Chapter 748 – Cold Lake

As time passed, Long Chen’s Martial Soul slowly healed. Once all the medicinal power in the Rainbow Lingzhi had been spent, his Martial Soul had healed completely.

His Martial Soul had returned to its Fifth Earthly Martial Stage state.

In terms of essence, I am still at the Third Earthly Martial Stage, but my Martial Soul has recovered. Essence is simple to get. All I need to do is kill a few demonic beasts.

At this point, Long Chen only needed to regain enough essence to reach the Fifth Earthly Martial Stage, then even a Seventh Earthly Martial Stage cultivator would be no match for him. Even now, he could fight a Sixth Earthly Martial Stage cultivator.

Long Chen exited the mountain cave and went searching for demonic beasts to hunt. The Wood District had demonic beasts in abundance, especially ones that were at the Category Six King-tier and below.

It didn’t take much effort to find two Category Six King-tier Green Wind Leopards. He killed them using the Golden Emperor Veiled Heaven Seal, then used Blood Transmutation to absorb their blood. The two Green Wind Leopards were able to take human form, but they were covered with green patterns and moved very quickly when they did so. They had seen the Third Earthly Martial Stage Long Chen as prey, but in the end, they had turned into prey instead.

After swallowing their blood, Long Chen successfully reached the Fifth Earthly Martial Stage and was considered to have fully regained his previous strength. This meant that he could use the Martial Gold Tombstone and progress even further. He started to think about where he would go next.

“Little Cat, should I go find a place to focus on studying the Martial God Tombstone now?” Although the little brat liked to brag, he still gave Long Chen great advice during key moments.

“There’s one more thing I forgot to tell you,” said the little black cat on his shoulder, rolling his eyes.

“What is it?” asked Long Chen.

“The Seven Star Lord’s inheritance that you received contains the Seven Star Body. It’s an intermediate Emperor-tier body tempering technique, so even cultivating it will be no simple feat. You need to guide the celestial Qi from the sky into your body in order to cultivate the Seven Star Body. If you don’t believe me, you can take out that blue rock and try.”

When Long Chen heard this, he hurriedly took out the blue rock. Previously, he had been focused on healing his Martial Soul, so he had momentarily forgotten about the inheritance. He immersed his whole mind into the rock, which was shaped like a heart organ. He faintly saw a vision of a human-shaped silhouette standing on the peak of a mountain controlling the violent energy of the stars in the sky so that it poured into his body. The celestial Qi was more terrifying than the Metal Devouring Wind from before, yet that person held on!

The man took all the terrifying celestial Qi into his body.

It was just a vision, but it was a massive shock to Long Chen. He paused for a second, then asked, “Are you saying that I need to go to a very high place to cultivate the Seven Star Body? Is that where I can guide the celestial Qi?”

“That’s right.” Little Cat nodded, then he said, “Based on the terrain of the Wood District, the highest point should be in the largest city, which is controlled by the Thunder Demon Faction. You currently have many grudges against the Divine Wind Faction and the Five Element Alliance, so the Thunder Demon Faction is the only one you are neutral with. If you can form a good relationship with them, you will have their support when you kill the Divine clan’s young master later. Therefore, you must go to the Heavenly Wood City.”

Long Chen thought for a while and felt like Little Cat made sense. He had to find a place to improve himself anyway, so might as well go to Heavenly Wood City. If all he did was hide and study the Martial God Tombstone, he wouldn’t find any strong opponents or get real battle experience. That would result in slow growth.

Sometimes, learning from real battle was much better than thinking and meditating alone.

Since he had already made his decision, Long Chen cultivated while heading towards Heavenly Wood City. Before the old man left, he had told Long Chen the directions to the city.

He had heard that Heavenly Wood City was also built on a gigantic tree that was more than a hundred times thicker and taller than the previous city Long Chen was in. That was why Heavenly Wood City was also a hundred times larger!

The Thunder Demon Faction had completely taken over the large city. All the other cultivators in the Wood District would likely choose to be based in Heavenly Wood City too, so Long Chen expected it to be bustling. Since killing was banned there, he likely wouldn’t have any issues as long as no one found out about the Seven Star Lord’s inheritance.

