Chapter 3 The New South Tianjing

The Third New South Tianjing, the Banyan Undead Tree, at the withered top of the sacred tree, the Victory Memorial Hall.

Having dismissed all his deputies and assistants, Zhou Buyi sat alone at the top of the memorial hall, overlooking the world from a height of several thousand meters. He was somewhat lost in thought as he smoked, gazing at the bustling crowds below.

Zhou Buyi hadn't used to smoke, or even drink much. After marrying Liu Xizhao and having children, he rarely went to social engagements. According to his old friends, he had become very boring after marriage... but he always had to spend time with his children. At that time, he would laugh at their single status, unable to understand the feelings of a father.

Those were happy days, with family and friends around, blessed with both a son and a daughter. He and his wife respected and supported each other, and walked hand in hand to the end.

But that's how immortality is; happy and fulfilling days always pass. In a long life, all the excitement and adventure have been experienced. After reaching the peak, it becomes difficult to 'possess' anything further in life, and instead, one constantly 'loses'.

Not everyone can travel across worlds, constantly adventuring, fighting, and surpassing themselves.

When Grandmaster Wulie passed away, Zhou Buyi learned to drink, because the other man always invited people to drink when he was alive. When Li Daoran passed away, he began to read the new edition of the Daoist Canon thoroughly, because that was what the other man had been organizing when he was alive. Speaking of smoking, it was quite an interesting matter, because his wife, Liu Xizhao, came from the Hundred Herbs Sect. At that time, when Tianzheng was officially promoting the health hazards of smoking, Liu Xizhao had a sudden inspiration to use various strange spiritual materials to process smoked herbs, creating spiritual cigarettes that were theoretically not only harmless but could also nourish the body with spiritual energy. As a test subject, Zhou Buyi smoked a lot at that time and also learned how to make them.

Sometimes drinking with an old man who was both a teacher and a friend, sometimes sparring under the moon, reading the Daoist Canon, sometimes tasting the delicacies made by his beloved, being a test subject for her new ideas, and playing games with his children...

One hundred and fifty years had passed.

Now, he could only drink, read, and smoke by himself. Every time he lost a close person, Zhou Buyi could learn something new. Whether it was to commemorate them or because he didn't want to forget, life needed a sense of ritual, even if each time it only stirred up remembrance, loneliness, and reminiscence in his heart.

And whenever Zhou Buyi smoked, he, who had lived almost longer than most emperors, would ponder the meaning of immortality, the immortality pursued by those emperors. If transcendents wanted happiness, they could directly stimulate their brains to secrete hormones. Wouldn't that be more enjoyable than any worldly pleasure? If immortality was only for the sake of eternal control of power, then it was truly boring enough to make one yawn.

Zhou Buyi still couldn't understand why the former Devil Emperor had used the power of the sacred tree to do such evil deeds, especially after he also began to study the sacred tree. He felt that the Devil Emperor was simply using gold to make a carrying pole, possessing such divine power but only being able to use it in such a superficial way.

But in the end, Zhou Buyi found something that could revitalize his spirit—something longer-lived than a single person, a collective composed of many people. Few dynasties in history had been shorter-lived than their rulers. Could he witness the end of the Tianzheng Alliance, which he had created with his own hands? Or, could he maintain its existence before he himself ended?

If it didn't end, he would live on; and vice versa.

Occasionally setting some limitations for himself, that's how life had flavor.

Thinking this in his heart, the immortal narrowed his eyes. He gazed at the city beneath him, which was countless times more prosperous than in the past, flicked the ash from the cigarette at his fingertips, and smiled slightly.

"When the time comes, what should I do when I use the power of the Continuing Wood to create a second or third demonic dragon or giant beast? Should I bring along my great-great-great...grandson, who has great martial arts talent, and have him cultivate my divine art, telling him, 'Only by practicing this technique can you fight the demonic dragon'? Or should I create a final decisive weapon that looks like a machine but is actually a wooden giant, powered by the Continuing Wood, and then let him be the pilot?"

Thinking about such a world, a sense of anticipation surged forth.

"It's only at times like this that life has some excitement."

But as he smiled, Zhou Buyi sensed something again. He turned his head and looked towards another part of the top of the sacred tree.

"Su Zhou..."

