As the magic was absorbed, the pure spiritual life force was drained dry by her.
Qimeng smacked her lips, still wanting more.
After swallowing these two small Sacred Spirits, her species rank limit indeed rose slightly.
But because the levels of these two Spirits of Nature were simply too low, the nutrients they provided were limited, making it impossible to bring a substantive breakthrough to her humanoid form.
“Tch, not even enough to fill the gaps between my teeth.”
Qimeng rubbed her flat tummy with regret.
Right now, the strength of her humanoid form was stuck at the threshold of the peak Novice Rank, just one final push of energy away from breaking through to an Intermediate humanoid form.
Unfortunately, there were no more Spirits of Nature around for her to eat.
This feeling of being stuck right in front of a level-up, truly in limbo, gave Qimeng—who had developed acute OCD—a bit of a stomachache.
“Am I really going to be stuck at the Novice Rank tonight?”
She spun around in frustration.
Aside from the withered and dead remains of the Spirit Buds, all that remained around her were the giant, monstrous-looking broken roots of the Mother Tree.
Wait.
Roots? Broken roots?!
Qimeng froze in her tracks, as if a bolt of lightning had struck her brain!
That's right!
In theory, her Devour All Things could forcibly convert even air and sunlight into mana. Although the efficiency was low, there was absolutely no restriction on what she could eat.
And the Sacred Spirit Mother Tree before her, in its lifetime, had nurtured countless generations of Wood Elves and was an ancient tree that was itself a six-layer leaf vein Sacred Spirit!
As the saying goes, a starved camel is still bigger than a horse.
This unimaginably massive tree body, these bottomless roots buried deep underground—just how terrifyingly immense was the residual life force and Wood-attributed foundation contained within them?!
“Heh... hehe, hehehehe.”
Qimeng slowly grinned, a yandere-like, mischievous smile spreading across her face.
She slowly squatted down and pressed her delicate, art-like hands against the main root of the Mother Tree.
Boom!
The magic veins inside her body roared to life at full speed.
She squeezed the remaining black magic stone in her palm, pouring all of its residual massive mana into her arms.
Immediately after, hundreds of fine white roots sprouted continuously from her palms and fingers.
Like a giant predatory net that blotted out the sun, they wrapped around and burrowed deep into the residual roots of the former Sacred Spirit Mother Tree!
Reverse flow, Devour All Things.
Full power!
In the next instant, an indescribable wave of mana carrying a desolate aura surged back into Qimeng's humanoid body along the white roots like a predator!
Qimeng's eyes burst with a blinding jade-green glow.
Feeling the power swelling within her, on the verge of breaking through the bottleneck, an ecstatic smile spread across her face.
“It's working!”
This Sacred Spirit Mother Tree was, after all, a transcendent existence that had lived for over a thousand years.
Even though it had withered, its interior remained as stubborn as bedrock, desperately resisting the intrusion of external forces and sending out waves of tremors.
“The mana consumption of this thing is even more ridiculous than I thought...”
Qimeng frowned, making a cute, dissatisfied smacking sound.
Crack!
With a crisp crack, the remaining black magic stone in her hand, unable to withstand this level of magical extraction, disintegrated into powder and slipped through her fair fingers.
However, Qimeng reached back into her looted sack, pulled out two black magic stones, and flicked them lightly.
Whoosh.
The two black magic stones floated before her like funnel weapons.
Raging dark mana poured into her humanoid body once again.
The magic aura she radiated instantly suppressed the Mother Tree's counterattack, forcibly maintaining the overall absorption of Devour All Things.
At this moment, Qimeng looked less like a beautiful girl and more like a gluttonous predator descending upon the world.
However, just as the Mother Tree's main body was being forcibly devoured...
The direction of the channel that was supposed to be sealed suddenly lit up with an unstable, silvery spatial light.
Boom!
Accompanied by a flurry of chaotic footsteps, three figures stumbled out of a shattered spatial rift.
“Bah, bah, bah! Talk about terrible luck! Who would have thought those short-legged lolis actually changed the nature of the channel and left a forest labyrinth inside as a trap! It wasted so much of this great one's time for nothing!”
It was a tall lizardman wearing night-gear, with a hideous lizard head.
He complained and cursed as he brushed the dust off his clothes.
“Alright, stop complaining.”
“It was just a slightly complex spatial displacement labyrinth. Didn't we, with our superior intellect, find it anyway?”
The other lizardman sneered, as if he could already see countless treasures waving at him.
“This... is the core of the Wood Elf tribe, the Wood Elf Incubation Room and treasury!”
“Exactly! I've been undercover as a spirit attendant by that arrogant Eve's side for so long, putting up with her attitude every single day. Today, I don't have to endure it anymore! As long as I plunder all the secret treasures and Sacred Spirits here, I can leave this godforsaken place and live a life of luxury outside, hehehe...”
The one speaking was actually a sweet and cute-looking Wood Elf loli.
She held a cold crystal staff in her hand, a twisted smile plastered across her face.
However...
When these three high-spirited uninvited guests looked around with anticipation, laughing as if victory was already in their grasp...
The classic villainous grins on their faces froze instantly, within a millisecond.
“We did i... t?”
The smile on the loli's lips suddenly vanished.
After all, as far as the eye could see...
There were no mountains of gold coins or magic stones.
There were no glowing secret techniques or divine weapons.
And there certainly were no dazzling Sacred Spirits.
All that remained were rows of empty stone platforms, and a few ordinary magic items scattered lonely on the ground.
The scene was outrageously clean, instantly bringing to mind a wheat field ravaged by locusts!
No, this was simply a crime scene that had just been ransacked by a greedy dragon!
“W-Wait, is something not right?”
The loli rubbed her eyes hard.
The two lizardmen beside her were also dumbfounded, the ecstasy on their faces shattering like glass.
“Hey! What's going on?! Where are the treasures?! Where the hell did my treasures go?!”
“Impossible! Absolutely impossible! They must... they must be hidden under the stone platforms!!”
The two guys lost their minds, rushing toward the treasure platforms with bloodshot eyes like madmen.
They let out incoherent screams while violently flipping over the ancient wooden boxes around them with their claws, trying to grasp even a sliver of the illusion of wealth from the air.
Rip! Clatter!
Nothing! Absolutely nothing! Everything was empty!!
“What the hell is going on here...!!”
The tall lizardman was so anxious he forgot to use his signature "this great one" phrasing, letting out a scream that pierced the heavens.
Rate on N.U.
