The Chaotic Immortal Wood Sect: Immortal Cultivation War - Chapter 16
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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16. There Was a Tower Where the Great Unity Festival Was Being Held
“Uwaaaah!”
Kuuuuung! Kkuiiit!
Kkagang! Pajijik! Peobeok! Peobeok!
“It hurts! I said it hurts! You bastard!”
Ukkikkikkeuk! Keuaaang!
“That’s just like a monster battle.”
“Kang Hyeon! Is this the time to be making such leisurely comments!”
“I’m working hard too.”
Peobeobeobuk! Kwadeudeuduk!
Kkikkeukkeukkeuk! Ukkeuk!
“Heueup!”
Kang Hyeon was responding to In Deok when the Black-Haired Gorilla seized that opening to land a claw attack on his chest.
However, the Black-Haired Gorilla’s claws couldn’t penetrate the thick bark protecting Kang Hyeon and slid off.
Kwadeuk! Ppudeudeuduk! Ppudeuk!
And the bark that was torn away by the sliding claws was instantly restored.
“Let’s finish this now.”
Kang Hyeon judged that this was sufficient testing of the Ancient Wood Armor’s performance.
The Black-Haired Gorilla he was currently fighting was a demon beast at the late Spiritual Energy Technique level.
And with the characteristics of a gorilla, it possessed extremely powerful physical abilities, yet if armor couldn’t be penetrated by claws condensed with that strength and spiritual energy, he judged it to have satisfactory performance.
Moreover, what about its regenerative recovery power?
With just a strand of wood spiritual energy, damaged parts recovered instantly, so it seemed attacks at the Spiritual Energy Technique level were no longer something to fear.
“Heave-ho!”
Pajijik! Kuuuung!
Ukkikkikkikki! Kkiiiiiii!
Just as Kang Hyeon decided to finish up, In Deok first defeated the Black-Haired Gorilla he had been facing.
He had distorted about half of the Black-Haired Gorilla’s head with a fist imbued with Lightning Strike, and it seemed the lightning energy had invaded inside as it couldn’t recover and collapsed.
“Finishing move!”
Puuuuuk!
In Deok summoned the Wind Cloud Golden Halberd from thin air and drove it deep into the Black-Haired Gorilla’s chest.
As its partner fell, the Black-Haired Gorilla attacking Kang Hyeon tried to retreat while watching warily.
“Do you think you can leave?”
But Kang Hyeon had no intention of letting his prey escape either.
Seureureureu! Seureureureureuk!
Vines grew from all directions, filling the world.
At first they were like faint mist, but before even one breath passed, they became as thick as forearms and obscured the Black-Haired Gorilla from view.
Ppudeudeuduk! Ppudeudeudeudeuk!
Kkiiii.
From within the writhing vines came sounds of something breaking and faint cries, then silence.
“Ugh, how gruesome.”
In Deok shuddered as he imagined the state inside.
But he wouldn’t have to confirm it with his eyes.
The swollen vines shrank again and were sucked into the ground.
Then In Deok’s head turned to one side.
At the end of his gaze stood Trent, quietly positioned about ten zhang away.
The vines that had suddenly appeared and disappeared moments ago had actually come from Trent.
And naturally, the Black-Haired Gorilla caught in the vines was being rapidly absorbed while wrapped in Trent’s roots.
“What about the hide and blood?”
In Deok asked.
“We can share yours. It’s not like we’re lacking.”
“Tch. I’m the one doing all the hard work.”
At Kang Hyeon’s words, In Deok began extracting hide, bones, blood and such from the Black-Haired Gorilla he had killed.
Rather than directly wielding a knife for butchering, he deployed a formation in the air to sort the cultivation resources.
“Nice, isn’t it?”
Seeing this, Kang Hyeon asked with a grin.
“Huh? Yeah.”
In Deok replied while avoiding eye contact with an embarrassed expression.
The basic butchering spell technique was something Kang Hyeon had forced him to learn.
Rather than the spiritual energy manipulation of spell techniques, the shamanic power of the incantations contained within played a larger role, making it essentially closer to a type of Servitude Technique.
When butchering with formations like that, some portion would be lost, which the shamanic power manifested through incantations would absorb.
To Kang Hyeon’s eyes, it seemed as if some massive system activated the spell technique and took payment in return.
However, since Kang Hyeon’s level was too low to delve into and understand such principles, he could only speculate.
In any case, that spell technique was extremely difficult to learn, so In Deok had repeatedly given up and tried to avoid it, but Kang Hyeon had glared at him and made him sit down to master it.
Ever since then, In Deok would be amazed by its usefulness each time he used the spell technique, and would blush remembering the times he had avoided learning such a good thing.
“But don’t you find it wasteful?”
In Deok, who had been maintaining the spell technique while watching, asked Kang Hyeon.
Since Kang Hyeon could tell what the regret was about without asking, he chuckled and replied.
“It can’t be helped. The Demon Tree King seems to have noticed Trent’s existence, so how can we keep staying there?”
The problem was that Kang Hyeon had obtained the True Fertile Earth Secret Method when he reached the 7th level of Artifact Refining.
