201: Chapter 201 The Giant Tree

The giant tree had a rather strange appearance; its trunk diameter was approximately three hundred zhang, yet its total height was only about one hundred and fifty zhang.

And of those one hundred and fifty zhang, one-third consisted of branches and leaves.

Lin Qing arrived before the trunk, took a deep breath, and slowly reached his hand out toward the giant tree.

There was no other way; this area suppressed Divine Thought, and he could not even use it to probe ahead, so he had no choice but to take a risk.

"Who are you?"

As soon as Lin Qing's hand touched the giant tree, a voice transmitted into his mind. Even with Lin Qing's Heart-Nature, he was startled and quickly withdrew his hand.

The voice sounded very immature, like that of a five or six-year-old child.

The good news was that after Lin Qing touched the giant tree, it did not trigger a Heavenly Tribulation. This was actually within his expectations; he naturally would not have performed such a dangerous action as touching the giant tree without some degree of certainty.

The Heavenly Tribulation from fifty thousand years ago must have been triggered by the giant tree before him, perhaps because its Rank was too high, or perhaps because it was an exotic species.

In any case, it had already undergone the tribulations it was meant to endure, so the Heavenly Tribulation would naturally not descend again; there was no reason for the Heavenly Tribulation to keep striking it.

The even better news was that this giant tree had already birthed intelligence. Treasures that could spontaneously develop intelligence were extremely rare and were excellent Materials for crafting a Lifebound Treasure.

Although Divine Artifacts forged from conventional Materials also possessed a certain level of consciousness, their level of intelligence was extremely low. For instance, that staircase Divine Artifact outside the mountain gate almost only acted according to predetermined programs; it did not even know that the Kunxu Immortal Sect had been destroyed and was still there presiding over the entrance examination.

However, this also put Lin Qing in a difficult position. He had originally intended to try and store the giant tree directly into his Storage Ring, but now that the giant tree had already developed intelligence, he naturally could not do that.

Storage Rings could not contain living things, and the giant tree clearly fell into the category of a living thing now. Thus, how to take it away became a major problem.

Furthermore, now that it had intelligence, there was no telling if it would agree to go with Lin Qing.

Lin Qing dared not use forceful measures. He was not quite sure if the giant tree had the ability to resist, but he dared not test it lightly.

If the opponent could truly resist, Lin Qing did not believe he could withstand its attack.

After thinking about it, Lin Qing decided to try communicating first, so he reached his hand out again.

"Who are you?"

That immature child's voice transmitted into Lin Qing's mind again. However, this time he did not withdraw his hand, but instead transmitted his voice to the tree using his own consciousness.

"My name is Lin Qing. Who are you?"

"Lin Qing? Who is Lin Qing? Who am I? I am just me!"

Lin Qing confirmed it; not only did the tree sound like a child, but its mental capacity was also the same.

After all, it was only a sapling fifty thousand years ago, and in these fifty thousand years, no other living beings had appeared here.

Moreover, it looked like it had not obtained any Legacy memories or anything of the sort.

The corners of Lin Qing's mouth curled up slightly. If that was the case, then it would be easy to trick... no, easy to communicate with.

He transmitted his voice into the giant tree once more.

"Lin Qing is me! I am a person. How about you? Do you have a name?"

"You are a person? Me? I don't have a name."

Upon hearing that Lin Qing was a person, the giant tree's voice became somewhat excited, and when it spoke of itself, one could clearly sense its disappointment.

It knows about people? It seemed that although it lacked Legacy memories, it was not a blank slate, and it did not know how to hide its own emotions.

"Then, shall I give you a name?"

"Okay, okay."

Lin Qing looked over the giant tree's short, stout trunk again and said:

"How about you be called Little Mound?"

"Little Mound, Little Mound! Yay, I have a name now! My name is Little Mound."

The giant tree's voice was filled with obvious joy, and at the same time, the leaves and branches on its body began to sway.

Cold sweat nearly broke out on Lin Qing. It could actually move; fortunately, he had chosen to communicate with it first, otherwise the consequences would have been unimaginable.

The communication had a good start, and Lin Qing intended to continue pushing forward. He tried his best to make his tone sound gentle.

"Little Mound, how long have you been here? Does no one usually play with you?"

Lin Qing certainly knew its situation, but he asked this on purpose to pave the way for what was to come next.

Sure enough, Little Mound's emotions were stirred by Lin Qing, and its originally happy voice became disappointed.

"I don't know how long I've been here, but it has always been just me here."

"Ah, Little Mound, are you that lonely? Do you want me to take you out to the outside world?"

"Lonely? What is lonely?"

"Lonely means that the days are exactly the same, over and over again. In the endless years to come, there will only be you as the sole living being here."

This was not a perfect definition of loneliness, but the way Lin Qing said it was enough to make Little Mound feel afraid.

After hearing what Lin Qing said, the giant tree's branches and leaves trembled again, much more violently than before.

"No, I don't want to be lonely. Lin Qing, will you take me out? I want to go to the outside world."

Lin Qing flashed a smile.

"Okay!"

Under the circumstance that he could not put Little Mound into his Storage Ring, refining it into a Lifebound Treasure was the better choice. Furthermore, after refining, Little Mound's intelligence would be preserved. However, Lin Qing's current Artifact Refiner Rank was only at the eighth stage; although he could successfully refine it by force, the result would not be perfect.

Although a Lifebound Treasure could continue to be refined and strengthened later, this first step was the most important; it related to the growth potential of the Lifebound Treasure.

Lin Qing did not want to crudely refine his Lifebound Treasure, so he chose another method to take Little Mound away, which was to sign a contract first.

Lin Qing had long since learned Beast Taming Technique methods, and with the support of his Words Become Law talent, the effect was much stronger than ordinary Beast Taming Technique.

However, that method would cause a certain amount of damage to Little Mound's Soul and significantly reduce its growth potential, so Lin Qing chose another, gentler type of contract.

This kind of contract did not possess the ability of forced constraint; it was more like a vow. Once the contract was made, both parties would become good friends, and then Little Mound could stay inside Lin Qing's body, just like that world core.

With the dao child token, Lin Qing's spiritual power was not suppressed as severely as other people's.

However, in order to perfectly execute the contract technique, he still prepared to strengthen the spell, so he took out an eighth-stage Spiritual Weapon and slashed it toward his finger.

"Clang—!"

Black lines appeared on Lin Qing's face; the eighth-stage Spiritual Weapon had snapped.

Now that Divine Thought could not be used, he had not yet broken open the Storage Rings of those super-faction Disciples, but fortunately, they had not managed to retrieve their weapons before they died, and Lin Qing had picked them up and stored them in his own Storage Ring.

Lin Qing took out another longsword and slashed it toward his finger; the Rank of this longsword reached the ninth stage.

"Clang—!"