Chapter 652: This Deal Is Simply Huge Profit with Tiny Investment!

Half an hour later.

Led by Ye Qing, Su Ming arrived at the "Qingyou Residence" located in the upper-middle section of the Banyan's main trunk.

The environment here was indeed, as Ye Qing had said, tranquil to the extreme. The vitality suffusing the air nearly condensed into tangible dewdrops in midair.

The two guards who had originally stood inseparable outside the door had now vanished without a trace. In their place, an ordinary guard stood at the corner of the corridor.

"That guard is nominally your guide, but under normal circumstances, he will never come within ten zhang of your dwelling." Ye Qing hinted before taking his leave.

Su Ming watched Ye Qing depart, then closed the heavy wooden door behind him with a backhand push.

"Click."

"Two personal guards reduced to a single distant sentry. Called a guide, but in reality, the intensity of this surveillance has taken a cliff-like drop in relaxation." Lin Yu's Soul Body floated out from the ring, circled the spacious tree hollow once, and nodded with considerable satisfaction. "Those tree spirits have at least shown some sincerity."

"Sincerity is built on value. Once I fail to repair the next formation, those withdrawn guards will double their presence at any moment." Su Ming walked to the deepest part of the meditation room, his gaze becoming extremely focused.

"Minor Void Spirit Attraction Formation, rise!"

"Burp-"

In merely the time of half an incense stick, Lin Yu let out a world-shaking burp of satisfaction.

Even on the surface of his Soul Body, faint traces of profoundly mysterious dark-gold lines emerged. That was the mark of the Spirit Nourishing True Explanation circulating to its absolute limit, a qualitative leap in the essence of his soul power!

"Comfortable... so comfortable!" Lin Yu hovered in midair, stroking a belly that did not exist, and let out a heartfelt sigh of contentment. He turned his head, looked at Su Ming who was madly absorbing spiritual energy, and grinned. "Disciple, your teacher suddenly feels that even if those Dark Current Sect lunatics came knocking, we could still stay here for quite some time. This deal is simply huge profit with tiny investment!"

He sat cross-legged at the edge of the formation, circulating the Like Water Art to an unprecedented limit.

A long drought meeting sweet rain!

One Greater Circulation.

Ten Greater Circulations.

Thirty Greater Circulations!

Only two hours had passed.

"About to break through. Unfortunately, Void Stones are running low. I wonder if the spirit realm has any Void Stones." Su Ming stood up, flicked his fingertip, and cut off the spiritual energy supply to the formation.

The palm-length spatial crack lost its support. Under the powerful self-repair of the spirit realm's world laws, it instantly sealed shut, leaving not even a trace behind.

"You brat are just born with a toiling fate. Even eating a full meal requires endless calculation." Lin Yu floated back onto the tabletop and sat down cross-legged.

Su Ming did not speak. Instead, he fished out a blank green jade slip from his storage pouch.

He pressed the jade slip against his forehead and closed his eyes. Massive divine sense poured out like a tide, beginning precise information inscription within the jade slip.

He was systematically organizing intelligence on the spirit realm.

The first part consisted of the core materials extracted by Lin Yu from Qingyan's memories. Su Ming categorized and recorded in detail the spirit race's social structure, the origins of the three major factions, the Dark Current Sect's current distribution of power, and the precise geographical location of Greenwood Court.

But this was merely the foundation.

Su Ming's divine sense began sketching within the jade slip an enormous, complex three-dimensional map.

This was precisely the seemingly impossible deal that the Tianji Pavilion Master had struck with him before departure, using the Ten-Thousand-Year Sky-Blue Stone Marrow as the bargaining chip: to map the spirit veins of the spirit race's territory!

Su Ming painstakingly inscribed into the jade slip, stroke by stroke, the terrain he had personally observed through the Observation of the Minute over the past few days, as well as the topography he had deduced through formation principles.

"Here, the underground river entrance at the edge of Gloomlight Forest."

"Here, the seventeen confirmed Dark Current Sect baleful formation points on the outskirts of Greenwood Court."

"Here, the courses of three intersecting underground rivers, currently the only safe passages capable of evading Dark Current Sect perception for covert infiltration or escape."

Su Ming inscribed with extreme care, ensuring every coordinate and every spiritual energy fluctuation frequency parameter was accurate to the finest detail.

Lin Yu watched from the side and could not resist teasing, "Just the seventeen baleful formation points and three underground river courses marked in your jade slip, if auctioned off in the human realm to top-tier merchant guilds or military garrisons, would be enough to trade for a prosperous city."

"A promise made must be fulfilled with utmost effort. Moreover, this map is not only for the Tianji Pavilion, it is also the foundation for planning my own escape route." Su Ming set down the jade slip and let out a long breath.

He rubbed the smooth surface of the jade slip, a faint smile curving at the corner of his mouth.

"As for the large swaths of blank, incomplete sections on this map..." Su Ming raised his head, his gaze looking toward the direction outside the Qingyou Residence's door. "Greenwood Court's ninety percent archive tree hollow reading rights are the best supplementary source."

"Ninety percent..." Lin Yu sneered. "Those tree spirits really are generous. But then again, the spirit race's lifespans are so long. They have proliferated on this land for who knows how many tens of thousands of years. Even if only the ten percent classified as top-secret forbidden books remain, the remaining ninety percent's collection volume is absolutely an astronomical figure vast as a sea of smoke. Those elders surely believe that with your human race's brief lifespan alone, even if you were locked in the archive tree hollows for a thousand years, you would not finish reading a fraction of it."

Just as the master and disciple were plotting how to squeeze every last drop of value from the archive tree hollows.

"Cheep-"

A faint cry, carrying a trace of pain and frenzy, came from the windowsill of the tree hollow.

Su Ming frowned and immediately turned to look.

The Profound Shadow Crow "Shadow," who had been dozing on the windowsill after eating its fill of Primal Spirit Fruits, had woken up at some unknown point.

It did not fly around the tree hollow as usual. Instead, it tilted its little head, stumbling and staggering toward the corner where Su Ming had previously set up the "Minor Void Spirit Attraction Formation."

Although the formation had been dismantled and the spatial crack sealed, faint spatial fluctuations and vitality turbulence, imperceptible to the naked eye, still lingered in that corner's void.

Shadow seemed deeply drawn by that turbulence.

Standing there, the black feathers across its body began to stand on end uncontrollably, one by one.

Then, a shocking scene unfolded.

At the edges of its wings, the few pinfeathers that had just recently grown began to emit a faint but highly penetrating golden luminescence!

As the golden light flickered, through its sparse downy feathers, one could clearly see that beneath its fragile skin, dark-gold lines like a spiderweb were wildly coursing!

"Wait-"

Lin Yu's Soul Body shot up from the tabletop. In his old eyes, seasoned by countless experiences, a look of genuine shock appeared for the first time.

"This aura...!" Lin Yu's voice exploded urgently in the Consciousness Sea. "The ancient star bloodline within this little thing is wildly surging! It's the environment! The spirit realm's vitality laws, dense to an abnormal degree, combined with the stimulation from the Void origin substance earlier, the concentration far exceeds the conditions of the human realm where it grew up. This kind of extreme environment will likely forcibly activate the thing sealed deep within its bloodline!"

Su Ming did not hesitate for even a moment. With a flash, he was at Shadow's side.