His new ambition was born in his soul like a cold sun. Ascension. The word was no longer a vague desire but a concrete, burning objective. The universe was an infinite ocean, and he would not spend his life as a prisoner in this single, tiny drop of water. The tree he had conquered was a key, yes. But a key is only meaningful if there is a lock to open. And that lock lay beyond the silent, green borders of his forest.
For days, Lian sat almost motionless, bearing the weight of this new reality. His mind was a storm. To ascend, he needed more power. For more power, he needed more resources. And the richest resources, the purest veins of Qi, undoubtedly lay near or directly beneath the cities and sects established by the humans he so despised. The forest had given him life, but it had now become a cradle that restricted his growth.
The thought rekindled that old, familiar disgust in his gut. The smell of people, their sounds, their very existence... But now, alongside this revulsion, there was a new feeling: a cold, pragmatic necessity. A tiger would not hesitate to enter the mud it loathed to catch its prey. And he, to launch himself into that ocean, had to step into this muddy world.
However, a mountain of a problem, quite literally, stood in his way. The Heartwood.
His greatest treasure was also his greatest anchor. He could not leave it here; its power, its wisdom, and its fruits were the foundation of his cultivation. But he could not wander the world carrying it on his back. It was a beacon, a lighthouse. To openly carry such a power source would be to invite every ambitious and greedy being in this world upon him. He had to find a way to make the tree smaller, more portable.
He turned to the knowledge the Heartwood had bestowed upon him. The tree itself was a pure Qi conductor. Its form was solid, yet fluid. Perhaps, with the right incentive, its form could be changed. A wild idea came to him. Dangerous, crude, and likely excruciating. It was exactly his style.
He had only ever used his "Devouring Skin" technique to draw external energy inward. What if he did the reverse? What if he forcibly injected his own wild, chaotic energy into the tree's orderly, pure system? It was like trying to change a river's course with a flash flood. It would either reshape the riverbed or burst the dam and destroy him along with it.
The risk was a worthy price for the reward.
He approached the massive trunk. He placed his palms on the moon-white bark. This time, he would not gently mimic. This time, he would conquer. He closed his eyes and unleashed the tempestuous ocean in his Dantian. He pushed his raw, green-and-blue chaos energy, like an invading army, from his palms and into the tree.
The tree screamed. It was not an audible scream, but a spiritual echo of pure agony and violation that tore at his mind. The calm, blue meridians on its trunk flashed erratically, wildly. The trunk trembled under Lian's touch, resisting. Its pure, orderly life force clashed with Lian's wild, unstable power in a war of chaos.
Lian gritted his teeth in pain. This was not only harming the tree, but himself as well. Pumping his energy out like this was like tearing open his own veins. But he did not retreat. He held his will, like an iron vise, over the flow of energy. "SHRINK," he commanded from his mind, not with words, but with a pure, uncompromising command. "CONTRACT. CONFORM YOUR FORM TO MINE."
The hours passed like a torture session. Sweat poured from his body in streams. But he did not yield. And finally, he felt a crack in the tree's resistance. The ancient, passive will began to buckle under Lian's relentless, brutal pressure.
And then, something incredible happened.
The tree began to shrink. The massive trunk, emitting flashes of light, contracted in on itself, its branches merging with the trunk, its bark pulling inward. It was a slow, loud process. The cracking of rock, the groaning of wood, and the blasts of spiritual energy filled the forest. In a few minutes, all that remained of the mountain-like being was a simple, smooth wooden staff, about two meters long, lying at Lian's feet.
The staff retained the moon-white color of the tree. The thin, blue meridians on its surface now glowed softly, more calmly. It was surprisingly light, but when Lian picked it up, he could feel the mountain-like power, the compressed, dense life essence, sleeping within. The Heartwood was now his staff, his companion, and his portable power source.
Exhausted but triumphant, he looked at his new weapon. He was ready.
With his old leather pouch of Chaos Fruits on his back and his new staff in hand, he took one last look at this clearing, this forest that had been his "home" for years. Every tree, every rock, was a memory of a scar on his body. But this place was now too small for him. Without looking back, he began to walk toward the edge of the forest, toward the world he did not know and hated.
Hours later, he felt a change. The trees began to thin, becoming more orderly. In the air, there was not only the clean scent of leaves and earth, but also the smell of cut wood, of ashen smoke, and... the unfamiliar, docile scent of domesticated animals. It was the scent of captivity.
And then he saw it. An unnatural, brown scar across the earth: a path. A road, shaped by the will and crushed by the feet of humans.
Instantly, his stomach turned. The primal hatred he had suppressed for years surged to the surface. It was an irrational feeling. The path had done nothing to him, but it was a symbol of everything he despised. The beginning of their world. A brand seared onto nature by their weakness.
Instinctively, he hid behind a tree. Like a hunter, silent and dangerous. His eyes scanned the path. It seemed to lead to a village or town ahead. The smell of smoke came from that direction. The goal of Ascension had brought him here. But his entire being screamed at him to turn back, to flee into the safe darkness of the forest.
His ambition and his hatred were at war within his soul, two colossal beasts tearing at each other. And Lian, for the first time in his life, did not know which beast to feed.