it by default. Therefore, the records that should have been erased can survive instead." Ximen Yu said with a sneer.
"The Earth Vein Tree..." Li Fan touched his chin.
"No." Suddenly, he shook his head.
"Although it is extremely similar to what I saw in the illusion that year, there were still some differences." Li Fan said firmly.
Ximen Yu was not surprised. After thinking for a moment, he said, "It is possible that the ancient tree you saw is even older."
"It may be the source of the earth vein tree."
Li Fan was surprised: "The Earth Vein Tree also has a source?"
Ximen Yu took out a bunch of black stones from somewhere, crushed them and sprinkled them on the dead branches stuck in the ground. The black powder was quickly absorbed by the dead branches, and they seemed to become more energetic.
"It is said that between heaven and earth, there was only one mother tree in the beginning, which controlled the fate of all living beings in the world."
"Later, a great change occurred, and the mother tree suffered severe damage. Some branches even fell off from it and landed on the earth."
"One of them turned into an ancient earth vein tree."
Ximen Yu looked at the carefully cared-for dead branches with loving eyes and spoke slowly.
A gleam of light flashed in Li Fan's eyes: "How did Daoist Ximen know about this? It's really unheard of."
Ximen Yu fixed his eyes on the dead branch and did not answer.
Li Fan was stunned for a moment, then nodded slightly.
"Ah, after what you said, I seem to remember it. It was here that I encountered the dead branch."
Li Fan casually drew the terrain of Tianling Prefecture and marked a location.
Ximen Yu then withdrew his gaze from the dead branch, firmly memorized the location, and then erased the map.
"Times have changed. I have returned to my hometown several times over the years, but I have never seen the dead tree again. So Fellow Daoist Ximen, don't hold out too much hope." Li Fan warned.
Ximen Yu sneered: "Such a rare thing is of course something you can only encounter by chance. But I have always had good luck. After I finish my research on the theory of earth veins, I will definitely try my luck."
"Then I wish Fellow Daoist Ximen success in advance!" Li Fan clasped his fists and was about to leave.
"Fellow Daoist Han Wuyou, right?" Ximen Yu threw a communication talisman over. "It feels like there's some kind of fate between you and me. Keep this thing, maybe we'll meet again in the future."
Li Fan put away the talisman and did not linger any longer.
When his figure disappeared, the cave door closed again.
Ximen Yu frowned deeply: "The world is like a tree, which consumes its life day and night..."
"Does it still exist in the world?"
(End of this chapter)
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