15 Chance Promotion

"What? The ghost tree had fallen?"

All the people in the back were stunned upon hearing that. Qin Yang and Qin Feng, the cousins shared a look and their expressions changed slightly.

The others might not know this but as the sons of a cultivator family, they both knew more about that Ghost Pagoda Tree. 

The Ghost Pagoda Tree with the humongous trunk was planted intentionally by the three cultivator families of Kun City. The tree was already 600 to 700 years old. It was deliberately planted to guard the mass grave and to prevent the birth of any powerful ghost creatures at the site that could hurt the commoners.

They were both positioned at the rear of the troop formation and had not seen the condition of the ghost tree with their own eyes. They had no idea if the Ghost Pagoda Tree had gone along with the weather and got out of its entrenched site on its own, or was it an accident that happened when some powerful demons had arrived.

Qin Yang shouted in a solemn tone, "Be careful and be on your guard. Beware of a sneak attack."

Once the officers heard the order, they all convened in the blink of an eye and stood in battle formation. They got all their weapons ready and all eyes were scanning the area alertly.

They routinely went with Qin Long to nab bandits and hunt evil robbers. They had even experienced capturing and killing demonic beasts. They had rich battle experience and once they heard Qin Yang's order, they immediately got into battle mode.

Qin Yang's eyes gleamed with spiritual aura and he cast a few little spells of an investigating nature. However, he did not discover any signs of demonic beasts. He walked cautiously to the front of the troop and approached the Ghost Pagoda Tree to inspect it carefully. At that moment, he discovered the reason for the ghost tree to be obstructing the road.

It was not because the ghost tree was looking for a way to die, nor was it because the three cultivator families of Kun City had intentions of causing harm. It was also not because any powerful demonic beasts had torn down that tree.

The Ghost Pagoda Tree had fallen because it was chopped down. Someone had chopped down this centuries-old tree down to its roots.

Qin Yang assessed a couple of the tree's roots which had been cleanly hacked through. Reaching out to touch it, he suddenly felt a sharp piercing pain run through his palm. 

There was blade energy remaining within the stump!

Qin Yang let out a breath of relief and announced, "It's ok, this ghost Pagoda tree was chopped down by Master Li Tianchou."

All the patrol officers also started to relax, all was well as long as it was not done by demonic beasts. As the group rushed forwards to view the scene, they were stunned speechless.

However, Zhao Meng and his group clearly knew the true purpose of the Ghost Pagoda Tree as well. He spoke to Qin Yang in a low voice, "Perhaps it was felled accidentally by Master Li when he was fighting that evil cultivator. The other possibility is that after he killed that evil cultivator, he felt something odd about the ghost tree which was why he hacked it down with his blade."

Qin Yang had also thought about those two possibilities and followed on by saying, "I will speak to my patriarch about this situation once we're back. There is no need to worry too much about matters regarding the ghosts. At most when the time comes, each family will send people over to sweep up the area. After all, this mass grave has never bred any demons that were too powerful.

"As for the future, all we can do is to replant and nurture a new spirit tree that will awe and frighten demons and ghosts. Otherwise, there is no way that we could arrange for cultivators to stand guard here. Out of the three cultivator families, no one would be willing to live here."

All the troop members were martial artists and their understanding of cultivation methods was limited. These matters were beyond their ability to help. Furthermore, Qin Yang had already said that he would report the matter to his patriarch. When they thought about it, the three cultivator families will definitely solve this situation.

On the other side, Qin Feng was doing as the other officers were, standing around the ghost tree and examining it with curious eyes. He even made a special effort to stare into the hollow center of the tree.

He stared at the tall tree. Even when it was laid on the ground, it was still not shorter if compared to a house. He felt a little emotional watching it and stretched out his hand to give the tree a couple of pats. Suddenly his heart gave him a jolt. That was because he felt an obscure surge enter his brain. 

This did not come from the ghost Pagoda tree. Even though before it was felled, the tree possessed some spiritual instinct, it could only be considered an ordinary tree demon. Apart from being able to absorb ghostly beings into its tree hole for consumption, it did not have any other abilities.

Furthermore, it would also not dare to use its instinct against humans, otherwise, it would have been chopped down ages ago by the Kun City cultivators.

The vague surge came from the green copper kettle within his storage sack. The copper kettle did not develop an instinct, hence it could not completely express its intentions. It could only send out a blurry thought, but it was enough to allow Qin Feng to understand what the green copper old kettle meant.

It wanted to eat this Ghost Pagoda Tree, or you could say it wanted to consume it. This made Qin Feng gasp inwardly. It looked like he did really find a treasure. A treasure that could express its intentions was no simple thing as this was not something that any ordinary magical treasure could do. At the very least, only spiritual treasures with intelligence could do this.

