Hearing his affirmative answer, Yun Heng felt completely at ease and took the sword Xuan Zheng handed her.
“Alright, I'll leave it to you then.”
Xuan Zheng carefully put away the Tianheng Broken Sword and the Azure Sword Marrow.
“This subordinate will certainly repair this sword for Young Lord.”
Yun Heng did not leave immediately; she was still thinking about the spirit vein in the subterranean cavern.
As a Grade Ten Refiner, Xuan Zheng might have a spiritual treasure capable of collecting a spirit vein.
“By the way...”
“Do you have a spiritual artifact here capable of holding an entire spirit vein?”
Hearing this question, Xuan Zheng was slightly taken aback. He lowered his head and pondered for a moment.
“I do, Young Lord.”
With that, he pulled a wooden box from his storage bag.
The wooden box was only the size of a palm, dark cyan in color, with its four corners bound in dark gold metal and the surface of its lid carved with rolling mountains and rivers.
Xuan Zheng presented the wooden box to Yun Heng.
“This item is called the Mountain-River Spirit-Nourishing Box.”
“It contains a world of its own inside and can store spirit veins, mountains, rocks, soil, and large spiritual plants.”
“Time inside the Mountain-River Spirit-Nourishing Box passes at the same rate as the outside world, yet it can independently maintain the flow of spiritual energy. Whether it is a spirit vein or a living spiritual plant, once placed inside, it will not easily lose its power or vitality.”
Yun Heng's eyes lit up. This was precisely what she needed.
With the Mountain-River Spirit-Nourishing Box, she could take the spirit vein from the subterranean cavern.
She nodded in satisfaction.
“This is perfect. I'll take it.”
Yun Heng stowed the Mountain-River Spirit-Nourishing Box into her storage bag.
“Focus on repairing the sword.”
“Understood.”
Xuan Zheng bowed slightly.
“Respectfully seeing Young Lord off.”
With a shift of her mind, Yun Heng's figure vanished from before the refining workshop.
Meanwhile, Su Mingyuan was walking alone through a dense forest.
She no longer knew how long she had been in the Qingming Secret Realm.
In the original book, after Su Mingyuan entered the Qingming Secret Realm, she relied on the broken jade she had snatched from Yun Heng to find the Ancient Vine Array.
But without the broken jade to guide her now, Su Mingyuan could only rely on her memories to search for it.
Unfortunately, the original book did not describe the route to the Ancient Vine Array in detail, only mentioning that it was located deep within a dense forest in the eastern part of the Qingming Secret Realm.
Su Mingyuan could only determine the general direction.
Moreover, her cultivation was only at the early stage of Foundation Establishment. Although she was hailed within the Xuanxiao Sect as matchless below the Golden Core Realm, the Qingming Secret Realm was full of high-rank spirit beasts.
Most of the cultivators who entered this place were at or above the Golden Core Realm.
Along the way, she had encountered several spirit beasts.
In order to shake them off, she had not only expended a massive amount of spiritual power, but also acquired numerous wounds across her body.
She had virtually no time to rest during the journey.
If she were not certain that the Ancient Vine Array was to the east and that she could meet Xie Wujiu there, Su Mingyuan would likely have given up long ago.
But she could not give up.
The Ancient Vine Array was where she and Xie Wujiu met.
As long as she could save Xie Wujiu according to the original plot line, the relationship between them would change because of it.
What's more, the Qingming Spirit Seed was also near the Ancient Vine Array.
That was an opportunity she absolutely could not afford to miss either.
At this thought, Su Mingyuan gritted her teeth and dragged her exhausted body forward.
The ancient trees around her grew taller, and the root system on the ground grew thicker.
Su Mingyuan felt a surge of joy. It should be right nearby.
She quickened her pace and continued forward.
Before long, her view suddenly opened up.
“Finally here...”
Su Mingyuan supported herself against a nearby trunk and let out a long sigh of relief.
