The Transmigrated Male Lead Confessed to Me - Chapter 31 (Part 2)

At this very moment, as she emerged from the Mystic Path, she already sensed several powerful surges of spiritual power surging toward her.

They stood in a dark red desert.

A gust of hot wind, stinking of blood, swept across the sands. Crimson grains whirled upward in waves, scattering through the air like snow.

Dozens of dark shadows rushed at them, letting out eerie howls.

Each creature’s body was round and headless, nearly a zhang tall, sprouting twisted limbs. A gaping maw split the center of its torso, filled with jagged teeth.

Saliva dripped from their mouths, sizzling on the ground and burning deep black pits.

Su Zhen had passed through this boundary gate before and knew perfectly well what lay beyond: the Hesha Sea of the Demon Realm, teeming with countless demonic beasts.

Originally, she had thought that if her physical body were destroyed, she would simply abandon the fight. She could still battle if needed, but there was no point; it would be better to flee, reforge her body, and return later.

But since her body was intact, she might as well play with them a little.

Inside her sleeve, her hand shifted slightly, forming a seal.

The ground began to quake violently.

The demonic creatures charged across the sand, their twisted limbs not touching the ground. They were actually flying with spiritual power, so fast they left afterimages in the air.

Suddenly, the crimson desert collapsed silently, forming several deep pits.

From within the hollows sprouted dark red, withered trees, each towering more than three zhang tall. Their branches grew wildly from trunk and crown alike, every one bristling with sharp thorns. They stretched, split apart, multiplied in number, until they became a writhing mass like countless squirming arms.

It all happened too quickly.

And it was right in front of the demonic creatures. They didn’t even have time to stop before they crashed headlong into the forest of red trees.

In an instant, the thorned branches skewered them. Hoarse, guttural screams filled the air. The creatures ignored their prey standing right before them, struggling only to escape the bindings.

But the branches kept multiplying, their sharp spikes driving into the monsters’ bodies and continuing to extend until they completely impaled them.

Su Zhen snapped her fingers.

The branches of the red trees either tore apart or twisted and crushed. Thick sprays of blackened pus and blood burst in the air as dozens of demonic beasts were shredded or ground to pieces.

As their bodies were destroyed, their broken limbs and flesh spewed clouds of purple-red miasma.

For ordinary righteous cultivators, unless their cultivation was extremely high, such a scene would force them to retreat, or at least deploy methods to keep the miasma at bay.

Otherwise, even a trace could wound them, or worse, corrupt and assimilate them.

Su Zhen stood calmly where she was, without moving a step, not even forming another seal or casting another spell. She only watched the scene before her with a cool, detached gaze.

The miasma lingered among the crimson trees, rolling and circling along their branches, yet never spreading further, as though pinned down by some invisible force and trapped within that grove.

After a while, the miasma gradually thinned, as if drawn into the trunks themselves. The dark red trees shuddered, and from their withered branches sprouted clusters of purple-red leaves.

The leaves swelled in the wind, growing from an inch to nearly a foot in size, then quickly withered and fell away, crumbling into ashes in the hot gusts.

At the same time, all the trees turned a dark purple-red. Their forms shriveled and dried, as if all moisture had been drained, until they too scattered into the wind.

Only on the central tree did a single fruit ripen at its crown, radiating red light. As the tree dissipated, the fruit fell.

Su Zhen reached out and caught it.

The fruit was about the size of a baby’s fist, landing perfectly in her palm.

She raised it to her lips and devoured it in just a few bites.

Although the spell she had just used had not consumed much spiritual power, it was still a drain.

But after eating the fruit, all her expended energy was fully replenished, with even some surplus—

She was directly replenished to her peak state, her spiritual power brimming once again.

Su Zhen nodded in satisfaction.

She had learned this technique in her past life, at the Heavenly Immortal realm, but it was not limited to that realm alone. She wondered whether she could cast it now as well, so she decided to give it a try.

And indeed, it worked.

She turned back.

