“That aura… it’s Chu Yao!”

Long Chen hurriedly summoned out Little Snow. Pulling up Lu Fang-er, they rushed over in that direction.

“Long Chen, this place is close to the core region of the Forest of Darkness. Rushing like this is very dangerous,” warned Lu Fang-er.

“Don’t worry about it. Chu Yao’s fighting with someone and I have to hurry over.” Long Chen had spread his divine sense out to its max, and every movement within three thousand meters was grasped by him clearly. He told Little Snow to go as fast as possible.

Little Snow understood Long Chen’s thoughts and turned into a white bolt of lightning that rushed forward.

Around two hundred miles deeper into the forest, there was an opening between two mountains. There were quite a few people watching secretly from a distance.

On one side of the opening was a steep cliff thousands of meters high that looked as if a blade had cut it open. On the bottom of the cliff was an ancient tree.

In front of that tree was a woman. Hundreds of wooden stakes had grown out of the ground in front of her. They appeared like vines growing into the sky, and they closely protected the woman.

When Long Chen saw that figure, his heart instantly felt much more at ease. That woman was Chu Yao.

Only after seeing Chu Yao was safe and sound did Long Chen turn to see who was in front of her. He instantly felt a wave of burning anger inside him.

There were over thirty people, and three of them had reached the Chosen-level. These people were all wearing monastery robes, but they were from different monasteries.

As for the arrogant woman leading them, it was Yin Wushuang. She was icily staring at Chu Yao. “Due to the relationship between our supermonastery and your Skywood Palace, I won’t make things hard for you. This tree has taken my fancy, so you can leave. Hopefully, you’ll be sensible and won’t make things hard for me. That won’t have any benefits for you!”

Long Chen saw that the ancient tree behind Chu Yao was only a couple hundred meters tall. There was not a single leaf growing out of it. Its life force had obviously long since dried up.

But then when he clearly saw the veins on top of the tree, his pupils shrank slightly. He finally understood why Yin Wushuang would want to fight over this ancient tree.

This tree was called the Seven Heartsea Cherry-Apple Tree. It was an extremely miraculous kind of tree. Its branches, fruit, and leaves were all worthless.

Its true value lay in its tree-heart. The most miraculous thing about it was that its tree-heart contained an extremely pure wood energy.

It had a total of seven tree-hearts. When the tree finally reached its longevity limit, it would die.

But that was a fake death. Even in that state of suspended animation, the Seven Heartsea Cherry-Apple Tree would ignite the energy of six of its tree-hearts and merge that energy into a single tree-heart.

Once the six tree-hearts’ energy was all used up, the remaining tree-heart would contain an incredible amount of wood energy.

That one tree-heart would hide itself inside its tree, entering a hibernation state. When it once more awakened, that would be the time for the ancient tree to return to its youthful state.

From the outside, it looked as if this tree had already completely withered and died. But Long Chen could use his power Spiritual Strength to sense a miraculous energy within the ancient tree that was slowly awakening.

Its tree-heart had probably already hibernated for a long time and had finally absorbed enough energy. It would quickly begin to awaken.

If the tree-heart was extracted at such a time, then it would be a priceless treasure to wood cultivators.

“I was the one who noticed this Seven Heartsea Cherry-Apple Tree first. Later, greedy people came to fight over it when I began to extract its tree-heart. I didn’t forcibly snatch this from other people. Despite the good relationship between your Xuantian Supermonastery and my Skywood Palace, are you really planning on fighting over this with me?” Chu Yao’s words contained some fury.

Chu Yao had entered the Forest of Darkness half a month ago. By relying on her wood attribute senses, she had managed to find this Seven Heartsea Cherry-Apple Tree.

However, this tree grew in an extremely conspicuous location, and extracting the tree-heart was a complicated process. If she was careless, it was all too possible to end up losing a great deal of its energy. In the end, it was even possible for this priceless treasure to become a piece of trash.

That was why Chu Yao needed to have an undisturbed time in order to safely accomplish her goal. If it was someone else, they probably would have uprooted the entire tree and put it in a storage ring.

But Chu Yao knew that if she did that, it could cause the tree to lose its spirituality, and its tree-heart would lose almost half its energy.

The most hateful thing was that whenever she would try to extract the tree-heart, others would always come to disturb her. Those people were all extremely vexing. They couldn’t defeat her, and so they just watched from a distance. When she tried to extract the tree-heart, they would either attack her or perhaps even shout loudly to draw over more people.

Chu Yao hated herself for being softhearted. If she hadn’t cared about the fact that they had all been part of the Righteous path, she would have killed the three people who had fought with her over it in the very beginning, and then she would have long since obtained the tree-heart.

But later more and more people came, and many were powerful experts. Although she was strong and capable of blocking all these people’s attacks, she had no chance to extract the tree-heart.

Furthermore, she had now become everyone’s target. She had no idea what she should do. But she was extremely unwilling to just give up on the tree-heart like this.

Its tree-heart was a treasure all wood cultivators would long for even in their dreams. With the tree-heart, she would be able to comprehend the mysteries of life and peer into the Wood Dao. Then she would be able to walk even further on her cultivation path.

