Chapter 359 – Fourteen Treant Lords, The Forest's Defense Line

East of Tianyuan Territory, Treant Forest.

The trees here grew increasingly lush and robust, with dappled shadows cast through the canopy, and a rich aura of vitality permeated the air everywhere.

Initially, when Tianyuan Territory had just passed the Lord’s trial and been promoted to a formal territory, Treant Forest occupied the eastern district, covering approximately one-fourth of the territory’s area, equivalent to the graveyard in the western district and the residential area in the south.

However, as the territory continued to develop, the southern residential area expanded continuously, and additional zones such as industrial, agricultural, and commercial districts were established. Now, if viewed from above, the entire Tianyuan Territory took on a shape resembling a “gourd”: the northern district, the core area, and the two major military zones in the east and west formed the upper half of the gourd, while the southern district, which provided living and working spaces for the residents, formed the lower half.

Breaking it down further, the eastern Treant Forest now occupied only about 5% of Tianyuan City’s total area. Some structures, such as herbal workshops and brewing workshops, were built on the forest’s outskirts, taking advantage of the abundant variety of fruits and medicinal herbs produced in the Treant Forest.

Further out, Arrow Towers and Thundercoil Towers stood tall, with black City Walls winding like a great Dragon.

Treant Forest seemed like a small forest growing within Tianyuan City—a sanctuary of purity.

At most, the trees within the forest were just sturdier and more vigorous, often growing to heights of sixty or seventy meters.

However, if one stood in the core area of Treant Forest and looked in a specific direction, they could see an endless Sea of Trees.

Here, the sky was azure, the trees were ancient and robust, and numerous Grey Birds soared through the air. Towering trees and ancient giants, over a hundred meters tall, were also visible!

This was the true Treant Forest!

Thick natural energy and plant-based Qi drifted through the air, refreshing the body and mind of anyone who entered, as if all fatigue had been swept away.

Mu Yuan strolled through the forest, accompanied by several chattering Flower Fairies, who picked bright red fruits and offered them to him.

“Eat, eat?”

These fruits were ordinary, not classified as medicinal herbs. However, nourished by the Treasure Land that was Treant Forest, the fruits appeared vibrant and delicious.

Just as Mu Yuan was about to taste one—

Crunch—

A chubby-cheeked Flower Fairy gobbled the fruit down in a few bites, not even leaving the pit. “If you no eat… I eat.”

Mu Yuan: “…”

This Flower Fairy didn’t seem particularly bright.

But considering it was only a rare three-star Flower Fairy unit with limited intelligence, he could understand.

The Flower Fairy series of units served as the territory’s gardeners. Most were rare one-star or rare three-star, not particularly high in rank.

For one, Flower Fairies were not primary combat units, and there were many of them. Evolving them to the Excellent rank would be costly.

Secondly, in Mu Yuan’s view, the Excellent rank forms of the Flower Fairy series were not particularly impressive and offered poor value for the cost. In contrast, he had evolved several Epic rank Nature Spirits.

Even so, despite the perceived low cost-effectiveness, Mu Yuan would periodically grant evolution baptisms as rewards to Flower Fairies who performed exceptionally well.

Mu Yuan called over a Nature Spirit.

“Good day, Lord~”Mu Yuan greeted them and took a glance with his Lord’s Eye: Oh, it’s the fourth natural spirit, ‘Gan Ling’. After all, there were quite a few natural spirits in the territory, and he rarely interacted with the later evolved ones, to the extent that he couldn’t even recognize his own epic troops at first glance. What a sin.

But there was no helping it—who could blame him when he had so many epic troops?

“Over here is the Golden Spike Rice, which has already started growing.”

“This area is planted with Lapis Fruit, and they’re growing quite well too.”

“And here, this patch is mainly for White Sand Fruit, which is still under research and adjustment.”

White Sand Fruit is a rather special cultivation-type fruit.

Its interior resembles a pomegranate; when peeled open, it reveals countless white seeds. These seeds can replace Soul Sand, allowing troops and professionals to absorb them for cultivation.

Using White Sand Fruit seeds for cultivation doesn’t speed up training compared to Soul Sand, but it might be more cost-effective.

Further up, there are Green Sand Fruit and Blue Sand Fruit. Using their seeds for cultivation significantly speeds up training compared to Soul Sand.

These fruits aren’t extremely rare, but they have high requirements for growing conditions. They need Treasure Land and special soil to achieve high yields and have a small chance of producing Green Sand Fruit and Blue Sand Fruit.

With Mu Yuan’s main generals having reached the Peak of the Fourth Order, he doesn’t have much need for Green Sand Fruit or Blue Sand Fruit, focusing more on White Sand Fruit.

