Chapter 234 Chapter234 – Ten years passed

“I used to,” Briar muttered, rubbing its tiny hands together, face faintly flushed. “I spent tens of thousands of years alone in that ravine and didn’t feel lonely. But… it’s different now.”

Over the years, it had gotten along incredibly well with the younger disciples of the Thunder Sect. They adored it.

Several talented young female cultivators had even knitted tiny flower hats for it, sewn delicate little dresses, and made small embroidered shoes. It had grown used to being doted on.

Thinking back to the days when everyone had feared and hated it, compared to now—it was like heaven and hell.

Lauren had heard the gossip. There was nothing she could really do about it. Briar couldn’t stray too far from her anyway.

“How about we walk through the market street first?” she suggested. “Maybe we’ll find something to keep you busy.”

“Alright!”

......

They wandered down a lively street and stopped in front of a shop selling wooden chairs and carved ornaments.

A woman stood at the front, handling customers. Behind her, a man was sawing and shaping wood on the spot.

Briar froze, staring at him. Lauren stopped too. “You want to learn that?”

Briar nodded.

Lauren blinked in disbelief. “Do you even remember what kind of spirit you are? You want to be a carpenter?”

She crouched down, squinting at it. “You’re serious?”

Briar nodded again. “It looks fun.”

Lauren stared at it for a long moment. “Fine. If you want to play carpenter, then play carpenter.”

She found a nearby shop and bought an entire set of carpentry tools, along with a thick carpentry manual. She wasn’t even sure Briar could read properly, but the book had detailed illustrations—mortise-and-tenon joints clearly drawn and labeled. It should manage.

Then she went further and bought wood. A lot of wood.

She cleared out the warehouses of two separate timber merchants. That should keep it busy for years.

......

In the Far South, caves so dense with spiritual energy that it condensed into mist—or even liquefied—did exist. The problem was finding them.

Most were buried deep beneath layers of ancient ice, hidden under thousands of years of frozen silence. Without guidance, they were almost impossible to detect.

Lauren searched alone for two full months. What she found were mediocre caves at best—thin spiritual currents, barely useful. Not nearly enough to push her toward ascension.

Then she had an idea. She returned to the cave she’d discovered years ago and captured several ice moths that lived within it. Wrapping them carefully in her own ice spiritual energy to protect them from the surface cold, she brought them out.

Creatures born in dense ice spiritual energy instinctively sought it. If released, they would search for the same environment to burrow into.

She followed them deeper into the true Far South—the southernmost edge of the cultivation world. A place so cold and remote that no human footprints scarred its surface.

Even with her Immortal Ice Root, frost formed along her brows.

The moths scattered into the white wilderness. She trailed them across glaciers and over wind-scoured ridges.

Soon enough, they began circling a vast depression in the ice.

A pit. Several times larger than the one she’d found before. The spiritual energy there was suffocatingly dense.

Deep within the cavern below, she found it—a pool nearly ten feet across, shrouded in pale mist.

Liquid water could not exist in such a place. This was liquefied spiritual energy.

Lauren’s heartbeat quickened. She approached the pool, then paused.

After a brief moment of consideration, she retrieved the Ice Spirit Fruit that had matured in her spatial storage years ago.

Edmund had once said that even in the Upper Realm, such a fruit was rare. It contained terrifyingly pure energy—so much that it was impossible to predict how much of it one could absorb.

She swallowed it whole. Then she stepped into the pool.

.......

Ten years passed. When Lauren opened her eyes, the pool was gone.

Every drop of liquefied spiritual energy had been absorbed. The ancient ice bed lining the cavern had thinned dramatically. The cave itself had expanded from the force of energy drawn inward.

Her cultivation had reached the absolute limit. One more step—and she would trigger ascension.

Lauren exhaled slowly and suppressed the final breakthrough. She needed to return first. There were things to explain. People to see.

She left the Far South and contacted Briar. Briar’s voice came through, startled. “Only ten years? That fast?”

“Yes,” Lauren replied calmly. “This time I found a cave with a spiritual source. I’ve touched the threshold of ascension.”

“Really?!”

“Of course. Briar, you’ll be able to go home soon.”

Briar’s joy was immediate and unfiltered. It hurriedly pulled Lauren into inner space.

“Come see what I made!”

Lauren blinked. Inside, she found a wooden house. It was rough in places, but unmistakable. Modeled after the house on the hill where Briar and Wayne had once raised chickens together.

Around it lay piles of discarded wood—failed cuts, uneven boards, warped beams. It had clearly put in serious effort.

“Does it look like it?” Briar asked nervously.

Lauren walked around the structure slowly. “It does,” she said softly. “Very much.” She looked at Briar. “Are you reluctant to leave?”

Briar nodded. “You’re reluctant to leave the people here.”

Briar hesitated—then nodded rapidly, like a chick pecking grain.

Lauren reached out and gently rubbed its head.

“Everyone is moving forward,” she said. “Wayne has good aptitude. He’ll ascend one day. You’ll meet again in the Upper Realm.”

She paused slightly. “It might take him longer than most. His demonic energy contains too many impurities. That makes him more vulnerable to inner demons. Master revised their cultivation method—if they progress steadily, he’ll be fine.”

Briar shook its head firmly. “No. Wayne won’t have inner demons.”

Lauren looked at it, surprised by the certainty in its tone. “How do you know?”

“Because I gave him my juice.”

“…Your juice?”

“Yes. My sap.” Briar looked faintly embarrassed. “All those people who kept provoking me? They weren’t just angry because I eat meat. They wanted my sap.”

Lauren’s eyes widened slightly. “And what does your sap do?”

“After someone consumes it, they become immune to poisons, illusions, and inner demons during breakthroughs. Whether it’s celestial demons or divine demons—no matter what methods they use—they can’t corrupt the mind.”

Lauren went silent. How many cultivators had died on this path because of inner demons? How many demonic cultivators had gone mad chasing power too quickly? And here—

Was the natural counterbalance. Briar’s sap. A perfect defense against illusion and mental corruption.

And there was only one Briar in existence. Naturally born. Impossible to replicate.

Suddenly, everything made sense.

The tens of thousands of years it had lived quietly in that ravine. The relentless pursuit. It hadn’t been hunted merely because it devoured flesh. Someone had discovered its true value.

“Do you have a lot of that sap?” Lauren asked quietly.

“Not much,” Briar replied. “It takes ten thousand years to condense one bowl.”

It held its hands apart to show the size—about two ordinary bowls’ worth. It had lived for roughly a hundred thousand years. That meant… maybe ten bowls total.

“One drop is enough?” she pressed.

Briar nodded again.

Lauren did the math in her head. Ten bowls. Two bowls each time. Even one drop was effective. That was still a terrifying amount.