Sitting down before his small lotus forest, Hui closed his eyes and began to circulate his qi, quietly settling his cultivation back to normal after the sudden influx of life qi. His body shrank down from ten meters to five, then back to his usual height, and the last of the heat dissipated. As he settled his qi, the dark clouds overhead faded, though somewhat reluctantly.

That golden tree…

He called it back into his mind. The golden tree resonated with the life qi in his body, and his body began to grow once more. Immediately, Hui dismissed it, suppressing his life qi. The gold tree faded, and so did the surging life qi.

This time, Hui carefully circulated his qi. He completely regulated even the slightest bit of motion, allowing neither stray fluctuations nor surges. Carefully, he recalled the gold tree again.

His body twitched, but he suppressed it. The technique flowed through his mind. In the technique, an image of Hui sat cross-legged on the ground, circulating his qi through the gold tree. The image’s body suddenly grew, and as it grew, it became tree-like. Branches sprouted, then leaves. Bark covered his body. The image became a tree entirely.

…What do I need a tree technique for! A technique to turn into a tree? Why?

Wait, this is a great escape technique! Who would suspect a tree? Now I just need to see the other half of the technique, where the image turns back into a person! Hui watched in anticipation, eager suddenly.

Nothing happened. The tree continued to be a tree.

Hui licked his lips, then glanced at the tree suspiciously. Senior Mu… did you, er, were you trying to turn me into a new body for yourself?

The petrified tree had no response.

In the image, the tree let off a golden glow. Far in the distance, another tree answered with another gold glow. A gold line traveled from one tree to the other, connecting them.

Interesting. So the trees can communicate with one another? I wonder if I could form an internet of trees. An intertree. Interroot. Interweb of roots. Rootnet. Treenet.

Alright, so, I’ll work on the name, but…

Hui rubbed his forehead. Well, there’s a lot of applications for an internet, but I doubt the trees could do something so complicated. At best, I could set up a barrier or something with them… Though I have to sacrifice a body per tree. Hui glanced at the budding lotus-pill plants. At least I’ve got a lot of bodies on the way.

Ah, well, I don’t have anything I could do with a treenternet, anyways. It’s not as if a magical encyclopedia and search engine and… other things… will appear on the branchnet after I create it. I’ll put it on the back-burner for now. Better to use those bodies for death-faking.

He circulated his qi again, evening his breathing. The foreign life qi swirled inside him, slowly assimilating. As he assimilated it, he studied the tree technique at the same time, probing for any deeper purpose to the technique. Minutes passed, then hours. The sun crawled across the sky and sunk beyond the horizon.

As the sky darkened, the gold tree faded slightly in his mind, and the life qi emanating from Mount Mu grew weaker. Hui opened his eyes, then stood and stretched. Solar-powered qi. I guess I should have expected it, but still…

I wonder if I could eventually comprehend sun-based techniques by studying Mount Mu long enough…? He put a hand on his chin, hesitating, then shrugged. I’ll figure it out later. I’m not Master, who can comprehend anything in a heartbeat. For now, I can’t get distracted. First and foremost, I have to figure out how to undo the soul transferal formation and bring everyone back. Doing that in a decade will prove task enough, without adding any additional comprehensions on top.

As night fell over the peak, Hui looked out at the sect. No lights glowed from the other peaks, nor did any cultivators flash about on swords. Everything laid still and silent. Even the All-Heavens disciples were nowhere to be seen. Without anything to light the sect’s various buildings, they faded away in the darkness, vanishing into the night. It was as if the mountains had returned to their primal state, untouched by human hands.

Loneliness settled over Hui, along with the incredible weight of the burden he carried, the burden of the entire sect.

I should leave soon. Staying here is no good. If the All-Heavens cultivators find me, I’ll end up in the exact situation I didn’t want to be in: trapped on Master’s peak. If I’m stuck here, I won’t be able to save anyone.

It’s less of a gamble than it was before, but only because they assume I’m dead, and didn’t send anyone with an excessively high realm to guard the sect. If they posted someone like Gui Delun here, and that person had enough time to set up all the spell formations, barriers, and traps they wanted… all the death-faking in the world wouldn’t let me escape their clutches.

Hmm… I really need more advanced techniques. Techniques that allow me to fake my death and escape even if my current body is completely entrapped. I cultivate my soul, after all… but there are also soul-capture arrays. Hmm, techniques to escape even body and soul capture…

I suppose I’ll simply have to continue seeking enlightenment. The path of death-faking is deep, indeed!

Satisfied, Hui nodded to himself. Looking over the peak, he could think of nothing else to accomplish. I’ve filled up on life qi from Mount Mu, and even acquired a secret inheritance. I’ve planted a dozen lotus seeds, which will bloom and eventually escape from here. My true body is in the safest place it can be—on Master’s peak, bathing in Mount Mu’s life qi and slowly congealing back together. By storing my body here, I won’t have to worry about anyone stealing my storage ring, and I have absolute faith in Master’s barrier. If someone wants my body so bad that they break through Master’s barrier to get it, they’re probably on a level where all the death-faking, body-swapping, and survival tactics in the world won’t help me!

He summoned Gu Tian’s sword and stepped atop it. “Gu Tian, let’s fly away as quietly as possible, understand?”

Gu Tian hummed under his feet. Slowly but stealthily, they crept off Unrivaled Peak.