All for the sake of saving money.

He isn’t exactly poor, but if he can save on Soul Sand, why not? Besides…

A single troop training at full capacity consumes 10g of Soul Sand per day.

If three thousand troops are training, that’s 30 Soul Crystals per day, or 900 per month.

If ten thousand troops are training, that’s 100 per day, or 3,000 per month.

The latter, Mu Yuan can’t afford to support.

Thus, many auxiliary troops in the territory, like the Flower Fairies, rarely train, with their Ranks mostly boosted by several heavenly baptisms. If White Sand Fruit can be widely cultivated, training costs will be greatly reduced.

Mu Yuan visited a few more farms and plantations, nodding slightly.

His main purpose for this trip wasn’t to inspect the farms—at this stage, his focus is more on preparing for battle. But since he was here, he took a look around.

Leaving the open farm areas, next door was a forest with sturdy trees and canopies that blotted out the sky.

Here, too, many medicinal herbs and fruits grew, with even Ranked herbs and rare-grade treasures visible everywhere. The entire Treant Forest is a massive Treasure Land, filled with Treasures.

As he ventured deeper, the forest grew quieter, until an ancient aura suddenly stirred, the ground humming and trembling, and ancient faces appeared on the nearly hundred-meter-tall giant trees on either side.

He had reached the area where the Treants were rooted. Here, roots as thick as pythons crisscrossed the earth, exuding an ancient and vast aura.

「War Treant: Third Order, Level 9」

「War Treant: Third Order, Level 8」

「War Treant: Third Order, Level 8」

Thanks to the recent promotion baptism, the elite Treants’ Ranks were quite high. Except for the latest batch recruited, their Ranks were all above Second Order Elite.

After months of recruitment and the use of the ‘Troop Recruitment Order’ item, the Treant Legion had accumulated a considerable number.

Their total count is 290!The number may seem small and completely incomparable to elite undead or human forces, but if the three legions were to line up in formation, the Treant Legion would undoubtedly be the most eye-catching.

The reason is simple: every member of the Treant Legion is an ‘Outstanding Three-Star’ War Treant, each standing at least several dozen meters tall—larger than giants, truly colossal beings.

Within the Treant Legion, there are also 14 Treant Lords, excluding Tree Spirit Grandma!

Fourteen Epic-tier entities! Most have reached the Fourth-Order Commander Tier, with combat strength sufficient to rank on the Taixuan Dragon Gate List, even among its top positions.

All around, roots burst through the soil, writhing to both sides to clear a wide path.

Above, countless branches swayed, rustling as they shed broken twigs and leaves.

Amid the treants’ “demonic dance” of a welcome, Mu Yuan stepped forward. The deeper he went, the taller and more majestic the treants standing there became—100 meters, over 100 meters, 200 meters!

At the very center stood a colossal tree towering over 600 meters, its thick roots constantly intertwining, its brown trunk dotted with faint red—the veteran of Tianyuan, Tree Spirit Grandma!

With just a slight sway of its branches, it stirred up storm-like waves.

“It seems to have grown significantly again.”

Mu Yuan stepped into the air, gazing around.

Given Tree Spirit Grandma’s current size, even if it possessed mobility, moving would be extremely inconvenient. Even if he, Lord Mu, could store his troops within the Lord’s Mark, it would inevitably leave the surrounding land in disarray.

However, he had no intention of relocating Tree Spirit Grandma or the surrounding treants anymore.

They had deeply rooted themselves here, no longer the shallow rooting of before.

In fact, this was the most suitable state for treants to grow and fight. The combat power difference between rooted and unrooted treants was vast. Similarly, the gap between temporarily rooted treants and those long-rooted, intimately connected to the surrounding world, was like heaven and earth.

However, the treants of Tianyuan Territory had never truly rooted themselves before.

Mu Yuan was not unaware of this, but firstly, rooted treants were inconvenient to move, and secondly, Tianyuan Territory previously lacked a suitable environment for rooting.

The Treant Forest had a decent environment, but accommodating hundreds of War Treants was undoubtedly crowded.

For treants to root and grow, they had to push aside the native trees. The Treant Forest alone couldn’t provide sufficiently rich soil nutrients.

After all, treants were environmentalists, at least on their own turf; they dared not endlessly drain the land’s nutrients.

A giant tree like Tree Spirit Grandma, hundreds of meters tall, would also be far too conspicuous if grown within Tianyuan City.

Now, things were different.

Tree Spirit Grandma had rooted itself in the semi-Secret Realm of the forest, able to absorb the land’s nutrients without restraint and grow continuously.