Ordinary Qi Refinement Stage cultivators used magical tools as their main method of combat. Foundation Establishment Stage cultivators could use spiri[a

t tools. However whether it was magic tools or spirit tools, they were all simplified prototypes of magic treasures.

Only when the Golden Core cultivation stage was achieved would a cultivator have enough spiritual energy and ability to cultivate and use magic treasure. As for those types of spiritual treasure with intelligence and could auto-protect, this needed cultivators of the Nascent Soul 1Stage as the absolute minimum to be able to cultivate it.

In the midst of his excitement with this discovery, Qin Feng also had some worries. If other people discovered the uniqueness of this copper kettle, they would kill him to steal this treasure. In all seriousness, to avoid future issues after stealing the treasure, they might even kill off his entire Qin Family.

Qin Feng felt that it was best to wait until his father returned to discuss this matter with him. He could not wait until he entered the sect and gifted this spirit treasure to the sect. Perhaps it would help him gain many benefits and advantages.

However, was he truly willing to do that?

He did not need to think as he already knew that he would not be willing to do so. Anyone who had treasure in their possession, would not be willing to easily hand it over to someone else. 

Qin Feng was undecided. However, the matter could be discussed later. The copper kettle wanting to consume the ghost tree had made him slightly full of himself.

In the presence of so many people, he dared not pull out the copper kettle to allow it to devour the tree. If he did, the news would definitely get out. 

However, he still wanted to attempt it. He was curious to know what would happen once the old copper kettle consumed the ghost tree. The only issue was how to avoid being seen by so many people?

Just as he was undecided on what he should do, Qin Yang was already gathering the group up ahead and getting them to leave quickly. The area was still considered the outskirts of Qifeng Mountain. Moreover, they were right next to the grave. It would be better if QIn Feng did not stay here too long.

The group of men once again started on their journey. They had only taken a few steps before Qin Feng stopped in his tracks.

"What happened?" asked Qin Yang, who was standing beside him.

"I really need to pee so I'm going to go." Qin Feng said that as he walked behind a tree beside them.

"Don't head too far into the woods. Stay on the road, it'll be fine. It's the dead of night, no one's gonna see you." Qin Yang added jokingly, "After all, what is there to be embarrassed about, you've not even got all your hair yet."

"I'm not worried about letting other people see. I'm just scared that you'll be jealous." Qin Feng retorted.

The men standing next to Qin Yang heard his comeback and instantly burst into peals of laughter.

"Little brat, you really think I'll be jealous of you?" Qin Yang nearly blew his top off. He could only swallow his indignation. There is no way that he could just whip it out and compare sizes with his little cousin. After all, they were no longer kids and could not do such immature childish things. Furthermore, even if they did, who would be the judge?

He turned about, saw the strong bear-like physique of Zhao Meng, and could not help but give an involuntary shudder. He swiftly killed off the idea that popped into his head.

Qin Feng continued to take a few steps until he arrived in front of the Ghost Pagoda Tree. The ghost tree was huge and its branches and leaves were luxuriant. Even when lying on the ground, it spanned an extremely large area.

He cast an eye behind him and once he was sure that no one was looking this way, quickly took out the old copper kettle. He then picked up one of the tree branches to feed the kettle.

Qin Feng knew that his cultivation was shallow and he did not have the ability to carry the entire ghost tree. Similarly, he also did not know how the copper kettle planned on consuming the ghost tree, he could only give this a try.

In the end, once he had stuffed that ghost tree branch into the kettle, the cold copper kettle in his hand started to vibrate gently. In quick succession, an extremely strong suction force came out from the body of the kettle. It was so strong that it managed to absorb the ghost tree in its entirety.

Qin Feng looked upon the kettle mouth in amazement, he did not understand how that huge ghost tree could have gone through it. 

It was at that moment when the kettle flew out of his hands and started heading towards his brow. With a clang, the copper kettle had broken through into his consciousness. There within his consciousness, it floated motionlessly.

"This…" Qin Feng was stunned. What had just happened? How did the copper kettle squirm into his consciousness?

Before he could react, a gust of spiritual energy burst out of the copper kettle and moved along his brow and acupoint, spreading across his entire body.

Qin Feng ignored the doubts in his heart and hurried to apply his cultivation method to refine this spiritual energy. Once he was done, he absorbed it into his dantian. 

This wave of spiritual energy was not much but it was extraordinarily pure. With only a few cycles, Qin Feng was able to convert it into his own spiritual energy.

Once he had converted those spiritual energy as his, he discovered that his cultivation had already achieved the peak of the first level of Qi Refinement Stage and was about to break through the second level of Qi Refinement Stage at any time.