Chapter 640: Mission Accomplished, the Spiritual Spring Has Been Restored

The surrounding spirit-race formation cultivators, seeing this, could only grit their teeth and reluctantly retreat, clearing a large area.

Qingluo's supple face flickered with a look of hesitation, as if she wanted to speak but held back. She was clearly extremely uneasy about allowing a human to operate alone, but in the end, she let out a cold snort, viciously flicked her vines, and retreated to Panshi's side.

Su Ming closed his eyes, sinking all his focus through his fingertips, deep into the boundless darkness beneath the earth.

What he was about to perform was the "Reverse Replacement" technique, honed to perfection through the blood-soaked battlefields of Iron Wall Pass in the Northern Frontier, as well as countless days and nights spent dismantling discarded formation plates in the Repair Hall.

"Overcome hardness with softness; water benefits all things without contention." Su Ming recited silently within his Consciousness Sea.

Within the Xuantian ring, Lin Yu's Soul Body hovered in mid-air, his faint blue glow shimmering softly. He made no sound to disturb, but a trace of appreciation gleamed in his ethereal eyes.

Su Ming's Ruo Shui spiritual energy, like the finest spring rain seeping into parched soil, flowed along the vast mycelial network, permeating backward in reverse, unhurried and steady.

What he was about to perform was the "Reverse Replacement" technique, honed to perfection through the blood-soaked battlefields of Iron Wall Pass in the Northern Frontier, as well as countless days and nights spent dismantling abandoned formation plates in the Repair Hall.

Su Ming's approach was "peeling away."

He controlled his Ruo Shui spiritual energy, transforming it into layers of extremely thin, extremely soft water membranes that slowly but firmly wrapped around the roots of the mycelia. The all-embracing nature of water spiritual energy silently severed the law-based connection between the mycelia and the Dark Current Sect's mother formation.

The moment the connection was completely severed, Su Ming immediately channeled the vast life force still lingering within the spiritual spring itself, like a long-stored spring torrent, surging through with devastating force!

Those dead mycelia, now cut off from the mother formation's energy supply, were instantly scoured clean by the violent surge of vitality.

This process sounded simple, but in truth, it drained his divine sense to an extreme degree. He had to simultaneously maintain the stability of over a hundred microscopic water membranes while precisely controlling the flow of life force.

On Su Ming's forehead, fine beads of cold sweat had already formed into streams, sliding continuously down his cheeks, soaking a large patch of his blue-gray Daoist robe. Yet his cross-legged form remained as steady as Mount Tai, his output of Ruo Shui spiritual energy showing not even the slightest tremor.

Time trickled away, drop by drop.

After approximately one incense stick's worth of time.

The surface of the spiritual spring began to undergo a breathtaking transformation.

The originally turbid water, emitting a foul, decayed dark-yellow hue, seemed to be washed clean by some invisible force, visibly clearing at a speed discernible to the naked eye!

At first, a faint emerald green emerged at the center; then, like ink dropped into water, this emerald hue spread rapidly. In the end, the entire pool of spiritual spring water presented a pure green so translucent it resembled the finest imperial jade.

The gray films floating on the surface turned to ash under the scouring of life force.

The six dying light trees surrounding the spring stopped shedding their leaves. The luminous patterns on their rough bark, like a long-dried riverbed finally welcoming sweet rain, lit up inch by inch.

Not only did they light up, but they shone even brighter—three parts more dazzling—than before they had "withered"!

Because Su Ming's "Reverse Replacement," in the final step of clearing the mycelia, had taken the opportunity to apply the "energy circulation loop" theory from formation studies, performing a microscopic optimization of the spiritual spring's own Life Essence circulation efficiency!

"Crack—"

A crisp sound broke the silence.

Elder Genshou stared blankly at the spiritual spring now radiating vigorous life force. The wooden staff he had held for three hundred years slipped unconsciously from his palm and clattered to the ground.

He had guarded this spiritual spring for three hundred years. Even in his wildest dreams, he had never imagined that repairing a formation could be done so cleanly, so decisively—even flawlessly!

Elder Panshi, standing behind the crowd, had a brilliant, striking gleam flash through his cold, hard eyes. The corner of his mouth curled upward almost imperceptibly for a brief instant.

Su Ming slowly rose from the greenstone.

His face was pale as paper, his form even swaying slightly. But when he lifted his head and swept his gaze across the crowd, his distinctly black-and-white eyes shimmered with a clear, brilliant light that no one could look at directly.

He gave a slight bow to everyone present.

"Mission accomplished. The spiritual spring has been restored."

At this moment, in this perilous outskirts of the Greenwood Court.

This Foundation Establishment formation cultivator from the human race had, with pure technique, achieved a dimensional crushing over the spirit race's native formation cultivators. He had finally, on this foreign land, driven in a nail that no one could afford to ignore!

News of the spiritual spring's flawless restoration spread like wind with wings, sweeping through every corner of the massive luminous banyan tree's trunk in less than half a day.

The common folk of the Greenwood Court—the lower-class spirit races who had not felt such pure vitality in a long time—surged forth from their branch streets, converging around the spiritual spring.

They gazed upon the six light trees, now brimming with life and even dazzlingly bright, with nearly pilgrimage-like reverence. Several mischievous spirit-race children, not knowing their limits, climbed onto the lowest branches of the light trees, gleefully reaching out their small hands marked with green patterns to stroke the life-filled leaves, letting out giggles.

Among the crowd, none was more animated than Ye Qing.

He had practically become Su Ming's unofficial "press secretary" in the Greenwood Court.

"You all missed it!" Ye Qing stood on a protruding tree burl, gesturing wildly, the green tendrils atop his head trembling with excitement as he bragged loudly to the gathered tribesmen, "That human formation cultivator—he didn't even hold a proper magical implement! He just squatted there on the ground, drawing a few lines in the dirt with his finger—"

Ye Qing deliberately lowered his voice, building suspense: "He pressed his hand into the soil and squatted there motionless for half an hour! Then... he knew what kind of disgusting thing was growing thirty zhang underground! Thirty zhang! My heavens! Those formation cultivators in our court who are always blowing their own trumpets—they can't even see three chi beneath the surface!"

Bursts of exclamation rose from the crowd. The lower-class spirit races gazing at the spiritual spring couldn't help but add a measure of awe toward such unknown methods in their eyes.

At this moment.

In a side chamber halfway up the luminous banyan tree's trunk, converted from a living tree hollow.

Su Ming was seated cross-legged on a soft sleeping mat woven from vines.

That very afternoon, the Greenwood Court's highest council of elders had convened an emergency secret meeting. As the core of this storm, he had naturally been "invited" to wait outside the meeting chamber.

Though it was called waiting, two spirit-race guards holding wooden staffs with stern expressions had been posted at the door—nominally to "protect" the honored guest who had rendered meritorious service, but in truth, it was of course extremely tight house arrest.

Su Ming was not at all surprised by this treatment.

His eyes slightly closed, his breathing long and even, he cycled the Like Water Art within his body to its utmost limit. The trickling stream of faint blue spiritual energy flowed slowly through meridians left somewhat parched from repairing the spiritual spring, mending his severely depleted mind and spirit bit by bit.