At Li Shen’s current speed, he was able to reach the Guardian Tree in under an hour with Mu Fan.
Seeing the massive tree for the first time Mu Fan was shocked, but he was relatively calm. He was previously in the Eastern Territory which had stone golems the size of skyscrapers. He was already used to the oversize nature of the Dimension.
What Mu Fan mostly focused on was meeting Jun.
His legs trembled, though not from nervousness but eagerness and impatience. His eyes zoned in on the base of the tree looking for any signs of a silhouette as he slowly stood up.
As Li Shen got closer, Mu Fan spotted a figure and without hesitation, his standing figure moved. His body blurred, leaving an afterimage on the platform as he appear on a large trunk of the tree.
Mu Fan was heading directly for the person several meters away from him, but he stopped.
His face then showed a confused expression.
With their back turned to him, he saw someone carry a little girl on his back.
Mu Fan thought he sensed Jun’s aura from this person but coming closer he wasn’t so sure. From how this person was positioned he could also see that he had a head full of long snow-white hair.
‘Who is this person? I thought he was Jun for a second. I don’t recognize him but the aura he’s giving off tells me he’s extremely strong.’
As Mu Fan was contemplating the identity of this person, Li Shen appeared next to him on the trunk.
Li Shen looked at this person and a confused expression appeared on his face, but for different reasons than Mu Fan.
As soon as Li Shen appear behind the mysterious figure, he turned to face both Mu Fan and Li Shen.
“Master!”
The person turned out to be Jun.
Mu Fan’s face instantly stiffened.
Jun’s face lit up and a wide smile appeared on his lips as he carried Qiang on his back while he approached Li Shen. Coming to a stop in front of him, he bowed at a ninety-degree angle and excitedly greeted.
“Disciple Jun greets Master!”
Mu Fan’s eyes never left Jun as he approached and bowed to Li Shen, he was in utter disbelief. But at the same time, a slight frown made its way onto his face.
Jun hadn’t even so much as glanced at him or even acknowledge his presence in any way.
‘Is he ignoring me?’
Mu Fan asked as a growing feeling of dissatisfaction manifested in his heart because of Jun’s dismissive attitude.
Meanwhile, the confused expression never left Li Shen’s face as he looked at Qiang on Jun’s back.
Qiang smiled at him which he return before Jun rose from his bow.
Li Shen felt Qiang smile was rather forced for some reason, but not really thinking about it, he looked at Jun and after a year and a half of not seeing him he had gone through changes asides from his snow-white hair during that time. He had gotten taller and his face had lost its immature features.
Li Shen’s hand twitch and raised it to pat Jun’s head, but Jun suddenly turned to the side and looked up, he then called out while waving his hand over his head.
“Brother Yin! Master has returned, why don’t you stop meditating now?!”
Li Shen and Mu Fan's heads immediately look up in that direction in surprise.
Fei Yin was seen sitting cross-legged on a smaller tree trunk about eighty meters from them. However, Mu Fan or even Li Shen hadn’t sensed his presence.
If Jun hadn’t called out to him they wouldn’t have noticed him. Even as they looked at him now, their senses were telling them no one was there.
Fei Yin had completely melded with the tree’s aura masking his own.
However, as both Li Shen and Mu Fan looked at Fei Yin a weird expression appeared on their faces.
With their excellent eyesight, they could see Fei Yin’s hair turning green at the ends.
First Jun and now Fei Yin, it was becoming a trend for hair to change colors in the group after they go through arduous training.
“Oh, someone else came as well, but I forgot his name. He might as well be a ghost.”
Mu Fan immediately glared at Jun when he heard that.
“Fucking bastard, so you have been ignoring me!”
Jun despite Mu Fan’s eyes glaring daggers in his back, didn’t pay him any mind. Seeing that Fei Yin was still meditating a worried expression appeared on his face.
“Little sister Qiang, make sure to hold on, okay.”
He said before he leaped up to the tree trunk Fe Yin was on.
Qiang let out a squeal of excitement as Jun made the jump.
What made Li Shen raise an eyebrow and his confusion turn to surprise, was how easily Jun had made that eighty-meter leap while carrying Qiang.
He made her look like she weighed a feather, but Li Shen knew that was far from the case.
However, he had to set that aside because Jun suddenly called down from next to Fei Yin.
“Master! Please come and check on brother Yin, I think something has happened to him!”
“Bastard instead you come down here and fight me right now! You think you can ignore me!!”
Mu Fan immediately barked out ignoring Jun’s words.
