Jiang Chen paced to and fro beneath the Amaranthine Clouddew Tree, unable to contain his excitement. He walked around several times before simply plopping down at its base, casting forth his consciousness in wholehearted contemplation.
He was almost beside himself with joy.
Since his rebirth upon Divine Abyss Continent, he had encountered many things and come across many opportunities. Even the legendary heritage of the ancient Veluriyam Capital had elicited only momentary glee from him.
The elation he felt now far surpassed any he had ever felt before.
He would’ve been relatively prepared to receive any pre-existing ancient heritage within Divine Abyss, but the Amaranthine Clouddew was something he wouldn't have possibly imagined to exist here.
This was a tree that should have lived only in the heavenly planes. How did it come to grow here, of all places? More importantly, why hadn’t the ancients consumed the numerous fruit upon its boughs? Why was it simply growing here in the palace’s courtyard?
The fruit were clearly mature and could turn the basest of things into gold.
Even in his previous life, Jiang Chen had only seen the tree once by coincidence. He had accompanied his father on a visit to another illustrious individual in the planes, catching sight of the tree in the latter’s residence.
It was precisely because of this prior experience that Jiang Chen was absolutely sure of the tree’s identity.
In the heavenly planes, there had once been a certain busybody who had ranked every treasure under heaven in a grand list: weapons, creatures, beasts, items, herbs, and more.
A hundred varieties of treasure had been placed at the top, the Amaranthine Clouddew Tree among them. The wood’s importance was thus manifest.
It was no exaggeration to say that if he consumed a fruit right now, he could attempt to break through to divinity on the spot – and with guaranteed success, to boot!
Any single fruit could increase the potential of a god many times over, entirely improving his frame and vitals. A cultivator whose limit was initial divine realm could have it raised immediately to mid or advanced.
The forefathers in Myriad Abyss Island, for example, had largely reached the upper bound of what they were capable of cultivating to. It was unlikely they could break through much further.
An Amaranthine Clouddew Fruit however, would allow them to easily reach even sixth level divine realm in the future.
It was the same with mid divine realm gods, enabling them to potentially reach advanced divine realm.
It was precisely this miraculous property of the Amaranthine Clouddew’s fruit that granted it one of the top spots on the heavenly planes’ ranking.
Jiang Chen’s astonishment was thus entirely understandable. How could an ordinary plane have engendered such an amazing tree?
He took in the tree for a very long time to ensure its veracity before happily accepting this serendipitous discovery.
Counting the fruit with his consciousness, he noticed that their number corresponded to the heavenly perfect number of nine times nine. There were eighty-one fruit in all, shimmering in their splendor like immortal fairies.
“That Great Divine Veluriyam would leave me such wealth… I can scarcely imagine such a thing!”
It was a waste to simply give away these fruit for others to consume. Instead, they could be used to refine divine pills.
Just as every realm before had a corresponding pill that unconditionally granted a free level, so too did the divine realm. The name of the pill was the Divine Transcendence Pill.
The best main ingredient for this pill was the fruit of the Amaranthine Clouddew. Because of the specimen’s extreme scarcity in the heavenly planes, the Divine Transcendence Pill was similarly rare.
There were a handful of replacements for the fruit in the recipe, but they couldn’t be found much more frequently than the fruit could be. More importantly, the resulting pills were of lower quality, with a high failure rate to boot.
Only the Amaranthine Clouddew Fruit could produce Divine Transcendence Pills of excellent quality in large quantities. Moreover, the failure rate was almost nil, since the fruit possessed the intrinsic value of creation itself. The fruit could meld into the pills of its own accord.
Jiang Chen was incredibly excited to see the eighty-one fruit.
A single fruit meant over twenty Divine Transcendence Pills. With so many of them here, he could refine a nearly limitless amount.
He didn’t know why they all remained upon their branches, but they were his to make use of now – the same as the rest of ancient Veluriyam Capital!
He prided himself on the belief that he would make better use of them than anybody else on Divine Abyss. To put it bluntly, it was quite probable that no one else living even recognized the tree and fruit.
Jiang Chen bowed respectfully in the direction of Veluriyam Palace. “Great Divine Veluriyam, I am blessed to come to this place and receive your incredible gift. Never in my wildest dreams would I have expected this. Please be at ease. I will make superb use of them to strengthen the human race and eradicate all of demonkind, restoring eternal peace to Divine Abyss!”
However, he didn’t pick the fruit from their branches after saying this. Their current location was their best home until used. He did intend to pick five of them on his way out though.
One was for himself, and the rest were for the four sacred beasts. Right now, no one else deserved the fruit.
The four sacred beasts, once improved, would become his staunchest weapons.
Set on this future plan, he passed through the courtyard and into the palace.
A statue stood within the main hall, sculpted in the likeness of a white-robed scholar with a long beard. He cut an immensely handsome and literary look.
“Was this Great Divine Veluriyam?” Jiang Chen stepped forward, bowing once more to the statue.
Suddenly, stony eyelids fluttered open. The statue’s eyes glowed with vitality, as if it had come alive.
“It’s been a long time, young man. Have you finally come?”
