Astral Pet Store (WN)

This time, Su Ping picked a branch covered in lightning; it contained a complete path.

Crack!

Su Ping held the branch and quickly took a bite. Whenever he had a problem chewing, he grabbed a few handfuls of leaves and patted his chest, all to make it easier to swallow.

"Hold it!"

Once she noticed how infuriated Heather was, Joanna quickly said to her, "The branches will grow back sooner or later. One tree in exchange for the chance to return to the Archean Divinity is surely worth it."

Heather gritted her teeth and held back.

Very soon, Su Ping finished the branch and continued his analysis.

A long time later—divine light glowed on Su Ping's body. He had fully mastered the path of lightning too, but it was still not a true perfection.

Su Ping jumped to another branch and continued biting.

Heather's aura was surging, but Joanna stopped her and said, "Out of sight, out of mind. This tree will be eaten up very soon. Just hold it in."

"…"

Heather almost vomited blood. The tree would be eaten up soon?

The Divine Eye Tree was one of her favorite treasures; it was enough to raise plenty of top Major Gods (Star Lords.)

It was very useful even to Gods of Rules. Only the top Gods of Rules whose paths and laws were all perfect—such as Joanna—wouldn't need to use the Divine Eye Tree.

"Do I really have to hold back?"

"Yes!"

Heather gnashed her teeth and glanced at Su Ping again. She felt like stomping, but her graceful demeanor, which had been etched to her bones helped her in the end. She took a deep breath and turned around, blocking all her senses.

Even the sound of Su Ping biting the branches was painful to her.

Joanna looked at her back and put on a smile. She then stared at Su Ping, who was like a monkey on the tree, and her eyes twitched.

She suddenly realized that, since her original self had signed a contract with Su Ping, would he decide to visit her temple sometime in the future?

The thought gave her the chills.

Time flew.

The leaves on the tree were plucked, and the branches disappeared in Su Ping's mouth one after the other. Only the barren trunk was left in the end.

The tree had helped Su Ping improve significantly; he now mastered thirty-seven laws instead of the previous nine!

He had fulfilled more than half of the requirement for the eighth Astral Painting!

Regretfully, he had yet to condense a perfect path or reach the Source World.

Perfection and mastery are very different…

Su Ping couldn't help but smile bitterly. What he needed was not mastery. According to Ji Xueqing he would be able to master plenty of laws easily if he could enter the Source World.

Perfection was what mattered.

This trunk is surrounded in the aura of paths, but it doesn't contain any specific laws. What will it bring? Su Ping held the trunk, then took another bite with a bit of hope.

He bit off a piece of wood, which was made of laws. The chunk was torn apart by the laws covering his teeth, and soon transmuted, becoming unsubstantial laws.

He had just tasted traits from plenty of laws, but this time, the trunk had only turned into a stream of refreshing aura which sharpened Su Ping's mind.

He was able to think with much more clarity than before.

Is the trunk the basis of all paths? It can enlighten me…

Su Ping had an epiphany, and instantly began to chew the trunk.

"He's really going to eat up the entire tree, isn't he?"

Heather had turned around at some point. Her heart was bleeding when she saw him chow down.

"This tree is already wasted; might as well let him have it," said Joanna, not feeling sorry at all, "We can get a few more saplings for you if we can return to the Archean Divinity."

"That's easy for you to say."

Heather glared at her. "The God Eye is protected by Ancestral Gods. It cannot be approached that easily. If the Ancestral Gods hadn't left the God Eye for the war and this sapling hadn't somehow fallen on this wasteland, I couldn't have gotten a hold of it."

Joanna smiled; her attempt at comforting had been seen through. She didn't know what else to say.

Heather didn't say anything either; she merely heaved a sigh, hoping to fix their relationship using the tree as a peace offering.

Half a year passed in the blink of an eye.

Boom!

Su Ping, who had eaten half of the trunk, unfolded the Golden Crow wings on his back. Flames spread out, almost melting time and space.

The time Joanna had slowed down was instantly affected; intense ripples began to spread, she soon regained control and stabilized her spacetime arrangement.

Joanna was at the moment staring at Su Ping with glittering eyes.

Heather also noticed what happened; it truly shocked her.

"Fire…"

There was more red hair on Su Ping's head; there were also fiery patterns on the golden wings protruding from his back; the space around him was also filled with laws of flames.

After half a year of meditation, Su Ping finally made a breakthrough and perfected the path of fire.

Once he felt the perfect law of fire, he finally realized the difference between perfection and mastery!

The perfect path was all-encompassing and absolutely stable!

It couldn't be torn apart!

When Star Lords battled, apart from resorting to colliding small worlds, they mainly attacked each other by harnessing laws; the solidity of their laws would decide the outcome. The loser would be torn apart, while the victor would stab through the opponent's small world violently.

After all, small worlds were made of laws too.

If laws were destroyed, the enemy's small world could easily be shredded too.

However, perfect paths couldn't be torn apart!

If it was condensed and perfected, it would be simple and unbreakable!

Su Ping slowly opened his eyes, which were as clear as glass, filled with infinite light. Laws were flashing in his eyes like shooting stars.

The world was changing before his eyes. The formerly empty air actually contained laws that looked like threads; they were the traces of all things, operating according to laws.

Once a perfect path was controlled, he was able to see through the simpler laws.

As for Celestial State experts, they would be able to see the functioning of deeper laws in nature, which allowed them to infer anything that might happen.

Su Ping lowered his head and looked at himself, only to find that his body was burning like a furnace. It didn't contain real flames, but the aura from the path of fire.

Su Ping raised his head again, then saw Joanna and Heather. He immediately discovered different lights above their heads; Joanna's light was golden, while Heather's was green. The first one was brilliant and explosive, and the other was quiet and peaceful.

There was the power of laws in their clothes, which prevented him from seeing through.

Su Ping felt somewhat sorry; but soon, he looked at the void. Flames gathered in his pupils. The void was instantly split apart and everything zoomed in quickly. It was like entering the microscopic world at a high speed.

The laws around him were constantly changing, but the path of fire kept on guiding him like a red line; he was moving towards the end of the red line nonstop, until he entered a boundless world.

Was it nothingness?

Su Ping felt that his head trembled. Then, he saw the most glamorous world in front of him, where all kinds of lines in different colors were floating.

Su Ping detected an intense aura of laws from those lines.

Is that… the path of lightning?

Su Ping saw a purple line. It was more of a hopping lightning bolt than an actual line. That was the deepest manifestation and the most original appearance of the path of lightning.

Is this the Source World?

Su Ping was stunned for a moment. He detected the exuberant aura of laws around him, which was even more abundant than when he chomped parts of the tree. Eating the tree caused the sharpening of his senses a hundred fold, allowing him to capture and learn the tiniest laws.. Still, it seemed that he only needed to touch the laws gently to understand their origins while being in that place.