Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit
chapter-234

The towering tree was twice as tall as that of an ordinary peach wood. Its canopy covered a radius of almost eighty feet and had three layers of foliage.

The canopy's bottom layer had the most branches and leaves—and also eighteen giant peaches the size of a human head—the middle layer consisted of half-blooming pink blossoms, and the top layer was full of flower buds.

As Lu Ping moved closer, three peach wood branches extended down from the tree and lashed at him like whips. He didn't know what was wrong with the branches at first, but quickly sensed the monster aura contained within!

This was a peach wood that had cultivated into a monster!

A peach tree monster!

In the monster race, beings of nature were the hardest to cultivate, and even the Heaven Cleaving Seven Primes hadn't passed down many systematic cultivation heritages for them!

Therefore, most of them could only instinctively absorb the surrounding spiritual energy to cultivate. But before their awakening, they would always be harvested by cultivators and made into medicinal pellets, mystic instruments, or other things.

Therefore, it was incredibly rare to see beings of nature cultivate into an awakening. Even if they did, they were usually weaker and less intelligent than other monster cultivators.

Lu Ping casually grabbed the peach wood branch in his hand and eradicated the monster arcane energy within them. Then, he stored away the branches and continued to walk towards the peach tree monster.

Soon, five more peach wood branches came off the tree and whipped towards Lu Ping.

Lu Ping laughed helplessly. It seemed like this peach tree monster had cultivated and awakened on its own. It didn't know any spells nor possessed any abilities, so it could only whip intruders with its branches.

Lu Ping once again grabbed the five peach wood branches and eradicated the monster arcane energy within them. Suddenly, one of the branches unleashed a wave of arcane energy that almost broke it free from Lu Ping's hand.

"Oh? What a smart peach tree monster, it actually tried a different method to attack. I almost dropped it."

Lu Ping looked at the special peach wood branch in his hand and realized that it had a thread of spirituality hidden deep inside it. He inspected it more carefully and was shocked to see that it was actually a mutated thousand-year peach wood branch!

This wood branch was a Grade 2 spirit material!

Generally, beings of nature had three ways to cultivate and awaken their cognition.

The first way was to receive enlightenment from great cultivators and cultivate under them;

The second was to absorb a heaven-and-earth spirit item's spirituality, then cultivate consciously until their awakening;

The third and most difficult way was to cultivate instinctively for many years until they finally awakened their cognition. However, this method could take thousands of years to carry out.

Lu Ping initially thought that this peach tree monster had awakened on its own through the third way, but the spirituality in the peach wood branch clearly showed that it had achieved it through the second way.

In other words, the peach tree monster had a heaven-and-earth spirit item!

Excited, Lu Ping quickly approached the peach tree monster.

At this time, the peach tree monster clearly perceived the danger. Its canopy began to tremble like it was sobbing helplessly, giving off a sad and sorrowful vibe.

Then, three pink peaches fell off from the tree, slowly drifting towards Lu Ping, as if it was pleading Lu Ping for mercy. In return, it would give him its peaches.

Lu Ping finally reached the base of the peach tree monster. He took the three peaches and looked towards the largest branch. He saw a half-foot-sized bump growing on the branch which looked like a thick piece of bark at first glance.

Psychic Wood!

It was a low-grade Earth-class heaven-and-earth spirit item—no wonder the peach wood could awaken its spirituality and cultivate into a tree monster in just a thousand years.

The Psychic Wood was the best spirit item to awaken the spirituality of tree monsters. To them, it was even more precious than a Heaven-class spirit item.

The peach tree monster continued to tremble. Lu Ping playfully patted its trunk and the peach tree monster shook even more violently—even its flower petals began to fall.

Then, Lu Ping probed his divine sense into the peach tree monster and immediately found the spirituality hiding inside the tree and dodging his divine sense.

But Lu Ping's divine sense was in a different league. In just a few moments, he caught the spirituality and wrapped his divine sense around it. He passed on a message of goodwill, trying his best to calm the spirituality which was quivering from fear.

After some time, Lu Ping finally took his hand away from the tree trunk. He placed the Tome of Thousand Millets on the ground, and the tome expanded into a huge spirit herb garden.

Lu Ping pulled Dabao out from the spirit pet pouch and instructed him to go underground and help with his earth spell.

"Krrng…"

The entire Hundred Flowers Land quaked as the peach tree monster was dug out altogether with the soil underneath, lifted up by Lu Ping and placed in the Tome of Thousand Millets.

Half of the space inside the Tome of Thousand Millets was occupied by the peach tree monster's canopy, and the Golden Nut Tree on the other side looked like a dwarf by comparison.

Dabao tried his best to climb up from the big pit after transplanting the peach tree, then laid on the ground on all fours, not wanting to move at all.

Lu Ping grabbed his whiskers and lifted him up. Dabao squealed in pain, but Lu Ping ignored him and said, "Look, you've only done a little work and your arcane energy is already depleted. It seems like you need another round of training!"

Dabao looked at the big pit next to him; it was about eighty feet deep and more than a hundred feet wide. He wanted to cry but had no more energy even for that.

Then, he thought of the teasing expressions on the three snakes and big bird—Dabao felt his life was really miserable!

Lu Ping and the peach tree monster had obviously made a deal, but the relocation still injured the peach tree monster's life essence.

So, he set up a spirit-gathering array formation under the peach tree, using eighty-one mid-grade spirit stones. Then, he crushed a Triple Turning Spiritual Pellet and mixed it with water, and used the [Cloud Moving Rain Falling Art] to make it rain over the tree.

After that, the wilted peach tree monster looked a little livelier.

Even though the Triple Turning Spiritual Pellet was precious, it was nothing compared to the Psychic Wood, and the thousand-year mutated peach tree branch, and the eighteen plump peaches!

It was only then that Lu Ping had the time to look at the spirit herbs in the Hundred Flowers Land. There were so many spirit herbs to be found here.

Lu Ping ignored the 100-year spirit herbs and only harvested the 500-year spirit herbs. In just a few moments, he had already harvested over twenty pieces of 500-year spirit herbs and even found a 1000-year spirit herb.

When Lu Ping carefully harvested the 1000-year spirit herb and put it in the jade box, the small dark cloud above the lapis jar finally broke into rain.

The raindrops were black and shiny; they rained down into the lapis jar and dyed the golden Million Poisons Pulp with a faint hint of black, turning the pulp into a dark gold color.

After the Million Poisons Pulp absorbed the Hundred Flowers Malodor Essence, the colorless liquid floating on the surface also seemed to lose interest in the Hundred Flowers Malodor Essence. It dived back into the Million Poisons Pulp.

By now, Lu Ping realized that the dense and thick pink fog around him had disappeared. There was now a thousand feet of clear space around him.

Soon, the pink fog further out quickly swarmed in to fill the clear space, covering him in the fog again!

But Lu Ping could clearly tell that this pink fog was noticeably thinner, and its color was less striking than before.

It could be said that most of the Hundred Flowers Ominous Essence had been collected in his jade bottle mystic instrument.

Lu Ping held the jade bottle and shook it. There were about three hundred drops of condensed Hundred Flowers Ominous Essence inside it.

But even though the Hundred Flowers Ominous Essence was condensed into liquid form, it was still of wood-element in nature, so Lu Ping was unable to use it and could only put it away.