155: Chapter 155 The Azure Lotus Appears

Gu Shen sat cross-legged in the Immortal Cave with his eyes closed. Twelve Cyber Iron Guards, now fitted with the skeletons of the Sea-Splitting Profound Whale, stood silently in the shadows, their miniature batteries emitting a low, steady hum deep within their chests.

Seven days had passed.

Outside the Immortal Cave, that massive vitality had been lingering in the water currents. It had tested the hardness of the rock strata and scraped its roots against the physical coating of the energy-absorbing gel, but returned empty-handed each time.

"My Lord, the sonar echoes from the external water body have changed in a regular pattern."

The mechanical spider on his shoulder extended its lens, red and blue lights flickering slightly. "The target has stopped its attempts at physical infiltration. High-frequency oscillations have appeared in the surrounding water pressure; it is attempting to send some kind of sonic signal."

Gu Shen slowly opened his eyes. A thread of consciousness split off from the AI Crystal in his Sea of Consciousness, connecting to the external Xuanming Heavy Water Array.

The Formation Plate flickered with a faint light, and a cold, emotionless Divine Thought—devoid of any human emotional fluctuations—followed the vibrations of the water waves into Gu Shen's Sea of Consciousness.

"Outsider, your shell is very hard."

The Divine Thought was extremely direct and simple, lacking the complex desires of greed, anger, and ignorance found in human Cultivators.

Gu Shen did not remove the seals on the Immortal Cave, but instead, through the Formation Plate, coldly and rigidly transmitted his own Divine Thought: "In the Yunmeng Great Swamp, the weak are prey to the strong. If the shell isn't hard, one cannot live long."

The water flow outside paused slightly.

"On you, there is a vitality I do not recognize." That cold Divine Thought went straight to the point. "Hand it over, and you may open your Immortal Cave in this hundred-mile swamp. I will ensure you are not disturbed by great monsters."

A subtle arc appeared at the corner of Gu Shen's mouth.

As expected.

All Heaven And Earth Treasure in the Cultivation World were derivatives of the Heavenly Dao Laws. High-level plant Essence Spirits perceived vitality more keenly than any spirit-seeking Formation Plate. The pure vitality that overflowed when he used the [Heaven and Earth Furnace] to refine the corpse of the Poison Crocodile on the beach earlier had become the best bait.

"Protect me?" Gu Shen's Divine Thought replied steadily. "The Yunmeng Great Swamp is the territory of the Yao Race. Your Excellency doesn't even dare to show your true form, wandering only with a sliver of Divine Thought—what can you possibly protect me from?"

A brief silence.

Then, a soft azure halo emerged in the dark waters outside the Immortal Cave.

Outside the blue light barrier of the Xuanming Heavy Water Array, water currents converged, and azure light condensed. A phantom giant lotus flower slowly bloomed under the high pressure of the deep water. It had nine petals and was entirely like the purest empty azure chalcedony.

Within the heart of the lotus, azure Qi flowed, transforming into the phantom of a young girl draped in thin azure gauze.

She had no physical form, only a projection of her plant Origin. The young girl's eyes were a pure azure color without any highlights, quietly watching the Immortal Cave hidden behind the rock strata.

"My name is The Green Lotus."

The projection of the girl in azure did not open her mouth, but her Divine Thought was exceptionally clear. "My true form is a ten-thousand-year Empty Azure Lotus, rooted in the Great Swamp for over two thousand years. Outsider, your vision is too narrow. I do not fear the foolish creatures in the Great Swamp; what I avoid is the Heaven."

Inside the Immortal Cave, Gu Shen used the AI Crystal to rapidly analyze the logic of this statement.

"Avoid the Heaven?"

Records from the "Strange Records of Swamp Flora" flashed through Gu Shen's mind: When flora become spirits, they seize the creation of Heaven and Earth, and are destined to be destroyed by the Lightning Tribulation on the day they take human form. The more vast the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi they breathe, and the deeper the Karma of the Heavenly Dao they are stained with, the heavier the Lightning Tribulation will be.

"So that's how it is."

A light of realization flashed in Gu Shen's eyes. The Heaven And Earth Treasure of the Great Yu Cultivation World were all 'bait' planted by the Heavenly Dao. The Green Lotus was stuck on the verge of taking human form. If she continued to devour spiritual objects of the Cultivation World to extend her life, it would be equivalent to increasing the stakes of the Heavenly Tribulation; if she did not devour them, she could not withstand the baptism of the Lightning Tribulation.

This was a dead end with no way forward or back.

"You want the vitality in my hands because it can help you deceive the Heavenly Dao and withstand the Heavenly Tribulation." Gu Shen pierced through her weakness.

