Qi Ran, who was in a hurry, had already walked around the circular passage once.
“There’s no door,” he said, returning to his starting point. “Should we force our way in?”
Lin Daozi had absolutely no recollection of this place, which meant that Luo Qin had never been here before. A place even the leader's son couldn't easily access must hold immense importance, indicating that what was hidden here was extremely significant.
Shi Xuan stood at the front and began to observe his surroundings with his divine sense.
She chose this spot simply because the strange spiritual energy fluctuations she sensed using the power of all things were most pronounced where Shi Xuan was standing. Therefore, if there was an entrance to this hemisphere, it must be from this location.
Shi Xuan summoned high-ranking cultivators from the Luoyin Sect to inspect the area again, but they found no trace of the formation.
If it weren't for the formation... Shi Xuan had a sudden inspiration and channeled some of the strange spiritual energy she had previously absorbed into the hemisphere in front of her.
When this spiritual energy came into contact with the hemisphere, it actually elicited a slight response.
Shi Xuan increased the output of this spiritual power, and the response became stronger and stronger until finally, when Shi Xuan's spiritual power input was sufficient, the hemisphere suddenly reacted.
Right in front of Shi Xuan, where there was nothing but a slightly curved wall, a crack suddenly appeared. The crack grew larger and larger until it was just big enough for one person to pass through.
This small door could only be passed through by one person at a time. Shi Xuan looked at the cultivators from the five sects behind her. Lin Daozi was the first to step forward and said, "I'll go in first."
After he finished speaking, he quickly slipped through the small door and went inside.
Although the junior disciple has opened this hemisphere, who knows what strange things might be behind this wall? What if there's danger if he goes in?!
Following Lin Daozi, Shi Mingxiu and the others also went inside.
Shi Xuan followed the flow of people inside.
The interior of this hemisphere is surprisingly large.
The ground is a perfectly regular circle, and in the center of the circle grows a very large tree.
There is nothing else.
Such a massive underground structure, and it only has one tree planted inside?!
The crowd gathered around the giant tree. Looking up from under the tree, the entire hemispherical top was equipped with no less than a hundred lighting devices, as well as some that controlled the temperature by heating, making the entire underground hemisphere feel just like the outside world, without any sense of incongruity.
Let's go look at that tree again.
The brown trunk is about ten people's circumference thick, and the old bark on it is pitted and very uneven. Further up, the crown is covered with large, round, yellowish-brown leaves. Each leaf is perfectly round, as if it had been measured.
If you look closely among the leaves, you can occasionally see a small, round fruit.
This old tree gives people a very heavy feeling, and you can feel a sense of oppression when you stand under its canopy.
"The Compassionate Tree!" Upon seeing the tree, Shi Xuan almost blurted out.
However, the sect leaders and elders of the five sects seemed to have never heard of this tree before. They had never seen it anywhere, nor had they read about this Compassionate Breath Tree in any book, let alone know its characteristics and uses.
But they knew that the old tree, which was being treated with such extreme care, must not be so simple.
Shi Xuan then realized that she seemed to have seen the record of this tree in a notebook from her previous life. After arriving on the Qian Yuan Continent, there were many species that she had never seen again.
Shi Xuan explained, "I read about this in a miscellaneous book. Although the Cixi Tree is named Cixi (meaning compassion), it is an out-and-out evil tree. It feeds on cultivators. If a cultivator dies and is buried in its roots before the spiritual energy dissipates, the tree will feed on the cultivator's spiritual flesh to replenish itself and gradually grow."
"Then, how many cultivators would it need to devour to grow to this size?" Lin Daozi asked.
“When it is young, it is about the same size as an ordinary sapling, and it is difficult to tell the difference. At this time, it can grow a lot by eating a few ordinary cultivators. But as the Cixi Tree grows, the number of cultivators required will increase. For a tree to grow to this size,” Shi Xuan paused and said, “it either ate a lot of low-level cultivators, or it ate a small number of people with extremely high cultivation.”
Shi Mingxiu chimed in, "It's also possible that it's both."
“Indeed,” Shi Xuan nodded, walked to the tree trunk and looked at the soil at the roots. The soil had a dark red hue, carrying an ominous aura.
"What is the purpose of this tree?" Lin Daozi asked.
It's impossible to say it has no use. The tree goes through so much trouble to grow and is carefully protected in such a secluded place, so it must have a significant purpose.
Shi Xuan pointed to the extremely rare small yellow spheres among the round leaves and said, "After absorbing the blood and bones of cultivators, in addition to supplying its own growth, it will also bear a few Compassionate Breath Fruits every year. The Compassionate Breath Fruits contain the cultivation spiritual power of those cultivators, and after being transformed by the Compassionate Breath Tree, they can be directly used by people."
Shi Mingxiu exclaimed in surprise, "Increase cultivation level?"
Shi Xuan nodded: "The spiritual energy in this Compassionate Breath Fruit can be absorbed by people without any obstacles. The spiritual energy inside has been refined by other cultivators, which is almost equivalent to spiritual energy flowing through the body. It can greatly increase one's cultivation speed."
Thinking about it this way, Xin Shi's cultivation level at the Integration Stage... suddenly made me realize that his talent was probably quite ordinary.
After all these years, he's only reached the Integration Realm after consuming the Human Blood Compassion Fruit. Shi Xuan guesses that perhaps his mental state can't keep up. Now, what Xin Shi desires most is probably the Enlightenment Tree in her possession.
No wonder Shi Xuan felt something was off about the spiritual energy used by the formation when he was up there. Now he finally understood why. This spiritual energy came from the corpses of other cultivators!
Shi Xuan shrugged. Although the spiritual energy was innocent, she found it hard to accept its strange origin at this moment.
Lin Daozi took two steps forward, stepping onto the reddish-brown soft soil. It seemed that this soil had remained loose for many years, giving the feeling that it was always ready to receive new fertilizer.
"This kind of evil tree must not be allowed to remain!"
It's definitely not advisable to keep it, but destroying it directly would be a waste, considering it's a tree that's been growing for hundreds of years.
But thinking about the source of the tree's spiritual power, he felt that there was an evil aura in that power. If someone used the fruit from this tree, they might develop inner demons.
Shi Xuan looked at Lin Daozi and smiled, "It would be a waste to destroy it directly. How about feeding it to my spirit pet?"
“Alright,” Shi Mingxiu said, then turned to the sect leaders of the other sects: “Do any of you have any better suggestions?”
The other four waved their hands repeatedly, saying that they wouldn't want to eat such evil fruits even if they were given them; they were all extracted from corpses, and eating them would make them feel disgusted.
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