The heart of the island was half-surrounded by mountains. If you squinted and called it a circle, then the lake they’d just crossed was basically a wide-open fan shape. Besides the lake, there were grasslands, dense forests, giant boulders—every kind of terrain you could ask for. And right at the tip of that fan, nestled among all these landscapes, stood a truly bizarre tree.
As for height, the tree wasn’t short—maybe six or seven stories tall. But that’s nothing special here; Mystic Isle collects every plant under the sun, and there are a few mega-trees nearly two hundred meters high (Earth’s tallest is close to 160 meters). Compared to those giants, this one was a total runt.
But this tree was ridiculously thick.
Just eyeballing it, the diameter had to be at least fifty meters. You’d need twenty apartments, each over a hundred square meters, just to match its cross-section. In other words, this tree was way fatter than it was tall. From a distance, it looked like a giant stump. There were hardly any branches, almost no leaves, but the moment you saw it, you’d never mistake it for anything else. "Tree" was the only word that popped into your head, loud and clear.
"There’s a hole in that tree! Come on, let’s check it out!"
They skirted the lake, moving along the shore. As the tree took up more and more of their field of view, its powerful presence grew stronger. The closer they got, the more they could feel how unusual it was. Walking on the ground, feeling the vibrations underfoot, Jill Young couldn’t even guess how far its roots stretched or how deep they went.
"Why does this tree look unfinished?" Grace Kwok was baffled by its proportions. It should have a trunk soaring into the clouds and a crown blocking out the sun, but nope. If you did the math, a tree this thick ought to be a thousand meters tall. Instead, it was just a twenty-meter stump sitting there, totally out of whack. "It’s like someone just chopped it off in one go."
"This isn’t wood—at least, not regular wood," Jill Young said, patting the trunk with certainty. "It’s harder than stone. If you want to chop it down in one swing, you’d need to be way stronger than me." This tree was tougher than reinforced concrete; forget chopping it, even leaving a mark would be tough. If anyone could break it in one hit, it’d have to be the Black Death Emperor.
Could there really be someone at Black Death Emperor level in this world?
No way. If someone like that ever showed up, this place wouldn’t be a martial arts world—it’d be a straight-up myth.
"I found the way—follow me!"
Howard Hopeless called out, leading everyone to the side of the tree facing the forest. There was a tree hollow there, just about the size of a mansion’s front door. The group was bold and skilled, so with a bit of caution, they stepped inside to explore. But as soon as they set foot on the wooden "floor," a shimmer of light appeared.
"Whoa—!" Grace Kwok couldn’t help but gasp. Wherever anyone stepped, a faint blue glow would ripple out. The light followed the plant’s veins, spreading outward to form a glowing patch. Lift your foot, and the glow faded away. Step again, and it reappeared. Grace kept experimenting, stomping and lifting, watching the blue shimmer ripple until she was totally mesmerized.
These light effects were practically magical.
"Unbelievable. But it doesn’t seem harmful to us," Master Yideng said, touching the wall of the hollow. Sure enough, wherever his hand landed, a pale blue handprint glowed. Jill Young, curious, poked a finger at the wall too—but this time, the glow was a dazzling red.
The red glow spread much farther than the blue, like blood injected into veins, radiating from her fingertip in all directions. A whole stretch of the passage lit up with a red web of light, illuminating a long path before slowly fading.
"Different colors? Quick, everyone try it!"
There had to be some secret here, so everyone gave it a shot. Turns out, when you touched the "wood" directly with skin, each person triggered a different color. The glow was always some mix of blue and red: Master Yideng, Grace Kwok, Lydia Drake, Duke Simon Duan—all leaned blue. Gabriel Yang and Howard Hopeless had a blue-purple glow. Joan’s was purple-red, a dazzling violet that really stood out. The closer to red, the brighter the glow, and the bigger the reaction.
Apparently, the glow wasn’t about inner strength—it was linked to physical toughness and vitality. But Master Yideng’s glow was almost pure blue, which made people look twice. Experts can lock up their energy, so Jill Young hadn’t noticed: Master Yideng’s life force was already fading.
Time waits for no one; heroes grow old. The once-mighty Southern Emperor, now just an old man with a flickering candle.
