Xuantian Immortal Cultivation Record

The Origin Stone advanced to the second tier, its spirituality increasing significantly, allowing it to respond to Zhang Yuanjing's divine sense with ease, which undoubtedly delighted him.

Before obtaining a powerful earth-attribute magic treasure, the Origin Stone was his greatest reliance. A second-tier Origin Stone could enhance the power of his minor spells by more than double, which would be a significant advantage when fighting against cultivators of the same rank.

He communicated with the Origin Stone several times with his mind, but the Origin Stone did not respond every time, and its responses to slightly complex questions were often nonsensical.

Zhang Yuanjing didn't mind, as long as he confirmed that the Origin Stone could increase its spirituality, that was enough. As long as it could continuously advance, this black stone would one day become an existence like the Heavy Earth Creation Cauldron.

He emerged from the ground. The branches and leaves covering the ground were already withered and yellowing, drying out at a visible rate. As for Du Xiangyuan, who had integrated his body with the wood, his body was shriveled like a piece of bark, and he was long gone.

Zhang Yuanjing sighed softly, flicked his finger, and a cluster of flames landed on the withered branches and leaves, instantly igniting a raging fire.

He soared into the air, close to the cave ceiling, scanning the soil above with his divine sense. The place where he had fallen was blocked by a restriction, likely set up by Du Xiangyuan, which wasn't too strong. He summoned the Heavy Earth Art Sword and forcefully bombarded it with magic power, breaking it open after half an hour.

As soon as the restriction broke, the soil above collapsed, falling down with a crash, revealing the stalactite-like cave walls before him. This was the place where he had seen Du Xiangyuan when he came.

He landed on the broken passage, passed through the middle court, exited the front hall, and arrived outside the main hall. The surrounding area was shrouded in thick fog, and nothing could be seen. This was probably because the aloof female cultivator had heard the rumbling from under the main hall and activated the mountain protection array.

However, since he was already inside the array, it was useless. With a sweep of his divine sense, he immediately found the aloof female cultivator, along with a dozen Qi Refining cultivators, all hiding in a stone house dozens of feet away. That was clearly where the array nexus of the mountain protection array was located.

With a flicker of his figure, he instantly entered the stone house, subdued these Qi Refining cultivators with a wave of his hand, and then deactivated the array. He then took out the sound transmission jade and told Yuan Zhilin and the others to come to the Whiteleave Mountain Master's residence as quickly as possible.

Three hours later, Fire Crow Taoist, Liu Jinglong, and Ape Thirteen also arrived.

Under Zhang Yuanjing's lead, the group went down to the underground cave and saw a ground of black ashes. If Zhang Yuanjing hadn't told them about Du Xiangyuan and the tree spirit, no one would have been able to tell that there had once been a Core Formation stage tree spirit here.

"Yuanjing, is this cave the location of the tree spirit's main root?" Fire Crow Taoist asked, pointing to a dark hole in the middle of the black ashes.

"That's right. This tree spirit's main root is more than a hundred feet long, and there are many more fibrous roots below, estimated to be dozens of times the length of the main root," Zhang Yuanjing said.

Zhang Yu widened her eyes: "Master, if the tree spirit's roots are this big, wouldn't the trunk require dozens of people to encircle it!"

Zhang Yuanjing laughed: "It's not that thick. This tree spirit needs to absorb the power of the spiritual vein below, so its root system is particularly developed. Otherwise, it wouldn't have become a spirit."

Fire Crow Taoist was somewhat troubled: "If the spiritual vein is thousands of feet below, it will be difficult to handle. It will probably take several years to dig it out. Moreover, this place is at most an ordinary spiritual vein, and it has probably been depleted by the tree spirit's constant absorption!"

Zhang Yuanjing thought so too, but knowing that Fire Crow Taoist had high hopes, he said: "Senior, is there any way to clear the black ashes from this cave? There should still be many residual fibrous roots below. If we can follow these roots and continuously dig down, it should save a lot of effort."

Fire Crow Taoist nodded: "That's also a method, let's give it a try."

He summoned the Xuan Iron Big Gourd, pointed with a magic technique, and a powerful suction force was generated, instantly sucking the black ashes in the cave into the gourd like flowing water. After a few breaths, the amount of black ashes being sucked out decreased, so he stopped the Big Gourd.

He said to Zhang Yuanjing: "I'll go down and take a look first."

With that, he leaped lightly and disappeared into the cave. The opening of this cave was two feet in diameter, but it narrowed by half after descending dozens of feet, becoming narrower as it went down.

Fire Crow Taoist was surrounded by Myriad Beast True Flames, like rotating sharp blades, quickly cutting the surrounding soil. All the cut soil fell down with a rustling sound. He held the Xuan Iron Big Gourd and continuously sucked the soil into it.

In this way, when he descended more than a hundred feet, a deep hole with a diameter of about a foot was formed.

At the bottom and on the side walls of the hole, there were indeed many residual roots, with green liquid flowing from the cut surfaces, nourishing the scorched wounds.

If these residual roots could continue to absorb the power of the spiritual vein, they might one day recover and regenerate a tree spirit.

Fire Crow Taoist carefully examined it with his divine sense and found that there were several places where the fibrous roots were relatively dense. He randomly chose one, held the gourd, released the Myriad Beast True Fire to calcine it. After burning off a section, he used the gourd to collect the black ashes, and then used the fire as a blade, rotating downwards, and proceeded deeper into the soil. After repeating this process, he quickly descended another two hundred feet.

At this point, the several residual roots that were originally close to each other were now far apart. It was impossible to ignite and burn the soil through multiple broken roots. If he only followed one residual root, the fire that could be ignited would be too small, and it would not be effective for digging the soil.

He transmitted his voice to Zhang Yuanjing to discuss it, but Zhang Yuanjing thought for a long time and could not come up with a good solution.

If he had learned earth-attribute spells such as Mud Swamp, he could use it to soften a large area of soil, which would make digging easier. However, such spells could only be cast by cultivators in the Nascent Soul stage.

In the Core Formation stage, one can only learn minor spells, and the release of minor spells relies on one's own magic power, rather than the small-scale utilization and change of the spiritual energy of heaven and earth like Nascent Soul stage cultivators. It was obviously not possible to dig open thousands of feet of soil with minor spells.

At this time, Yuan Zhilin, at Zhang Yu's request, was lecturing the younger generation about the legends of spirits and monsters in the cultivation world, mentioning that tree spirits usually have a wooden core and stone monsters have a stone core, which are rare treasures.

Zhang Yu then said to Zhang Yuanjing: "Master, can you let Yu'er take a look at the wooden core of this spirit to see what it looks like?"

A thought flashed through Zhang Yuanjing's mind, and he had an idea, saying: "I'll go down first, and I'll tell you about the wooden core later."

With that, he stepped into the black hole and disappeared.

A moment later, he arrived next to Fire Crow Taoist.

"Yuanjing, do you have a solution?"

Zhang Yuanjing said: "I have thought of a method, but I don't know if it will work. Back then, Du Xiangyuan entered the underground dark river from a gap in the lower reaches of the Red Creek River, and then went upstream to find the spiritual vein under this mountain. How did he get out? There must be a passage.

"However, this concerns his path and life, so he concealed it very carefully, without leaving any traces. I have something that can follow the fibrous roots to the place where the spiritual vein is located, so perhaps we can find the way Du Xiangyuan used to enter and exit back then!"