The Great Ruler (Web Novel)

By the side of the waterfall.

Mu Chen sat on top of a green rock, with Luo Li present near the waterfall not far away. At this moment, she had quietly closed her eyes, clearly gradually entering a training state.

Shooting a look at Luo Li’s beautiful figure, Mu Chen started to steady his mind. As of now, with time being that precious, he needed to grasp all the time he could to further increase his strength. If not, as the most intense period of time for the Great Spiritual Academy Tournament arrives, wanting to rise to the top would not a simple task to accomplish.

After all, there were many crouching tigers and hidden dragons present within this Great Spiritual Academy Tournament.

As a shadow of deep pondering appeared within Mu Chen’s eyes, he clenched his hand, only for some spiritual light to sparkle. In the next instant, the six Divine Wood Plaques appeared before him. As a green light shone from them, verdant life force started to perfuse from them.

With a casual grab towards Divine Wood Plaques, Mu Chen closed his eyes while extending his senses to them, before flinging his mouth aside in disappointment. That’s because he felt that those Divine Wood Plaques were empty within, with the learning method of those Lesser Divine Arts included. Clearly, the Lesser Divine Arts imprinted within those Divine Wood Plaques could only be sensed by a single person. Once they were learnt, the imprints within would disappear.

That’s why it wasn’t difficult for Mu Chen to obtain the Divine Wood Plaques from the hands of Wu Yingying and the Four Sea Spiritual Academies. It turned out that the majority of the value present in them had already been used up.

Nevertheless, despite that little bit of disappointment, it was still considered to be within Mu Chen’s expectations. After all, he had collected these six Divine Wood Plaques not for the sake of obtaining those Lesser Divine Arts imprinted within them.

An ancient tree symbol slowly surfaced on Mu Chen’s forehead. A weak green light radiated from it, slowly spreading out, before finally enveloping the Divine Wood Plaques before Mu Chen.

Humm. Humm.

At this moment, the six Divine Wood Plaques started to faintly vibrate, while the green light radiating from them grew in density. After an instant, upon reaching their maximum brightness, Mu Chen discovered that the six Divine Wood Plaques were actually starting to slowly merge together.

Drop after drop of green liquid appeared, before floating in the air. Within a short span of half a minute, the six Divine Wood Plaques had completely merged together, transforming into a large clump of churning green liquid. The surface of the liquid appeared to form multiple layers, just like the bark of an ancient tree.

At this moment, the tree symbol on Mu Chen’s forehead grew increasingly radiant. In the next instant, a green beam of light suddenly shot out, shooting straight towards the clump of greenish liquid before him.

Buzzz

Zapping sounds rang from within the liquid, before Mu Chen noticed that the centre-most location within the clump of liquid had actually turned solid. Faintly, it had started to transform into what appeared to be a green-coloured tree bark that was approximately the size of a palm. Exceedingly ancient fluctuations started to radiate from the tree bark, appearing to be brimming with life.

Following the appearance of the ancient tree bark, the tree symbol on Mu Chen’s forehead started to slowly disappear, before completely dissipating away.

As Mu Chen extended his finger out, the greenish liquid split apart, while the green-coloured tree bark dropped, finally landing within his palm.

Mu Chen curiously sized up the ancient green-coloured tree bark in his hand. He was able to see dense ancient words sparkling on its surface, with every single word appearing exceedingly abstruse and mysterious.

“Is this the thing that’s hidden within the Divine Wood Plaques?” muttered Mu Chen. In the next instant, a scorching-hot shadow surfaced within his eyes. With a furious clench of his hand, the green-coloured tree bark was tightly gripped within his palm.

Bang!

As a green lihht started to perfuse from his palm, it appeared to penetrate through his hand, before travelling at an astonishing speed towards Mu Chen’s mind. At the same time, a low rumble was heard, appearing like an explosion going off within his mind.

Majestic and cryptic ancient information gushed out like a flood.

Green light continuously sparkled within Mu Chen’s eyes, before finally slowly subsiding quite a while later. At that moment, an amazed and happy look surfaced on his face.

“Divine Wood Scripture…” muttered Mu Chen.

Present within the ancient information that had gushed into Mu Chen’s mind were two portions of a Divine Art. One of them was known as the Divine Wood Scripture. Furthermore, what caused Mu Chen to feel shocked was that this portion of the Divine Wood Scripture had actually reached the realm of Greater Divine Art.

The Divine Arts were categorized into three levels, being Lesser Divine Art, Greater Divine Art and Perfected Divine Art.

Although there was just a word difference between the Lesser Divine Art to the Greater Divine Art, Mu Chen understood the disparity between the two, which was a genuine chasm. If a Lesser Divine Art moved the hearts of Sovereign realm experts, a Greater Divine Art would truly be able to pull the greed out from within them.

This Divine Wood Scripture was a truly genuine Greater Divine Art.

It’s said that this Greater Divine Art was the fundamental technique that led to the establishment of the Divine Wood Palace. Even within the Divine Wood Palace, only Elder-level figures would have the qualifications to learn and cultivate a Divine Art of such a realm.

