As the small characters of spiritual light disappeared, Shucao also felt that the space around the small pavilion seemed to fluctuate for a moment.
She tried once more to touch that transparent barrier and discovered that the air wall surrounding the pavilion had already vanished.
She could now freely leave this small pavilion.
“It seems the second trial has begun just like that.”
“In that case, let’s go! Time to find those so-called Floating Gold Fruits!”
Under An Qianhua’s energetic shout, Shucao walked out of the pavilion, then leapt high into the air, wanting to search from the sky for the trees that grew the Floating Gold Fruits.
Just as she circulated her magic power and prepared to fly, she suddenly felt waves of force coming from the surrounding space, fixing her in place at low altitude.
She tried using even more magic power to break through this resistance and rise higher, but no matter how much magic power she concentrated, she could not move even half a step in the air.
Even her limbs were unable to move.
“Is this a sky-sealing restriction?”
Shucao thought to herself, and at the same time gave up on the idea of flying, withdrawing the magic power she had been using for flight.
At that moment, she felt the force pinning her in place disappear, and she returned to the ground.
“So if I try to fly, I’ll be controlled by the restriction. It seems this trial doesn’t want us to find those fruit trees too easily.”
As she spoke, she picked up a stone from the ground and lightly tossed it into the air.
The stone behaved exactly as normal, falling back to the ground after a short while.
“Thrown objects aren’t controlled. It looks like this restriction specifically targets ‘people who are flying.’”
Seeing that even using magic power to fly would trigger the trial’s restriction, Shucao gave up on looking for any clever shortcuts and could only honestly search on the ground.
She used magic power to strengthen her body and continuously weaved through the forest while carefully observing her surroundings, wanting to find those special fruit trees.
“The area of this second trial seems quite large. I wonder how many people will compete for those twenty fruits.”
At this moment, she suddenly thought: was Tianling Mountain and the surrounding region truly as large as it appeared during the trial?
Looking from the outside, although Tianling Mountain was tall and vast, it was definitely not a region that would take Shucao a long time to cross at her own speed.
Yet during the time she had been searching for the fruit trees, she had never encountered anything resembling a boundary.
This made her realize that this place was much larger than the Tianling Mountain that could be seen from the outside.
“Perhaps we are still under the influence of the array. This must be the reason Zhang Huaiyu said that only after passing the second trial can one freely explore Tianling Mountain.”
“In that case, we really have to honestly obtain a Floating Gold Fruit.”
After confirming the purpose of this trial together with An Qianhua, Shucao continued to focus on exploring the surroundings.
“Speaking of which, this Taiqing Sect truly lives up to being a sect that once had a Nascent Soul existence. They have a secret realm, they have the Innate Dao Rhyme, and they even have such powerful arrays. It’s truly lamentable that such a powerful sect would end up splitting apart like this.”
An Qianhua spoke with some emotion, which made Shucao think of the notes she had seen earlier in the small hut near the Cold Water Flood Dragon.
She then said to An Qianhua.
“Once they lose the Nascent Soul cultivator who served as their central pillar, even the most powerful sect will still fall apart because of interests.”
“But this sect only existed for a little over a hundred years, right? A Nascent Soul expert should be able to live for around a thousand years. How could one suddenly die for no reason?”
“Perhaps something happened at that time that caused that Nascent Soul cultivator to die. At least it has nothing to do with us. Right now, finding that fruit tree is the most important thing.”
Just as Shucao finished speaking these words, in a corner of her vision, through a gap in the forest, a tree surrounded by a faint green light appeared.
The spiritual light surrounding the tree was not particularly conspicuous.
If one did not look carefully, it would be easy to overlook.
But in the end, its spiritual light was very different from that of the other trees around it.
One was a surrounding glow, while the others merely emitted points of light.
Under the enhancement of magic power, it stood out considerably in Shucao’s vision.
“This… could this be the so-called special tree?”
After noticing the tree, Shucao immediately approached and carefully observed whether there was anything else unusual about it.
Apart from the form of its spiritual light and the fact that it was slightly shorter than the surrounding trees, there seemed to be no other distinguishing features.
“The fact that it looks a little different from the surroundings means there’s definitely something special about it. All the other trees we’ve seen during this long search only emit points of light from their bodies. Only this one is different. Why don’t we try touching it? Maybe there’s some special mechanism on it that will cause a change after someone touches it.”
Under An Qianhua’s suggestion, Shucao stretched out her slender, delicate hand.
The moment her finger touched the rough bark, the entire tree suddenly trembled.
Immediately afterward, the points of light emitted by the surrounding trees seemed to be drawn in, transforming into strands of silk that gathered toward this tree, dyeing it with a particularly eye-catching radiance.
“It really worked, Sister Qianhua. Is it… absorbing the spiritual power of the surrounding trees?”
“It looks that way. You can see with the naked eye that the spiritual light of the other trees is being absorbed by it. Even the color of some of the closer trees has become a bit dimmer.”
