Chapter Seven: At Last, the Spiritwood Blossom is Claimed

Chapter Seven: The Wooden Spirit Flower, At Last

Ye Bai emerged from his hiding place, gazing at the corpses strewn before him. For a moment, he felt lost, uncertain if the path of evolution was truly worth such acts. All this for a single Wooden Spirit Flower—if not for his presence, perhaps no one would have benefited at all. Or maybe, on the path of evolution, there were never any true victors.

“Ruomei, is that you? Have you and the child come to see me?” As Ye Bai lamented the carnage before him, the voice of the Butcher’s Blade broke his reverie.

The Butcher’s Blade had not been fatally wounded by the black claw, though he’d lost an arm. His face, shifting from red to black and then to a garish crimson, betrayed that he was using his murderous blood energy to suppress the poison that the swarthy giant had left in him.

Suddenly, the Butcher’s Blade’s remaining arm vanished. Witnessing this, he seemed to understand what was happening, but he showed no concern. Instead, he walked forward, hope lighting his eyes as he called out, again and again, “Ruomei, Ruomei…”

After only a few steps, he ended up like the man with the gauntlets—reduced to a human skin, lying lifeless on the ground.

Here, hope and despair coexisted. The ground was littered with shattered remains and severed fingers, as if this were the very purgatory of Asura.

Ye Bai walked alone to the Wooden Spirit Flower, picked it, and then approached the Butcher’s Blade’s corpse. He wanted to see what had felled two such formidable warriors in an instant.

Since nothing remained of the Butcher’s Blade but his skin, Ye Bai caught sight, before even reaching it, of a black poison needle embedded at its center. Even under the sunlight, it did not reflect a single ray.

After collecting these things, Ye Bai buried the man with the gauntlets and the Butcher’s Blade in the pit where he himself had lain in ambush, their weapons interred with them. He chose not to take their arms for himself—first, because they had died fighting the Fallen, and second, because if recognized later, it would be difficult to explain, especially since the Butcher’s Blade was no ordinary man.

Before leaving, Ye Bai glanced one last time at the mound of earth, wondering if, when his own end came, there would be a handful of yellow soil to cover his remains.

On the road back to the Guard Post, Ye Bai turned the needle over and over in his hand, unable to discern anything particular about it. Only later, upon entering Purple Star Academy, did he learn of the needle’s true nature—and the extraordinary character of that battle.

When his instructor explained the needle to him, Ye Bai discovered it was called the Bloodthirsty Needle, a weapon typically possessed only by star-core warriors of the Growth stage. The needle moved unseen, forged from black-red iron, a material unique to the Nethersea lands, which made such weapons exceedingly rare. Though slender, the Bloodthirsty Needle was crafted with a row of holes every ninety degrees, thirty-six eye-invisible apertures in all. Each hole was home to a Bloodthirsty King Worm, which, upon contact with blood, devoured flesh, bone, and blood alike. But these worms required monthly nourishment from their master’s own blood to survive—otherwise, they would all perish.

As the sun set, Ye Bai sat alone in his room at the Guard Post. In his hand, he held the Wooden Spirit Flower, the very source of all this turmoil. Its entire body was gold, the eight petals encircled with bands of yellow and pink that, if stared at long enough, induced dizziness. Three buds stood at the flower’s center, their tear-shaped tips quivering constantly. Before long, the fragrance of the flower filled the entire room.

Ye Bai shut his eyes tightly, greedily inhaling the rare, precious scent.

One minute. Two minutes. Three minutes passed, and Ye Bai remained perfectly still.

Suddenly, he opened his eyes, which now gleamed with a piercing light. He sat cross-legged on his bed, right hand clenched tight around the Wooden Spirit Flower, and then brought it to his lips. Soon, golden sap began to trickle through his fingers.

One drop. Two drops. Three drops… Ye Bai drank the golden nectar with desperate hunger, like an infant suckling at its mother’s breast, or a ravenous wolf devouring every last drop.

At last, the final drop passed his lips. Ye Bai placed both hands on his knees and relaxed as much as possible, focusing on the changes within his body.

He had been stuck at the peak of the Body Tempering stage for a long time, his accumulation deeper than most. As the first drop of the flower’s nectar entered him, his long-stagnant blood and energy surged to life—more fiercely than ever before. The boiling force flushed his pale skin with a healthy red, the internal surges sending sharp pains through his veins.

Yet Ye Bai remained motionless, still pressing the flower for every drop. As the second golden bead entered his body, the nearly-quiet blood and energy roared back to life as if fueled by the finest gasoline in a racing engine. His skin, already flushed, grew nearly crimson, but just as the force reached his neck, it faltered and began to subside.

Twice he failed to break through. Ye Bai grew anxious, his hand bulging with veins as he squeezed the flower with all his strength.

A third drop, a fourth… until the very last drop passed into his mouth.

In that instant, his blood and energy surged like a thousand horses galloping, battering every part of his body. His skin was now so red it seemed ready to bleed, the veins on his hands and forehead grotesquely pronounced. Twice, the energy had stilled at his neck. What if he staked everything? Ye Bai steeled himself.

He felt a sudden explosion at his throat, followed by a muffled groan, and then waves of dizziness crashed through his mind.

When consciousness returned, Ye Bai was momentarily stunned. Then, a profound lightness filled him, as if a lifelong shackle had fallen away. A smile broke across his face.

“Hahaha, I’ve finally broken through!” Ye Bai laughed wildly in his room, his cheeks soon streaked with burning tears.

He had been stuck at the peak of Body Tempering for so long. Now, as he smiled through his tears, he recalled how, time and again, he had failed to break through during battles with the Earth Gold Mice, fleeing in chaos from their pursuit, hiding in a cold pit as experts fought over the Wooden Spirit Flower, forced to seek the slightest sliver of opportunity in the cracks between them. All of it—now that he had broken through—was worth it. No matter what had come before, he, Ye Bai, had succeeded.

After calming his emotions and tidying up, Ye Bai lay down to sleep. In his dreams, his face sometimes wore a smile, sometimes gave way to muffled sobs. No one knew what he dreamed of. But Ye Bai’s journey of evolution had only just begun—breaking through the peak of Body Tempering was only a small step, and countless, more perilous roads awaited him. His path was still long…

Bang! A blurred figure flashed through the air. At dawn, a youth struck relentlessly at a tree, beads of dew glistening on his brow. The trunk, thick enough that it would have taken over a dozen men to encircle it, shuddered under his blows, leaves raining down in showers.

That youth beneath the tree was Ye Bai. At daybreak, he had come here to familiarize himself with his newfound strength. With each collision, he felt his power had increased by a hundred and fifty to a hundred and eighty kilograms. His punch now approached—perhaps even exceeded—nine hundred, nearly a thousand. Occasionally, when the tree shuddered violently, his strength had clearly surpassed that of a peak Body Tempering warrior, reaching the threshold of entry-level.

His speed hadn’t improved much—at least, he didn’t feel any obvious difference. At most, he guessed it now fell just short of 9.5 meters per second.

Ye Bai’s journey had only begun.