In the middle of the metal tree forest, Hengsheng—now outside his cultivation cave—pressed his hand against a metal tree, trying to discover its mysteries. The metal tree was not merely a metal pole that looked like a tree but a living tree with metallic bark and leaves.
His eyes and Divine Sense observed the tree’s metallic bark closely. He touched it with both hands and examined its structure to understand how nature had made it.
He discovered that deep within the tree's spiritual essence, there was a perfect combination of wood Qi essence and metal Qi essence, as if it had achieved harmony and become something new—neither wood nor metal.
Hengsheng shook his head and pulled back his hand in disappointment, realizing that his new trait would not allow him to create this kind of metallic wood.
In the last few days, Hengsheng had been training hard, focusing on mastering his Timbergrasp trait ability. This trait, as explained by the system, allowed him to turn everything he touched into wood.
However, he learned that making an object permanently wood would require a great deal of time and Spiritual Qi. He also discovered that he could turn objects in his grasp into any kind of wood, but producing strong, powerful wood would cost him even more Spiritual Qi.
This ability worked only on targets with little resistance. He even tried to turn an unlucky Demon Beast into wood, but when he activated his trait on it, he met strong resistance—the result was not fruitful at all.
After all his experiments, he concluded that his new trait was very hard to use in direct battle. Perhaps it would improve once it got stronger, but for now, it was nearly useless.
Even so, his new trait had another ability: to control and manipulate wood. Hengsheng raised his right hand, which glowed with a green light as his trait ability activated.
Spiritual Qi from the surroundings was slowly drawn into his grasp and rapidly transformed into a beautiful red wooden staff, one and a half meters long. He spent some time—and a large amount of his Spiritual Qi—to make this staff a permanent object.
An hour later, Hengsheng played with the staff in his hand for a while, then thrust it forward. The wooden staff extended to 10 meters, striking a tall metallic tree.
The metallic tree showed a crack in its metallic bark from the impact. He pulled the staff back, and its length returned to the original one and a half meters.
"It was good to have a weapon; hitting people with fists and palms sometimes dirtied my hands too much," he thought.
He threw the staff into his System World and walked back to where his cultivation cave was located, as he had finished studying his new trait.
When he reaches the cave entrance he notices that Yunsu waiting for him in front of the cave and when she notices him she quickly dashes to him as she has something urgent.
when she reaches him she taps her paw against his leg, then Yunsu hisses and points her other paw in the direction of the Bamboo forest territory.
Hengsheng's eyes narrowed as he knew the battle was near Yunsu could sense the smell of the God Spawn with her high-level perception, He quickly packed his stuff in the cave ready to leave.
When he is done packing he steps out of the cave and quickly active [Heavenly Insight Mode], but this time he adjusts the range of what he wants to see to be wider since he now has more system points to spend.
[Heavenly Insight Mode Activated]
[1,000 System Points Deducted]
The Golden ring appears inside Hengsheng's pupils, but soon he regrets it because sharp pain surges in his eyes cause the thing he sees through his eyes is beyond his cultivation realm capacity.
But Hengsheng did not panic, he closed and focused on the flow of energy inside his eyes before he began to control the power that Heavenly Insight Mode granted to him then he slowly opened his eyes.
Before his eyes, the world changes slightly, he can see many things that normally eyes could not, but all those mysterious things do not matter now.
He focused on two things within his vision one is the red thread—The karma thread and the other thing is the translucent line—The causality line.
With his experience with these two, he began to read them both as he tried to discover the enemy's plan from afar, once again his low-cultivation realm is the problem when dealing with heavenly secrets.
Then he decides to take things in the traditional way, He picks up Yunsu and places her on his shoulder.
"Yunsu don't make a noise when we get there ok?" he asked for her cooperation with a polite tone.
"Mew," she answered with serious 'Mew' her tail was swinging right and left as she was now in her alert mode.
