Chapter 1: Storage Wood (Part 2)

A light rain of blood drifted down, lasting less than a minute before fading away quietly. Eagle Demon reached out to catch the tiny drops of blood, licked them slightly on his palm with his tongue, closed his eyes to taste them, and frowned, saying, “It’s the blood of mutated talisman beasts—not naturally formed…”
Zhang Yaojin stared at the sky, his face gradually turning pale. After a while, he said, “I… seem to understand a bit now!”
Guo Shier asked, “What?”
Zhang Yaojin replied, “If I’m guessing correctly… this is the ground beneath Qikoujiao, with Qikoujiao in the Black Mist Area above! The rain of blood… is from mutated talisman beasts that strayed here and were crushed by the ancient talisman array above, then scattered down—hence there’s so much storage wood here!”
Guo Shier couldn’t see any connection between this place and Qikoujiao, but since Zhang Yaojin sounded so confident, he decided to believe him for now. He asked, “Brother Zhang, which quality of storage wood is the best?”
Zhang Yaojin sighed for a while before calming down and saying, “I don’t know how long no one has been here, but there should be plenty of top-quality storage wood. Let me think… what kind of storage wood is the best?”
Guo Shier hadn’t received this inheritance; whether it was Anluo Stone, Blood Soul Stone, or storage wood, he had only heard about them from his elders.
The three stood quietly in front of the ancient talisman door. After a while, Zhang Yaojin said, “Two types of storage wood are the best—one is Thunder Strike Storage Wood, and the other is the kind that withers naturally after ten thousand years. Well, since the three of us came down first, let’s search based on our own abilities. What we find belongs to us. As for Chen Zhen Dong and the others… there’s so much storage wood here that we can’t take it all. Let them come in and collect it themselves later.”
“Thunder Strike Storage Wood? Storage wood that withers naturally after ten thousand years?” Guo Shier pondered, filled with anticipation. Suddenly, Zhang Yaojin said, “But… I still have one doubt…”
Eagle Demon frowned and asked, “Are there mutated talisman beasts?”
Zhang Yaojin shook his head and said, “No, there won’t be mutated talisman beasts here. But there might be mutated talisman worms! Or maybe something else we don’t know about—definitely not easy to deal with.”
Guo Shier said, “That makes sense. This place… seems like a sacred place for cultivation too. Well, let’s explore first and collect some storage wood along the way.”
Just as Zhang Yaojin was about to move, Guo Shier said, “Wait, I still don’t know how to collect this storage wood.”

Eagle Demon couldn’t help but laugh. Guo Shier was always so unexpected. Zhang Yaojin stared at him in shock, while the little kid said without the slightest shame, “I’m just a child… it’s normal not to understand.”
“Huh? Oh… this… this is impossible… There’s a tradition regarding how to collect Zuling Wood.”
Guo Shier said innocently, “I forgot!” In fact, he really hadn’t received any such tradition. Knowledge about Zuling Wood and similar things could only be passed down to those who reached the Saint Master level in the Chenxiao Sect. When he was in the sect, he was only a Grand Spellcaster, so he never received such teachings.
Zhang Yaojin said, “Oh, so you just forgot. Alright, let me tell you…” The method of collecting Zuling Wood wasn’t complicated. He talked non-stop for about ten minutes, explaining the basics to Guo Shier. Only after finishing did he realize, “Huh? That makes no sense. How can one forget soul inheritance?”
Guo Shier smiled and said, “Well, I remember now.”
Zhang Yaojin was furious. Guo Shier laughed and said, “Children tend to forget things… Brother Zhang, we need to go back in three days. Let’s hurry up.” Then he released the Dark-Winged Demon Scorpion. He didn’t dare release the Giant Nesting Dragon, as Zuling Wood was too precious. With the Dragon’s huge size, it would be easy to destroy large areas of it.
Guo Shier knew all the methods Zhang Yaojin had taught him. There were two ways to collect it: one was to collect the core of the Zuling Wood, and the other was to transplant the entire plant into a Planting Seal, then nurture it in one’s own Life Seal Book to obtain top-quality Zuling Wood. Of course, this only applied to wood collected by oneself, as only by nurturing it within one’s own soul could the wood become compatible with it.
Guo Shier had many Planting Seals; he had made quite a few just for fun, and they came in handy now.
As for collecting the core of Zuling Wood, it was even simpler—just refine it using Spellfire. The higher the quality of the Spellfire, the better the core that could be obtained, and the faster the refinement process.
Zhang Yaojin said, “I’ll go left, you go right. Let’s rely on luck!”
Guo Shier nodded and said, “If we encounter any danger, contact each other immediately.”
Zhang Yaojin was already impatient. He turned and rushed toward the left. Guo Shier sat on the scorpion’s back and said, “Uncle Eagle Demon, let’s go this way.” Eagle Demon flew onto the scorpion’s back and said, “Be careful.”
Guo Shier guided the Dark-Winged Demon Scorpion to the right. He was very cautious—this was a treasure-rich area, and who knew what dangerous things might be around. He felt his strength wasn’t enough to handle anything, so it was better to be careful.