Xiao Yu was standing behind her, one arm folded across his chest, the other hand supporting his chin, watching intently. His expression was extremely serious, and he did not even blink, as if afraid of missing something vitally important.

Su Zhen glanced at him twice. “Senior, do you have some profound insight to share?”

From the appearance of the demonic beasts until the moment she finished eating the fruit, no more than the time to exchange a few words had passed.

Yet his demeanor was exactly like someone watching an opera from the audience, making her feel as though she had fought a long, hard battle.

Xiao Yu hummed thoughtfully, lowered his hand at his chin, and gave her a thumbs-up. “Too strong.”

Su Zhen: “…Senior jests.”

“Don’t give me that look.”

Xiao Yu said helplessly, “There are indeed many techniques for absorbing spiritual power from demonic beasts while filtering out the miasma. But yours accomplished everything with a single seal from start to finish. From the fluctuations of spiritual power, it was clear that the output was steady throughout, without the usual uneven surges or lapses, and the transitions were smooth and seamless…”

Su Zhen stared at him in shock.

This guy was really good at boasting.

Did he perhaps sell wares for a living in the past?

For a moment, she was speechless. “…If Senior wishes to learn, I can tell you a few tricks.”

But then she reconsidered. Although it was a rather unorthodox method, at its core it was still a five-element spell, one that required a specific spiritual root attribute. Yet this man seemed to lack a wood-attribute spiritual root.

“Really?”

Xiao Yu was taken aback at her words, then looked extremely excited. “Isn’t this your exclusive secret technique? Can you teach me?”

Su Zhen was baffled. “Why would you think it’s my secret technique? I learned it from a book in a secret treasury. I only improved it a little by combining two spells into one.”

“…Doesn’t that make it a secret technique?”

“Fine.”

Su Zhen looked at him helplessly. “Then Senior can just trade me some interesting sword techniques or spells in exchange.”

No sooner had she spoken than she realized something was off.

Su Zhen was a little surprised. “You really have a wood spiritual root?”

“Of course.”

Xiao Yu answered innocently, “When I first started cultivating, I secretly wished I had a wood root. Unfortunately, I couldn’t sense wood-attribute energy well, so it didn’t work out. Only after reaching higher realms and spending a long time did I manage to cleanse and bring it out.”

The vast majority of humans were born with spiritual roots, but they are usually mixed and impure. Only through cultivation can specific attributes be developed.

Then, by refining and cleansing, one could improve the purity of a spiritual root. The Heavenly Spiritual Root was the highest level. Many spent centuries just to achieve a single attribute at that level.

There are also a few people who are born with one or more innate attribute-specific spiritual roots.

For them, refinement was far faster. Where others might need centuries to obtain a Heavenly Spiritual Root, such people might only need thirty to fifty years.

Su Zhen was one such case.

The purer the spiritual root, the faster the conversion between spiritual power attributes, and the quicker one could draw spiritual energy from nature and refine it into spiritual power. This made a tremendous difference in casting spells and weaving incantations.

Generally speaking, when a cultivator refined more than two spiritual roots, their attributes tended to be interrelated.

For example, between attributes such as water–ice, wood–plant, lightning–fire, and earth–rock, the conversions were swift. Thus, if someone possessed a water spiritual root, their second choice would most likely be the ice spiritual root.

Su Zhen was born with a wood spiritual root. Later, she refined and cleansed her body to gain both water and earth spiritual roots, since these could harmonize with wood, making spellcasting easier.

Su Zhen said, “…Weren’t you a triple Heavenly Spiritual Root of gold, fire, and thunder? Why refine a wood attribute? Wouldn’t the first choice be wind or water? I remember Senior used ice when making pastries, so I assumed you must also have an ice-water spiritual root?”

“I do.”

Xiao Yu answered matter-of-factly, “But aside from gold, fire, and thunder, I chose to refine wood first, and the reason was… simply because I liked it. It’s just a pity I could only reach the Earth Spiritual Root and could not advance further.”

Su Zhen: “?”

