Chapter 1 The Beginning

July 28, 2014, 7:00 AM.

The beginning of a day lies in food, whether for people or plants.

To be honest, judging from the way the Wisdom Tree's spirit writhed in his soul space, it seemed quite unwilling when Su Zhou watered it with kimchi juice.

"It's so picky."

But the cold-hearted watering machine, Su Zhou, didn't care about that. He first turned around and watered the potted garlic, ginger, and scallions with wooden spiritual fluid mixed with kimchi juice, and then came back to water the tree. As he passed the living room, he complained loudly, "Yala, didn't you say the Divine Tree is easy to raise? How can it not even accept kimchi juice?"

Yala, who was watching the morning news in the living room, didn't want to reply, but instead turned up the volume of the TV.

Su Zhou didn't really care about these things. His soul was connected to the spirit of the Wisdom Tree. Although it kept twisting and turning, the feeling of 'hungry, hungry, hungry' that came from it clearly lessened, indicating that it was quite happy to drink.

Does the law of "it smells good" apply to everything?

Of course, Su Zhou wasn't a demon. After watering it with kimchi juice, he took out the spirit blood of the Wood Centipede and poured a bag of it in, neat and tidy.

[爽 (Shuang)~!] (Refreshing!)

"……?"

At first, Su Zhou thought he was hearing things, but the echo in his soul wouldn't lie—looking at the Wisdom Tree bonsai, whose branches and leaves seemed to have stretched out a bit, he thought for a while and poured in another bag of spirit blood.

[爽 (Shuang) ~!] (Refreshing!)

Sure enough, Su Zhou found that he had heard that [爽 (Shuang)] (Refreshing!) sound again!

This immediately made him feel playful—without saying a word, Su Zhou directly poured in the remaining two bags of spirit blood. He could see that a total of four liters of spirit blood, from the beginning to the end, had sunk into the bonsai pot, without any sign of overflowing. The sweet and fishy corrosive spirit blood didn't even corrode the leaves at all, but was completely absorbed!

With the four liters of spirit blood completely absorbed, the surface of the Wisdom Tree bonsai's trunk began to flicker with light!

Pure white light shot out from the gaps in the bark, and the holy light spread along the veins in the branches and leaves, evaporating wisps of strange, ethereal azure qi… Su Zhou keenly noticed that this azure qi carried a hint of divinity, and this feeling of divinity was both opposed to and integrated with the holy light inherent in the Wisdom Tree itself. The strong can plunder everything from the weak.

—The Wood Centipede should be a member of some kind of Divine Tree's family, and judging from this, the Divine Trees are in competition with each other? It seems like they can't get along harmoniously.

The thought flashed through his mind. Su Zhou looked at the Wisdom Tree bonsai, which was obviously much more lush, and couldn't help but praise it in his heart. He immediately took out the bag containing the wooden spiritual fluid, left some to make centipede egg soup, and poured the rest in happily.

[Good!]

At this time, what Su Zhou could hear in his mind was not just simple joy, but a strong sense of anticipation and approval. And he could also see that as the wooden spiritual fluid containing a large amount of wood-attributed spiritual energy sank into the soil and was absorbed by the Wisdom Tree sapling, a trace of pure white, sacred, and clean lines appeared all over the other party's body!

After that, all the lines began to converge, and these luminous lines converged on both sides of the branches, condensing at their ends to form the small prototypes of two fruits!

"They're growing!"

Looking at the two tiny prototypes, which were even smaller than his little fingernail, Su Zhou's heart was also filled with the pure and simple joy of an Awakened—to be honest, he felt quite a bit of heartache when he poured down the wooden spiritual fluid, after all, he only got one bag from killing an entire evil spirit. If the Wisdom Tree didn't react to this stuff, he would really throw a tantrum!

But fortunately, the Wisdom Tree sapling wasn't so pretentious. Although the fruit hadn't grown well yet, at least the spiritual fluid irrigation was useful, and the progress bar was increasing.

"No matter what task it is, as long as there's a progress bar, I'll complete it for you!"

He patted the Wisdom Tree sapling, and then poked the Wisdom Tree spirit in his soul space, causing the other party to twist unhappily. Su Zhou got up and left contentedly, preparing to go to sleep.

This battle with the Wood Centipede was short but intense, consuming a great deal of energy, but the harvest was also great.

"When the materials from Qiming are ready, I can go and prepare for the Awakening Ritual."

