After Yuan Qing and Xu Juan led the disciples of the Tianxuan Sect and Dixuan Sect, who had been trapped here in previous years, out of the area, Lin Xiao closed the exit. He then turned around and walked up to Venerable Pantu, who was almost transparent and looked as if he would dissipate at any moment.
Lin Xiao looked at him with a calm expression.
Half-lying on the ground, Venerable Pantu did not move. His eyes were closed as if he was waiting for the moment of his complete dissipation.
Lin Xiao sighed softly and said to him,
"You won the bet. I will unseal you now. What I promised you before still counts."
Hearing this, Venerable Pantu kept his eyes closed, but the expression on his half-white, half-black face relaxed slightly, almost imperceptibly.
Using the Heart of the Secret Realm, Lin Xiao directly erased the seal that trapped him.
The reason he changed his mind again and decided to unseal Venerable Pantu was because of the man's act of saving others at the cost of nearly sacrificing his own soul body.
Even though Lin Xiao knew that Venerable Pantu, as a Nascent Soul cultivator, might not have done this out of pure guilt, he was definitely taking a gamble with the goal of making Lin Xiao change his mind and unseal him.
However, Venerable Pantu's action at least showed that when he needed Lin Xiao's help and knew where Lin Xiao's bottom line was, he would take the initiative to step back.
After all, the murdered disciples of the two sects had nothing to do with Lin Xiao, and Venerable Pantu had shown his willingness to compromise. Furthermore, the Lingxian Sect also needed such a knowledgeable local cultivator. Therefore, Lin Xiao was willing to accept Venerable Pantu and still fulfill the conditions he had promised earlier.
Moreover, there was another reason for Lin Xiao to do so.
That was because on the way back with Yuan Qing and the other, Lin Xiao had to accommodate their travel speed, leaving him quite idle. So, he checked the rewards for this secret realm exploration mission in his private inventory.
This mission rewarded three items in total: Spirit Stones x100, Soul Nourishing Wood x1, and Myriad Realms Iron Bucket x1.
He didn't know what the Myriad Realms Iron Bucket was used for yet.
But he knew about the Soul Nourishing Wood!
Although Lin Xiao had never seen this item, these words were very familiar to him.
Combined with the only soul body he had encountered so far...
The reason why the always considerate system sent this item was self-evident.
Furthermore, he specifically used the appraisal function to check it.
[Top-grade Soul Nourishing Wood. It is an excellent material for nourishing souls. Each piece can be used for a very long time, and when not in use, it can be placed in a place full of Yin energy for maintenance. Once a soul body is absorbed and nourished by the Soul Nourishing Wood, it cannot be separated from the wood without a physical body.]
Looking at the extremely weak Venerable Pantu on the ground, Lin Xiao didn't waste words and directly took out the Soul Nourishing Wood from his private inventory, placing it next to Venerable Pantu.
This piece of Soul Nourishing Wood was very large, about half a meter long and as thick as two adult arms. Its surface looked as if it had been polished for many years, pitch-black and gleaming with a moist luster.
As soon as it was placed next to Venerable Pantu, he seemed to be sucked into it. In a short while, he was completely connected to the Soul Nourishing Wood.
In just this brief moment, Venerable Pantu's soul body solidified a bit, no longer looking like it was about to dissipate as before.
Having been saved, Venerable Pantu breathed a sigh of relief. Examining the Soul Nourishing Wood connected to his lower body, he spoke:
"Little boy, to think you actually possess such a large piece of Soul Nourishing Wood."
When he saved the people earlier, he had somewhat overestimated the strength of his current soul body and almost caused his soul to scatter. He originally thought that this part of his soul body was going to perish in this broken secret realm, but he never expected this young boy to carry such top-grade Soul Nourishing Wood!
For a moment, Venerable Pantu felt that he was not meant to die. Perhaps this Lin Xiao was the noble benefactor destined to help him through this tribulation.
He suddenly felt a bit of confidence in Lin Xiao's previous promise to help him retrieve the rest of his soul body and physical body.
Sun Yigao crouched down in surprise, carefully examining this magical piece of wood on the ground.
Seeing that this wood called Soul Nourishing Wood looked like a piece of ink-colored jade, he couldn't help but reach out to touch it, feeling a warm and smooth texture.
Meanwhile, Lin Xiao observed Venerable Pantu's current appearance.
Now, Venerable Pantu's soul body could completely curl up inside the Soul Nourishing Wood, and whenever he wanted, he could also extend various parts of his body out of it.
However, he had to keep at least one-third of his body inside and could not completely separate from the Soul Nourishing Wood.
For example, if he wanted to reveal his upper half, his legs basically had to remain inside the wood.
And if he wanted to stretch out his legs to walk, he had to retract his upper half into the wood.
Lin Xiao imagined that scene in his mind.
Tsk.
Once he took Venerable Pantu out, he definitely couldn't let him wander down the mountain casually, lest he scare the villagers.
And right now, this was exactly what Venerable Pantu was doing.
He stuck his two legs out from one side of the Soul Nourishing Wood, then popped his head out from the other side, and stood up on his legs.
What Sun Yigao and Lin Xiao saw was a piece of wood lying horizontally on the ground suddenly sprout two legs and a head, and then stand up.
It looked like a giant character 'six', just with all the strokes connected.
Sun Yigao couldn't help but sigh in admiration: As expected of the cultivation world, it truly broadened his horizons.
Lin Xiao held back his laughter and turned to prepare for their return.
First of all, the medicinal field in this Spirit Heart Valley, which Venerable Pantu had carefully tended for decades, had to be taken away.
After all, he had previously said that if Sun Yigao took him as a master, he would give this medicinal field to him.
Although taking him as a master was impossible now, Lin Xiao had also promised to find his soul body and physical body for him!
So it wasn't too much for him to take this medicinal field, right?
Lin Xiao handed the task of collecting this medicinal field to Sun Yigao and Venerable Pantu. He even gave them two shovels, telling them to dig up the soil of the medicinal field as well, as he wanted to pack it all up and take it away.
After all, although he now had the Heart of the Secret Realm in his hands, this secret realm only opened for two months every year. If he left the medicinal field here, it would be inconvenient to harvest and care for the herbs, so Lin Xiao decided to pack everything away.
Hearing his words, Venerable Pantu was a bit surprised. This was a massive field!
"Could it be that you have a high-level storage magical treasure?"
Ordinary storage bags and the like couldn't possibly hold such a large field!
Venerable Pantu recalled that many years ago, from his Qi Condensation stage all the way to his Foundation Establishment stage, he had only used low-level storage bags with very small capacities.
To think that this kid was not only at the eighth level of Qi Condensation at such a young age, but he also had quite a few good things on hand.
He couldn't help but sigh with emotion. This kid's sect truly spoiled him...
Lin Xiao had no idea what he was thinking. He just paused for a moment when he heard 'high-level storage magical treasure,' and then thought about his massive private inventory. That should count as a high-level storage magical treasure, right? So, he gave a perfunctory nod.
lanned to earn money steadily and take life at a slower pace. But he never expected... his father's remarriage, and the stepmother bringing along a dependent, would completely disrupt his life's plans...
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