After a short while passed, the radiance emitted by the tree gradually took on a faint golden hue.
Even the leaves began turning golden from the bottom upward.
On a branch where the golden flowing light continuously gathered, a small new shoot was growing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
“Is it extracting the spiritual power of the surrounding trees to nourish itself so that it can produce that so-called Floating Gold Fruit?”
“Mm. It seems this is its special trait. Being able to take without regard for losses like this, as a tree, it might be something like the king of the forest in this region.”
Shucao observed the changes in the newly grown shoot on the tree, then slowly spoke.
“It looks like the fruit still needs some time before it grows out. With such conspicuous movement, it will probably attract other people very soon.”
“In other words, just finding the tree isn’t enough. We also have to hold on until the fruit grows, or even until the trial time ends, while others try to snatch it. There are quite a lot of stages to this trial.”
“We can only guard this tree for now.”
As she spoke, Shucao stood beneath the tree and spread her magic power outward, using it to sense any changes in the surrounding environment.
“The people of the Tianqing Sect have met me before, and Zhang Huaiyu has already informed them that we are cooperating. So they shouldn’t come to compete with me for this Floating Gold Fruit. In that case, the ones we have to face should be people from the Lingxu Sect and the Taimiao Sect.”
While remaining on guard against the surroundings, Shucao also recalled the disciples of the Lingxu Sect and Taimiao Sect she had seen before, wanting to find common points in the cultivation methods they practiced.
“The Taimiao Sect mainly focuses on artifact refining, while the Lingxu Sect… that group earlier left too quickly. I didn’t get to see more information from them, and I can’t recall any particular characteristics of the dao techniques they used.”
After racking her brains analyzing for a while, Shucao decided to stop thinking about it.
She only knew that as long as someone dared to compete with her for the Floating Gold Fruit she had found, no matter how strong the other party was, she would definitely beat them up thoroughly.
Suddenly, Shucao sensed that the magic power she had released was being disturbed in one area.
At the same time, the target causing the disturbance in her magic power was continuously approaching her location.
“Someone’s coming.”
The moment she sensed someone approaching, Shucao immediately fired a magic power cannon toward the direction of the target.
The output of this magic power cannon was not as powerful as before.
It was more intended as a warning for the other party not to come any closer.
Of course, if the other party still approached, she wouldn’t mind giving them a bigger one.
But for a Qi Refining cultivator, even a magic power cannon of this level was equivalent to a strike from a high-grade artifact.
With a long-distance precise strike from outside the field of vision, without knowing the other party’s depth, it was already enough to make the intruder feel apprehensive.
After dodging that attack, the person hurriedly left the range of Shucao’s magic power perception.
“Quite sensible.”
Seeing the person leave, Shucao let out a breath of relief.
After all, being able to reduce some combat was still quite nice for her.
In the next moment, Shucao once again sensed someone entering her magic power perception range from another direction.
She immediately fired a magic power cannon just like before to force the other party back.
Just like previously, after experiencing Shucao’s attack, that person did not linger and quickly left.
Before Shucao could relax even a little, yet another person entered her perception range.
“What the hell…”
Only this single thought kept rising in Shucao’s heart.
In such a short period of time, so many people had approached her location, leaving her slightly speechless.
“Are these people unwilling to go look for trees that no one has found yet?”
“After all, there’s a ready-made one here. Although they might not necessarily be able to beat the one who found it. Still, I feel like you might have been targeted.”
After Shucao drove away two more intruders, An Qianhua said to her.
“These people are appearing a little too close in time. I’m thinking that someone might be directing them to approach you in order to probe your bottom line. At the same time, continuously harassing you like this can also consume a lot of your spiritual power in their eyes.”
Shucao thought for a moment and also spoke.
“Looking at it this way, this will go on endlessly until they’re satisfied.”
“Or we could pretend that our spiritual power has been considerably consumed. Maybe we can lure their leader out. For example, next time someone comes, we reduce the output of the light cannon. How about that?”
“Worth a try.”
While the two were conversing, someone once again began approaching Shucao’s location.
This time, Shucao fired a magic power cannon with much smaller output than before—only about half the previous power.
After the magic power cannon approached the person, that person left the vicinity just like the previous ones.
“Even with the power reduced this much they still left. It seems these people really are just probing.”
“Then next should be the main course.”
Shucao immediately began preparing, deciding that when those people’s leader arrived, she would directly give him a big one.
Before long, a figure with an unusually strange speed entered Shucao’s magic power perception range and approached her location even faster than the previous people.
“Fellow Daoist’s luck is truly excellent. To think you found a Floating Gold Fruit tree so quickly.”
Even without seeing the other party’s figure, the voice still entered Shucao’s ears.
In the next moment, a figure appeared in front of Shucao as if by instantaneous movement.
The newcomer was a refined-looking man wearing yellow robes.
He wore a smile that was anything but kind and narrowed his eyes as he looked at Shucao and spoke.
“I wonder if Fellow Daoist would be willing to yield this item to me?”
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