Hengsheng began to follow the red thread that linked him with the Thunderclap Blade sect disciples through the grudge that formed when he smacked their faces in the Golden City.
On the way, he noticed that Demon Beasts around this area were thinner than before as if they already moved to somewhere else safer.
"it seems Demon Beasts really have a good sense of danger compared to humans"
Soon he entered the bamboo forest territory, he did not dare to spread his divine sense without a sense hidden method to search for the enemy if he did that equally reveal himself to the enemy as well, fortunately, he had a better method to spy on the enemy without their notice it was better than just hidden his divine sense.
[Activated Concealment Mode]
[1,000 System Points deducted]
[60 minutes: 00 seconds]
[59 minutes: 59 seconds]
The mysterious invisible energy enveloped his and Yunsu's bodies, separating them from the world and rendering them almost completely invisible to the perception of other beings. He quickly followed the Krama thread, as he did not have much time in this concealment mode.
His immediate goal was to gather information about his enemies—who they were, why they were interfering with the Golden Sword Sect to such an extent, and most importantly, what the hell the God Spawn was.
His instinct told him that the origin of the God Spawn was a critical factor, one that must be directly related to the conflict with the group that dared to oppose the Golden Sword Sect.
The bamboo forest usually teemed with life, whether insects, birds, or demon beasts, but now it was silent. The only sound he could hear was that of a distant river. The silence reminded him of when he had crossed the Endless Forest, a clear sign of the God Spawn's presence.
After twenty minutes of fast travel, Hengsheng finally reached his destination. The scene before him made him turn cold.
What he saw was beyond his expectations and rendered his preparations almost useless—an army of God Spawn, not just the ten he usually fought in simulation, but a massive force.
The army covered the entire area; if he was not mistaken, there were more than ten thousand of them. Oddly, they seemed to stay still, quiet, and less aggressive than they normally were.
He had not known that the God Spawn were so numerous—it far exceeded the numbers he had expected to fight.
They appeared in various forms: some had long, deformed bodies like the ones he had fought before; one was a giant white human hand with each finger planted on the ground to support its body; another was a white tongue with many smaller, tongue-like legs growing on its side, standing silently; yet another was a white ball with one large, open mouth showing sharp teeth—among many other grotesque forms, all of which were pure body horror.
What disturbed him most was the appearance of a humanoid God Spawn in the center of the army. It stood as tall as five meters, its body deformed yet possessing all human limbs—and even extra ones.
Although he could not sense their aura with his divine sense, he uncovered their essence with his eyes while in heavenly insight mode. With this insight, Hengsheng knew immediately that this one was the strongest among the God Spawn, perhaps even stronger than a cultivator of the Spiritual Foundation Realm.
Fortunately, these monsters seemed to be dormant, not active, as if they were sleeping.
Hengsheng stopped observing the monsters and began looking for a sight of humans. The karma thread is stretching in one direction, He quickly moves to follow it.
It wasn’t long before he found a cultivator camp quite far away from where the God Spawn resided. He quickly moved toward that place. When he arrived, he openly walked into the camp through the front door, unnoticed because he was invisible.
He saw a large group of cultivators dressed in black robes and masks, carrying weapons. They were training and cultivating as an army. He counted about 500 people present on the training ground, with even more inside the tents.
In the center of the camp, he noticed a ritual altar around which some individuals were performing a ceremony—worshiping a deity, as in the ancient times of the planet Earth's people. This was odd, as the people's culture in this world typically does not involve worshiping gods; instead, people revere their ancestors and the heavens.
Some mortals might worship Jade Emperor or other heavenly gods—the immortal god, but definitely not this one. Hengsheng thought while he gazed at the deformed creature statue at the top of the altar.
He decided to ignore the ceremony for now, since his primary goal was to locate and identify their leader.
Not long after, Hengsheng noticed one of the tents; it was well-decorated and clearly belonged to the camp’s leader.