Chapter 522: The Blessing of the Tree

In the corridor, there were no indescribable weird creatures, no terrifying evil spirits with transparent bodies, and not even anything with a visible form.

In the corridor where the candlelight flickered, there was nothing.

And in the depths of the corridor where the firelight completely extinguished, the wall emitted a faint light. That faint light was almost connected to the darkness, flickering at a frequency similar to a heartbeat.

The moment he stared at those faint lights, Xia De really felt he heard the sound of a huge heart beating. At this moment, his body and soul were completely frozen by time and space, and he vaguely understood something.

What he was staring at was the Fear Fortress. From the beginning, nothing had been chasing him. The thing that emitted fear, the thing that seemed to want to expel any outsider, was the Fear Fortress itself.

Those deep, faint lights represented the Fear Fortress itself. And the so-called "Fear Fortress" actually possessed consciousness; it was a living thing.

Fear beyond the limit almost made Xia De lose consciousness completely in an instant. The impact of the fear emotion even made him feel that he was about to fall into a slumber from which he would never wake up.

"No, would I be afraid of fear?"

Under the tree in the Forest of a Thousand Trees, after the god temporarily left, the memory of him standing side by side with the two witches facing the boundless terrifying darkness flooded into his mind. This fear seemed to have stimulated a certain power lurking in his soul. The 【Tree's Kiss】 Spirit Rune, which had never been connected to any strange technique, trembled slightly in his soul.

At this fragile moment when he was close to a complete emotional breakdown, the primitive fear that his body fell into and the clarity of his soul after reviving in courage formed a distinct misalignment, making Xia De clearly feel the strangeness of his soul for the first time.

Not only were two drops of divinity blessing him in his soul, but he also felt that something warm yet somewhat cold was hugging him from behind.

"That is..."

Even though facing the source of fear of the Fear Fortress froze his body and soul, the impulse and desire in that instant still miraculously made him turn his head.

In front was the Fear Fortress, but what he saw when he turned his head was endless white fog. In those glowing white mists was a giant tree that he couldn't see the full extent of even when he looked up.

That tree seemed to connect heaven and earth, and it also seemed to support heaven and earth. Its root system was developed, its crown was lush, and the tree patterns on the transparent trunk seemed to record the story of an entire civilization.

Looking at that tree, a warm feeling washed over his body and soul, making him quickly wake up from the negative state of seeing the source of fear. But at the same time, the most real soul touch that his soul perceived at the moment of being on the verge of shattering also disappeared.

The transparent crown swayed gently in the white fog. Xia De reached out with a sense of loss and took two green leaves that were spinning and falling.

"Was it you that I felt just now?"

He asked softly.

The surrounding white fog contracted toward the door-shaped pendant door that appeared at his feet at some point. The scene of the clearing in the center of the dark cornfield slowly emerged as the white fog disappeared, and the darkness was encroaching on the space around Xia De's body.

He didn't get a response. He sighed and wanted to bend down to pick up the 【Fate's Twenty-Sided Die】; after all, the battle with that powerful demon hadn't ended yet.

But unexpectedly, before the surrounding white fog completely disappeared, the demon holding the black fire human bone rushed up, as if impatient to let Xia De sleep here forever.

【Outsider, you have returned to the current time.】

【Message from the Ancient God "Father of the Infinite Tree":】

"Are you unwilling to answer my question?"

Xia De maintained the posture of bending down to pick up, preparing to stand up and throw the die. Because after the die was thrown, it would definitely be twenty points.

【Infinite time blesses you.】

The demon, wrapped in darkness and suppressing the silver moon radiance on Xia De's body, finally arrived in front of him.

At this time, there were still a few wisps of white fog around Xia De that hadn't completely disappeared, and the demon's appearance seemed to have disturbed something. Behind Xia De, the phantom of the giant tree that seemed to pierce the sky, which had originally faded with the disappearance of the white fog, actually reappeared at this moment.

Thick fog surged from behind Xia De in an instant, as if he had returned to the 【Corridor of Time】. But the target of this white fog was not Xia De. As the branches of the giant tree behind him swayed, the white fog lunged forward, swallowed the demon in front of Xia De, and then quietly disappeared into the surroundings.

The disappearance of the white fog let the darkness descend again, only there were no demons around, not even a trace.

"What does this mean?"

Xia De pinched the metal die and straightened up, looking at the metal door pendant at his feet; it had returned to normal.

【Infinite time blesses you.】

She repeated this sentence. Xia De nodded thoughtfully:

"So, every time I complete a key mission and return from past time, if someone wants to attack me in this moment, they will be countered by the power left by the 【Father of the Infinite Tree】?"

But this seemed useless at all. Not only was this treatment only available when completing a key mission, but also not every time there was a fool who would attack Xia De at such a time.