Li Shen frowned at Jun’s words, and without turning to Mu Fan said.
“Let’s hold off on any sparring for now Mu Fan, it looks like there’s something wrong.”
Mu Fan grunted but said no more as Li Shen flew up to Fei Yin and Jun.
While hugging his saber, Mu Fan mumbled incoherent curses all aimed at Jun as he slowly rose into the air to see what happened to Fei Yin as well.
“What happened to him.”
Li Shen lowered himself in front of Fei Yin as he asked Jun who was standing next to him.
“Master, I don’t know. I finished my training in the Kun Peng Palace two weeks ago and when I came here I saw him like this. He was unresponsive to my calls, and I first thought he was just ignoring me but after a while, I realize he’s just unaware of my existence or the outside world.”
Jun looked at a motionless Fei Yin as he said that with concern.
With a glance with his Heavenly Eyes, Li Shen saw that the tree's energy from the trunk was wildly entering Fei Yin's body.
However, it wasn’t him absorbing the tree’s energy but it trying to assimilate with him.
Li Shen’s face went dark as he looked towards Qiang.
She reacted by holding her head down behind Jun's back and hiding her face from him.
Li Shen said nothing as he moved to Fei Yin and placed a hand on his head.
His perception went into his body and he immediately saw that the energy of the tree had completely filled his entire body. Li Shen’s heart shook and he feared the worst.
‘No, this can’t be happening.’
This wasn’t Fei Yin’s body anymore, this was an extension of Qiang. A root that she can detach and control.
Li Shen was utterly furious. His fist clench turning his knuckles white.
But just when he was about to take his hand from Fei Yin’s head and confront Qiang, he sense something.
Li Shen paused his actions and focused on that feeling.
‘It’s coming from his dantian.’
Li Shen quickly moved his perception to Fei Yin’s dantian. What he saw was a green Qi Sea filled to the brim with Wood Qi and was giving off a strong fluctuation of vitality. But Li Shen didn’t sense Fei Yin’s aura, he was sensing Qiang’s own.
Forcing down his ever-growing emotions of rage, he focused on finding that feeling. He thought it was coming from his dantian but now it was coming from his Sea of Consciousness.
Li Shen moved his perception there and immediately he saw Fei Yin’s unusually green soul. However, Li Shen almost lost it when he saw that it was completely unrecognizable from a human’s. It looked more like a tree than anything, and it would be hard to make out the features of a human face in the middle of it.
‘Qiang you-’
Li Shen once again forced down his emotions.
This feeling was Fei Yin’s.
A part of him was still here and he had to find it before it was too late.
He had to focus!!
Li Shen searched his Sea of Consciousness but once again he found that the feeling disappeared. It was now coming from his Haitian once again.
It was as if his consciousness was scattered, unable to manifest fully because of being too weak.
Li Shen went there but the feeling went back to his Sea of Consciousness.
This back and forth went on until Li Shen felt that the feeling got significantly weaker, he could barely feel it now.
“No…”
In the outside world, Mu Fan and Jun heard Li Shen’s mumbles and saw his anxious expression. Their hearts dropped and they turned to give each other a glance.
However, they didn’t know what was going on and they couldn’t do anything to help.
At the same time, Qiang was on Jun’s back with her arms wrapped tight around his neck.
She looked at Li Shen’s face which was filled with worry, and a hesitant expression appeared on her face.
In her eyes, it could be seen that she was fighting to make a decision. Eventually, she squeezed her wrist and buried back her head into Jun’s back to avoid looking at Li Shen.
‘I’m sorry big brother Shen, but Qiang really wants to see the outside world. You have so many friends already but Qiang has none. Brother Fei Yin already agreed to be my friend.’
Tears fell from Qiang’s eyes, showing that although she made this decision it caused her immense pain.
After going back and forth between Fei Yin’s dantian and Sea of Consciousness, Li Shen was getting more and more anxious.
“QIANG I WON'T FORGIVE YOU IF YOU DO THIS!!!”
Li Shen was so distraught he couldn't hold back his emotions any longer and he suddenly roared out in frustration.
Qiang’s body shook, while Mu Fan and Jun were first stunned but their expressions quickly turn dark before they turned to her.
“Little sister Qiang, what did you do to our friend?”
Jun asked her but Qiang didn’t give a reply.
“Hey brat.”
Mu Fan almost spat out those words, before he continued with a stone-cold expression on his face.
“Whatever you’re doing to our friend quit it. If you don’t then I’ll chop this entire fucking tree down if I have to save him.”
**
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