35 Tree God

One's capabilities could only be seen in the details.

Looking at the small ball he missed, he instantly understood that his seemingly powerful sword techniques only came from the superficial strength of his martial practitioner level body. To make it simple, it was only flashy but unstable. 

Martial arts were unlike studying. It wasn't something that one would gain just from understanding it.

Memories were just memories. To make them his, he would need to practice them repeatedly and form muscle memory, so that it would become his instincts. There weren't any shortcuts to this.

His impatience dissipated and he quickly calmed down.

Thereafter, he continued to pierce the small balls once again!

...

On a small island over 100 kilometers away.

This island was a lot bigger than the one Chen Shouyi was on, and there were rich resources on the island, as well as forests.

An especially big tree stood out from the rest. It had a height of several hundred meters, and its leaves were like jade, enveloping up the skies and the sun like huge umbrellas. They covered close to one-fifth of the island.

A tribe of several hundred people had set up their base under the big tree.

This was a relatively primitive tribe whose civilization was still in the fledgling stage. 

Strong young men who had higher standings wore beast hides, while younger children and married ladies were basically naked.

Of course, the meaning of beast hides here was beyond that of clothes. They were a symbol of martial strength and status.

This tribe survived quite well. The men were strong and powerful, and the women had rosy complexions. The ratio of the younger generation was also extremely high.

Under the protection of the island's tree god, there were neither fierce beasts nor dangerous nature spirits here. Thanks to it, the entire tribe flourished and grew with a strong vigor. The new members born to the tribe far surpassed the number of deaths every year.

Five years ago, they had paid a price of over 30 tribesmen's lives to fulfill an oracle and help the tree god to get rid of a huge beast.

Ever since then, it had been two years since any of the tribesmen died from abnormal deaths.

And that carried on until yesterday!

Two of their tribesmen who had gone out to fish never came back.

The night in this world was very dangerous. On the island, they had the protection of the tree god. Therefore, there weren't any nature spirits that could harm them.

However, once they were out of the sea, a region where the tree god's great power couldn't reach, chances were that they'd be unable to escape death.

For the sake of this matter, the tribe's sorcerer gathered all of the tribesmen before anyone headed out to hunt or gather food and performed a sacrificial rite.

The sorcerer was very old, wrinkles filled his face. At his age, he was already starting to consider the things after his death.

In this world, death didn't spell the end of one's life.

In one of the times when he had been communicating with the tree god, his consciousness had flown away, and he had vaguely seen that many deceased tribesmen's souls were going with their new lives now. They were living peacefully.

When he had been communicating with the tree god at a later time, the messages he had received also proved that this was true.

Performing a sacrificial rite to the tree god wasn't just something that displayed his great status in the tribe. Most importantly, the tree god would also be pleased. 

For such events, if they had the capabilities to do so, they must conduct it. If they didn't have the capabilities to do so, they'd still have to conduct it even if they had to find ways to satisfy the conditions.

The 'tree god' was quite massive. Putting aside the huge umbrella-shaped top, just the trunk itself had a diameter of over ten meters. No one knew how long this tree had lived on for. Its bark was like dried-up land, with cracks everywhere. It gave off an ancient feeling of vicissitudes.

Everyone in the tribe surrounded the tree god for a few rounds, in accordance with their statuses and age.

The ones in the innermost circle were the tribe leader and some of the strongest warriors. The ones behind them were the adolescent young men, followed by the married women and children. The younger infants wouldn't be brought here.

This was a primitive tribe, and the 'tree god' had just started to develop faint divine characteristics.

Therefore, the rite wouldn't be too complicated as there wouldn't be any official prayers. Despite so, the atmosphere was still very solemn.

The old sorcerer danced around as if he had gone crazy. He waved his hands and feet about, mumbling strange things that even he couldn't understand.

Very soon, a bounded wild beast the size of a goat was lifted by four strong men up close to the tree.

The sorcerer took out a stone knife whose blade looked so black as if it was ground from black obsidian. Under the beast's agonizing cry, it was cut at the throat. A tremendous amount of fresh blood then spurted out, landing onto the ground.

The moment this happened, a clear but faint glow rose from the ground, where the tree's roots were densely overlapping.

The wild beast that had still been convulsing suddenly tilted its head, completely losing all traces of life. It was as if its soul had been absorbed.

The surroundings turned completely silent. All of the barbarians wore respectful but horrified expressions. Even the ignorant children shut up, feeling uneasy.

The old sorcerer closed his eyes and sat down under the glow, his head tilted. It was as if he had lost consciousness.

However, not a single barbarian dared to disturb the communication between the sorcerer and the tree god.

After a while, the old sorcerer finally opened his eyes. It was as if he had received a huge shock, and his expression became horrified and distorted.

"The danger comes from the north!"

...

Chen Shouyi had no idea about all these.

He practiced for four to five hours in succession without stopping.

In the beginning, he could hit the small but fast-moving balls three times out of ten attempts. Towards the end, he could basically hit four to five times out of ten tries.

Of course, Chen Shouyi knew that the only reason he could improve so much was because he was in the earlier phase of the training. Every bit of improvement later on would require him to spend more effort.

It was like in a test, the easiest part was to improve from scoring 20 to 30 points to 40 to 50 points. It might be possible if one were to put in slightly more effort, or to be more serious and careful when taking the test. However, starting from scoring 70 to 80 points to reaching 90 points wasn't something that would be possible with just a short period of hard work.

As things progressed further, every step of improvement would get increasingly difficult!

...

Sensing the hunger in his stomach, Chen Shouyi finally came to a stop.

He returned to the space channel's entryway. It had just been less than half a minute, but the soreness in his muscles had already healed through his natural recovery.

He opened up his briefcase and took out the cooked beef and bread that he had bought for his lunch.

The shell girl flew over, asking for a reward as she pointed to a pile of golden sand in the distance. She shouted out.

"Gemstone! Gemstone! Gemstone!"

Chen Shouyi had lost the initial excitement he had toward the golden sand. However, in order to not pour cold water over the shell girl's zeal, he still went over to take a look. 

There were about three taels of it. In addition to what he had left from a few days ago, there was slightly over one jin of it.

Based on the estimated amount, he immediately took out three glass marbles as a reward.

The shell girl took them happily, putting them under the sunlight like someone obsessed with money. She then flew up into the sky, circling for very long above a stretch of grass while keeping an eye on Chen Shouyi, as if she was being wary against thieves. While he wasn't paying any attention, she quickly flew into the grass. 

Using the grass as her cover, she squatted down and dug out a small hole with her hands, revealing the shell that had been buried inside.

She opened up the shell and placed the three glass marbles inside.

The shell had been filled up to the brim with glass marbles, and they emitted a resplendent glow.

She squinted her eyes a little, as if she was afraid that she'd be blinded by the glow.

She couldn't help but feel entranced as she looked at this 'huge' treasure chest that was filled with gemstones. 

She only got back to her senses after quite a while. She closed the shell and covered it up again with earth.

She pretended as if nothing happened, moving around before Chen Shouyi for a while. Very soon, she went around looking for golden sand once again, filled with motivation.

It was only then did Chen Shouyi, who was having his lunch, look up and throw a speechless glance toward her busy figure.