Chu Feng had no idea what had happened after he left.
He believed he had narrowly escaped death — that he had snatched his life back from the jaws of the underworld.
It wasn't that Chu Feng was cowardly. It was simply that the Sacred Valley elder was, for the current Chu Feng, absurdly powerful — an existence he simply could not contend with.
However, after leaving, Chu Feng did not rush out of that world. Instead, once he felt he was safe, he found a quiet place and devoted himself entirely to studying that bead.
Chu Feng craved power desperately. He wanted to raise his cultivation as quickly as possible, wanted to enter the Sleeping Dragon Martial Sect as quickly as possible, and wanted to see Zi Ling as quickly as possible.
Of course, raising his cultivation wasn't only about rescuing Zi Ling.
There was also his family.
After all, only with sufficiently powerful cultivation could he investigate the matter of his grandfather and grandmother.
Yet the distance between his current strength and that goal was still far too great.
"It's actually this difficult?"
At the moment, Chu Feng sat above the clouds, the bead floating before him.
But just looking at it, he found himself somewhat at a loss.
The Sacred Valley elder hadn't lied to him.
The power within the bead was clearly abundant — something Chu Feng could sense with perfect clarity.
Yet making use of that power for his own cultivation was no simple task.
The bead seemed to have developed a life of its own. It was clearly a cultivation resource, yet it possessed its own consciousness.
Using its power to cultivate wasn't impossible, but he needed to earn its recognition first.
And earning that recognition was easier said than done.
Chu Feng needed to continuously channel his own strength, his own aura, into the bead.
But this couldn't be rushed — it could only be done gradually. As for when exactly the bead would acknowledge him, there was no way of knowing.
That depended on the bead's own will.
Although somewhat disappointed, Chu Feng wasn't exactly upset.
The power within the bead might not be easy to obtain, but at least it was obtainable. The only variable was how much time it would take.
That was still far better than the Divine Tree Seed inside his body.
The Divine Tree Seed was truly something beyond his control.
Whether it could ever serve him remained unclear.
Whether it was a blessing or a curse — even that, Chu Feng couldn't tell.
Whenever his bloodline power attempted to refine the Divine Tree Seed, it would resist.
And the result of that resistance was a regression in his cultivation.
Each regression brought him fresh trouble.
So for the time being, what the Divine Tree Seed brought him was nothing but disadvantage.
As for any benefit — that remained to be seen.
"The path of martial cultivation is truly not easy," Chu Feng sighed.
Sitting atop the clouds and gazing at the bead, he let out a long sigh before using his barrier power to seal it, preventing its energy from leaking out.
But rather than storing it in his Universe Bag, he placed it inside his body.
The reason was simple: he needed to continuously channel his power into the bead.
Keeping it in his pocket would make it easy to expose — and if he encountered a martial cultivator stronger than himself, the bead would inevitably be snatched away.
But hidden inside his body, it would be far harder for anyone to detect. Relatively speaking, it was much safer.
Having done all this, Chu Feng rose to his feet and prepared to leave.
He had already decided where to go.
The Younger Generation Strongest Tournament, hosted by the Sacred Light Clan — he was definitely going.
His reason for going wasn't to make a name for himself. It was primarily to obtain the cultivation rewards the Sacred Light Clan was offering.