"But in any case, solving the enemy is a good thing."

He bent down to pick up his own relics and spellcasting materials from the ground, and looked at the two leaves held in his palm.

After thinking slightly, he casually covered his right eye with one of them.

The veins on the leaf flickered with golden spiritual light. That spiritual light gradually gathered and entered Xia De's right eye, and brand-new power surged into Xia De's soul.

"Breath of Time?"

It took at least half a minute for him to take the leaf from his hand. The voice in his heart was already prompting the specific information of the strange technique.

【Breath of Time】, a strange technique corresponding to the 【Space-Time】 Spirit Rune. This is an active release strange technique that requires spellcasting materials.

The strange technique has two effects, corresponding to the actions of "exhale" and "inhale." When Xia De uses the strange technique and performs an "inhale," he can restore an old item to its appearance from an earlier time.

Xia De took out his pocket watch that had broken after getting water in Coldwater Port, summoned his Spirit Ring behind him, and activated the strange technique. As he inhaled deeply, some gray air currents from the pocket watch divided into two streams and entered his nose. The rust on the pocket watch, which had some rust marks on the surface, peeled off, and at the same time, the hands started moving again.

"Ordinary items, with my Second-Tier Spirit, can be restored to their state from at most three months ago. It is ineffective against relics, but effective against living things and other special items, because what I interfere with is not the item itself, but time, but it consumes more Spirit."

Of course, Xia De's interference with the pocket watch only made it return to the moment he jumped off the ship with Lei Qianya. He couldn't consume all his Spirit just to test a strange technique.

And when Xia De uses the strange technique and performs an "exhale" action, he can make the target item be quickly corroded by time. This is not making the time point where the item is located come to the future, but letting it naturally decay. If the target is in the air when using the strange technique, it is rapid oxidation; if it is in the wind, it is rapid wind erosion.

Although he didn't waste Spirit to try, accelerating the target time is easier than restoring it. If the restoration of ordinary items is currently at most three months, then acceleration can reach at most one year. Of course, making the target decay can also be used on living things and some special items, but the corresponding difficulty will also be much higher.

And the most critical information about 【Breath of Time】 is that the spellcasting material is lifespan. One free material spellcasting per month, which is the one Xia De just used. Before the end of this natural month, which is before the end of today, if he wants to influence time, he must consume one-tenth of the length of the influenced time as spellcasting material.

"Although it sounds magical, and can even allow a low-tier Ringed Shushi like me to directly influence time, isn't this cost too high? Even if the Spirit is enough, the longest time influenced at one time is only about a thousand years... hmm, thinking about it this way, the cost doesn't seem high."

Xia De sighed in his heart, but he didn't put the other leaf representing 【A Piece of Real Information - Dark Dungeon】 in front of his eyes to read. A leaf can only be used once, but he currently has no mind to memorize that complex information.

No matter what help this information can give him, he plans to wait until the adventure in the 【Dark Domain】 ends before checking it.

Confirming that all items were picked up, Xia De turned and entered the cornfield, and found Luweiya curled up beside the 【God's Gift Box】.

She was sleeping sweetly. Xia De was greatly terrified, thinking she had fallen into that kind of eternal sleep again. But hearing footsteps, Luweiya woke up slightly. Although her mental state was still very poor, it was actually better than when Xia De left.

She gave Xia De a reluctant smile:

"You're back? Oh, I actually fell asleep."

"Some things happened, but there is no danger anymore."

Xia De carefully helped Luweiya up, and then turned to carry the box on his back again. The 【God's Gift Box】 was glowing very quietly, with no abnormalities at all.

"Follow me, I have already found the location of your divination guidance."

With Xia De by her side, Luweiya's spirit improved a lot. The two returned to the center of the cornfield where Xia De had fought the demon just now, and Xia De also briefly explained his encounter in the past few minutes.

Subsequently, Xia De, who was particularly sensitive to spatial traces, found the spatial rift connecting to an unknown location. They held hands and stepped into the rift together. It was like using 【Lagley's Leap】, with no special feeling at all.

When he lifted his leg, the surroundings were a cornfield, and when his leg touched the ground again, the surroundings were a flat road in the darkness.

Behind was a forest, on both sides was the direction the road extended, and some figures from the past were floating around, blurred and hard to recognize. Xia De raised his finger and pointed forward. Borrowing the faint light, his eyes barely saw a manor quietly standing in this deep darkness.

"This is... Miss Miss Jia Lin Na's manor, we have arrived at Miss Miss Jia Lin Na's manor!"

The witch's manor, like the surroundings, had no light at all, but seeing a familiar building in this darkness still made a smile appear on Xia De's face. He didn't believe at all that this manor had also fallen into the darkness. ===== CHAPTER 523 =====