Lin Xun had a strange feeling, and all the hair on his body stood on end.

It seemed unbelievable that someone he didn’t know would invite him for a chat from the mysterious saint tree.

“Ah, the years are long and I’m as lonely as the snow. It’s fate that we met today. Why do you want to leave? I just want to have a chat with you,” the clear, gentle voice rang again.

Following that, Lin Xun found an invisible force enveloping him and lifting him to the saint tree!

An ice flower bloomed and sprinkled thousands of rays of light like a dreamy spectacle. Lin Xun was helplessly seated on the crystal tree trunk beside the ice flower, unable to resist from the beginning to the end.

“Friend, you...aren’t you too forceful? How can you call this fate?” Lin Xun gulped with difficulty, trembling inwardly.

Fortunately, he didn’t feel any danger.

Rather, he felt incredibly relaxed and comfortable as he sat on the saint tree and bathed in the sacred rays of ice light.

“The laws of fate are like an illusion and are as empty as anything. It is best to follow your heart and desires. But if you persist obstinately, you will fall to a lower level and oppose the great dao.” As the clear and gentle voice sounded once again, Lin Xun noticed a golden cicada lying peacefully on an ice mat within the blooming ice flower.

The golden cicada was only the size of a newborn baby’s palm, but its clear eyes glowed with a soft golden light that seemed capable of reflecting a person’s deepest secrets.

Even if it was just a cicada, it radiated a glow of wisdom yet had a solemn and carefree charm.

All of a sudden, Lin Xun‘s eyes widened. He never expected there to be a golden cicada besides the white cicada on the ice saint tree!

Could…

Could it also be a terrifying creature who had set foot onto the saint path?

Lin Xun shuddered.

“Is the saint stage terrifying? I don’t think so. It’s just a door on the path of the dao. You are only afraid because you can’t see through its mystery when you are outside the door. One day, when you open the door and walk in, you will find that it is nothing special.” The golden cicada spoke again like it was able to read Lin Xun’s mind. But its voice had a calming power.

“It’s nothing special?” Lin Xun exclaimed. It’s the Saint Path! Since ancient times, countless cultivators have yearned to set foot on that path!

But the golden cicada made it seem extremely ordinary.

“Yes, it’s nothing special.” The golden cicada said aloud, “I had a vision very early on. One day, all living beings in this world will ascend to become saints and be freed from the suffering of old age, sickness and death.”

Lin Xun’s eyes widened in surprise. What a high-sounding sentiment!

Can all living beings in the world become saints?

Who would dare to utter such nonsense?

The golden cicada said in a very gentle tone, “Did it scare you? It doesn’t matter. You don’t need to believe it. It’s my business after all.”

Lin Xun started to calm down a little. “Are we really just chatting?”

“Yes, we are just chatting. Did you know that, before ancient times, the living beings in the world began to awaken their roots of wisdom? Do you know what they first did when they knew about the world?”

Lin Xun couldn’t help asking, “What?” He had never thought about such a question.

“Chat.” The golden cicada's answer left Lin Xun almost speechless.

But the golden cicada quickly explained further, “Chat—they naturally chatted about the matter of heaven. At that time, the world was still in a state of primal chaos. Everything had an ancient and primitive appearance. The existence of heaven was like the incarnation of the great dao. It was too high to be touched and too far away to be reached. If one wants to embark on the road of cultivation, one must understand and explore it.”

“At that time, the first thing that the cultivators who got together did was chat. They chatted about their understanding and perception of heaven and exchanged their experiences with each other. After a long time, the path of cultivation was also explored step by step.”

“That sort of chatting…” Lin Xun said ruminatively after he heard the refreshing explanation of ‘chatting.’

“When you set foot on the saint path, you will have to learn to chat.” The golden cicada continued, “But at that time, you are chatting to the sentient beings. Passing on teaching and enlightenment are all related to the saint path you are pursuing…”

𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

“Is the saint path so particular?” Lin Xun asked in surprise.

Not even the Life Death Stage Kings were able to pry into the mysteries of the saint path because it was too lofty and mysterious.

It was undoubtedly a rare learning opportunity for Lin Xun to learn about the saint path from the mysterious golden cicada.

“Becoming a Saint is not difficult but also is not simple. The path contains many great mysteries. You should know that many saints in the world are only so-called saints. They walk the same old path of the past and have limited achievements. They could at best be called pseudo saints.”

“A true saint must open up a path by themselves.”

