As Lin Huang and the other two were approaching the middle of the dense forest, Virtuoso suddenly spoke.
“Stop!”
Lin Huang and Saber9 halted immediately and scanned their surroundings with Divine Telekinesis. However, they did not find anything wrong at all. Nonetheless, Lin Huang sensed a faint inkling of something being slightly off while Saber9 looked at Virtuoso, a puzzled expression on his face.
“What’s wrong?” He asked in confusion.
“There’s an illusion formation ahead,” Virtuoso murmured, dropping his voice.
Saber9 lowered his head and carefully scrutinized the area before them. All he saw was still an expanse of dense forest; he could not make out anything unusual at all.
Once again, he used Divine Telekinesis to scan the area a few more times, and the results were the same. He was still unable to discover anything that was not supposed to be there.
“I don’t see anything at all!” Saber9 could not help muttering.
Meanwhile, the outlines of the formation were gradually revealing themselves to Lin Huang’s eyes.
He had never studied formations before, but he had cultivated Sorcerer Dao runes, which were considered a similar system. Furthermore, under Bloody’s tutelage, he had used quite a number of battle formations before. He also had dabbled in some general knowledge and theory about formations, so he was not completely new to this.
As soon as Virtuoso’s warning came, Lin Huang activated his ocular skill and was then able to see the contours of this massive formation.
It was an enormous, complex formation that covered a range of several hundred kilometers, camouflaging the entire area to look like a dense forest.
Though Lin Huang did not really understand what formation had been used here, given its level of complexity, he knew it was not merely a simple illusion. It almost certainly had various other functions as well.
“Is there a way to dispel it?” Lin Huang turned his head to look at Virtuoso.
Despite asking this, he had already secretly come up with a plan.
Virtuoso fell silent for a moment. “I’m not sure, but I can try.”
“Hey, please don’t say that.” Saber9 became rather anxious when he heard this
However, Lin Huang was very calm. He already had a plan for their next step. If Virtuoso was not able to deal with this formation, he would summon a clone of Bloody’s consciousness into his physical body and have her dispel the formation instead.
Just when he was thinking about how to prevent Virtuoso and Saber9 from sensing anything odd, Virtuoso took action.
Lin Huang and Saber9 saw Virtuoso swiftly performing complicated hand seals. A moment later, three Virtuoso clones appeared.
Two of the clones immediately transformed into Lin Huang and Saber9’s current appearances.
Right after that, the three clones charged ahead at the same time. Before they had flown very far, they suddenly vanished into thin air before the eyes of the watching three.
After releasing the clones, Virtuoso sat down calmly, cross-legged. “Let’s wait first. If this doesn’t work, we’ll look for other solutions.”
Lin Huang and Saber9 did not have any better suggestions either, so they had no choice but to wait patiently for the result.
After almost half an hour, just when Lin Huang and Saber9 felt that the attempt to dispel the formation had failed, the dense forest not far from them suddenly altered in an extraordinary manner.
An instant later, the entire forest disintegrated, revealing its true face.
When the three of them saw what was in front of them, they were so utterly shocked that for a moment, they were rooted to the spot in a daze.
“Are these…Nirvana Trees?!” Saber9 was the first to react, asking rather uncertainly.
Lin Huang and Virtuoso’s silence was obviously agreement.
“All these Nirvana Trees—how did he get his hands on them?!” Saber9 quickly voiced his second point of doubt.
He brought this up because there was not merely one Nirvana tree here—there were hundreds of them, all densely packed together.
These trees were something that could only be found in the Abyss, and even then, they were a considerably rare species.
A mature Nirvana Tree was a powerful existence among Heavenly Gods. Not only could they master life and death sequence powers, but a small number were also able to comprehend time and dimensional sequences. Even half-step lord-level powerhouses were respectful of them.
However, right before their very eyes were over three hundred Nirvana Trees, practically all of them mature specimens.
What was even more peculiar was that all of the Nirvana Trees seemed to have lost their consciousness, with only empty shells remaining.
“They must have been created with the castellan’s seal…” This was the only possibility that Virtuoso could bring to mind.
Although Nine Gloom only had a fragment of the castellan’s seal and therefore could not carry out any refining, he might have used some other techniques and found a way to utilize the fragment. That might have been how he created these Nirvana Trees.
What Virtuoso was very sure of was that no matter what method Nine Gloom had used, he must have paid a heavy price to create so many Nirvana Trees.
“He must have used the illusion formation to hide this area because he was worried that people would see these Nirvana Trees.” Saber9 looked confused. “But what’s the purpose of him planting so many Nirvana Trees in the first place?”
He could not really understand why Nine Gloom had done that.
Lin Huang was somewhat uncertain about that as well.
Among his imperial beasts, Bloody was the one who had been a vine monster since the beginning. She had parasitical abilities, and she could manipulate other monsters to fight for her through the use of parasites. However, it did not seem as if Nine Gloom were creating battle puppets. Furthermore, the Nirvana Trees themselves were not monsters whose forte was fighting. If Nine Gloom were merely creating battle puppets, he certainly had better choices of monsters.
“Are both of you aware that the Nirvana Trees have a very unique characteristic?” Virtuoso suddenly spoke up after a moment of consideration.
Lin Huang and Saber9 looked at Virtuoso, rather perplexed. Clearly, they both knew very little about the Nirvana Tree.
Virtuoso glanced at the two of them and said calmly, “Nirvana Trees only grow near the death spring or the death spring’s tributaries. Their roots are forever connected to the death spring. Even if they’re moved to another time and dimension, on a spirit level their roots would still be connected to the death spring. When they die, they return to the death spring as well.
“Just like these three hundred-over Nirvana Trees here—they appear to be planted here, but in reality, they remain intimately connected to the death spring. They’re able to obtain endless cultivation resources needed for their own growth from it.
“If I’m not mistaken, Nine Gloom must be using these Nirvana Trees to obtain nutrients from the death spring,” Virtuoso gave voice to his speculations.
“Is it really possible to obtain cultivation resources from the death spring?” Lin Huang could not help muttering quietly.
To him, it was utterly unbelievable. This was because, from what he understood, the death spring was something extremely dangerous. In the Abyss, even a lord-level powerhouse would not be willing to be polluted by it. The reason for this was that if they were not careful, they might be contaminated and mutate, or they might be enchanted and go mad.
“Theoretically, as long as one uses a suitable filtration device to filter out the contamination, there shouldn’t be an issue,” Virtuoso said and lifted their head to look at the small Nirvana Tree forest nearby. “These Nirvana Trees are the perfect filter.”
“Which means to say, we’re rich now!” Saber9’s eyes lit up when he heard this.
He even began to imagine himself obtaining all sorts of cultivation resources from the death spring through the Nirvana Trees.
“I think the matter’s not as simple as you make it out to be.”
Right as Saber9 finished speaking, Lin Huang noticed that the Nirvana Trees in front of them were starting to emit a misty blue light….