1: Borderland Demon Willow
Consciousness, like a faint glimmer drowning in an endless deep sea, struggled arduously to surface.
Cold, suffocation, and a splitting headache as if his skull were exploding... those were the final memories before death arrived.
"I... I didn't die?"
Liu Qingtian abruptly "opened" his "eyes," or rather, he attempted to do so.
But the expected light did not arrive; as far as his vision could reach, it was an eternal, oppressive gloom.
There were no hands or feet, no torso, and he couldn't even feel a heartbeat or breath.
In their place was an incredibly bizarre perception.
He felt himself fixed in one place, unable to move even an inch.
He could "feel" the rough, slightly damp soil tightly wrapping around his... roots?
He could "see" the sparse, low, and twisted weeds around him, and further away, craggy, strange rocks and a gray, hazy sky.
The air was filled with an indescribable aura of vastness and desolation.
A gust of wind blew past, and he heard a rustling sound, clearly feeling many slender, flexible, strip-like things swaying with the wind.
Those were... his willow branches?
Intense panic, like ice water poured over his head, instantly submerged his remaining sliver of consciousness.
"What have I become? A tree?!?"
Fragments of memory surged forth frantically.
He clearly remembered his name was Liu Qingtian, an ordinary office worker on Earth. On his way home from work, just because he curiously took one extra look at a worker operating at height, the next second, a flowerpot that slipped from a hand magnified infinitely before his eyes... and then there was endless darkness.
When he woke up again, he had become like this.
Not reincarnated as a human, not even as a pig, dog, or insect, but a tree!
A willow tree growing in some unknown, desolate mountain wilderness that looked half-dead!
A tremendous sense of absurdity and despair struck his nascent tree soul.
He tried to scream, but could not make any sound; only his willow branches shook more violently a few times.
He tried to struggle, but his roots could only dig deeper into the barren soil, unable to move.
Is this Rebirth?
This is even more cruel than total annihilation!
Consciousness trapped in a plant, in this dead, desolate place; what awaited him was likely either being gnawed on by wild beasts or slowly withering and rotting away. That bit of Soul from Earth would eventually dissipate completely in this unknown corner.
"Damn heavens! Are you messing with me?!"
His heart was bleeding, having just bought a house. He had exhausted all his savings to buy the house, yet died suddenly before living in it for a single day. And he had no parents, no wife; the house would have to revert to the state, meaning all those years he had worked for nothing.
He roared frantically in his heart; if a tree had a heart, it would have surely burst from suffocation by now.
However, no matter how angry or unwilling he was, reality could not be changed.
He was just a weak Demon Willow, so fragile that even the smallest wild beast could gnaw through his roots.
Time seemed to have lost its meaning in this Borderland.
He didn't know how much time had passed, perhaps days, perhaps months.
Liu Qingtian's initial excitement and despair were gradually worn away, replaced by a numb silence.
He could only passively feel everything around him: the alternation of day and night, the wind and rain, and occasionally small beasts running past him, showing no interest in this "dead thing."
The world he was in seemed extremely extraordinary.
Occasionally, terrifying figures would streak across the extremely high and distant sky, the shadows cast blocking out the sun, and the released pressure made the Soul of this little sapling tremble.
He had also heard deafening roars from the distance, causing the earth to tremble slightly.
Everything was confirming a terrifying fact—this was a world where the strong ran rampant and it was dangerous to the extreme.
And he was so weak that he didn't even have the qualifications to be an ant.
Just when Liu Qingtian's consciousness was about to be completely assimilated by this endless loneliness and despair, becoming no different from a real tree...
One day, at the tip of his deepest roots, a strange, unprecedented sensation quietly arrived.
It was the feeling of piercing through some extremely tough barrier, as if a seed had broken through hard frozen soil, or as if his roots had finally reached a long-desired water source.
A feeling of comfort and fulfillment that could not be described in words flowed upstream along that insignificant root tip, slowly surging into his tree body, nourishing his parched and dying Soul.
"What... is this?"
Liu Qingtian's numb consciousness was awakened by this warm current.
He instinctively concentrated all his consciousness on the root that had undergone the strange change.
He "saw" it.
That slender root, in some unknown way, had bizarrely pierced through the unimaginably solid Realm wall of the earth beneath him, entering an indescribable, dead, and dark, strange space.
【Roots have pierced into the 'Bone Abyss', absorbing death origin, comprehending Divine Ability: Wither and Flourish Finger!】
A cold, obscure, yet emotionless stream of information naturally emerged deep within his tree soul, as if an innate instinct were beginning to awaken.
It was not a System prompt, but more like a... realization of the Awakening of an innate Divine Ability!
At the same time, that energy from the place called the 'Bone Abyss', cold and dead, yet containing the strange Origin power of all things returning to silence and moving from death to life, was flowing into his body like a trickle.
His originally somewhat withered and yellow willow branches, at an imperceptible speed, quietly radiated a trace of extremely faint, eerie light.
A small withered leaf about to fall off stopped its withering process; the touch of yellow at the tip of the leaf actually faded slowly, re-condensing a trace of weak vitality.
Liu Qingtian was completely stunned.
He could clearly feel the subtle changes happening to himself, and could understand the Divine Ability information regarding the 'Wither and Flourish Finger'—it was a method to manipulate vitality and Death Qi.
A tremendous sense of ecstasy and disbelief instantly overwhelmed his previous despair.
His roots... could pierce through the Realm wall?
Could steal energy from the Myriad Heavens and Myriad Realms?
"Haha... Hahaha!"
He could not make a sound, but his tree soul was laughing wildly at the sky, and his willow branches trembled slightly with excitement.
Although still weak, and still a tree, the future no longer seemed to be completely dark!
The lively Soul from Earth finally came back online at this moment.
"Myriad Heavens and Myriad Realms buffet? I'm familiar with this! Eat! Eat it for all it's worth!"
"Sumeru Spirit Realm? Borderland Demon Willow? Just you wait! I, Liu Qingtian, won't just be a simple tree from now on!"
He gathered all his focus, no longer complaining or feeling fear, but instead immersed all his consciousness down, greedily guiding that strange root to absorb even more vigorously.
Step one, survive first.
Step two, grow a bit stronger.
As for step three... He "watched" the gray sky where terrifying existences occasionally streaked across; deep within his tree soul, a seed called ambition began to sprout quietly.
A new author is seeking feedback online; if there is anything not good, feel free to say it directly, and I will modify it based on the situation.