Lin Xun palpitated. The Saint Path can be split into true and pseudo.

“The saint without a saint is the true saint, the dao without the dao is the great dao. Thinking about it over and over again will bring headaches. It is better to become unconscious of the boundary between yourself and the external world,” the golden cicada murmured as if it thought of something.

Lin Xun stood there in a daze. He was still far from the Saint Stage. Even if he heard some secrets regarding the Saint Path, it didn’t affect him much.

He only thought that the ‘chat’ was special and even strange and absurd.

In the blood-mist sky of the vast and dangerous Mulberry Woodland, two terrifying Saint-level creatures were locked in a fierce battle while he was sitting atop an ice saint tree and chatting with a golden cicada.

The atmosphere was incredibly bizarre.

There was also the saint fruit almost within his reach!

Only then did he realize that the saint fruit, which was as bright as a sun of ice, wasn’t far from his head.

The fist-sized fruit seemed to be carved from pure ice and emitted thousands of dreamy rays of light.

It had a clear and pure aroma that seemed to penetrate the depths of the soul.

Faintly, there were also mysterious visions flickering around the fruit amidst heavenly sounds.

Bathed in the warm rays of light, Lin Xun suddenly felt his mind relaxed and empty.

His qi, blood, spirit power and energy were all rippling throughout his body, and his Heaven Ascension cave dwelling was roaring and spewing out divine lights.

At that moment, he had forgotten everything.

He forgot about the earth shaking duel in the sky. He forgot that there was a mysterious golden cicada beside him. He forgot to be on guard...

He had fallen into a very peculiar state as if he was merging with the great dao. He also felt he had fallen into a trance with no thoughts.

……

Unknowingly, the battle in the night sky came to an end, and calmness was restored to the world. Even so, the cultivators hiding in various areas of the Mulberry Woodland were still haunted by the experience.

The duel of the Saint Path was too terrifying. Even the Life Death Stage Kings were scared out of their wits.

Who won in the end?

No one knew.

Who were the two Saints who fought?

No one knew.

The battle made everything in the vast Mulberry Woodland feel even more mysterious and dangerous.

“Why don’t you kill him?” The white cicada appeared on the ice saint tree and its eyes flashed with murderous intent when it saw Lin Xun bathed in the sacred light.

The golden cicada looked at Lin Xun and said leisurely, “It’s not easy to awaken. It is fate that I met such an interesting young man. I have no killing intent in my heart, so how can I take his life?”

“Interesting?” The white cicada said disdainfully, “He is just a teenager at the Heaven Ascension Stage. He isn’t the only one who has embarked on the supreme path. He might have obtained the No-Nonsense Bow and the Biluo Arrow, but that pair of treasures have long lost their original power. How is he interesting?”

“You won’t understand.” The golden cicada shook his head. “You only see the outside, but there is something more interesting about him.”

“Oh? How about I kill him and tear open his body to see what’s so interesting about him?” The white cicada chuckled.

The golden cicada said leisurely, “If you do that, then I will just reconstruct his body using the saint fruit.”

“Do you dare?!” The white cicada’s voice turned ice-cold.

“Do you think that there are things in this world that I dare not to do? Don’t forget that the reason I chose to stay silent here is just to wait for an opportunity to prove an idea I have. Only you would care so much about something so insignificant.” The golden cicada’s voice was gentle and calm as always.

The white cicada asked after a long period of silence, “What exactly do you want to do?”

The golden cicada responded casually, “I want to see what saint path this young man will walk. It’s like planting a seed. I want to see what kind of flower it will produce.”

“You still believe in the so-called hope. I already told you that the path you imagined does not exist in this world,” the white cicada laughed. “If you don’t believe it, then just wait and see!”

“Then let’s wait and see,” the golden cicada uttered calmly.

……

When the night faded, Lin Xun woke up. He was puzzled at first, but then shock flooded his heart!

The ice saint tree was gone, and he was sitting on a boulder surrounded by blood-red fog. It was as though everything he experienced last night was nothing but a dream.

“This…” he sprang up, glancing around.

Everything had indeed vanished. Even the golden cicada seemed to have never existed.

“No! It wasn’t a dream!” He very quickly found that his body seemed to have been reborn. Every inch of his skin was oozing with mighty life force, and his spirit power was bubbling like an ocean. The tremendous power added a sacred aura to his Heaven Ascension cave dwelling.

His cultivation had reached the perfect level of the upper Heaven Ascension Stage!

He seemed to have received enlightenment overnight!