This Divine Wood Scripture was exceedingly abstruse. Once one was able to successfully learn it, one would be able to absorb the energies with trees in a radius of ten thousand metres, with the determination of its strength being one’s level of attainment towards the Divine Scripture. Naturally, there was also another important element, which was the terrain, or the surrounding environment.

If the user was in combat while in a forest, the might of the Divine Wood Scripture would shock and astonish people. Furthermore, the greater the number of extraordinary trees in one’s surroundings, the more terrifying the might of the Divine Wood Scripture would be. However, if one was in a desert, or the sea, it wouldn’t even possess the might of a Lesser Divine Art.

From the information that had gushed into his mind earlier, Mu Chen was able to know that the Divine Wood Palace had an Elder that had trained in the Divine Wood Scripture in the Ancient Antiquity. This Elder’s cultivation had reached the realm of 5-Stage Sovereign Realm. While on an external mission, he had bumped into an opponent whose realm had reached that of a 7-Stage Sovereign Realm, with their place of battle being on top of a primary forest.

It just so happened that there was a small patch of Chinese Parasol Trees present there. This was a kind of spiritual tree which possessed rather pure Spiritual Energies within it.

Therefore, the ending was completely predictable. This 5th Grade Sovereign Elder immediately activated the Divine Wood Scripture, causing serious injuries to the 7-Stage Sovereign Realm opponent in a single attack to the point of him almost dying from it.

One could see from this how important a good environment for battle was for this Divine Wood Scripture.

“So formidable.” Mu Chen could not help exclaiming in admiration, before a helpless smile appeared on his face. Indeed, this Divine Wood Scripture was extremely formidable, but the requirements it had towards the combat environment was slightly harsh. After all, one would not always be able to bump into opponents in an environment that just so happened to have a vast forest. Without it, the might of the Divine Wood Scripture would be greatly diminished.

As for having spiritual trees in the surroundings… that was even more harsh.

This made Mu Chen feel slight regret. If not for the limitation it had towards the environment, this Divine Wood Scripture might very well be one of the most outstanding of all Great Divine Arts.

With some regret, Mu Chen continued to look towards the second part of the Divine Wood Scripture, which caused him to gawk.

The second part of the Divine Wood Scripture wasn’t strong at all. On the contrary, it was extremely weak… that’s because it’s name was called Tree Planting Art. As its name implied, it was a Divine Art, and was used to plant trees. It didn’t possess a single bit of offensive capabilities, with its only function being to plant tree seedlings, before letting them grow and mature at an astonishing speed.

A blank expression appeared on Mu Chen’s face. Clearly, he didn’t quite understand why there would be such a weird Divine Art that specializes in planting trees. Did it want people of cultivation to become farmers?

That’s not right.

Mu Chen regained his calm. Being able to be placed together with an important Greater Divine Art like the Divine Wood Art, this Tree Planting Art’s absolutely not some useless Divine Art…

Tree Planting Art… tree planting?

Mu Chen muttered, before his faced slightly changed, while a somewhat outlandish shadow gushed from within his eyes. Could this Tree Planting Art be specifically used in concert with the Divine Wood Scripture? The might of the Divine Wood Scripture was decided by the environment it was used in, while the Tree Planting Art just so happened to be able to cause a vast forest to grow at an astonishing rate…

If one was to unleash this Tree Planting Art, before a fight, to grow trees, wouldn’t one be able to possess the most perfect of environments?

Mu Chen’s eyes abruptly lit up as he could not help clapping in excitement. This truly was perfect! The idea of this Senior from the Divine Wood Palace truly was unique, to actually be able to think of such a way to cover up the weakness of the Divine Wood Scripture. With the Tree Planting Art, one would be able to stabilise the might of the Divine Wood Scripture.

Furthermore, what’s more important was that once it was able to gather the seedlings of a few spiritual trees and plant it down, wouldn’t that make it even more terrifying?

Being exceedingly intelligent, Mu Chen was able to come up with quite a few detailed plans. With a few items, it would undoubtedly cause the Divine Wood Scripture to be much more powerful.

However… upon thinking that he would have to plant trees before fighting with people… the smile on Mu Chen’s face started to turn slightly stiff. Wouldn’t that be too weird…?

Mu Chen gave a bitter laugh in response, shaking his head before temporarily suppressing such thoughts. Although this action seemed slightly weird, as long as one was powerful enough, such details would be ignored.

“From the looks of it, I would have to comprehend this Divine Wood Scripture for a bit during my isolation training.”

Mu Chen muttered. Learning a Divine Art of such a grade wouldn’t be easy. However, the information that had gushed into his mind had contained the experiences of numerous Seniors of the Divine Wood Palace, allowing for the level of difficulty to drop by quite a bit. As for this Tree Planting Art, it was in fact not even considered as a Divine Art. At the very most, it could only be considered as a Middle Grade Divine Art. To Mu Chen, learning it simply wasn’t difficult at all.

Taking a deep breath, Mu Chen suppressed the surging emotions within his heart, before slowly closing his eyes. Clapping his hands together, he gradually entered into a training state.

In the next period of time, not only did he want to break through his Spiritual Energy Disaster, he even wanted to seize the moment and successfully comprehend this Divine Wood Scripture.