Only the highest-level members of the Divine and Wind clans knew that he had obtained the Seven Star Lord’s inheritance. Naturally, if they wanted to snatch it away from him, they would not advertise that he had it. If they did, other people would get the Seven Star Lord’s inheritance instead.

𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

Long Chen knew that they were not that stupid.

That was why he was not worried about his safety in Heavenly Wood City. Of course, he would need to be careful when he was cultivating with celestial Qi. Long Chen did not have a clear plan right now. He would have to decide when he saw the situation for himself.

If could not use the celestial Qi to cultivate, he could settle down in Heavenly Wood City since it was less hostile than the four other districts. He could also obtain a lot of information while living there. Long Chen’s objective for coming here was to pass through the Ancient Graveyard, so he did not want to miss out on useful information just because he was cultivating.

Therefore, he hurried towards Heavenly Wood City.

Heavenly Wood City was the center point of the Wood District, which was much larger than the Divine Martial Empire. Long Chen previously took twenty days to pass through the Divine Martial Empire, and now that he was much stronger, he took five days to cover the same distance.

When he was still far away, Long Chen stood on the tallest branch to gaze at the gigantic tree on the horizon. The ancient tree was so tall it pierced through the sea of clouds in the sky. Long Chen then flew up through the clouds and saw the crown of the tree, which looked like an island floating on clouds. It was immense, and Long Chen roughly estimated that the area of the crown was equivalent to half of the Cangyang Kingdom!

Heavenly Wood City was built on this tree’s crown!

Long Chen did not dare stop for long in the air, because, to his surprise, many avian-type beasts were flying around. These beasts were even stronger than the Heavenly Phoenix! The Thunder Phoenix and the Nine Wing Vulture were all Category Six King-tier and above, so Long Chen did not want to fight them for no good reason. These demonic beasts probably lived in flocks, so he would be finished if they all swarmed him.

I can’t believe such a large tree exists in this world. How rare.

Long Chen shook his head with a bitter smile and landed. The tree was gigantic. He never would’ve imagined that such a huge tree existed. He suspected that if he stood in front of it, he would think it was a gigantic wall standing between heaven and earth!

“How embarrassing of you to be this shocked in front of a tree. Gigantic objects like this tree are everywhere in the Three Royal Territories, especially in the Desolate Royal Territory. Although the demon race is usually in human form, the sizes of their original forms would startle you to death! The size of this tree is just average.” Little Cat looked at Long Chen with his chubby face. He looked so cute but used such a contemptuous tone when he spoke, making him seem very amusing.

The Desolate Royal Territory! The demon race!

Long Chen could only shut his mouth every time he heard Little Cat talk about the Royal Territories. He was still very far from the masters of the Royal Territories, and he knew that although he was getting stronger and progressing shockingly fast, that was no excuse to be complacent, because he was too far away from his goals.

He was in a hilly area with many trees growing at various heights. The nearer he got to Heavenly Wood City, the larger and more ancient the trees looked. Many of the trees were large enough to build cities on.

The earthly spiritual Qi of the wood element is thick here. I wonder if I can cultivate one of the Five Emperor Seals, namely the Azure Emperor’s Rising Heaven Seal, while I’m here,

Long Chen thought to himself.

The Ancient Graveyard was a land of treasures to Long Chen. Ever since he came here, he had gotten many good items. This was the time to digest all the treasures he had.

It was like looking at a mountain while running your horse to death.[1] Although Heavenly Wood City seemed close, he was quite a distance away from it. As Long Chen walked through the hilly area, he came across many gigantic mountain peaks.

When he arrived in a darker area, he suddenly sensed that his surroundings had gotten colder. The trees here were very tall, so not much light passed through, making the place dim. The only sounds were beast roars far away.

Long Chen did not think too much and continued to hurry along. He heard the sound of water ahead, and the nearer he got to the water source, the colder the surroundings became.

There must be a cold lake ahead,

guessed Long Chen. As expected, when he went closer, he spotted an emerald-green lake. The water was ice-cold, even colder than ice water. Normal people could not even get close to it. However, it was not an issue for Long Chen.

1. this is an idiom – things are farther away than they seem ☜