Chapter 2219 — Chapter 2219 Spirit Tree

"By the way, you said the Spirit Tree hasn't fully matured yet?" Yuan suddenly recalled Xiao Cangming mentioning this earlier.

He nodded and confirmed, "The Spirit Tree is still growing…"

After a brief pause, he continued, "...No, that's not quite right. To be honest, the Spirit Tree hasn't grown in tens of millions of years. No matter how much cultivation I pour into it, it remains unchanged. In the beginning, it responded, showing clear signs of growth each time I fed it my energy, but that ceased not long after it reached this form."

He sighed softly. "I suspect there's a unique cultivation method required to nourish it. Unfortunately, I lack that knowledge… so this may be as far as I can go."

"Is that so?"

Yuan stared at the small eternal tree before him with a pondering gaze, seemingly in deep thought.

Xiao Cangming and the others silently waited for his next action.

After a moment of stillness, Yuan raised his hand, palm facing downward above the Spirit Tree. Without warning, he drew a sharp cut across his palm, letting his blood drip onto the tree below.

The others watched in quiet intrigue, while Yuan himself felt strangely numb, as his actions were guided not by thought, but by pure instinct.

The moment Yuan's blood touched the Spirit Tree, it was instantly absorbed, almost like a sponge with water. In the next breath, the entire tree began to change, its glowing green hue bleeding into a brilliant crimson.

"Oh?" Yuan muttered in a surprised voice after seeing the aftermath.

However, the Spirit Tree wasn't finished with its transformation.

Mere moments later, the ground started to shake, growing more violent with every passing second.

"This is… an earthquake?" Xiao Meilin looked at the ground with a dumbfounded look.

Natural earthquakes in the Primordial Realm were impossible, and the only time the ground would shake was when cultivators collided. However, there was obviously nobody fighting right now.

Then, right before their very eyes, the Spirit Tree started to expand in size. Seeing this, Yuan and the others hastily backed away from it.

In the blink of an eye, the Spirit Tree, which was only as tall as one's knees, enlarged until it rivaled the massive tree in Feng Yuxiang's Immortal Cave.

Moreover, it wasn't just its size that changed, as the amount of spiritual energy it produced drastically increased, too. In fact, the Spirit Tree released so much spiritual energy that it became visible to the naked eye, spreading through the world as a shimmering mist—an exceedingly rare phenomenon that only appears in such extreme conditions. Ding!

"A blood contract?" Yuan mumbled after seeing the notification.

However, before he could think further, he sensed something trembling and retrieved a certain object from his robes.

"What's that?" Xiao Meilin questioned out of curiosity as she glared at the token in his grasp.

"This is…"

Upon seeing the token, Yuan was reminded of the man who had planned to strike against the Asura Clan when the chance arose—the same man who had given him this token as a signal for when that moment would come.

"I completely forgot about this, but there is a group of individuals who have been planning to attack the Asura Clan because of your monopoly on the Spirit Tree, and they're heading here now," he gave them a brief explanation.

"Is that so?" Xiao Cangming didn't seem surprised in the slightest by this information, almost as if he was aware of their intentions.

He looked up at the sky and said, "A crack appeared in this world when the Spirit Tree grew, so anybody can enter this place right now. If there's a good time to attack us, it'd be right now."

"Can you not fix the crack?" Yuan asked.

"I already tried, but due to the Spirit Tree, I am unable to fix it. This world is too small for it, so it forcefully created more space."

"It can do something like that?" Yuan looked at the Spirit Tree with raised eyebrows.

"I'm sure you can tell, but the Spirit Tree isn't an ordinary treasure, and it has its own will."

"A treasure with its own will… Well, that's not surprising, considering how long it's lived." Yuan said.

Ding!

"And it's trying to form a blood contract with me at this very moment."

"So it recognizes you as its master, huh?" Xiao Cangming remarked. "Anyway, I'll go deal with the intruders. You can stay here to form the contract, my lord."

"Alright."

"Meilin, you're coming with me."

"You don't need to tell me," she said with a cold smile on her face. "It's been a while since I last had some fun. Hopefully, there will be many of them."

Xiao Cangming and Xiao Meilin left shortly after to confront the crowd gathering outside at the Burning Tree.

"I get it, I get it. Let's form the contract now."

Yuan said as he approached the Spirit Tree and placed a hand on it.

"Accept."

Crimson roots abruptly burst from the ground, coiling tightly around Yuan—firm, yet not painful. Moments later, an unfathomable surge of spiritual energy flowed into his body, flooding every fiber of his being. However, even with the immense amount of spiritual energy entering his Dantian, they did not affect his cultivation in the slightest, almost as if the energy was being used for something else.

Meanwhile, Xiao Cangming, Xiao Meilin, and the rest of the Asura Clan moved to confront the intruders gathered outside at the Burning Tree. By the time they arrived, thousands of experts had already assembled, their auras filling the air like a storm on the verge of breaking.