Since the True Fertile Earth Secret Method was such an excellent spell art, he had gained spiritual consciousness, and to properly manage it, he needed to summon back the Trent he had sent far away to complete his Mental Space and Spiritual Root.
Although Trent was a summoned creature, it was also one element that constituted his Spiritual Root and Mental Space.
But since Trent had been removed, his spiritual consciousness couldn’t find its proper place and went astray.
So Kang Hyeon reverse summoned Trent to call it back, but the Demon Tree King noticed such a sudden change.
For now, Kang Hyeon and In Deok were in the Fire Dragon’s Territory, but it was uncertain when the Demon Tree King’s attention might reach them.
Kang Hyeon immediately organized his cave dwelling and left the territories of both the Demon Tree King and Fire Dragon.
It had been about two weeks since they started moving like this.
While traveling, whenever they spotted demons, magical beasts, or Spirit Herbs, they didn’t miss any of them, hunting and gathering everything to fill their Storage Pouches.
This was strongly intended to make up for the lack of real combat experience, having focused only on raising their cultivation level until now.
Just moments ago, hadn’t Kang Hyeon confirmed the performance of his newly developed Ancient Wood Armor?
Previously, he had only guessed what it might be capable of, but now that he had actually taken attacks and measured it, he could finally verify its performance with certainty.
“Still, if that strange tree had continued to stay in the Demon Tree King’s Forest, you might have been able to advance straight to the Foundation Establishment stage, right Kang Hyeon?”
“Then I might have become the Demon Tree King’s meal in an instant. If changes occurred in demon trees at the Foundation Establishment level, the Demon Tree King would have taken interest too, right?”
“That’s true, but it’s still a shame. You probably won’t have such a good cultivation environment again.”
“I’m not so sure about that. Elder Yang Gwang once talked about the Tree Spirit Clan before.”
“Ah, the spirit clan born from trees?”
“Those Tree Spirit Clans have created territories and formed factions in some places, so wouldn’t such places be far more impressive than the Demon Tree King’s Forest?”
“Still…”
“With our limited experience, we might not recognize good things even when we see them, and we might make a fuss over unremarkable things thinking they’re good. Of course, the Demon Tree King’s Forest was quite decent, but being too greedy wouldn’t be good.”
“I don’t have any lingering attachment to the Demon Tree King’s Forest, but I thought you might feel a bit regretful. I’m glad you’ve sorted out your feelings like that.”
“You were worrying about all sorts of things. It’s fine, we weren’t going to live attached to the Demon Tree King’s Forest until we died anyway.”
“That’s true. But Kang Hyeon.”
“Yeah?”
“Is this place a Mystic Realm?”
Suddenly, In Deok brought out the question he had been keeping in his heart.
Whether the place they were currently in was a Mystic Realm or somewhere in the Mortal World of Daecheon World.
This was a topic that neither Kang Hyeon nor In Deok had been able to confirm yet.
“I think there’s a high probability this is a Mystic Realm.”
To this, Kang Hyeon shared what he had been thinking.
“Why do you think so?”
In Deok asked Kang Hyeon while finishing up the Harvesting Technique on the Black-Haired Gorilla.
The Black-Haired Gorilla was decomposed into bones, hide, claws, blood, liver, heart, Inner Core, brain, and eyeballs, each floating separately in the air.
And following In Deok’s gestures, they were drawn into the Storage Pouch hanging at his waist.
“Because of the six monsters.”
“Why because of the six monsters?”
The six monsters that were still fighting even now.
Though they had left with their backs to them and traveled far away, the shockwaves from their clashes still occasionally reached here.
“The situation where they’re fighting in pairs of two continues. It’s already been several years.”
“You find that strange?”
“That’s right. If this weren’t a Mystic Realm, couldn’t at least one of those monsters have moved to another location?”
“But if it’s a situation where they can’t easily give up, that could happen.”
“Right. The Demon Tree King can’t move his forest, and the Fire Dragon would be reluctant to abandon his volcanic crater. The other monsters might have their own circumstances too.”
“Exactly.”
“But I felt that having six such monsters clustered so closely together was strange, so I thought this place was inside a Mystic Realm.”
“Hmm?”
“Moreover, thinking about the time of the Heaven and Earth Upheaval, I get the same feeling.”
“What do you mean?”
“Such a tremendous event occurred, yet the world is too quiet.”
“Quiet?”
“If such a thing happened, wouldn’t it be natural for cultivators to come running to investigate the situation?”
“Oh? Is that so?”
“We have no choice but to fear the monsters, but if it were high-level cultivators from above, they could probably beat down even those monsters in one blow and use them as cultivation resources, right?”
“But since no one has come looking, there’s a high probability this is a Mystic Realm with separated space?”
“Right. And if we keep going like this, the time will come when we know the answer. No matter how vast, if it’s a Mystic Realm, we should be able to reach its boundary eventually.”
“Well, it’s something we’ll find out eventually anyway.”
In Deok nodded and pulled out a sword from his sleeve, throwing it into the air.
The sword instantly swelled up large and floated in the air.
