Leaf - 371

Over the next year, Zhou Fan spent his time in the cosmic sect. He created the system that would allow great talents to receive Ying Xiong's invitation, and helped add additions to the teleportation hub.

He also spent more time with Ying Xiong. Ever since their last battle, Ying Xiong had sought out Zhou Fan more. He had asked many questions and received help many times.

As a result, Ying Xiong's strength was undergoing drastic changes. 

For others, Zhou Fan may not be willing to help them so much, but Ying Xiong was different. He was truly talented, and he deserved respect from even Zhou Fan.

Unsurprisingly, when everyone else saw Zhou Fan helping Ying Xiong so much, they began to seek him out more.

At some point, Zhou Fan barely had a moment of peace. He ended up putting down rules that someone could only visit him for help once a year, excluding Ying Xiong.

This caused Zhou Fan to once again live peacefully in his courtyard. Once, Zhou Fan pulled up a fish in the lesser dao creation realm.

They awkwardly looked at each other for a moment before Zhou Fan lowered his rod and put the fish back where it came from.

Zhou Fan got up and left the mountain. He felt that the fish was a sign for him to leave.

He left the cosmic sect with waving people behind him. He had chosen to leave Hei Ren in the cosmic sect, and not take him with him anymore.

Although he was satisfied with his disciple, he had essentially reached his peak. It was highly unlikely for him to reach the god realm, and even if he did, he would stop there.

Zhou Fan needed to think about requirements for accepting disciples in the future. At the very least, they would have to have talent beyond Ying Xiong's.

Yet, even after so much time had passed, Ying Xiong was still the most talented person in the universe besides Zhou Fan.

It would likely be a very very long time before Zhou Fan was able to accept another disciple.

Zhou Fan moved out of the cosmic sects galaxy and went to the top of the Zhou supercluster.

He took a deep breath and prepared to enter seclusion for the foreseeable future. Hopefully, someone truly talented would be born during that time. If that happened, he would take them before the cosmic sect did.

Just short of 700 billion years later, Zhou Fan's eyes opened. He was at the peak of the outer world realm. He was not yet ready to reach another realm, and planned to do some things before that.

Excitedly, Zhou Fan took out a block of ice. In it was a single 5 year old child. This child was not human, or even humanoid. Zhou Fan laughed to himself as he looked at it. Not only was it not human, but it was not beast either.

In fact, many people would debate whether or not its species was even truly alive.

Inside the ice block was a tiny sapling, a young tree, just 5 years old. It had 0 intelligence. It simply existed and grew. 

Still, this tree had meridians. And they were not low level meridians. It was a level of talent that was an outlier amongst the entire universe, just how Ying Xiong was.

Zhou Fan instantly moved to a planet in the nearest galaxy. It had produced many species, and the environment was similar to earth.

Zhou Fan carefully melted the ice and created nutrient-filled dirt beneath the saplings' roots.

The roots quickly took place in the floating dirt and absorbed nutrients.

Zhou Fan created a dome around him and the sapling that prevented any living being from interacting with him or the sapling.

He carefully poured life Qi out and nurtured the tree. It slowly experienced an increase in cultivation and intelligence. Over the period of nearly 10 years, Zhou Fan spent every moment perfectly caring for the tree.

One day, the tree, which was still a sapling that looked no different from before, began to wave its small branches.

It acted as if it was searching for something, or someone. When it touched Zhou Fan the branches wrapped around him and embraced him as if he was the saplings parent. In some way, he was.

Zhou Fan decided to name the sapling "Leaf".

Leaf's cultivation had not increased by much. It was only at the peak of the foundation establishment realm.

Zhou Fan had spent most of his effort carefully nurturing its intelligence. Although it was easy for him to grant things intelligence and cultivation, there were many side effects, especially once it reached the higher realms.

Although it would have a miniscule, or even 0 effect if he raised Leaf's intelligence and cultivation to its current state speedily, he did not want to take any risks.

Instead of forcefully giving it intelligence and cultivation, he had simply guided it and did very little himself.

In its current state, Leaf was essentially a human child in terms of intelligence.

His talent was above the immortal god rank. It was a new rank, named the immortal Godking rank. He was not low leveled within the immortal Godking rank.

Leaf had immortal Godking 1 ranked meridians. Even Zhou Fan found such a level of talent completely shocking.

Leaf also had many affinities, all of them relating to nature in some way, and a divine physique, though Zhou Fan had almost no clue what it did.

Within the dome that Zhou Fan created, Leaf happily entwined around him, showing its affection in a way that plants apparently did.

Although Leaf could not speak or understand words, Zhou Fan still felt an urge to speak to it, just like a parent spoke to a newborn.

"There was a joke that Ying Xiong told me. I can't remember most of it, but the punchline went, "Leaf me alone, I'm bushed!"" Zhou Fan said.

Leaf could not understand him, but it seemed happy to hear him speak at all. As he played around with Leaf, Zhou Fan could not help but think of how he would take Leaf with him in the future. 

After all, he would absolutely not leaf him alone.