Xiang Yu was cultivating inside the spirit spring after dinner.

He also took the moment to regulate his qi after spending the entire day creating crystals.

After he was done, he slowly opened his eyes, his gaze settling on the crystals he had placed just outside the spring.

He slowly rose from his position and stepped out of the spring.

At that moment, Light Xiang Yu approached and picked up one time crystal and one space crystal. Xiang Yu thought to himself that studying the energy within these crystals might help him understand time and space. If he could grasp these concepts, it might even help him exert more power using the weapon he was about to create as he planned on incorporating them into it.

The metal clone also walked over and took the remaining crystals. It was finally time to begin crafting the weapon.

The main Xiang Yu sat on a rock and retrieved the tower. He thought to himself that the haul had been quite impressive, far exceeding his initial expectations despite him having raided just three continents. His eyes drifted to the tree at the center of his spirit vein, it was time to upgrade.

During the raid, he had managed to collect fifty low-grade spirit veins, twenty mid-grade ones, and three high-grade spirit veins. He had actually encountered many more but most of them were actively being used by local forces so he had chosen not to interfere with them.

He wondered how much he could upgrade his spirit vein with these. After all, he had never attempted this type of enhancement before and had no idea what the conversion rate might be between different grades of spirit veins.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out…”

He approached the core of the spirit vein which was at the base of the huge tree.

He decided to start with the low-grade spirit veins, feeding all fifty of them into the core at once. To his surprise, the reaction wasn’t as huge as he had hoped. He could feel that the spirit vein had improved but just a little, probably about a quarter of the way to the next level.

He sighed, it seemed upgrading the spirit vein wouldn’t be as simple as he had hoped.

He looked at the twenty mid-grade spirit veins and decided to add them to the mix as well. This time, the reaction was far more dramatic. The tree at the vein’s center suddenly flared with a brilliant golden light, beginning to pulse rhythmically.

He could feel the qi production increasing with every passing second.

This time, the spirit vein was truly upgrading.

The tree’s extensive root system started expanding deeper and deeper into the ground. Some of the higher branches also began attempting to push upward, trying to break through the cave’s ceiling, but his protective formations prevented them from doing so.

Unable to expand outward, the branches continued to grow thicker and began coiling around themselves within the limited confines of the cave space.

As time passed, the entire cave walls became covered with thick, vibrant vines that had sprouted from the spirit vein. The transformation continued for approximately half an hour before the spirit vein’s upgrade settled.

Now the cave was filled with branches and foliage everywhere, making it look like a jungle.

Xiang Yu wondered if he should consider opening up more space and allowing the tree to grow beyond the cave. The reason he hesitated to do this was because his barrier would automatically cut through any part of the spirit vein that extended outside its range when he activated it. Of course, he could always choose to enlarge the barrier’s radius to accommodate the tree’s growth, but that raised another concern, how much expansion would be necessary?

This cave served as his personal private space where he could work on stuff and experiment without outside interference. If he kept expanding the barrier more and more each time the vein grew larger, at what point should he draw the line?

Well, he would need to think of a proper solution to this later.

For now, there was something else that had been bothering him for a while.

He pushed his way through the dense network of branches and leaves, making his way toward the core of the spirit vein. He then placed his hand on the tree’s core and sent his divine sense inside. Within the tree, he saw a small, fairy-like creature.

“I f*cking knew it”

…

“I knew it,” Xiang Yu thought to himself.

Ever since he had come across that creature inside the Abyssal Void Flame that he had later merged with, he had become extremely cautious about situations like this one.

Through his divine sense, he could detect that the creature inside the spirit vein wasn’t truly alive, just like the void flame creature had been before. It existed in some kind of dormant state.

Even so, he had no intention of waiting around for this thing to potentially wake up and potentially cause problems. He was going to deal with it using his own methods, on his own terms.

He stretched out his other hand.

Slowly, a soul partition began to materialize above his palm.

This was the soul partition that had originally belonged to the bloodline clone he had self-destructed. He had yet to recreate it as his bloodline essence was still exhausted from earlier.

The soul partition hovered briefly above his palm before leaping forward, diving directly into the spirit vein’s core, heading straight for the fairy-like creature and sinking into it.

The moment the soul partition made contact, Xiang Yu found himself plunged into absolute darkness.

“What’s happening? Where am I?” he wondered.

As he floated in absolute darkness, he heard a voice. The sound was extremely soft and gentle, carrying with it an almost supernatural calming effect that washed over his soul.

|| Child… || the voice whispered.

The voice seemed to echo from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Xiang Yu slowly opened his eyes, and when he did, he was instantly mesmerized by what he saw before him. If he had to choose a single word to describe this place, he would without hesitation call it paradise. Lush green vegetation stretched out in every direction, creating a landscape of breathtaking natural beauty. Crystal-clear rivers flowed gently through the scenery and beautiful flowers of every conceivable color bloomed everywhere he looked. Even the fragrance was intoxicating.

He wondered where exactly he was. As he looked down at himself, he was startled to discover that he had become a small flower, growing within this garden paradise. As he was processing this, he heard the gentle voice speak again.

|| Child… you’re awake, ||

Xiang Yu looked up toward the source of the voice, and it was then that he saw it – a MASSIVE tree of impossible proportions. It was as enormous as he could possibly perceive, its trunk stretching up so high that it seemed to have no end, disappearing into the infinite sky above.

“Mom?”

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