However, after taking in the scene ahead clearly, the smile on Su Mingyuan's face faded bit by bit.
She stood frozen on the spot, unable to react for quite a while.
No.
Why is this completely different from what I imagined?
Where are the ancient vines?
In the original book, the Ancient Vine Array had occupied a vast area.
Countless vines intertwined, almost completely covering all the surrounding ancient trees, and Xie Wujiu had been trapped in the center, unable to break free.
Yet now, although traces of battle remained on the ground, not a single intact vine could be seen.
The Ancient Vine Array that should have covered the entire area had actually vanished into thin air.
“How is the Ancient Vine Array gone?”
Su Mingyuan muttered to herself, her eyes filled with disbelief.
She even began to suspect whether she had found the wrong place.
But as her gaze swept forward, she soon spotted a familiar white figure.
Su Mingyuan's breath hitched.
The person lay on the ground not far away, wearing the white sword robes of the Taihua Sword Sect, with raven-black hair scattered by his side and a long sword lying beside him.
Even with his eyes tightly shut and his face pale, one could still tell how handsome yet distant his face was.
Xie Wujiu!
Su Mingyuan immediately confirmed that this was indeed where the Ancient Vine Array had been.
If she had gotten the wrong place, Xie Wujiu would never be here.
Could Xie Wujiu have already broken the array relying on his own power?
Without time to overthink it, Su Mingyuan ran quickly toward Xie Wujiu.
“Xie Wujiu!”
The person on the ground did not react in the slightest.
Su Mingyuan squatted beside him, placing her fingers beneath his nose first.
He was still breathing.
She then carefully took hold of Xie Wujiu's wrist, sending a strand of spiritual power into his meridians to check.
Xie Wujiu's dantian and sea of consciousness were both sealed, and the spiritual power in his meridians was nearly completely depleted.
His body was extremely weak, but he had suffered no fatal injuries, nor was his sword bone truly damaged.
It was likely just excessive consumption of spiritual power, along with his own initiative to seal his dantian and sea of consciousness, that caused him to fall unconscious.
“Thank goodness...”
Su Mingyuan let out a breath of relief.
He was still alive.
As long as Xie Wujiu wasn't dead, there was still a chance for subsequent events to unfold according to the original plot.
After trekking for so long, she had finally found him.
However, before she arrived, the Ancient Vine Array had clearly been broken by someone else.
Su Mingyuan looked around her surroundings.
There were no other cultivators in sight nearby.
Suppressing the doubts in her heart for the moment, Su Mingyuan turned her attention to the ancient tree not far away.
When she reached the tree and saw its current appearance clearly, she once again felt that something was wrong.
In the original book, this was just an ordinary tree.
The reason it was special was that the Qingming Spirit Seed was hidden deep within its heart. But from the outside, the ancient tree looked no different from any other tree in the dense forest.
What appeared before Su Mingyuan now, however, was clearly an awakened spirit tree.
The ancient tree's foliage was exceptionally lush, with every leaf emitting a faint cyan glow from its surface.
The patterns on the trunk were clearly visible, and dense streams of Wood-attribute spiritual Qi were slowly flowing within it.
Such rich vitality was definitely not something an ordinary ancient tree could possess.
Su Mingyuan looked up at the ancient tree, her complexion shifting repeatedly.
This was completely different from what was written in the book.
The Ancient Vine Array was gone, and now even the ancient tree harboring the Qingming Spirit Seed had changed.
Where on earth had things gone wrong?
Could someone have come here before her?
A wave of unease suddenly surged within Su Mingyuan's heart.
Unable to spare time for further thought, she began circling the ancient tree in search of the Qingming Spirit Seed.
As long as the spirit seed was still there, the other changes didn't matter for now.
Observing closely along the trunk, she soon discovered a slight bulge near a fork in the tree branches.
That was precisely the spot where the ancient tree's spiritual power was densest.
Su Mingyuan's eyes lit up.
It's right here!
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