Martial Peak

Translator: Silavin & PewPewLaserGun

Editor and Proofreader: Leo of Zion Mountain

In the Mysterious Small World, time passed by uneventfully.

Gou Che and the other Demon Race cultivator had nothing to do all day. With their Demonic Qi and Divine Sense’s both sealed, they couldn’t even cultivate, so they had both grown incredibly bored out of their mind.

It was the same for An Ling’er, as a young woman, she had a more tranquil temperament, and was less troubled by the current circumstances. Instead, she listlessly spent most of her time in a daze.

Compared to them, Yang Kai was very busy.

The Sun Clan sent him a large quantity of spirit grasses and spirit herbs which Yang Kai then refined into pills before promptly swallowing them down to cultivate. On top of that, every day he would go to the Divine Tree to feed it a few drops of Yang Liquid, causing his schedule to be quite full.

The quality and grade of the Sun Clan’s herbs were very good, allowing Yang Kai to put the many sentiments and insights into Alchemy he had been piling up into practice, subsequently improving his overall skill, delivering gratifying results.

The Sun Clan’s masters were constantly monitoring Yang Kai’s movements as well, but no matter how much they observed, they couldn’t completely understand what bizarre method he was using to appease the Divine Tree.

Also, since Yang Kai began visiting the Divine Tree daily, it had never had another bout of erratic energy fluctuations.

All the Sun Clan clansmen were extremely happy about this, thinking that this human boy was really somewhat useful and secretly rejoicing they hadn’t just lopped off his head.

The only thing that made them unhappy was that Yang Kai consumed too many of their precious spirit herbs. He was like a bottomless pit that no amount of cultivator resources could fill.

If Yang Kai’s movements weren’t under constant surveillance, they would surely have interrogated him about this point several times already.

In the blink of an eye, four months had passed by.

On this day, after Yang Kai fed several drops of Yang Liquid to the Divine Tree and sent his Soul Avatar into its trunk for his customary inspection, he couldn’t help smiling happily.

The once chaotic energy formation inside the trunk was now pulsating regularly, like a butterfly that was just about to break through its cocoon, a sense of vitality literally radiating from it. Moreover, after sensing the arrival of Yang Kai’s Soul Avatar, it subtly tried to reach out to him.

It seemed as though it was trying to communicate with Yang Kai but didn’t know how to express itself clearly.

Yang Kai’s spirit rose as he knew this was a sign the Divine Tree’s evolution had reached its most critical juncture. At this speed, it would be only another month or two before its consciousness fully formed, at that time, it would become a true sentient lifeform.

After quietly comforting it for a while, Yang Kai took back his Soul Avatar and jumped down ‘weakly’ from the trunk. After a short break to restore himself, he spoke to the nearby Sun Clan Elder, “From tomorrow onward, I want to live here!”

“Live here?” The Sun Clan Elder asked with a clear look of surprise.

“En, there are some things I’m concerned about, I’d like to be as close as possible to continuously observe your Divine Tree, so instead of running back and forth all day long, it will be more convenient to just live here. Also, that way, if something does happen, I can respond right away.”

“It’s no problem to live here, but boy, why do I feel like you’re plotting something.”

The Sun Clan Elder stared at Yang Kai with distrust.

“I’m aware of my situation, impose whatever kind of supervision you deem necessary. You’re just thinking too much anyways,” Yang Kai chuckled.

“As long as you understand your place, boy. However, I have to check with Leader first,” The Elder spat.

“I’ll await the good news then,” Yang Kai casually said before getting up and walking towards his temporary residence.

When Yang Kai arrived back at the palace and told An Ling’er about his plan to move to the Divine Tree, they young woman suddenly became somewhat nervous.

“If you leave, what should I do? Gou Che and his friend are still living here.”

Yang Kai couldn’t help frowning as he remember this point.

Although Gou Che had behaved well so far, there was no guarantee that without Yang Kai’s asylum, he wouldn’t take an interest in An Ling’er. Even if Gou Che didn’t act rashly, there was still another Demon Race cultivator living here.

The Demon Race was originally a violent and cruel people who tended to act as they pleased, not a group who would simply obey if told to do, or not to do something.

“You’ll just have to come with me, I’ll tell them I need someone to take care of my personal needs, they won’t make a fuss over something so trivial,” Yang Kai thought for a moment and said.

“En,” An Ling’er nodded quickly, her expression relaxing.

The next day, the same Sun Clan Elder came to the palace and told Yang Kai that the old leader had agreed to his request. Yang Kai also took the opportunity to mention An Ling’er.

The Elder only thought about it for a moment before nodding. There was no need to consult the clan leader about such a minor matter.

After briefly informing Gou Che about what was happening, Yang Kai left the palace together with An Ling’er.

Beneath the Divine Tree’s towering figure, An Ling’er settled in. The Sun Clan did not allow her to fly up into the Divine Tree’s canopy like Yang Kai, only allowing her stand nearby and observe.

However, this made no difference to An Ling’er. As long as she didn’t stray too far from Yang Kai, she felt relieved. She knew that she was safe right now only because Yang Kai was sheltering her. Without him, she would either have become a blood sacrifice or a plaything for the Sun Clan, two endings she simply couldn’t accept.

High up atop the Divine Tree, Yang Kai dripped a few drops of Yang Liquid from his finger into the crack before he began to observe the reaction of the energy formation. Like yesterday, the Divine Tree tried to communicate with him, but was still unable to express itself clearly.