The Zulijing trees grew lushly. Though not extremely dense, their numbers were astonishing. There was also mist here, not very thick, allowing visibility for hundreds of meters—much better than in the areas filled with dark fog.

Guo Shier said, “Zulijing trees… the thousand-year-old ones are the largest, while the ten-thousand-year-old ones are smaller… Troublesome. How can we tell them apart?”

Eagle Demon smiled bitterly. “I don’t know either.”

The Zulijing trees all looked similar—black trunks, leaves as small as corn kernels, and bright red leaf clusters on the branches, glowing brightly in groups. Guo Shier sighed, “It’s like a painting, a painting of plum blossoms in ink and cinnabar.”

Eagle Demon asked in surprise, “What are plum blossoms in ink and cinnabar? I know plum blossoms, but what are ink and cinnabar?”

Guo Shier shook his head. He couldn’t explain—it was something he had encountered in his past life; it didn’t exist in this one. He said, “It’s nothing. Since we can’t find the ten-thousand-year-old ones, finding a thousand-year-old one is still good. Let’s collect them slowly.” By then, they had already ventured deep into the forest of Zulijing trees.

“There’s a Zulijing tree over there—really big!”

Eagle Demon’s sharp eyes spotted a particularly thick Zulijing tree. Guo Shier nodded. “I’ll refine it… Heh, hoping to successfully extract the wood core.”

Guo Shier had the best talisman fire, which he had gathered in the Yanhu Secret Realm.

They soon reached that Zulijing tree. Guo Shier spat out a ball of golden talisman fire, and instantly, the tree caught fire. The power of the golden talisman fire was immense; within a few minutes, it reduced the tree to ashes. Guo Shier was stunned.

Eagle Demon also opened his mouth wide. After a while, he said, “It burned so fast… It seems like nothing’s left!”

Guo Shier hadn’t moved yet, but the Dark Winged Scorpion did. It crawled a few steps, its giant scorpion pincers digging through the ashes and revealing a green crystal. But the crystal was far too small compared to the pincers; it couldn’t hold it.

Eagle Demon, with his sharp eyes, said, “There’s something!” He rushed over, grabbed the green crystal, took a glance, then flew back and handed it to Guo Shier. “It’s nothing special—just a piece of transparent wood.” He still didn’t realize its value.

Guo Shier took it and examined it carefully.

It was hexagonal, with pointed ends, like a crystal rod—about the thickness of an egg and half a foot long. It was covered with dense talisman patterns, layered upon each other, as if formed by stacked spells, looking extremely peculiar. Guo Shier exclaimed, “Just one fire could turn it into this? This is truly amazing.”

Since he could use his talisman fire to produce crystals from storage wood, Guo Shier didn’t hold back—he burned through them all. Of course, he didn’t burn randomly; he chose only those he wanted. Once, he produced a dark green crystal and realized that this was the true ten-thousand-year storage wood. By trying to sense it with his soul, Guo Shier finally uncovered a secret: most small trees that gave his soul a sense of great comfort were ten-thousand-year-old or nearly ten-thousand-year-old storage woods, which filled him with joy. With so many storage woods available, even with soul sensing, Guo Shier was overwhelmed. Fortunately, he had plenty of talisman fire. In the end, he released the Ancient Flame Sparrow to help burn them. Once a crystal was produced, the Ancient Flame Sparrow would return it to Guo Shier. The two of them, along with a scorpion, swept through everything. Guo Shier wasn’t greedy—he left most of the trees that weren’t old enough, collecting only those over a thousand years old. Guo Shier collected storage woods easily, but Zhang Yaojin suffered greatly. He didn’t have advanced talisman fire, only the inferior ones he had obtained before, which were impure and needed to be refined through his soul. Although he was already a sage-level professional, those talisman fires hadn’t been purified yet, so burning storage woods was extremely slow. It took Zhang Yaojin over two hours to collect his first piece of storage wood, and the crystal obtained was not pure enough, containing many impurities that required further refinement with advanced talisman fire. Earlier, Zhang Yaojin had been a bit selfish—he didn’t know Guo Shier had a large supply of advanced talisman fire, as many sage-level experts didn’t possess it either. He thought Guo Shier couldn’t have such precious talismans. To avoid slowing down his own collection, he suggested splitting up. Refining storage woods with talisman fire was slow, so Zhang Yaojin had another method: using Planting Talismans. He wasn’t a glutton, and although he had Planting Talismans, there weren’t many. He discarded all the plants in them and only transplanted a dozen or so storage woods. Even so, he was satisfied. Storage woods weren’t found everywhere; they were distributed in several areas. The Ancient Talisman Sect’s area was the largest, along with many smaller ones, totaling only about a hundred acres. There were thousands of storage woods, each with a different age. Guo Shier had already left the largest area without encountering any danger, which surprised him greatly.

Leaving the forest of stored lattice wood, Guo Shier saw a dead forest not far away, its sparse branches standing out sharply. He was overjoyed, as he remembered what Zhang Yaojin had said—that only after naturally dying could the wood become the best stored lattice wood. He immediately spurred the Dark Winged Demon Scorpion to race forward.
Guo Shier prayed silently, “Please… please be the thousand-year stored lattice wood…”