The Green Lotus's projection did not refute this. "The vitality in your hands does not have the flavor of this world. It is very pure, like a blank sheet of paper. It is a spiritual object without Karma, the only one I have seen in my life."

Gu Shen raised his right hand, and his Divine Sense drew a milky white droplet from his Storage Ring.

essence white dew (medium).

This was the rule-fire of the [Heaven and Earth Furnace], a drop of the purest life Origin left behind after stripping away all Demonic Qi, Impurities, and Heavenly Dao Karma. It did not belong to the Great Yu Heavenly Dao and was not stained by the Karma of the Five Elements.

Gu Shen's fingers moved slightly, and the Formation Plate of the Xuanming Heavy Water Array cracked open a tiny fissure.

The drop of white dew, wrapped in a layer of magic power, passed through the gap between the basalt and the alloy, sent out of the Immortal Cave's light barrier, and suspended in the deep water.

"You can verify the goods."

The Green Lotus's projection reached out with a phantom finger and gently touched the drop of emerald marrow-like liquid.

At the moment of contact, the calm, ripple-free eyes of the girl in azure suddenly surged with intense waves.

The water in the eight-hundred-foot abyss surged violently due to the vibration of her Origin.

"No entanglement of Karma... no mark of the Heavenly Dao... life Origin with the Laws completely stripped away..." There was a trace of undisguised longing in The Green Lotus's Divine Thought.

She could clearly feel that if enough of this "vitality" were infused into her true form, she would not only be able to push her foundation for taking human form to the Peak, but it would also not attract the slightest increase in the Heavenly Tribulation.

This was the only key to jumping out of the dead end of the Lightning Tribulation!

"Outsider." The Green Lotus withdrew her finger, and the drop of white dew floated before her projection. She did not snatch it by force. "What do you want?"

Plant Essence Spirits did not understand human roundabout ways; they believed in the most direct equivalent exchange.

Gu Shen sat on the meditation cushion, his fingers tapping gently on his knees.

"I want the complete skeletons of great monsters above the third rank from the depths of the Great Swamp. The harder, the better; they must be beasts with Lightning, Fire, or Metal attributes."

"I also want the thousand-year cold marrow nurtured in the earth veins of the Great Swamp, as well as top-grade water-attribute Ore produced in the deep water areas."

Gu Shen stated his conditions.

The Cyber Iron Corpses of the Wasteland needed more powerful skeletons to carry the overload output of the nuclear batteries; his future "dual-world Foundation Establishment" needed massive amounts of cold-natured items to suppress the annihilation nuclear energy of the Thirteenth Floor of the Wasteland.

Relying solely on himself to go deep into the Great Swamp to hunt third-rank great monsters carried too much risk and easily attracted group attacks. But if he let a local Essence Spirit that had been rooted in the Great Swamp for two thousand years collect them, it would be an effortless dimensionality reduction strike.

The Green Lotus's phantom flickered slightly.

"There are many abandoned burial grounds for third-rank great monsters in the depths of the Great Swamp. As for the cold marrow and Ore, my roots can penetrate the earth veins to retrieve them for you."

She looked at that drop of wood marrow. "But this drop is not enough."

"This is just a deposit. It's a gift for you."

Gu Shen's voice was cold and rigid, full of confidence. "You bring me what I want in exchange. Cash on delivery, no cheating. As long as your goods are good enough, I have as much of this vitality as you want."

The Green Lotus took a deep look at the cold rock wall.

"Three days later. I will bring the bones."

She did not waste words. The azure halo faded, and the drop of essence white dew was wrapped by water waves and disappeared into the dark deep water.

The water pressure returned to stability.

Inside the Immortal Cave, the Crab's sonar radar disengaged its red light alarm.

"My Lord, the high-energy life form has retreated. The biological magnetic field signal has completely disappeared."

Gu Shen slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air, his tensed dark-gold iron bones relaxing slightly.

This was a game played on the tip of a knife. If The Green Lotus had chosen to attack by force, with her two-thousand-year foundation, this temporarily built Immortal Cave might not have been able to hold. But Gu Shen had calculated that the pressure of the Heavenly Tribulation forced her to choose the safest transaction.

"Cultivators of the Great Yu Cultivation World regard Heaven And Earth Treasures as supreme treasures. But in my eyes, the truly valuable things are the 'blank sheets of paper' that have been washed of Karma by the Great Furnace."

Gu Shen stood up and walked toward the twelve Iron Corpse Puppets that had been fitted with the whale skeletons.

"Three days."

A sharp glint flashed in his eyes. "Before the trade, I must thoroughly polish and stabilize the control arrays of these twelve Iron Corpses. Doing business with the natives of the Great Swamp, if you don't have some hard-currency force in your hands, you'll be swallowed skin and bone at any moment."