Yang Kai’s sent out Spiritual Energy pulses meant to comfort the Divine Tree’s core from his Soul Avatar, trying to calm it down while also teaching it to better express itself.

As an unexpected side effect, after supplying Yang Liquid to the Divine Tree for so long, it now seemed to be quite dependent on Yang Kai, so when the latter comforted it, not only did it immediately settle down, it also unconsciously expressed a sense of happiness.

As time passed, everything remained calm and peaceful.

When he wasn’t trying to sooth and communicating with the Divine Tree, Yang Kai spent his time accompanying An Ling’er.

In order to ensure that the Divine Tree could evolve as soon as possible, Yang Kai didn’t dare to circulate his True Yang Secret Art, lest he absorb energy from it and delay the process.

The changes the Divine Tree was undergoing went unnoticed by everyone except Yang Kai who was communicating with it regularly.

The chaotic energy formation now seemed to have reached a saturation point and was obviously on the verge of some unimaginable transformation.

One day roughly a month after Yang Kai and An Ling’er began living beneath the Divine Tree, when Yang Kai once again sent his Soul Avatar into the trunk, a Soul fluctuation burst out from the Divine Tree’s core, conveying a profound sense of happiness, as if it had been waiting for a long time for him to come and was overjoyed with his arrival.

At that moment, Yang Kai clearly felt that a tiny consciousness had been born in the energy formation in front of him.

With a look of shock on his face, Yang Kai carefully released his Divine Sense and slowly inspected the heart of the Divine Tree.

The moment his Divine Sense touched the Divine Tree’s heart, the latter released a burst of hot aura that instantly wrapped up Yang Kai’s Soul Avatar.

From the depths of the Divine Tree’s heart a faint sound seemed to resound, almost like the babbling of a baby that was happily squirming in its parents arms.

Yang Kai immediately felt slightly uncomfortable.

Thankfully he possessed a powerful Conflagrated Knowledge Sea, otherwise his Soul Avatar would have been reduced to ash after being wrapped in the hot aura the Divine Tree had released.

Quickly passing his thoughts to the Divine Tree, the aura wrapping him silently withdrew, although it was clearly somewhat unwilling to do so.

Yang Kai couldn’t help laughing at this development. He felt that the Divine Tree was completely indistinguishable from an ignorant baby and was instinctively approaching someone it thought was close to it.

At this moment it shouldn’t have fully evolved but was essentially only a step away from gaining sentience.

Recognizing its sense of loss, Yang Kai quickly appeased it, causing the Divine Tree’s core to once again become lively.

After spending two hours comforting and playing with it, the Divine Tree’s heart gradually stabilized and seemed to fall into a deep sleep, no longer giving off any Soul fluctuations.

Yang Kai breathed a sigh of relief and took back his Soul Avatar, an incredible sense of exhaustion soon overcoming him.

Yang Kai felt that dealing with this life form which had yet to fully evolve was more difficult than fighting against a Saint Realm master. It was completely ignorant of everything and could only express itself to Yang Kai by wildly throwing about its emotions.

In order to avoid the Sun Clan becoming aware of what had transpired here, Yang Kai had to continuously coax this wild child, causing him to expend a great deal of Spiritual Energy.

However, this situation was somewhat outside of Yang Kai’s expectations.

The reason why he had begun feeding his Yang Liquid to the Divine Tree was simply to buy time, lest he, Ling’er, and the others be used as blood sacrifices by Sun Clan. As a secondary concern, he had wanted to take a look at what the Divine Tree’s evolved form would look like.

Never had he thought that by providing his Yang Liquid and using his Divine Sense to sooth it, the Divine Tree would develop a sense of dependence and trust towards him.

Perhaps it mistakenly believed Yang Kai was its family.

This was similar to how some creatures, when just being born, would treat the first face it saw as its parent.

The Divine Tree’s current state could only be described as thus.

Although Yang Kai wasn’t certain about any of this, whatever the case was, it probably wasn’t a bad thing.

After resting for a while, Yang Kai gradually recovered.

After playing together for so long, the Divine Tree also seemed to have become exhausted; as a result, over the next few days, whenever Yang Kai sent his Soul Avatar into its trunk, its core would remain silent.

It took more than five days for it to once again wake up.

This time, its consciousness was a bit clearer, and not only could it play together with Yang Kai’s Soul Avatar, it also managed to convey some vague information to him.

These bits of information, or rather thoughts, were still quite garbled, and Yang Kai wasn’t able to figure out most of what it meant, but it was almost as if he was listening to someone talk to themselves, expressing a sense of curiosity about everything around themselves.

Yang Kai could only smile helplessly and accompany it, trying to help whenever he could.

Spending time like this was both physically and mentally exhausting.

Time continued to pass by; the Sun Clan masters came every day to observe the situation and would inevitably confirm that Yang Kai wasn’t playing any tricks and that there were no significant changes occurring to the Divine Tree, or so they thought.

The Divine Tree would wake up every few days, and each time it did its Soul would become more and more complete. Then, after playing with Yang Kai to its heart’s content, it would fall back asleep, living a truly carefree life.

Soon though, the periods of time the Divine Tree would fall asleep grew shorter. In the beginning, it would sleep for five days straight before waking up, but this gradually became four days, then three, then two…

The messages it conveyed from is Soul also gradually became clear and Yang Kai knew that the consciousness of the Divine Tree’s evolution was about to be completed, filling his heart with a great sense of expectation.

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