Perhaps over time, the treants would gradually grow; perhaps finally deep-rooting allowed them to obtain abundant nourishment; or perhaps, the Treasure Land of the Treant Forest provided rich natural energy…

Tree Spirit Grandma and the other treants had grown in size repeatedly.

This was their normal stature.

Even giants, dragons, and other colossal beings would seem like mere younger siblings here. A dragon of the same Rank might not even defeat an ordinary War Treant in this forest.The six-hundred-meter-tall Tree Spirit Grandma was even more terrifying.

Even disregarding the numerous tree spirits hanging upside down from her branches or the advanced and Epic Skills she commanded, her sheer size and tonnage alone were enough to plunge enemies into despair.

Her colossal form granted immense power and energy reserves far exceeding the limits of Fourth-Order Commander Tier.

Even if dozens or hundreds of conventional Fourth-Order Commander Tier experts attacked simultaneously, she could effortlessly crush and annihilate them all.

“The cost is that the treants struggle to move. Once uprooted, their power continuously drains, and their size gradually shrinks until reverting to their previous state.”

The only truly suitable place for the treants to grow within Tianyuan Territory was this semi-Secret Realm forest.

If the treants took root outside, they would not only be conspicuous but also unable to reach their current heights or cluster together.

At first glance, deep rooting seemed rather impractical.

Though the treants were powerful, they lacked opportunities to deploy their strength against enemies. If foes could breach this Secret Realm, Tianyuan would already be doomed.

When Mu Yuan had the treants experiment with deep rooting, he anticipated this issue.

To address it, he proposed a hypothesis:

—【I Am the Forest Normalization】

The ‘I Am the Forest’ skill could transform vegetation within a range into one’s territory, unifying it into a whole.

It was also a manifestation of the treant lords’ power extension.

Typically, ‘I Am the Forest’ had limited coverage—at most two or three times the size of the outer treant grove—and consumed significant energy from the user.

However…

Now that the treant lords were permanently rooted, they could draw vast terrestrial energy to strengthen themselves and balance consumption. Tianyuan Territory also had enough treant lords, and ‘I Am the Forest’ was inherently a skill similar to ‘Undead Territory,’ capable of being used in conjunction.

Drawing on the development experience of the Undead Territory’s linked skill, and under Lord Mu’s guidance, Tree Spirit Grandma and the other treant lords gradually achieved normalization of ‘I Am the Forest.’

The normalization concept focused on extending power and reducing consumption.

Initially, the forest territory covered only a radius of one kilometer, then expanded to two kilometers, three kilometers, ten thousand meters, twenty thousand meters… until it encompassed the entire Treant Forest!

By now, through transplanting branches from some treant lords, the ‘forest territory’ coverage had expanded to include all of Tianyuan City.

Mu Yuan loaded the treant lord template and activated the Epic Skill ‘I Am the Forest’…

Instantly!

He felt as if he had merged with this vast sea of trees. His vision traversed the forest, and his power flowed along with it, reaching every part of Tianyuan’s city walls.

“After deep rooting, the treants are inconvenient for distant expeditions, but in defensive battles… wherever the forest territory’s power can extend, Tree Spirit Grandma and the other treants can unleash strength seemingly no weaker than in the depths of the Treant Forest.”

By then, every flower, plant, and tree outside would serve as a medium, allowing 100% transmission of their power.

This power was a fusion of Tree Spirit Grandma, fourteen treant lords, and two hundred seventy-five War Treants, partially drawing on the entire forest Treasure Land’s energy.

How terrifying this fully unleashed power would be, even Mu Yuan could hardly imagine.

This was a trump card he had prepared for his domain.

After all, it was better to prepare for rainy days.Even if Legendary Realm powerhouses surge in the future, the Treant Forest will remain a major trump card within the territory’s defense system.

“I hope these trump cards won’t need to be used.”

Mu Yuan scanned the surroundings before returning to the urban district.

He heard from Shen Linglong that reinforcements were already on their way.

A Moon Sword Immortal from the Cold Moon City Lord’s family was currently in the Twilight Plains Great Domain.

That morning, he had met with the Cold Moon City Lord inside the Secret Realm. She told him that someone in his situation could apply to Taixuan Liangyi for “Garrison Reinforcements.”

“Ordinary Lords naturally don’t qualify, but rising star Lords can enjoy such benefits. Moreover, a territory like Tianyuan Territory, located so far out, holds certain strategic value for the Taixuan Alliance.”

As Han Yue said, there’s no reason not to take advantage of benefits when they’re offered.

Garrison reinforcements dispatched by the authorities were also more reliable.

However, the journey was long, and the application process would take some time. The entire procedure would require at least half a month.

Tianyuan Territory’s location was still too deep in the Wilderness.

Mu Yuan continued preparing his own trump cards.

(End of Chapter)