[Mingluo Sea of Trees].
Lu Yang and Perfected Lord Tai Hao stood in the air. Dressed in a palace skirt, Perfected Lord Tai Hao formed a hand seal with one hand and gently pointed her slender, jade-like finger at the sea of trees below.
"Boom!"
In an instant, the originally pitch-black sea of trees came alive, practically transforming into an ocean of ink. Endless vegetation collapsed toward the direction Perfected Lord Tai Hao pointed. It carried an intense, muddy, and dragging concept; even the formless void and light seemed to be swallowed by the sea of trees.
A moment later, the sea of trees disappeared.
In its place, only a pitch-black tree seed slowly rose from the earth, then fluttered into Perfected Lord Tai Hao's palm, bringing a look of bleakness to her beautiful face.
"This is Master's final legacy."
"Master's lifelong cultivation was poured into this [Tai Hao Divine Wood]. Unfortunately, he didn't achieve complete success back then, otherwise, it would have been a different scene."
"Oh."
Hearing this, Lu Yang, who was already determined to get the Tai Hao Sect's Dao lineage, asked curiously: "Why do you say that? Does this tree seed have other profound wonders?"
Speaking of this, Perfected Lord Tai Hao restrained her sorrow and smiled proudly: "Senior is unaware. Although my Master wasn't among the twelve disciples, he was also a rare great cultivator in the Dharma Body Dao. His Light of Wisdom was extraordinary, otherwise, he couldn't have forged a new path and established our Tai Hao lineage."
"Even after becoming a Death Spirit, Master didn't give up."
"This [Tai Hao Divine Wood] was Master's attempt. Master irrigated it with his own heart-blood and planted it into the Netherworld earth, possessing the ambition to plunder creation."
"Plunder creation..."
Lu Yang's eyes lit up slightly: "Is it that the root system of this spiritual plant has the profound wonders to plunder the power of the field and soil? Planting it in the Netherworld was to steal the Netherworld's mighty power?"
As soon as these words came out, Perfected Lord Tai Hao gave Lu Yang a surprised look, then nodded: "Senior indeed has a hidden Light of Wisdom, appearing foolish but actually possessing great wisdom. To be able to see through it at a glance... back then, Master patiently explained it to me several times before I barely understood its operating principles."
"It's just a pity..."
As her voice fell, sorrow resurfaced on Perfected Lord Tai Hao's face: "The Netherworld's soil is too strong. Master exhausted his efforts but still couldn't make the Divine Wood grow."
"It should be insufficient materials."
Lu Yang shook his head: "Fellow Daoist Mingluo likely didn't have any resources matching the Wood element on hand back then, so he could only use his own Dharma body's heart-blood to cultivate it."
Admittedly, the heart-blood of a Dharma Body Dao Great Perfected Lord was definitely top-tier among resources. But at the end of the day, it was still the Dharma Body Dao, completely unrelated to the Wood element. It could only be said that there was enough nutrition, but the path was wrong. And if the path is wrong, any extra nutrition is just a waste. Cultivating it naturally yielded half the result for twice the effort.
"...Senior's words are very true."
Perfected Lord Tai Hao sighed faintly: "Until the very end, right before Master died, he sacrificed himself to turn the [Tai Hao Divine Wood] into a small sea of trees."
In the next second, she reached out her hand.
The [Tai Hao Divine Wood], which had reverted back to a seed, was offered to Lu Yang just like that.
"This Divine Wood seed contains the entire inheritance of my Tai Hao Sect. If Senior is willing, could you temporarily keep it safe for this junior? This junior would be endlessly grateful."
Perfected Lord Tai Hao wasn't stupid. Even in the ancient era, while one couldn't say instances of drawing a sword to help a victim of injustice were nonexistent, they definitely weren't common.
She could tell that Lu Yang wanted something.
Coupled with the fact that although Lu Yang had saved her today, he had also bound her to him. She would still need to rely on him in many areas in the future.
Since that was the case, she needed to curry favor even more.
And on her entire body, only this [Tai Hao Divine Wood] seed held the greatest value, not to mention it contained the Tai Hao Sect's Dao lineage inheritance.
In the current Netherworld, life is precarious. Although I escaped this time, I might not escape a second time. Keeping this inheritance on me would certainly give me a few more methods, but once I die, the inheritance will be severed. If I die like that, what face would I have to meet Master?