Lying on the bed, Su Zhou, whose head was about to touch the pillow, thought to himself, "After Awakening, there will be many things to do, whether it's driving away the evil spirit from Aunt Wen and Qiming, or refining new weapons… Huff~"

He fell asleep.

This was Su Zhou's habit: to fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, and never bring fatigue into his sleep.

Yala, who was in front of the TV in the living room, was focused on browsing news from various regions, and it didn't even miss international news on the international channel—the Snake Spirit browsed and analyzed every detail in its heart, and corresponded it to the information it held.

After a long time, it turned off the TV and began to think seriously.

"This world… is too different from what I thought."

Looking up at the ceiling, Yala's gaze seemed to be able to penetrate the cement and the sky, sinking into the higher heavens. Its voice was extremely soft, and only it could hear it: "This inexplicable information disturbance is simply a hodgepodge. How could an ordinary world be like this… Where exactly in the void is this world? Why can't I even recognize it at all?!"

"What exactly happened in the void during the years we were sealed?"

"Seal Gate… Celestial Inscription… the truth…"

When Su Zhou woke up, it was already five hours later.

"It's exactly 12:10 noon, time to wash my face, brush my teeth, and eat lunch."

Looking at the time, the young man, feeling hungry again, got up with a refreshed face, and found that Yala was lying on his left ear, also sleeping.

This immediately made him slow down a little.

The TV in the living room was still on, and it was currently broadcasting the local noon news in Hongcheng. Su Zhou, who turned down the volume a little, listened to the news while brushing his teeth in the washroom to keep up with current events.

Then, he heard some rather familiar things.

[At 4:00 AM today, a large-scale gas leak occurred in the residential area around Ganshui Second Road. Local patrol officers and fire brigades were dispatched urgently and safely evacuated 461 people. The engineering team is currently carrying out emergency repairs.]

[The 719 major serial perverted murder case has seen its seventh victim. The local police department has declared that it has found crucial clues and will soon be able to arrest the perpetrator and close the case. Residents do not need to panic.]

[Hongcheng has been selected as this year's best green city…]

"It seems that the authorities have found the Wood Centipede demon's corpse and nest—and is this moth-like 'best green city' the reason why these wood-attribute demons ran over here?"

These all sounded like very ordinary news, but Su Zhou, who knew the key information, knew the truth behind these official news. Knowing that his battle might have affected innocent people, he scratched his head in annoyance: "Fighting in the city does affect other people, but if I don't kill the demon as soon as possible, it will harm even more people… My consideration was indeed somewhat inappropriate, but I had to do it."

Now, Su Zhou still remembered the corpses used to cultivate black moss in the sewer… No one wants to be quietly taken away by a giant worm and rot in the dirty sewage.

But even if you're doing the right thing, you have to think about doing it as 'more right' as possible. This was Su Zhou's creed.

Fortunately, although Su Zhou was friendly and helpful, he wouldn't get entangled in meaningless things. He opened the refrigerator, ate eight slices of bread and drank a can of milk (a total of 960 calories), put on his clothes, and then picked up the phone to call his best friend.

"Hello, is this Qiming? It's Su Zhou! I'm ready…"

At the same time, the First Affiliated Hospital of Hongcheng Academy.

In a hidden, fully enclosed, large-scale underground sterile room, a total of thirty-four physicians with the titles of professor and associate professor were waiting.

"Didn't they say it might take a week or two to send it over?"

"According to the news, the target had an accident last night and was exposed, and was killed by the special operations team that arrived."

"It is said that this target is completely different from the previously mutated beasts, such as the two-headed snake and the human-faced fish. It is a truly awakened, real monster…"

The familiar physicians were whispering about some topics that were quite unbelievable to the outside world, more like strange tales and anecdotes than rigorous medicine.

"Did I miss an episode, or even a whole TV series…"

This scene made Su's mother, Ning Shiyu, who came here for the first time, feel dazed for a while, thinking that she was in the urban legends that her son usually liked to watch.

But soon, the legends were no longer legends.

Because, as a specially reinforced refrigerated transport truck entered the hospital's underground parking station, the professors and directors who were waiting in formation would welcome their first dissection target with the 'extraordinary' prefix in a huge and specially strengthened operating room.

—It was a Wood Centipede that had been nailed to death from head to tail with seven huge rune iron nails, but whose body was still maintained in a state of activity under layers of secret methods.