Spiritual roots purity has a total of seven grades:

Impure Spiritual Root, Mixed Spiritual Root, True Spiritual Root, Profound Spiritual Root, Origin Spiritual Root, Earth Spiritual Root, and Heavenly Spiritual Root.

Each increase in purity is closely tied to a cultivator’s own comprehension and affinity for that attribute.

Many cultivators spend their entire lives without ever refining even a single Earth Spiritual Root.

So if he was merely interested in wood-element techniques, an Earth Spiritual Root was more than enough.

“Besides.”

Xiao Yu countered, “Don’t you also have other attribute spiritual roots as well?”

Su Zhen: “…That was just because I had nothing better to do.”

Besides, they were of little use to her.

Artifacts had at most three attributes. For the majority of cultivators, their most commonly used attributes were three, perhaps four at most.

“But…”

Su Zhen looked at him with some doubt. “I heard that when Senior first entered the sect, it was because of extraordinary talent that you were accepted directly as a disciple of the Sect Leader? So you were also born with spiritual roots?”

Xiao Yu nodded. “Yes. Unfortunately, my attributes are not the same as yours. As for why I became my master’s disciple, it wasn’t due to talent… Ahem, I’ll explain that another time.”

“…What’s unfortunate about that? I’m only curious why Senior would want a wood spiritual root.”

The characteristics of spiritual power vary by attribute, and so do the qualities of the sword qi they produce. For sword cultivators, wind, thunder, ice, water, fire, and gold were the best choices.

Even if one casually browsed any shop selling spell manuals, wood-attribute sword techniques were pitifully rare.

At higher realms, one could naturally integrate everything, with sword intent flowing according to the heart rather than spiritual power attribute. But in the early stages of cultivation, it was far from simple.

Since Su Zhen had a water spiritual root, she was unaffected. “Senior, as the disciple of a Sword Saint, you must also walk the path of sword cultivation. Generally, those who pursue sword cultivation would avoid the wood attribute, wouldn’t they?”

“It’s complicated.”

Xiao Yu hesitated, then said, “Simply put, maybe it was just so I could learn from you one day.”

Su Zhen: “……”

Could that excuse sound any more perfunctory?

Xiao Yu shook his head quietly. “See? In this world, when you tell the truth, no one believes you.”

Su Zhen rolled her eyes and didn’t bother replying. Instead, she swept her spiritual sense to scan her surroundings.

Within just over a dozen li, she “saw” a horde of demonic beasts.

There were hundreds of them, a dense black mass like storm clouds surging over the desert sands, thundering straight toward her.

The ground trembled faintly as gravel spilled outward, revealing segments of enormous bodies writhing below.

Several Devouring-Chrysalis Demons sped through the desert, their bodies stretched over a hundred zhang, armored in thick blood-red carapaces that blended seamlessly with the crimson sand.

At such a distance, the gap was nothing for them.

They would reach her very soon.

Su Zhen was just about to strike first and slaughter them, so as not to waste time.

“No need to go over. Find your sword first.”

A low voice suddenly echoed in her ear.

Across the vast desert swept by her spiritual sense, the blood-red sky abruptly dimmed.

A streak of sword light burst across the sky, swift as thunder and lightning, dazzling like a snow-white ribbon flashing through the air.

The brilliance enveloped a hundred li around, setting the entire sea of sand into upheaval. Crimson dunes roared and surged like raging waves, scattering and falling like a rain of blood.

Amid that terrifying blood rain, countless demonic beasts were obliterated in an instant. Their bodies shattered beneath the overwhelming spiritual power, ground to dust.

Not even ashes remained.

Su Zhen gazed at the breathtaking scene, momentarily speechless. She suddenly began to understand what the title “Sword God” truly meant.

She had once witnessed her master draw his sword, yet compared to this strike just now, even the sword intent of Yuchen Xianzun did not reach half its level.

“By the way, teach me that spell when you have time.”

Xiao Yu added, “It really looked amazing.”

Su Zhen: “……”

Still flattering me, even now!