Chapter Ninety-Two: The Gluttonous Bud

Gu Weiyu laid her palm slowly against the transparent flower bud, and pure wood-element spiritual power poured into it.

Very soon, an astonishing thing happened.

As the spiritual power within her flowed into the bud, a faint green radiance began to shimmer across its clear surface.

The bud was like a blank sheet of paper, gradually stained with resplendent color.

The tightly closed petals also began to part, little by little, with barely a sound.

The Peony Mistress, standing silently nearby, could not help widening her eyes. Her lovely gaze flashed with brilliance, and excitement surged in her heart.

Was the flower spirit of my kind finally about to reappear in the world?

The transparent bud slowly unfurled. One petal after another drifted down to the ground, revealing a jade-green seed within.

The wood spiritual power in Gu Weiyu’s palm was absorbed without end; she hurriedly continued refining more wood energy and feeding it into her hand.

No one knew how much time passed before the strange suction in her palm gradually weakened. Gu Weiyu could not help opening her eyes and looking down.

The transparent petals were gone. A jade-green seed hovered quietly in midair, while a slender sprout had already begun to crawl out from it.

Was this the flower spirit?

Gu Weiyu was full of curiosity. This flower spirit had just absorbed more than half of her wood-element spiritual power, and yet it had only barely managed to sprout?

This little thing had quite the appetite.

The Peony Mistress, unable to contain her excitement, took a few steps forward and came before the flower spirit. She lifted her slender, delicate hand, intending to touch it.

But the green seed hovering in midair spun nimbly out of the way and darted in front of Gu Weiyu instead.

The Peony Mistress could not help saying gently, “Flower spirit, I am the Peony Mistress—”

The flower spirit paid her no heed and began circling Gu Weiyu instead.

Gu Weiyu stood rooted in place. What on earth was this flower spirit of the Wood Spirit Clan doing?

Suddenly, the flower spirit stopped. A mysterious pale-green pattern appeared in the air and drifted slowly toward Gu Weiyu.

“The Great Virtue Pact?” The Peony Mistress’s expression was one of both joy and worry as she watched the green seal merge into the center of Gu Weiyu’s brow.

Gu Weiyu had already stood motionless upon hearing the words Great Virtue Pact.

A warm current flowed in from between her brows. Gu Weiyu felt as though every inch of her body were soaking in a warm spring. Could this be the feedback the Peony Mistress had spoken of when she mentioned forging a pact?

Crack—

Gu Weiyu felt her spiritual power within surging upward. In no time, her meridians were brimming, and the barrier at the tenth level of Qi Refinement began to loosen as well.

This feedback...

She had not expected it to raise her cultivation by a full level so directly!

Gu Weiyu sat down at once, crossing her legs on the ground. Her entire mind sank into her meridians as she controlled her spiritual power and carefully gave the barrier a push.

The once impregnable barrier was actually toppled with ease.

Spiritual power flooded out through her meridians and rushed into the newly opened channels...

After a long while, Gu Weiyu’s lips curved slightly. She looked ahead with a faint smile. Once the Great Virtue Pact had been formed, she and the little creature before her were spiritually linked.

And with the pact established, not only had she received benefits, the little one had clearly profited greatly as well.

The tiny thing, which had only just pushed out a tender sprout, now unfurled a little young leaf. Pink and delicate, it looked indescribably cute.

“Little one—” Gu Weiyu called to it softly in her heart.

“Heehee—” A childlike laugh rang out. At the same time, the flower spirit shot into her arms in a blur and slipped right into her elixir field.

The Peony Mistress watched all of this with her own eyes, and her heart could not help but feel a little empty. She had guarded the flower spirit through endless years; after all, she was still somewhat reluctant to let it go.

“From now on, you must treat her well!”

The Peony Mistress looked fixedly at Gu Weiyu. If Gu Weiyu dared reveal even the slightest hint of anything amiss, she would not let her off easily.

Gu Weiyu met her gaze. “Mistress, rest assured. I will certainly treat it well.”

Only then did the Peony Mistress seem to set her mind at ease. She turned and walked out of the vine-covered hut.

After watching the Peony Mistress leave, Gu Weiyu closed her eyes again and inwardly examined her elixir field.

What she saw startled her.

“Little one, what are you doing?”

The flower spirit that had burrowed into her elixir field was lying motionless atop her core flame, Heavenly Thunder Fire, using its tender little leaf to tease the flame.

And the Heavenly Thunder Fire, feeling challenged, kept spitting out crackling bolts of lightning that struck the flower spirit’s young leaf over and over.

“Hungry—” The flower spirit sounded delighted, its voice muffled and indistinct. “Tasty—”

The flower spirit, having only just sprouted, possessed the intelligence of a newborn infant, and its way of speaking was absurdly simple.

After sensing the thought it sent her, Gu Weiyu finally understood after quite some time: it still was not full.

The little thing had devoured so much of her spiritual power earlier, and that still was not enough. Now it had actually run into her elixir field to snack on lightning?

Wasn’t this flower spirit of the Wood Spirit Clan? How could it be unafraid of lightning?

Looking at the tiny thing bathed in crackling bolts, yet still cheerfully swaying its tender leaf, Gu Weiyu was full of questions.

Burp—

A loud belch echoed through her elixir field. The little thing rolled over once inside, then lay flat and went completely still.

Gu Weiyu stared at the young leaf atop the little creature’s head, now even more lush and emerald than before, and looked again and again.

In the end, she confirmed that the leaf seemed to have grown just a tiny bit larger.

“Little Book, could it be that because I awakened it with wood spiritual power purified by lightning, this little thing has become so strangely odd?”

Gu Weiyu recalled what she had done and asked the little green book lying like a salted fish in her sea of consciousness with a hint of uncertainty.

“Master, why overthink it? As long as the Great Virtue Pact was successfully completed, the two of you are mutually beneficial.”

In her sea of consciousness, the little green book flipped over and settled into a sprawled position, saying lazily, “Haven’t you noticed that your sea of consciousness has also become larger?”

At that, Gu Weiyu examined her sea of consciousness carefully, and it had indeed grown larger.

What exactly was this little thing? And what, precisely, was this Great Virtue Pact?

Before she could figure out what the flower spirit truly was, she suddenly felt the ground tremble beneath her:

Her body floated up again, beyond her control, and the vine hut before her became blurred and distant.

“So in the end, you are still leaving...” A transcendently ethereal voice echoed within the vine hut. A figure in red, alluring beyond measure, emerged from the void.

It was the returning Peony Mistress. Her gaze fell upon the now empty vine hut, and she let out a soft sigh.

—

A familiar wave of dizziness washed over her. When Gu Weiyu recovered, she found herself standing on an ice river.

Below, through thick layers of ice, she could still clearly sense the swift current of the water beneath.

It seemed the master had been right: inside this Seven Treasures Trial Tower, everything was reset once every two hours.

That meant that at any given place, a person entering the tower could remain there for at most two hours before being forcibly moved away.

As if sensing that she had left the place she knew, the tender sprout of the flower spirit, which had been lying flat in her elixir field, began to sway.

“Where are we?”