It was a flying sword, a flight magical instrument among the Dharma Techniques obtained from Yang Won Chil’s cave dwelling.
“Let’s go.”
In Deok stepped onto the sword first and called Kang Hyeon, who immediately stepped up beside In Deok.
Right after that, the flying sword carrying both of them began to fly rapidly across the sky.
Flying on the sword like this, Kang Hyeon was confident that if this place was a Mystic Realm, there would eventually come a time when they reached its end.
And not too far in the future at that.
Of course, this was merely the short-sighted view of young cultivators who didn’t properly understand the vastness and immensity of Daecheon World and the Cultivation World, but neither In Deok nor even Kang Hyeon knew this.
***
“Why is that thing there?”
“I know, right? This is unbelievable.”
Kang Hyeon and In Deok were looking down below with dazed expressions from atop the flying sword.
Because there were traces of the Tower Where the Great Unity Festival Was Held.
“It’s just ruins.”
“Right, there’s nothing alive – no formations, no barriers?”
“Completely crumbled. It seems to be because of the aftermath of the Heaven and Earth Upheaval that struck at that time…”
“Right.”
“Let’s go take a look first.”
Kang Hyeon tapped In Deok’s shoulder to direct the flying sword toward the Tower’s ruins.
And as the flying sword approached the ruins, both jumped down and examined the ruins for a while.
When they met again near the center, their expressions were more hardened than before.
“It didn’t just collapse naturally. Right?”
Kang Hyeon asked.
“Hmm, there are traces of most things being stripped away beforehand.”
“They noticed the situation to some extent and prepared for it. They even evacuated.”
“That seems right. I don’t know how safely they escaped, but seeing how thoroughly they stripped everything away, it doesn’t seem like they were completely without time.”
High-level barriers and formations that would normally be impossible to examine were now revealing their true forms.
This was the Great Unity Tower, created by the combined efforts of the Twelve Sects.
There were several spaces on the third floor and above that Kang Hyeon and In Deok had never even approached, each one governed by spatial laws.
“It seems they didn’t have the luxury to extract the Tower itself from the Mystic Realm, but it looks like all the core parts have disappeared.”
“Yeah, it seems some formations and barriers remained, but those were destroyed when the heaven and earth energies went berserk.”
In Deok also seemed to have grasped the situation at that time quite accurately through the traces of ruins.
Kang Hyeon nodded with a proud expression and then walked in one direction.
“Where are you going?”
“To Senior Hyeon Gak’s manor.”
“Would it still be there?”
“Most of the other floors have been lost or fused making them hard to recognize, but the first floor still retains its shape fairly well.”
“So what? Are you hoping Senior Hyeon Gak or Elder Yang Gwang left us some message?”
“They might have.”
Kang Hyeon replied like that and retraced his memories to find Hyeon Gak’s manor.
“Even when space is torn and scattered, why does it have to end up like this?”
However, the place where they found part of the manor was completely different from what they had expected.
The first floor space of the Tower was scattered randomly everywhere due to whatever had happened at that time.
Large buildings and roads maintained their shape to some extent, so they thought other buildings would be the same, but that wasn’t the case at all.
Strangely, small houses and manors were scattered and mixed together in complete disorder.
“Still, what we found is in good condition. More than half of it is intact.”
“Only the building is intact, the formations and barriers are completely burned out.”
“Let’s go to Senior Hyeon Gak’s dwelling first.”
Kang Hyeon dragged In Deok toward the central main hall of the manor.
Fortunately, among the manor’s buildings, the main hall was in the best condition.
Creak!
“Wow, look at all that dust.”
“It can’t be helped since the formations disappeared.”
Cleanliness maintenance formations are basic ones that can be easily deployed and withdrawn.
But since not even such small formations remained, dust had accumulated in layers over the passage of time.
“That thing.”
Even so, In Deok quickly spotted a jade fragment placed on the low writing desk.
Kang Hyeon waved his hand to pull the jade fragment over and examine it, confirming it was indeed a jade slip.
“I wonder if the contents of this are still intact. The spiritual energy got twisted and scattered completely.”
Kang Hyeon didn’t have much expectation, but just in case, he tried injecting spiritual energy into the jade slip.
“How is it?”
In Deok asked, but Kang Hyeon shook his head.
“It seems the contents stored in the jade slip were lost when it lost its spiritual energy.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Hmm, but I think I might be able to read some parts… Let me try and tell you.”
“How?”
“I’m going to try reading the traces where spiritual energy was contained using spiritual consciousness. That way I might be able to read the surface content.”
“Ah, spiritual consciousness! So that kind of thing is possible once you obtain spiritual consciousness?”
“Just think of it as a more refined energy sensing. You’ll understand properly once you obtain it later.”
Kang Hyeon couldn’t find a way to explain spiritual consciousness in words, so he described it as a higher level of energy sensing.
But knowing that this was woefully inadequate to explain spiritual consciousness, he couldn’t help but add that qualifier.
“Ugh. I’m really envious of that spiritual consciousness thing.”
In Deok’s eyes sparkled as he watched Kang Hyeon concentrate on the jade slip.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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