That was the last remaining friend from the previous era, a mark left by that era. When Su Zhou returned, just like when he arrived one hundred and fifty years ago, he struck with full force and solved his immediate needs. Apart from his greatly increased strength, this old friend with dragon blood had not changed at all. He was still as naive, or rather, as persistent.

After all, naivety was a term used by the strong to describe the weak. And a 'naive' strong person could make the world submit to him, make naivety become truth, and make worldliness a joke.

In front of the strong, the world was the naive one.

Coincidentally, this person whom Zhou Buyi knew was someone who could force the world to admit that he was not yet complete. Although he was a little confused, he still used his spiritual power to burn the cigarette in his hand and turned to greet him.

"Why are you here?"

Then, Zhou Buyi heard a very rude sentence.

"Zhou Buyi? You're going to die soon!"

Zhou Buyi: "...?"

Finally, is it coming? As expected, Su Zhou is very dissatisfied with me being used as a tool to promote social operation, is he here to kill me?! Although it is a pity, I can't die now. Let me see how many of my Continuing Wood avatars I can still move. I'll hide first...

However, before Zhou Buyi's rich inner activities could end, Su Zhou, panting heavily, continued with a serious face: "Don't you feel it yourself? If you continue to cultivate the path of the sacred tree, one day, you will face the Banyan Undead Tree beneath your feet!"

"...Hasn't He already followed your advice and stopped moving on the surface?"

To this, Zhou Buyi was puzzled. He had studied the sacred tree for many years and naturally knew that the roots of the Banyan Undead Tree had already spread across the globe, even deep into the core of the earth: "In the end, the planet we live on, the surface is just the surface of an eggshell. It occupies the most nutritious interior of the earth's crust. Could it be that it would be idle enough to compete with us for the nutrients on the surface?"

"That's right...then why would the Banyan Undead Tree..."

Su Zhou thought for a moment and felt that it made sense, and he was immediately persuaded. Shao Qiming, who couldn't stand it anymore, shook his head and came forward: "In this regard, A-Zhou really doesn't know. Let me analyze it."

Zhou Buyi was naturally not very familiar with Shao Qiming, but he knew very well that the other party was Su Zhou's friend and had a very gentle and polite personality, with the demeanor of a refined gentleman, which was very different from Su Zhou.

And the other party also had the power of the sacred tree, and in terms of aura, it was even stronger than what Su Zhou possessed, or rather, it occupied a larger proportion. Therefore, he had never doubted that the other party held the inheritance of the sacred tree.

Now, Shao Qiming said that he had a different view, and Zhou Buyi listened attentively.

In fact, the answer brought by Shao Qiming was very simple.

"The spiritual energy of this world is being changed. This is something everyone knows."

Shao Qiming opened his personal agent terminal and projected the images from it into mid-air. He pointed to a 3D-modeled planet on it and analyzed in detail: "As you can see, with the Third New South Tianjing as the center, the proportion of wood-attributed spiritual energy in the entire planet is showing a spreading and increasing trend."

"I'm very clear about this. The sacred tree is changing this world, so I took the lead in cultivating the path of the sacred tree."

Zhou Buyi nodded. He was quite curious about what Shao Qiming's personal agent terminal was, but he thought it was also a Kunlun secret treasure and didn't think too much about it: "According to common sense, I should be the one who cultivates the fastest and has the most advantages in this environment—and the fact is indeed so. Why do you say that if I continue like this, I won't live long?"

"Because you cultivate too much, to the point that you have become another sacred tree."

Saying this, Shao Qiming gave an analogy: "With your current astronomical knowledge, it should be easy to understand that the energy that organisms on Earth rely on to survive actually comes from the sun, right? Without the sun, ninety-nine percent of organisms would find it difficult to continue to exist...and the sacred tree is the same."

"The current sacred tree is absorbing the energy of the planet to transform the spiritual energy environment of the entire world, so that almost all cultivators in this world are passively or actively entering His ecological cycle...For cultivators, the sacred tree that replaces the natural spiritual energy system of the planet and produces a huge amount of wood-based spiritual energy is their cultivating sun."

"But, if one day, the sun refuses to provide light and heat to a certain creature, and everyone else is unable to give this creature anything from the sun, how far is this creature from death?"

This was a very simple and easy-to-understand metaphor. Shao Qiming shrugged: "The same is true between sacred trees—your strength is not strong now, and the Banyan Undead Tree may not have noticed it, but if He notices it, then you can wait for the era of spiritual energy recovery and fall into the predicament of spiritual energy depletion."