"Let’s keep going," Jill Young said, leading the way deeper into the tree hollow. By now, everyone was pretty sure the real treasure was hidden inside this giant tree.
From the outside, you could see all sorts of holes in the trunk, big and small. Once inside, it turned out these holes were all connected. The passageways, just wide enough for one person, were like a maze of tunnels, twisting and turning in every direction. But with Jill Young—maze master extraordinaire—on the case, it was no big deal.
The hollows were naturally formed, with no sign of human carving. Occasionally, they’d find a corpse or a weapon, as if to say that human greed always leads to disaster. The bodies here were better preserved than anywhere else on the island—not just bones, but flesh that still looked fresh.
Jill Young reached out and "peeled" a corpse off the ground, noticing tiny wooden sprouts growing where the body touched the wood. The sprouts looked like little tendrils, binding the body to the trunk. Clearly, these sprouts were the reason the corpses didn’t rot.
(This chapter isn’t over yet ^.^—click next page to keep reading!)
Everything they saw and heard just kept getting stranger.
After wandering through the trunk for more than ten minutes, the group finally reached the end of the hollow. Climbing out through an upward tunnel, they blinked in surprise—they’d emerged into a vast open space.
Judging by the height, this was the very top of the giant tree. A massive round chamber opened up before them—the hollow inside the trunk was as big as half a soccer field. The round space, with its soaring arched ceiling, felt like it could hold the whole world inside.
On the side facing the lake, there was a hole as big as a floor-to-ceiling window. Natural light poured in, letting everyone see the mysterious patterns etched on the inner walls. The designs seemed full of meaning, drawing you in, tempting you to unlock some great cosmic secret. But no matter how hard you stared, it was all smoke and mirrors—nothing truly revealed itself.
Other than that, there wasn’t much else.
"Where’s the opportunity?" Grace Kwok anxiously scanned the room. Nothing here but wood—no magical object, no cure for Gabriel Yang’s illness. Was it all for nothing? "Where’s the miracle? The transformation? The cure-all? Maybe the tree itself is the treasure?" Frustrated, she drew her sword, ready to chop off a chunk for Gabriel Yang to eat. But her short blade couldn’t make a dent in the tree.
Grace Kwok was furious and helpless, her heart aching. But when her hand touched the inner wall, the usual blue glow didn’t just fade—it traveled upward, reaching the outer rim of the dome, where it formed a diamond-shaped patch. Ding! A strange chime rang out. Everyone stared in disbelief as the diamond-shaped glow turned solid and drifted down from the ceiling.
They blinked, rubbed their eyes, but it wasn’t a trick. A glowing diamond, like a falling snowflake or a drifting leaf, floated down from the dome! The spectacle was so surreal, it felt like the laws of physics had been broken. Just a second ago, it was pure light—two-dimensional, unreal. Now it had popped into three dimensions, like something out of a fairy tale!
Grace Kwok reached out in a daze. Before anyone could stop her, she caught the thumb-sized glowing diamond like a snowflake. The instant it touched her skin, it vanished like a stone dropped in water. A faint blue ripple spread from her palm, shimmering across her whole body. She shivered, goosebumps rising, her eyes suddenly blank—like she was sleepwalking with her eyes open.
"Grace, are you okay?" Gabriel Yang rushed over and shook her by the shoulders. The jolt snapped her out of it; she blinked at him, dazed, and scratched her head. "I’m fine, big brother. I feel like I understood something… but also like I didn’t get it at all."
Joan frowned and pressed her palm to the wall. Instantly, a violet-red glow shot upward, reaching much deeper than Grace’s did. Ding! A violet-red shard drifted down, much bigger than the blue one. Joan wrapped her hands in energy and grabbed it, but the shard ignored her defenses and touched her skin directly.
A violet-red ripple circled through her body. Joan’s eyes glazed over for a moment, but she quickly snapped back to herself.
"So that’s it!" Joan exclaimed. "This is the opportunity, the miracle! That shard just gave me a flash of insight! No wonder this island is covered in martial arts carvings—people must have come here, gained enlightenment, and then carved their discoveries into stone. Quick, everyone—put your skin right on the tree!"