Chapter 541 - 304: The Highest Leaf

Chapter 541: Chapter 304: The Highest Leaf

"The oxygen grew thin, gravity changed, and everything was transformed in a single day. No one knew why this strange phenomenon occurred. The government quickly issued a notice, claiming it was a normal occurrence, a new experiment by scientists."

"The sun vanished. God has come to punish us. One day, the Lord will descend!"

"The Buddha taught that the five skandhas are empty..."

"Today... has Doomsday finally arrived?"

Different people recorded the strange events of that day in different ways. The anomaly began on January 28th, and from February 5th onward...

...all records from anywhere in the world ceased to exist.

It was as if, starting that day, the entire human population of Earth had vanished from the world.

Looking at the Demons now running rampant in the streets, it was almost certain to conclude that these people had all turned into Demons.

Earth wasn’t supposed to be here. It seemed to have been pulled to this place for some reason.

WHOOSH—

In the next instant, Lu Cang was back in Shanghai, back at the airport. He calmed his mind once more.

He slowly closed his eyes, then opened them again.

His Spirituality was boiling even more intensely.

The airport was one of the most heavily damaged areas, almost completely destroyed.

Shanghai’s airport had once been massive, but now only a scorched, flat expanse remained. There was no trace of the airport left.

He bent down and touched the ground.

The scorched marks held no residual fluctuations of Magic Power. It didn’t seem to have been caused by Magic.

However, another pattern formed in Lu Cang’s mind.

On this scorched and ruined ground, there was in fact information that had been erased... His Divine Level Information Tracing had activated.

A massive Ritual Array had been inscribed upon this land.

The Ritual was so complex that with Lu Cang’s current mastery of Rituals, he could barely understand it at all.

This Ritual wasn’t just drawn on the surface.

It was also inscribed deep underground.

It was carved into every single plane beneath the earth.

In other words, the Array Patterns required for the Ritual had been drawn on planes within the solid rock, without ever cutting the rock open.

This was something utterly impossible to achieve with Earth’s level of technology.

A Reincarnator had been to Earth.

And a High-Level Reincarnator, at that.

Perhaps Level 8 or higher.

Lu Cang carefully perceived the remaining traces of clues. The mind of a Decryption Scholar whirred into action, deducing the answer from the chaotic threads of information.

’The time... May 2026?’

’If the other party was a Ritualist, they were at least a Level 7 Ritualist.’

’If not, then they were definitely Level 8 or higher, with a Profession that was at least strongly related to Rituals, even if it wasn’t their main one.’

’This was definitely not a Ritual Array that could be drawn by a Reincarnator completely unrelated to Rituals.’

As a Decryption Scholar, Lu Cang himself knew a fair bit about Rituals.

Professions like Death Priest and Mage, while not centered on Rituals, still required some contact with them.

While he couldn’t be called an expert in Rituals...

...he was certainly no clueless novice.

’My teleportation... wasn’t a coincidence?’

"An Su, do you recognize this Ritual?"

Lu Cang asked the An Su in his mind. An Su also perceived the complex, multi-layered Ritual that permeated everything, inside and out, above and below.

However, the Ritual was manifesting inside Lu Cang’s Sea of Consciousness.

If one were to search for it with their eyes or their Perception...

...it would be completely undetectable, as the original traces had already been destroyed.

An Su processed Lu Cang’s question and couldn’t help but feel another jolt of shock.

’This kid can actually restore information that’s been erased?’

’Just how many other things is he capable of?’

"This Ritual... it’s profound. This might have been set up by a Level 9 Reincarnator."

’As I thought.’

Lu Cang asked again, "What’s its purpose?"

"Heh heh, if you’d brought any other Level 9 Reincarnator here, they probably wouldn’t recognize it either."

"But lucky for you, you met me."

"This Ritual..."

Before he could finish, Lu Cang had already extracted the information he wanted from An Su’s mind. Although the Ritual’s complete function was unclear, he learned at least one of its purposes.

To guide Spirituality.

It was an incredibly powerful Ritual for guiding Spirituality, designed to usher in the descent of a High Spirituality.

And as for High Spirituality...

Lu Cang had already learned about that from An Su’s mind as well.

The Tree of Wisdom, one of the Seven Divine Trees, is the source of all Spirituality. Each of its leaves represents the Spirituality of a single life. Furthermore, when a person undergoes Reincarnation, they must experience the process of re-witnessing the Tree of Wisdom.

At the moment of birth, a leaf from the Tree of Wisdom falls and becomes that person’s Spirituality.

This is the origin of Spirituality.

However, there are several different types of leaves on the Tree of Wisdom, and each one corresponds to a Special kind of Spirituality.

Even An Su didn’t know the finer details.

This was a matter on the same level as the very source of Death.

The Ritual before him was indeed related to Spirituality.

After all, a Death Priest’s Profession dealt with Spirituality, souls, and Death on a daily basis, so they were naturally familiar with Rituals related to Spirituality.

An Su was knowledgeable in this area.

"Heh heh, kid."

"You said this is your home world. The reason you possess such High Spirituality... it might just be because of this Ritual, don’t you think?"

"If you ask me, someone probably plucked the Highest Leaf from the Tree of Wisdom and guided it into you."

Lu Cang recalled the various things that had happened.

He felt like everything was starting to connect.

"But why guide it into me? Didn’t they pluck it to use for themselves?"

"Why am I involved in this?" Lu Cang asked in return.

An Su chuckled. "Why?"

"Because, naturally, the Highest Leaf cannot be possessed by a being that already has Spirituality."

"Unless... they find a particularly rare vessel."

"An empty shell, born without Spirituality, to bear it."

"Perhaps you just so happened to be that empty shell."

Lu Cang replied, "How could I be? Before I went to the Secret Sea, I lived a perfectly normal life, no different from anyone else."

Lu Cang’s mind drifted back to his past...

He’d grown up in a well-off family, attended a private high school in Qingdao because of his family’s good circumstances, and had a few close friends.

He got a decent score on the college entrance exams and was admitted to a Project 211 university.

After that, through his own hard work in college, he built a solid resume and eventually landed a job at Tencent.

No matter how he looked at it, his life had been pretty good.

He might not have been a one-in-a-million genius...

...but he was definitely not some kind of mindless, empty shell without Spirituality.

"Heh heh, I’m merely proposing a theory. I never said you *were* an empty shell."

"Besides, lacking Spirituality doesn’t necessarily mean lacking a mind."

"But I’ve heard that the Highest Leaf of the Tree of Wisdom can grant a person unimaginable Spirituality, and it comes with an extremely powerful Talent that is at least Divine Level."

"Whether or not you received the Highest Leaf... you yourself should know best."

"And if you really did get it, then perhaps someone has been watching you ever since the day you were transported to the Secret Sea."

"After all, what you carry is something that someone else was supposed to have. It’s merely being stored with you for the time being."

"Heh heh, this reminds me... I used to raise precious souls inside the bodies of living people. Once these souls obtained a physical form, they even believed they were still alive."

"But to put it bluntly, those souls were mine to begin with, and I always intended to take them back at any time."

"Kid, this Ritual is so complex... the process of gathering the materials alone might have taken at least a century of painstaking effort."

"Do you think that person just gave you this Highest Leaf for free, on a whim?"

"The thing you carry... I’m afraid that sooner or later, someone will come to collect it!"

"Think carefully. Who around you has been with you from the very beginning? Are the people by your side truly well-intentioned? Don’t blame me for not warning you—the human heart is treacherous, and in this world, the most skilled deceivers are those filled with Spirituality!"