"The competition between sacred trees is the competition for discourse power, or rather, dominance...I see, no wonder Su Zhou said back then that two sacred trees cannot coexist. I understand!"

"Uh..." Su Zhou originally wanted to say that he was just talking nonsense to fool people back then, but since Zhou Buyi said he understood with a serious face, he shut up and pretended to be profound.

Of course, he was not just spacing out, but relying on his spiritual power, which was far beyond what it used to be, to try to resonate and communicate with the sacred tree beneath him.

"Can you hear me, Banyan Undead Tree? I'm back to find you!"

This technique was still used by the Zheng Nation Action Team to detect whether the Life Lord Tree was alive. Su Zhou himself knew it originally, but he also absorbed the relevant techniques and optimized his communication efficiency.

Then, after a few minutes, which was relatively long for humans, Su Zhou heard a very quick reply for the sacred tree.

"Hello, Su Zhou."

Huge and deep, as if it were the entire earth beneath his feet, and even the collection of all the surrounding spiritual energy, the will from the Sacred Tree, Banyan Undead Tree, began to directly conduct a soul dialogue with the existence at the top of the entire sacred tree: "You said you are back...but did you leave?"

Aren't you just my King of the Sacred Tree?

The will of the sacred tree carried a bit of confusion—as if these one hundred and fifty years were only a moment for it. And Su Zhou thought carefully and found that for this kind of super life that could live for hundreds of thousands of years or even have endless life, one hundred and fifty years was really about the same as turning his head for a moment.

However, now was not the time to dwell on this difference in concepts between true long-lived species and short-lived species. Su Zhou ignored Zhou Buyi and Shao Qiming, who were still communicating, and directly asked the other party: "If a second sacred tree appears in this world, what will you do?"

"What to do...I don't know."

And the will of the Banyan Undead Tree was also very honest: "If it's as strong as me, then we'll cooperate...but if it's weaker than me, I'll probably try to absorb it. After all, the life information of another sacred tree is also very meaningful for my growth."

Compared to one hundred and fifty years ago, the current Banyan Undead Tree's level of fluency in dialogue was not at the same level, but this straightforward, matter-of-fact tone had not changed, and Su Zhou still liked it.

And aside, Zhou Buyi, another sacred tree who was estimated to be too small to even be noticed, changed his expression slightly: "The Banyan Undead Tree actually has such a clear will?! And, this feeling...it's as if the entire world is pressing down on me!"

Shao Qiming was not surprised by this. He had discovered through frequent communication and research with the Wisdom Tree that the so-called Path of the Sacred Tree was destined to replace the will of heaven and earth with one's own body, thereby nurturing one's own myriad beings.

Like the former Life Lord Tree, it had actually reached almost the last step and become the 'Creator' of the Beast God Realm, and all things were His dependents.

Even though Zhou Buyi was amazingly talented, he was, after all, cultivating a cultivation method based on the power of the Banyan Undead Tree. And his spiritual energy reserves were almost negligible compared to the sacred tree, which was almost equal to a fraction of the total spiritual energy of the entire planet, so he would be regarded as a dependent of the Banyan Undead Tree. This was something that Su Zhou had known for a long time.

"...Even a Tiangang Martial God cannot survive for too long without spiritual energy."

At this time, Su Zhou was still communicating with the Banyan Undead Tree, and Zhou Buyi, after letting out a breath, calmed down and continued to discuss with Shao Qiming: "Although I know very well that if I don't break through to become a Tiangang Martial God and become a true 'End Realm Immortal God,' I'm afraid I won't even have the qualifications to be taken seriously...but I will eventually reach that realm one day, and by then, it will probably be too late."

"What's more, letting the Tianzheng Alliance, which I created with my own hands, become a dependent of a sacred tree...I can't accept it from an emotional standpoint alone."

Saying this, Zhou Buyi and Shao Qiming looked at each other. Although the other party's strength was far lower than his, he did not underestimate him: "You and Su Zhou came here, presumably you have already thought of a countermeasure—Shao Qiming, please, do you have a solution?"

"It's very simple."

To this, Shao Qiming said with full confidence: "Since the Earth has already become the territory of the Banyan Undead Tree, then don't stay on this planet."

"Go to the moon."