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ISSTH – Book 4 – Chapter 429
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Chapter 429: The Golden Crow and the Great Tree
Meng Hao looked around, muttering to himself. He then scanned the area with Spiritual sense. However, other than the golden tree and the Golden Crow, there was no trace of anything else.
“Could it have left this place entirely?” thought Meng Hao. As a Grandmaster of the Dao of alchemy, he had concocted sentient medicinal pills before, the kind that attempted to wrest away good fortune from Heaven and Earth, the type that the Heavens attempted to destroy with Tribulation.
Lost in thought, Meng Hao considered how most such ancient medicinal pills had withered up long ago, and were no doubt nothing more than dust. “Most likely it already shrivelled away into ashes.”
Meng Hao couldn’t imagine how a pill that could break out of the furnace in such a manner could possibly still exist after so many years had passed. He put the matter aside and turned his head to look at the great tree.
After a long moment, he reached out his hand and placed it softly on the surface of the tree.
The instant he touched it, it began to vibrate and slowly emit a golden light. At the same time, the Wood totem tattoo on Meng Hao’s forehead began to emit a green light.
There was no communication or interaction. Instead, there was a sliver of will that had existed for who knew how long in this great tree that, at this moment, was set free. It had encountered something similar to itself that it approved of, and had decided to say its final goodbyes.
Meng Hao looked at the tree and could see that it no longer had any life force left in it. The only thing that remained were the traces of the passage of time.
After a long moment passed, Meng Hao sighed.
“So, this is the place that Yan Song and the others are dying to get to…. No medicinal pill, only a corpse and the remains of a great tree. Even the pill formula in the jade slip is of ancient times. Nowadays, you wouldn’t even be able to find the right medicinal plants. The only thing here worth looking at is that Golden Crow.” Meng Hao looked up at the bird sitting on top of the tree overhead.
Finally, he shook his head and was about to pull back his hand, when suddenly a tremor ran through his body. The previously closed eyes of the Golden Crow snapped open. Powerful life force streamed out, entering into the great tree. Suddenly, power seemed to emanate out from the tree, as if it was… still alive.
Because Meng Hao’s hand was touching the tree, he was able to sense the power of the life force. In that instant, his eyes went wide with disbelief. He looked up again at the Golden Crow, his mind blank. It was an ancient sacred relic of the Crow Divinity Tribe, something that had existed for many years, and was powerful enough to give birth to an entire Tribe.
Nowadays, that once powerful Tribe was fading away and had already begun to split apart.
“This life force….” Meng Hao was struck dumbfounded for a long moment. Finally, he took a deep breath. As a Grandmaster of the Dao of alchemy, he was very familiar with medicinal pills. Just now, he could tell that the life force emanating from the Golden Crow actually contained… the aura of a medicinal pill!
It was not emanating life force, but rather, the power of a medicinal pill!
“Is it because it consumed the medicinal pill, or… is IT the medicinal pill?!” The possibility of the latter sent Meng Hao’s mind and heart reeling. Before coming to this place, he could never have imagined that the Golden Crow of this once powerful Tribe… originated from what had started out as a medicinal pill.
He was a Grandmaster of the Dao of alchemy, and as such, could accept that lakes and mountains could become Demons. However, perhaps his own deep knowledge of alchemy covered over his own eyes in a way that made it impossible for him to conceive of the same thing happening with medicinal pills.
He began to breathe heavily. He was now almost certain that of the two different possibilities he had just considered, it was virtually impossible for the first one to be correct. After consuming a medicinal pill, its aura could not exist for a very long time.
The only correct conclusion was that the medicinal pill had turned into a Demon, which then could exist forever!
Panting, Meng Hao looked up at the Golden Crow and the great tree. Suddenly, an image appeared in his mind. Within the image was an ancient Grandmaster of the Dao of alchemy, sitting beneath a Greenwood Tree, preparing to pass away in meditation. As death neared, he produced the most glorious pill he had ever concocted.
Unfortunately, by the time the pill emerged, the Grandmaster had already breathed his last breath.