Serpent Ancestor

Xu Hei pondered for a moment before clasping his hands and saying, ”Thank you for your kind offer, but I have urgent matters to attend to, so I won’t stay any longer.”

It was one thing to be outside, but if he were to go to someone else’s territory and get surrounded, whether Xu Hei could escape unscathed was still uncertain.

He knew nothing about this clan, so it was better to be cautious.

The old stone man frowned slightly, then nodded and said, ”Very well, I am the ancestor of the Ao family. My full name is too long, so just call me Ao De.”

”This is the clan token. With this, you are welcome to visit our clan.”

The old stone man took out a stone token and tossed it to Xu Hei, with the character ”Ao” engraved on it.

This time, Xu Hei did not refuse. He caught the stone token, bowed slightly, and hurriedly left.

After Xu Hei left.

The previously injured black stone man said, ”Ancestor, are we just going to let him go?”

Ao De glanced at him and said, ”If we don’t let him go, what else can we do? You’ve seen that strange cauldron. Even with all my strength, I couldn’t break it open. If he hides inside again, can you eat him?”The black stone man fell silent.

That made a lot of sense!

”Rest assured, the entire Earth Rock Zone is the territory of the Ao family. His every move is within my geological senses. Although we can’t do anything to him, he poses no threat. At worst, we can just drive him back into the cauldron and seal it deep within the earth.”

”Of course, unless absolutely necessary, do not engage in conflict with this person. Our clan’s situation is already bad enough; we don’t need another enemy,” Ao De said sternly.

”Understood!” The surrounding stone men nodded in agreement.

……

After leaving, Xu Hei flew for tens of thousands of miles until the mountains behind him completely disappeared before he slowed down.

”Heh, who would’ve thought that Dark Star harbors an Upper Realm Ling Clan, truly fascinating.”

Suddenly, a faint voice came from behind Xu Hei—it was the Old Tree.

”You’re awake?”

Xu Hei was surprised.

”Of course, I’ve been awake for a while!”

The Old Tree said proudly, ”I just didn’t want to pry into the secrets of your broken cauldron, so I sealed my divine sense and pretended to sleep.”

During the time in the Demon God Cauldron, the Old Tree had been in a coma, but it turned out it was all calculated.

Xu Hei was speechless, then said, ”Actually, there’s no secret, just a slightly sturdier magical artifact.”

”Heh.” The Old Tree merely sneered without speaking.

”Xu Hei, you were really lucky just now. You encountered a group of stone men with low intelligence. If you had run into some strange existence, you might not even know how you died.”

Xu Hei remained silent.

His previous actions, whether letting the stone men go or waiting in place, were extremely risky.

But as a newcomer, he really didn’t want to make enemies lightly, be hunted down, and was eager to learn about this place, so he took the risk.

After looking around, Xu Hei found a hidden canyon, slipped inside, and quickly asked, ”Do you know that group of stone men?”

”I don’t know them; it’s my first time seeing them too, but I’ve heard of them,” the Old Tree said leisurely.

Xu Hei quickly pursued the question.

The Old Tree didn’t answer directly but instead asked, ”Xu Hei, do you know that besides humans and demonic beasts, there are other races in this world?”

Xu Hei was silent for a while, barely thinking of the Sea God.

The Sea God was neither human nor a demonic beast.

”And... the Demon race?” Xu Hei ventured.

”Heh, the Demon race is one, divided into extraterrestrial demons and inner demons. The Demon race has the supreme Demon Ancestor, comparable to the human Dao Ancestor, making it a very strong race.”

The Old Tree slowly said, ”And those stone men just now are also a race, likely a powerful Ling Clan from the Upper Realm.”

”Ling Clan?” Xu Hei was taken aback.

”Swords have sword spirits, magical treasures have artifact spirits, formations have formation spirits, and some innate spiritual objects, after reaching a high level of cultivation, can naturally develop intelligence through fortunate encounters.”

”The Ling Clan is born from this!”

”The Ling Clan has many branches. Besides the stone spirit clan you saw, there are wood spirits, fire spirits, and many others you can’t even imagine.”

”Even a star could be a living being.”

Hearing this, Xu Hei gasped.

A gigantic star, also a living being? What kind of race would that be?

The Old Tree said proudly, ”It’s said that in the Spirit Realm, there’s a saying about the hundred clans of the Spirit Realm. Humans and demonic beasts are certainly powerful, but in the grand scheme of the Spirit Realm, they’re quite insignificant.”

The hundred clans of the Spirit Realm... Xu Hei was deeply shocked.

Now, just a branch of the Ling Clan, the stone spirit clan, already had such strange abilities.

What kind of grand spectacle would the true Spirit Realm be?

Xu Hei suddenly thought of something and frowned, ”How do you know all this?”

”Hmph, I have quite a background myself, so knowing some secrets of the Spirit Realm is perfectly normal.”

The Old Tree said proudly, ”Do you know why I advised you to harbor malice towards the unknown? Because among the hundred clans of the Spirit Realm, most are decisive and ruthless, each more insidious than the last. A single kind thought could lead to your death.”

”For example, the Wu Clan. The moment you stayed just now was enough for them to set a curse.”

”And the Shadow Clan, they kill silently, you wouldn’t even know how you died.”

The Old Tree spoke with authority, leaving Xu Hei stunned.

”How do you suddenly know so much?” Xu Hei looked at the Old Tree suspiciously and said, ”It’s like you’ve experienced it yourself.”

”Well...”

The Old Tree hesitated for a moment, under Xu Hei’s increasingly strange gaze, he stammered, ”Actually, earlier when I used the sword of divine sense to attack Jiang Liuyu, I secretly held back a bit. As he was dying, I performed a soul search on him and obtained a small portion of his memories, um... less than ten percent.”

”...” Xu Hei was utterly dumbfounded.

Damn, is that even possible?

In such a situation, to still be able to perform a soul search on Jiang Liuyu, that’s just too incredible.

When it comes to insidiousness, Xu Hei had never seen anything so insidious.

”What’s so surprising about that? My true form, at its peak, could not only perform a soul search but also create an identical Jiang Liuyu and replace him with ease.” The Old Tree began boasting, as exaggerated as could be.

Upon hearing this, Xu Hei seemed to think of something and quickly took out the Star-Seeking Beast, asking, ”Did you find out how to use this thing?”

The Old Tree was taken aback and said, ”No!”

”...” Xu Hei was speechless.

”However, this item seems to have some connection with the Shadow Clan. Let me study it,” the Old Tree said thoughtfully.

……

In the following time, Xu Hei secluded himself in the canyon.

Due to gravity, the Spiritual Qi absorbed by Dark Star was much denser than that of Divine Continent Star, although not as much as the Flying Spirit Garden, it was not far off.

The fact that so many powerful beings could be born here was largely due to the abundance of Spiritual Qi.

Xu Hei still had plenty of pills for enhancing his cultivation, enough to support him in cultivating to the peak of mid-stage Divine Transformation.

Besides repairing the Star Compass, the Old Tree was also researching the Star-Seeking Beast.

In such days, time flew by.

In the blink of an eye, twenty years had passed.