It's better to give it to this senior.
At least it leaves a sliver of hope. No matter what his purpose is, as long as he can preserve my Tai Hao Sect's inheritance, there will always be a day when the clouds part to reveal the sun.
With this thought, Perfected Lord Tai Hao's expression became increasingly sincere.
This happened to coincide with Lu Yang's intentions, so he only pretended to hesitate for a moment before calmly reaching out and storing the Divine Wood seed into his sleeve.
"Then it would be disrespectful to decline."
Immediately after, Lu Yang waved his hand again. The recently captured Bodhisattva Immaculate, former Grand Preceptor, and Perfected Lord Zaoyuan Yingguang sequentially tumbled out of his sleeve.
"Compared to me, Fellow Daoist and these three can be considered old acquaintances and should be fairly familiar with each other. Since that's the case, I'll leave the interrogation to Fellow Daoist. I want to know exactly how many Great Perfected Lords the Grotto-Heaven method has in the Netherworld, their levels, Daoist titles, profound wonders, and the methods they each excel in."
"This junior understands."
As her voice fell, Perfected Lord Tai Hao, carrying a hint of vengeful delight, directly dragged the three captive Perfected Lords into the distance. Seeing this, Lu Yang had a strange expression.
"Perfected Lords are also human. Peel back that layer of skin, and they're just like any ordinary person."
I didn't expect I would reach this level either...
The formerly high and mighty Perfected Lords were now no different from little chicks to him, easily molded and squashed at will. This made him sigh with emotion.
Damn, smurfing in the low ranks is truly fun.
Bullying noobs is the best!
In comparison, what kind of life was he living in the mortal world? Hiding from east to west all day, changing locations just to sit in prison, not even daring to reveal the slightest bit of his aura.
Now that he was in the Netherworld, he could finally roll up his sleeves and go all out.
Although the Netherworld had quite a few Great Perfected Lords with strength much greater than those in the mortal world, not having the Dao Lords watching him was already a heaven-sent blessing.
After his sigh of emotion, Lu Yang lowered his eyelids.
The Divine Wood seed offered by Perfected Lord Tai Hao was pinched between his fingertips. He scrutinized it carefully, and after a moment, a satisfied smile gradually revealed itself on his face:
"This is quite an unexpected harvest. Besides the Tai Hao Sect's special Dao lineage of cultivating spiritual plants with the Dharma body, this tree seed itself is also a good item. Mingluo couldn't cultivate this thing, but I'm different... After all, speaking of resources, what can compare to the concept of [Great Forest Wood]?"
In an instant, Lu Yang made a decision.
Up until now, every one of my four True Treasures has a significant origin, and the materials used are almost all top-tier. They either have a solid foundation or a deep background.
The predecessor of the Righteous Dao Banner was the Myriad Spirit Banner, and the predecessor of the Tribulation Wave was forged by [Sky-shrouding] borrowing my hand.
The Yellow Court is directly based on my [Heavenly Fire] Grotto-Heaven. Not to mention the Dragon-Banishment Ruler; I practically stripped the old Dragon Lord's corpse clean.
I was originally still worrying that I didn't have suitable materials for the final True Treasure. Now I don't need to think about it. Using this Divine Wood seed as the material, the final forged [Great Forest Wood] True Treasure will inevitably be of the highest grade. There might even be hope to complete Mingluo's unfinished endeavor.
Plundering the Netherworld's creation!
Generally speaking, Void Attainment has a very awkward period. That is, a newly attained Dao Fruit is only unorthodox and will have a period of weakness.
However, if he had the power of the Netherworld, it would be different.
Just like [Eternal Flowing Water], if I can first plunder a massive amount of Netherworld power, and then directly pour it into the formed Void Attainment Dao Fruit right after attaining it...
It would definitely be able to skip the weakness period of the Void Attainment Dao Fruit!
Just this point alone made it impossible for Lu Yang to refuse. Although [Eternal Flowing Water] could do similar things, the Netherworld was definitely much better than a Dao Fruit.
Then there was only one problem left.
"Whether this Divine Wood seed can be cultivated depends not only on the resources but also on the location. What place is most suitable for it to grow and devour the Netherworld's creation?"
(End of Chapter)