Chapter 1 The Violent Storm

The violent waves, accompanied by a sudden downpour, lashed at the tiny space between the sky and the sea.

The swirling storm formed enormous waterspouts, rampaging chaotically from all directions.

An ordinary person's boat could never navigate such a sea.

Even ships meticulously reinforced by cultivators risked capsizing in such treacherous conditions.

Leading the fleet was a sword-shaped warship. Dozens of sword cultivators stood on the deck, forming a sword formation, lending their sword qi to the ship's bow, allowing it to cleave through the wind and waves like an icebreaker.

The escort ships followed closely, spread out to the left and right, their barriers striving to resist and mitigate the storm's assault on the fleet's core.

Everything seemed orderly.

Suddenly, an escort ship on the left deviated from its course, heading off into the distance on its own.

The storm, which should have been cleaved and diverted to the left, instantly found an outlet. In an instant, it poured through the gap left by the departing escort ship, flooding the fleet's core and shattering the formation from within.

Immediately after, five or six more warships ‘gave up,’ halting in place and cutting across the formation, further fragmenting the once-orderly fleet.

"Activate maximum-level protection! Left and right escort ships, try to carve a path for the core flagship," Wei Zhou swiftly ordered, hurrying toward Ye Chuxiao's resting chamber.

But Wei Zhou had barely taken a few steps when chaos erupted on the flagship itself.

Those who had been lying dormant for so long chose this moment to strike.

Over the past few months, Ye Chuxiao had purged the most obvious spies from the flagship, but some were such good actors that they were difficult to detect.

"Secretary Wei! One of the main ship's three engine rooms has been destroyed! The ship can no longer travel at full speed, and the rebels are attacking the cockpit!" A desperate voice crackled from the magical mirror in Wei Zhou's hand.

Then came a scream: "Tell Wang Sheng to run!"

A moment later, streaks of purplish-red talisman light soared into the sky.

The entire fleet's communication signals devolved into a jumbled mess.

The cultivators lost their convenient means of communication.

Wei Zhou kicked off her high heels and rushed to the flagship's broadcast tower. Amidst the howling wind, pouring rain, and raging waves, she remained composed, casting a spell to slay the rebels blocking the tower entrance.

Then, using direct amplification, she mobilized the ship's personnel to organize an effective suppression.

But this momentary countermeasure couldn't reverse the widespread rout and collapse; it could only delay the inevitable outcome.

Wei Zhou clipped the small transceiver of the communication tower to her collar, continuing to remotely command while rapidly heading to Ye Chuxiao's bedroom.

Ye Chuxiao had reached the most critical moment of his spirit root fusion.

The Kongxiang (Empty Thought) spirit root method was divided into three parts: the 'Spirit Root Visualization Method,' the 'Mental Grafting Method,' and finally, the 'Mental Mastery Incantation.'

Ye Chuxiao chose to publicly release the first two parts.

But for the last part, Ye Chuxiao not only kept it secret, but he also did the opposite, planting his own mental seed as the core to ignite the spirit root structure within the spirit root buildings in each spirit root plaza.

Now, Ye Chuxiao was gathering the information from many spirit roots for fusion.

In reality, this meant recalling the mental seeds planted in the forty-nine spirit roots. Once those seeds were recalled, the shared spirit roots would still have their original uses, but they would no longer be directly connected to Ye Chuxiao.

Ye Chuxiao's mental seeds served as a guide.

When the shared spirit roots were on the right track, the primary and secondary roles had long been reversed.

Of course, these mental seeds recorded all the spirit root information collected to date.

This was the most important thing for Ye Chuxiao.

One after another, the mental seeds returned with a vast torrent of information, crashing savagely into Ye Chuxiao's spiritual platform.

In an instant, Ye Chuxiao felt his thoughts were completely scattered.

From the thoughts, the feedback was sent to his flesh and Ye Chuxiao’s body began to rapidly crumble like sand scattering across the ground.

If not for the effect of his innate Strong Life talent and the automatic operation of the Nine Deaths Demonic Art, Ye Chuxiao would have completely disintegrated in the first moment of receiving the feedback.

Gathering the power of all beings to forge his own supreme spirit root.

This was very likely the original intention behind the creation of this Kongxiang spirit root method.

