Chapter 29: Three Years of Seclusion, Wood Element Perfected

Sitting cross-legged in this strange space, Su Chen held the emerald willow branch in his hands, his mind empty and clear.

He did not rush to assimilate it; instead, he first regulated his breath, bringing his condition to peak perfection.

This remnant of Yang Mei was part of a primordial spiritual root, its power pure and immense—any misstep could lead to explosive death.

After a full day, when his essence, energy, and spirit were perfectly unified and his heart-lake utterly still, Su Chen slowly opened his eyes.

He merged the willow branch into his body.

The next instant, an indescribably terrifying power erupted within him.

It was a torrent blending boundless vitality with sharp spatial forces.

The emerald essence of Wood Qi surged like a breached river, violently scouring his limbs and bones, nourishing every inch of his flesh.

Meanwhile, the silver spatial forces acted like countless razor-sharp scalpels, slicing and tearing through his meridians and organs.

One side was ultimate life; the other, ultimate destruction.

Intense agony instantly swept through every nerve of Su Chen.

His physical form, caught between these two forces, began frantic destruction and reconstruction.

His skin cracked inch by inch, oozing golden blood—but the wounds healed instantly under the torrent of vitality, becoming even tougher.

Su Chen held fast to a single point of clarity in his spiritual altar, teeth clenched, letting the soul-rending pain rage within him, yet feeling neither sorrow nor joy.

He activated the method of the *Hunyuan Jin Dan Zhen Jie*.

The golden core within him, hovering between illusion and reality, began spinning wildly, generating a tremendous suction that, like a whale drinking the sea, continuously drew in the violent energy torrent.

The golden core was the foundation of his Dao—and his only recourse at this moment.

He carefully divided his spiritual sense: half guided the vast Wood essence, following the *Hunyuan Jin Dan Zhen Jie* to irrigate and nourish the golden core.

The other half immersed itself entirely in the savage spatial forces, seeking to comprehend, to understand, to endure.

This was an extraordinarily perilous process.

His soul felt as if trapped in a spatial storm.

Countless truths of space shattered into billions of fragments, violently assaulting his understanding.

Secrets of spatial folding, methods of dimensional transit, the ability to contain the universe within a mustard seed…

These insights were too advanced, too profound—he could not fully grasp them at his current realm.

Su Chen knew his limits; he did not greedily pursue understanding, but held to his true heart, refusing to force comprehension, instead forcibly imprinting the “form” and “meaning” of these insights deep into his soul, like a child who cannot read, meticulously copying every stroke of a text he does not understand.

He would decipher them later, when his cultivation advanced.

Time slipped away quietly in this tedious and agonizing assimilation.

Spring passed, autumn came; cold arrived, heat departed.

Within the mustard-seed space, Su Chen himself had become like a statue.

His aura fluctuated—sometimes blazing like a furnace, sometimes faint as a candle in the wind.

In the first year, he finally drew all the Wood essence into his golden core.

His golden core grew radiant, its emerald light swirling as if nurturing a world brimming with vitality.

In the second year, he began attempting to organize and guide the spatial forces still raging within him.

This process was a hundred times harder than assimilating the Wood essence.

His body underwent no fewer than a thousand cycles of collapse and reconstruction that year.

Each time, he teetered on the edge of life and death.

In the third year, a wondrous change occurred in Su Chen.

His body no longer resisted the spatial forces; instead, it began to willingly accept and fuse with them.

Every inch of his flesh, every particle, seemed infused with a trace of spatial properties.

On this day, Su Chen’s eyes, closed for three years, suddenly flew open.

Two brilliant streaks of silver light flashed from his eyes, and the void before him split into two fine black fissures that refused to heal.

*Boom!*

His golden core emitted a deep, earth-shattering roar, like the splitting of heaven and earth.

The golden core, once still tinged with illusion, now became utterly real.

It resembled a star—dense, solid, radiating an aura of indestructible eternity.

The Five Elements’ Wood reached perfection!

With the immense power of Yang Mei’s remnant, Su Chen’s golden core finally completed its transformation from illusion to reality.

His cultivation base naturally ascended to the Human Immortal realm.

But this was not the greatest surprise.

Su Chen gazed inward at his golden core and saw that, upon its perfectly round surface, beside the original Wood Dao inscription, a brand-new Dao inscription had appeared!

It was a silver-white inscription, its strokes twisted and profoundly mysterious, as if woven from countless tiny spatial runes, radiating a unique resonance beyond the Five Elements.

The Spatial Dao Inscription!

“Hahaha…”

Su Chen could no longer contain his ecstatic joy—he let out a long, triumphant roar to the heavens.

He had not only achieved his goal—perfecting Wood—but had, through misfortune, gained fortune: a trace of the Spatial Dao’s mark had been imprinted upon his golden core.

This meant that from now on, he could not only wield basic spatial techniques, but more importantly, his future Dao path had gained a new avenue.

He slowly rose to his feet. His physique had not changed, but his entire demeanor had undergone a revolutionary transformation.

With a single thought, his form blurred in place—and the next instant, he stood a hundred zhang away.

Condensing distance into a single step!

He had mastered this spatial technique without a teacher.

“Three years of seclusion—like a single dream,” Su Chen exhaled deeply, feeling better than ever before.

He bowed again toward the depths of this chaotic space, thanking Grand Immortal Zhenyuan for his protection, and Grand Immortal Yang Mei for his gift.

Then, with a thought, he instantly returned to the outside world.

Wanshou Mountain, back courtyard of Wuzhuang Temple.

As Su Chen emerged, he heard two young Daoist acolytes arguing in the distance.

“Qingfeng, how come this Daoist hasn’t come out yet? Could he be sleeping inside?”

“Don’t talk nonsense! Master said this place is a self-contained world—where one instant outside might equal a hundred years inside. We just wait patiently.”

“But it’s so boring! Master really shouldn’t have left us with this chore just to visit a friend…”

Before he finished speaking, Mingyue looked up and saw Su Chen walking out—he froze, his complaints stuck in his throat.

Su Chen looked at the two boys and smiled. He stepped forward and bowed respectfully: “My fellow Daoists, I have completed my task. I shall take my leave.”

Qingfeng quickly returned the bow, about to speak some polite words, when Mingyue blinked his big eyes, leaned forward, sniffed at Su Chen’s body, and asked curiously: “Daoist Wuchen, why do you feel so strange?”

Su Chen was startled—this child had remarkably sharp perception.

He smiled, offered no explanation, and withdrew two small trinkets collected from the mortal world from his sleeve, handing them to the boys.

“I have caused you much trouble. These small trinkets are insignificant gifts—please accept them as tokens of my gratitude.”

Qingfeng was about to refuse, but Mingyue snatched them eagerly, holding them in his hands with delight: “Thank you, Daoist!”

Su Chen bowed once more to the two, then turned and walked away without further delay.

Watching his departing figure, Qingfeng stroked his chin, thoughtfully saying to Mingyue: “I feel… this Daoist is different from when he first entered.”