So, she had to obtain the tree-heart. But she also couldn’t come up with a way to extract it like this. More and more experts were arriving, causing her to panic.

Just now, she had suddenly seen a group of disciples wearing robes from the Xuantian Monasteries. That had delighted her, especially when she saw they had three Chosen-level experts. Furthermore, the woman at the front was powerful enough to intimidate competitors.

But before she could even ask for assistance from these monastery disciples, they had actually demanded the tree-heart from her. That newfound trace of hope had instantly been trampled.

Enemies had surrounded her on all sides. Furthermore, those allies had instead become the most terrifying opponents. Chu Yao was filled with grievance and fury. These were her allies?

Staring at Chu Yao, Yin Wushuang disdainfully said, “Natural treasures will go to the strong. Don’t make any jokes about being the first to find it. That just proves you’re stupid.”

“You…” Chu Yao’s body was quivering, and mist began to appear in her eyes. However, she refused to allow herself to cry.

I can’t cry. I swore I would become stronger, I swore I would become an expert. I will protect him. If I cry, that would mean I’m still the same useless girl.

Chu Yao repeated that to herself over and over. She had to become stronger, she had to make her will stronger. She couldn’t cry just because of such a little grievance.

“Hmph, you’re too naive. That so-called alliance is just an outer appearance. In front of top treasures, that kind of relationship is as weak as paper. The fact that I won’t kill you is already giving enough face to the Skywood Palace. Although your wood energy is powerful, you still wouldn’t be able to exchange even ten blows with me. So I’d advise you to obediently leave. Don’t end up tossing aside your life just for a treasure you can’t obtain. You should take advantage of this time and leave before I change my mind.” Yin Wushuang’s gaze at Chu Yao had a trace of jealousy, and her words were extremely discourteous.

That was because she had realized Chu Yao’s outer appearance was a level higher than her own. Furthermore, Chu Yao’s body had a special spiritual grace unique to wood cultivators. It was like she was a beautiful forest sprite, one that involuntarily provoked feelings of tenderness.

Normally, all women disliked women more beautiful than them, especially women with both beauty and that special cute, tenderness. Yin Wushuang was almost unable to endure it.

She wished to kill Chu Yao, but she wasn’t so crazy. The Xuantian Supermonastery had a good relationship with the Skywood Palace. If she killed Chu Yao in front of this many people, that would provoke big trouble.

So, all she wanted was the tree-heart. At the same time, she could conveniently force away this displeasing woman. If Chu Yao wasn’t sensible, then she wouldn’t mind teaching her a lesson.

At the same time, she suppressed the feeling of wanting to kill Chu Yao because of her jealousy. But she couldn’t display the fact that she didn’t dare kill Chu Yao, or it would appear as if she weren’t confident enough.

So on the outside, she still acted cold and detached, using a high and lofty attitude to look down on her. She wanted to use her powerful cultivation base to suppress her.

“I won’t give up on the tree-heart. If you want to try me, then come.” Chu Yao clenched her teeth, and she formed a hand seal in front of her. The ground trembled, and countless rectangular, wooden stakes soared out of the ground. They were like pythons that were extending their heads out of the ground, forming a huge wooden formation around Chu Yao.

Each one of these wooden stakes had countless lines covering them that emitted a metallic luster. No one could doubt the power of these wooden stakes. Just the terrifying pressure emitted from them was enough to make it so Favored were unable to breathe.

Seeing that Chu Yao had taken on a defensive fighting posture, Yin Wushuang’s expression turned chilly. “In front of me, you are just a tiny ant. I’ll give you one final warning. Put away your rotten wood and scram, or don’t blame me for being merciless and taking your pathetic life.”

“Put away your fake mask! Long Chen really was right; some idiots can’t be reasoned with! Come at me!” shouted Chu Yao coldly. Her fury had reached a breaking point.

As a wood cultivator, she was especially sensitive towards killing intent. How could she not sense Yin Wushuang’s true intentions?

“You are acquainted with Long Chen?” Yin Wushuang was startled.

“So what?” Chu Yao was completely focused and didn’t dare be careless. With her keen senses as a wood cultivator, she knew that this woman was extremely terrifying.

“Hahahaha, nothing, nothing! You’re acquainted with Long Chen? Good, good, very good!” Yin Wushuang began to laugh crazily. When her laughter finally ended, she smiled sinisterly. “Long Chen is a perverted traitor, wicked beyond redemption. As his friend, you’re definitely also not a good person. I think I’ll capture you for now and see how that Long Chen dares be arrogant again!”

“You malicious woman, you can’t insult Long Chen! Long Chen isn’t a perverted traitor; he was framed by someone. If you want to snatch the tree-heart, just try it! Even if I can’t obtain it, I can still destroy it. I definitely won’t let the tree-heart land in the hands of a malicious woman like you!” Chu Yao’s eyebrows were completely upright now, and her jade face was covered in a layer of frost.

“Slut, you dare? If you destroy the tree-heart, I will tear your face apart!”

Yin Wushuang furiously unsheathed her silver sword. Her aura completely erupted out, and she was just about to charge forward when a huge figure blocked her line of sight.