But why did past cultivators ultimately choose to use it in a relatively conservative, even narrow-minded way?

Because they simply couldn't withstand the massive information feedback formed in that instant.

How could the body and consciousness of a mere bitter realm cultivator withstand the instantaneous impact of the thoughts of all beings?

And those cultivators who could withstand it had long since integrated their own spirit roots and could no longer change course.

Ye Chuxiao's body was reassembling, and his body was connected to his thoughts and soul.

Forty-nine sets of spirit root information had gathered in Ye Chuxiao's spiritual platform, forming a vast cloud of information.

But it was not yet solid and lacked a concrete spirit root form.

Suddenly, the information cloud exploded, and Ye Chuxiao's body, guided by his thoughts and soul, exploded once again.

The Nine Deaths Demonic Art and the Strong Life talent took effect again.

But this time, the speed of reassembly was a bit slower.

Even the Nine Deaths Demonic Art could not generate limitless vitality out of thin air to help Ye Chuxiao repeatedly rebuild his body.

It still consumed the energy essence that Ye Chuxiao had stored in his body over time.

Fortunately, since coming to this world, Ye Chuxiao had never worried about resources. In recent months, he had tried all of this world's precious resources.

This had allowed him to store a solid foundation in his body.

Regaining a trace of consciousness, Ye Chuxiao quickly took out a large number of spirit pills and precious medicines that his followers usually offered from his storage ring.

He didn't even have time to distinguish them, stuffing them haphazardly into his mouth or simply spreading them around, so that his body would automatically absorb and utilize these materials when it reassembled.

After these spirit pills and precious medicines entered his mouth, they were quickly transformed into nutrients under the automatic refinement of the Nine Deaths Demonic Art, nourishing Ye Chuxiao's parched body.

Before Ye Chuxiao could get used to his current state,

his body exploded for the third time.

Three consecutive explosions, and then three consecutive reassemblies.

In Ye Chuxiao's spiritual platform, the information cloud formed by the spirit root information finally vaguely took shape.

It could vaguely be seen as the shape of a verdant giant tree, with floating colorful clouds swirling around it, each leaf shining with a godlike radiance.

The moment this vague form took shape, seemingly boundless energy poured into Ye Chuxiao's parched body through channels that were too wide to measure.

Although the Storm Sea had a harsh environment, the天地 (tiandi - heaven and earth) energy here was far more turbulent than elsewhere.

In just an instant, Ye Chuxiao's body was injected with frenzied energy.

Such high efficiency and high energy far exceeded Ye Chuxiao's understanding of top-grade spirit roots.

It had even jumped out of the limitations of a 'spirit root' and ascended to an unknown height.

The massive energy was then absorbed by Ye Chuxiao's reassembled and parched body.

After several 'deaths and resurrections,' according to the characteristics of the Nine Deaths Demonic Art, Ye Chuxiao's physical body was now unimaginably strong.

"The spirit root is initially formed, its grade is unknown."

"And its greatest benefit is that it can form a cycle with the Nine Deaths Demonic Art. The Nine Deaths Demonic Art's death and resurrection requires a huge amount of energy to support consumption, and the digestion of spirit root information will involve the flesh. When it cannot handle the massive information, the body will shatter under the traction of the mind. The two go in and out, complementing each other, mutually fulfilling each other, like lifting oneself by one’s own bootstraps?”

Ye Chuxiao's thoughts broke off again at this moment.

Because another round of information explosion had begun.

This time, his body did not shatter into pieces.

Instead, like an expanding nebula, it suddenly exploded, scattering into billions of points of light.

Then it collapsed and contracted, restoring a more perfect, harder, and stronger body.

Each reshaping was a transformation from body to soul.

And the originally scattered information cloud was further adjusted and solidified towards the image of the divine tree spirit root.

At the same time, Ye Chuxiao, who once again reorganized his body, digested and integrated part of the information cloud, vaguely sensed and perceived every 'shared spirit root' in this world.

Through the divine tree spirit root, he felt that he could summon back the mental seeds stored in all the shared spirit roots with just a thought.

This imagined divine tree spirit root broke the rule that the level of a spirit root was fixed once it was integrated. Even though it was already so powerful, it could still continue to 'grow.'