Chapter 641: The decline of the root vein defense array is by no means natural aging!

Shadow crouched dutifully on his right shoulder, her black feathers slightly puffed up, her pair of golden pupils like two unsheathed daggers staring warily toward the door.

"Disciple, you've got some pretty nice treatment here."

Within the Xuantian ring, Lin Yu's soul body extended a sliver outward, its faint blue glow drifting in the air, his voice carrying a hint of lazy, immortal-style teasing.

"They've arranged a soft confinement with a private spring-water room for you, complete with dedicated guards standing watch. Seems these few-thousand-year-old tree spirits are quite particular about hospitality etiquette. Compared to the time I fell into a manure pit back in the day, this is practically living in a celestial palace."

Su Ming calmly responded within his Consciousness Sea: "Caution and suspicion are survival instincts. If a human cultivator mysteriously appears in the heart of spirit race territory, carrying extraordinary skills, and they didn't suspect him, I'd be more worried about falling into an even bigger trap."

Su Ming's fingertips tapped lightly against his knee twice.

"What I need is to give the moderates among them a sufficiently reasonable justification to vouch for my existence."

Lin Yu let out a light snort from within the ring, his soul body glowing faintly: "You've got a clear head on your shoulders, kid. I observed that Panshi fellow, he's a pragmatic man driven by self-interest. Today by the spring, I saw him nod, that hard, stinking stone head of his is much easier to handle than that suspicious vine woman Qingluo."

Just as the master and disciple were conversing.

"Creak..."

A narrow crack opened in the hidden side door of the adjoining room.

A thin figure slipped in like a thief, it was Ye Qing.

He closed the door behind him, made a shushing gesture, hurried over to Su Ming's side, and lowered his voice to deliver his intelligence report, a flush of excitement spreading across his slightly boyish face.

"Su Ming! You're practically a prophet! The Elder Council is in complete uproar!" Ye Qing swallowed hard and spoke rapidly.

"Elder Panshi slammed the table saying you've already demonstrated enough sincerity and proven your irreplaceable value, Greenwood Court is exactly in need of someone to counter the Dark Current Sect's formations, so they should immediately offer you limited sanctuary and let you work for us!"

"But Elder Qingluo absolutely refuses to agree!" Ye Qing mimicked Qingluo's hoarse, icy voice, "She says you're definitely a new pawn sent by the Dark Current Sect, this is the classic trick of self-inflicted harm, deliberately causing some damage at the edges, then using small favors to buy our trust, with the goal of infiltrating us from within!"

"What about Elder Genxu?" Su Ming slowly opened his eyes, his tone utterly devoid of fluctuation, as if listening to someone else's story.

"Elder Genxu sided with Elder Panshi this time!" Ye Qing slapped his thigh excitedly. "He pointed at Elder Qingluo's nose and said, the mycelium distribution map you drew on the ground, that ability to deconstruct microscopic formation principles, is absolutely not something an ordinary person or those Dark Current Sect brutes who only know how to kill could produce!"

Su Ming nodded slightly. This was entirely within his calculations. With Genxu, the technical expert, supporting him, his leverage in the Elder Council was already substantial.

But he showed no sign of surprise or tension whatsoever. Instead, he shifted the topic, asking in a casual, unhurried tone:

"Ye Qing, let me ask you something. Besides those minor spiritual springs on the outskirts, does the core heartland of Greenwood Court have any formation problems that even the elders are helpless against?"

Ye Qing was caught off guard by the sudden question.

He tilted his head, his soft antennae twisting together in frustration as he pondered deeply for a long moment.

"If we're talking about difficult problems... there is one thing that's truly a headache." Ye Qing's voice dropped even lower, as if touching upon some taboo. "Deep within Greenwood Court, there's a Root Vein Defense Formation. It was laid down by our ancestors long ago, but over the past thousand years, this grand formation's defensive power has been slowly declining."

Ye Qing sighed. "Successive elders have tried every conceivable method, even going so far as to expend their own origin to nurture it, yet none could reverse this decline. I've heard... even Elder Woodheart, who's been in seclusion all this time, can only watch helplessly, completely at a loss."

"Root Vein Defense Formation? Slowly declining?"

Within the Xuantian ring, Lin Yu's soul body had been lazily drifting in mid-air, but upon hearing these words, his faint blue glow instantly froze solid.

His tone, in that very moment, shifted from cynical teasing to bone-deep gravity!

"Disciple!" Lin Yu's voice thundered through the Consciousness Sea like a clap of thunder. "You're focusing on the wrong thing!"

"Do you think those lunatics from the Dark Current Sect went through all the trouble of setting up a three-layered crescent-shaped chain life-draining formation just to dry up a few measly springs on the outskirts?!" Lin Yu spoke at lightning speed. "The entire vast mycelium network, where does its final destination for the life force it drains actually lead?"

Su Ming's pupils abruptly constricted. The distribution map of the Dark Current Sect's baleful formation surfaced once again in his mind, those hidden crimson ripples, all pointing toward...

"The depths of the earth veins!" Su Ming drew in a sharp breath inwardly.

"Exactly!" Lin Yu said. "This ten-thousand-year-old luminous banyan is the very foundation of Greenwood Court. And the Root Vein Defense Formation must be operating with the banyan's massive mountain-like root system at its core! If the Dark Current Sect's mycelium has already seeped through the earth veins, continuously eroding the banyan's roots over the course of a thousand years like a bone-etching curse..."

"Then this so-called natural decline is an inevitable result!" Su Ming completed Lin Yu's deduction, his gaze sharpening like a blade.

This was the ultimate Information Gap capable of shifting the entire balance of the war!

If he could only fix the spiritual springs, he'd merely be a "decently skilled mason," and Greenwood Court might toss him a meal at best.

But if he could use formation deduction to prove to the Elder Council, that the Root Vein Defense Formation's decline was not natural aging at all, but rather a thousand-year scheme of extermination orchestrated by the Dark Current Sect!

Then Su Ming would no longer be an outsider, but "the sole observer who has seen through the Dark Current Sect's entire infiltration plan, and the one who might offer a solution to break this deadlock!"

The difference in value between these two roles in the eyes of Greenwood Court's leadership was like the gap between clouds and mud!

"Ye Qing." Su Ming abruptly turned, fixing his gaze on the young spirit race member with an oppressive intensity that left no room for refusal. "Go back right now. Find a way to relay this to Elders Panshi and Genxu."

Su Ming spoke each word with crystal clarity: "Tell them I said, the Dark Current Sect's mycelium infiltration extends far beyond just the spiritual springs. The decline of the Root Vein Defense Formation is absolutely not natural aging, there's something far more insidious feeding on it. I suggest they immediately cease their pointless bickering and conduct a comprehensive formation inspection of the root veins' outer perimeter!"

Ye Qing swallowed hard. Though he didn't understand the deeper significance at all, he nodded on instinct, turned, and slipped out through the crack in the door.