Chaoyangzi saw Ayou soaking in the large barrel of spiritual spring water, his face contorted in pain. He was also curious how someone with a damaged spiritual root could be healed.
Ye Ju paid no mind to Chaoyangzi's scrutiny. On this island, her Divine Wood Guardian was practically invincible. As her cultivation grew, she keenly sensed that this isolated island resembled a divine wood transformed and fallen into this world.
When Chaoyangzi wandered around the island, Ye Ju felt a degree of unease. Therefore, she had her Guardian scare him. If anything truly went wrong, it would be directly repelled! But she had confidence; the higher her cultivation, the faster her Guardian and the spiritual spring would recover. The divine wood's barrier was practically impenetrable.
She allowed him onto the island because she wanted to understand the cultivation methods of humans in the cultivation world and her own physique. In Pearl City, she had learned her physique was like the five-elemental spiritual root, yet different. No one with five-elemental spiritual roots had ever managed to cultivate, hence no one had formed a golden core like hers, having already formed three.
Looking at the other two pearls in her dantian, it seemed she was on track to form five golden cores. She needed to advance next. She didn't know what would happen after forming five golden cores; she needed such a native cultivator to act as a guardian. Although there was a hint of exploitation, it didn't matter. Whatever he wanted, he could take the spiritual plants on this island. Mutual benefit was the strongest bond.
As Chaoyangzi approached the spiritual spring pool, he couldn't see the barrier. In his eyes, the scene was a cliff face from which spiritual spring water emerged, collecting in three small pools. Chaoyangzi guessed that Fellow Daoist Ye was taking water from these small pools. The other two small pools looked like bathing pools. Undeniably, Chaoyangzi guessed correctly. However, the spiritual spring water he poured into his purple bamboo pot was different. He didn't ask; everyone had their secrets. (Indeed, when Ye Ju took water with the stone basin, she had dug out a small pool for everyday use on the other side.)
He simply wanted to confirm if this was truly Penglai Immortal Island and if Fellow Daoist Ye was a goddess. If so, the latter half of the prophecy was:
Penglai Immortal Island emerges, a celestial goddess from beyond the heavens appears!
From the domain of gods and demons, the stars vanish in the East!
Seven celestial guards will escort, the Divine Guardian battles the Eight Desolations!
Merit immeasurable, the Three Azure Divine Guards return!
If he found the goddess, he would be one of the divine guards, protecting and following her. This prophecy had circulated for thousands of years, and many sects and families had already forgotten it. However, the founding ancestor of the Chaotian Immortal Sect had listed this prophecy in their ancestral teachings, and the sect leader's son of each generation had recited it since infancy. He held a fragment of black jade, signifying he was one of the Seven Celestial Guards. This was passed down by the sect. When he left this time, his sect leader father had said nothing as he handed it to him.
The appearance of the goddess meant this world would be unstable, with demons and monsters from beyond the heavens invading. The divine guards, upon finding the goddess, were to protect her growth and follow her in battling the Eight Desolations.
Chaoyangzi's thoughts raced. Was Fellow Daoist Ye truly… or did she have other senior or junior sisters? Was she hiding something from him…
"Ah—" A loud shout from Ayou suddenly echoed. Chaoyangzi rushed to Ayou's room. He suddenly shouted at Ayou,
"Hold your Yuan Tai, concentrate and calm your spirit!"
Ye Ju, standing nearby, activated her Healing Eye while channeling the white spiritual energy of the Healing Art through her fingertips. The previously damaged meridians were being widened and cleared by the spiritual energy, and the white spiritual energy was repairing them from behind. Ayou's pained shouts were because his damaged dantian's spiritual root was being repaired; this pain was unbearable for ordinary people.
Normal cultivators undergoing marrow cleansing would have spiritual energy entering their bodies to mend them, whereas Ayou, upon drawing qi into his body, had a damaged spiritual root and his dantian couldn't gather qi; this was the root cause!
Ye Ju was at a critical juncture. She gave Chaoyangzi a grateful glance before focusing on repairing the spiritual root. Ye Ju's white healing art carried the green life energy of the Divine Wood Guardian, capable of bringing forth new life!
In Ye Ju's eyes, Ayou's dantian spiritual root was collapsed. The green life energy was slowly repairing it, like building a bridge, gradually extending until it was completely mended.
Fortunately, Ayou's entire spiritual root hadn't been dug out. If that were the case, Ye Ju would have been powerless.
All things in the world have form and energy conservation. Nothing can be created from nothing, unless it is a god. Nuwa creating humans was an act of creation, hence she was a god, a creator.
Fine sweat beaded on Ye Ju's forehead. Xiaobai was nearby, replenishing Ayou with spiritual spring water to maintain her spiritual power.
Finally, after two hours, Ayou himself felt that the spiritual energy within him was no longer flowing in and then leaking out of his dantian as before. He felt the spiritual energy pause as it passed through his dantian, accumulating more and more, forming masses of qi.
Ye Ju finally finished repairing the edges, and a wisp of green energy remained in Ayou's dantian, unwilling to leave. It joyfully darted around. Ye Ju tried to retract it twice but failed. She allowed the grain-of-rice-sized green energy to remain within the accumulating qi masses in Ayou's dantian.
Ye Ju withdrew her spiritual energy, and Ayou was healed. Ayou, in the bathtub, was conscious, but at this moment, he entered a state of self-forgetfulness, sensing the elements of heaven and earth. Green elemental energy continuously surged into his body, his dantian growing larger. The green energy in his dantian visibly strengthened, condensing into substance. It rooted itself within the qi masses. When his dantian sea of qi turned into a vast ocean, a green tender sprout emerged from the center. The little sprout tremblingly unfurled two leaves.
This was a pure wood spiritual root! Ayou possessed a rare wood spiritual root with extraordinary talent! Furthermore, he had leaped to the peak of Qi Refining!
Chaoyangzi was the first to notice Ayou's talent.
"Fellow Daoist Ye, congratulations. Ayou has a wood spiritual root and extremely high talent."
"Really! That's wonderful. Ayou can cultivate now. Wood spiritual roots have a natural affinity for plants, no wonder he's so skilled in carpentry!"
Ye Ju…
Why were Fellow Daoist Ye's points of focus so different? People with wood spiritual roots could withstand armies on the battlefield and accelerate plant growth for their own use.
The legend said the founding ancestor of the Qingyan Sect, who ascended, was a wood spiritual root. On the battlefield, he instantly grew vines that strangled a hundred thousand troops, striking terror into the enemy!
For Ye Ju, who came from an era of peace, fighting and killing felt distant. She was genuinely happy for Ayou. Bringing him to the island was the right decision! She hadn't failed his trust!
Ayou stopped when he realized that no matter how much he absorbed spiritual energy, it wouldn't increase further; he knew he had reached a bottleneck and stopped.
When he emerged from the bathtub, the accumulated grime had coated his clothes, making them incredibly foul-smelling! His face was also covered in a thick layer, leaving only his eyeballs, nose, and mouth visible…
"Ah—" Ayou let out a miserable cry of embarrassment and dashed towards the beach…
Ye Ju and the others, accustomed to this, covered their noses and moved aside. They watched a dark, foul-smelling figure sprint out like an arrow…
Xiaobai, unable to bear it any longer, flew away directly. Before leaving, it didn't forget to wrap Xiao Wangyou with its tail, disappearing in a flash like the wind. Huoqilin followed closely behind.
Chaoyangzi, on the other hand, directly set up an isolation array around Ayou's room.