System: Infinite Evolution into Qilin Bloodline

Zhang Hao and his group climbed up the bronze tree.

About half an hour later, you can look up and see the starry sky outside.

At the same time, the bronze tree shook even more violently.

Although they were very close to the cave exit, Zhang Hao's body inexplicably began to give him warnings.

This is one of the spider-sensing abilities gained after fusing with the spider; it allows the body to anticipate danger and issue warnings.

I haven't felt this way in a long time; there must be a deadly crisis about to happen.

Zhang Hao dared not be negligent. He looked around but found nothing unusual, no large rocks or powerful monsters.

Suddenly he remembered that there was still something below that he hadn't looked at, so he looked down.

He was terrified when he looked.

The bronze tree was rapidly dissipating from bottom to top, disappearing abruptly, section by section, as if it had never existed.

Zhang Hao immediately realized what was going on.

All the power of the Bronze Divine Tree comes from its core. If you put the core into your storage space, the divine tree will lose its power.

It is a materialized form of the tree heart, and it begins to dissipate after the tree heart is taken away.

"Quickly, speed it up!"

Zhang Hao urged loudly, but did not explain why.

Revealing that the Bronze Tree is disappearing rapidly will waste time and delay your escape.

He himself wasn't afraid; he simply used his flying ability to fly away. However, the others would fall rapidly because the divine tree had disappeared and they would lose their support.

Once you fall, there is only one way out: death.

Wu Tianzhen and his group were his nephews, friends, and subordinates. How could he just stand by and watch them die?

Fortunately, when they heard Zhang Hao's urging, they knew the situation was urgent, so they didn't ask why and just used all their strength to climb up.

As Zhang Hao climbed up, he kept an eye on the bronze tree beneath his feet.

Just as they were about to climb out of the cave, the part of the bronze tree that had disappeared was already beneath their feet.

"Jump!"

As Zhang Hao roared, he grabbed Wu Tianzhen and threw her upwards, then leaped out of the cave before the bronze tree completely disappeared.

Yi Sa, Ding Yudie, Zhang Qilin, and A Ning all successfully jumped out of the hole.

When they emerged from the cave and looked back into the cave, they were all shocked.

"Holy crap, where's the Bronze Tree? Where is it?"

"We were clearly right here just now. Could it be that what we experienced before was all an illusion, and we were actually still in the same spot the whole time?"

"If it's a hallucination, that's terrifying. The things I experienced before felt so real."

"Wait a minute, has anyone noticed that someone is missing?"

That's when everyone realized the fat man was gone.

"Fatty is so heartbroken! I've been missing for so long and you guys only just realized I was gone!"

Just as everyone was preparing to look for the fat man, his voice reached their ears.

Following the sound, they found that the fat man hadn't jumped up; he was now clinging to the edge of the cave with both hands.

Judging from his clenched teeth, he was clearly about to give up.

Wu Tianzhen and Ding Yudie noticed that the fat man hadn't come up yet, so they quickly grabbed his hands and pulled him up.

"Fatty, it's time to lose weight. It was almost impossible for me and Brother Die to pull you up."

"I know now, naive. Fatty isn't actually that heavy; he just packed some things in his backpack when he came out."

It was only then that everyone noticed that the backpack on the fat man was much bulging than it had been before they went into the tomb.

"Fatty, what did you take down there?"

"Hehe, it's definitely good stuff."

The fat man chuckled twice, then took the bag off his back and placed it in front of him as if presenting a treasure, before unzipping it.

Everyone immediately looked into the bag.

The bag was filled with antiques.

"Fatty, you really value money over your life. You couldn't bear to throw away your backpack even in such a dangerous situation."

"That won't do. These things were collected with great difficulty. The people of this country are too poor."

Zhang Hao smiled upon hearing this. The people of She Kingdom were not exactly poor, but he had stored everything in the She Kingdom's royal tomb into his storage space.

The things in the fat man's backpack were probably just some things that had fallen to the ground.

Fortunately, he patiently picked up the items one by one from the ground, and ended up filling a backpack.

The fat man emptied the contents of his backpack onto the ground, picked through them a few times, and then handed a dagger to Zhang Hao.

"Boss, this dagger is the most precious of all the antiques. You can have it."

“Tianzhen, Yi Sa, Die Ge, and Xiao Ge, you all have them too.”

The fat man distributed the antiques from his backpack to the people in the group one by one, and kept the last seven or eight pieces for himself.

He noticed that Ah Ning was also staring at him, so he laughed and said, "What are you looking at? Everyone else got a share, but you didn't!"

Ah Ning's lips twitched slightly, but she ultimately said nothing.

She walked up to Zhang Hao, cupped her hands in thanks, and said, "Thank you for letting me join your team. I know that we weren't attacked by the black-haired snakes later because of you. As long as you were there, those black-haired snakes didn't dare to attack people. I will definitely repay your life-saving grace. Thank you."

After finishing her sentence, Aning left alone.

"Although that woman can be quite ruthless at times, she is also quite clear about right and wrong. If she hadn't acted naively, she would have been bitten by the black-haired snake."

The fat man watched Ah Ning walk away and sighed.

"Alright, Fatty, I don't need this dagger. You can keep it."

Zhang Hao didn't even bother with these ordinary antiques, which were only one or two pieces each, and he even complained that they took up too much space in his storage room.

While it might not be the case for him personally, it was different for the fat man, whose antique shop did indeed need items to enhance its image.

If that's the case, why take his dagger?

He's one of our people, so it's okay for him to get some benefits occasionally.

Seeing that Zhang Hao didn't put away the dagger, the fat man guessed what Zhang Hao was thinking.

He turned around and hugged Zhang Hao, tears of gratitude streaming down his face, and said, "Brother Zhang Hao, you're such a good person. I want to be your brother again in the next life."

"Alright, enough with the mushy talk. Let's rest for a bit and head back when it gets light."

"Ok."

The group responded and walked to a spot a little further from the cave entrance to sit down and rest, waiting for dawn before leaving.

As soon as Zhang Hao sat down, the sound of footsteps rang in his ears.

The ghostly army that had been encountered twice before has reappeared.

At the beginning, in the tomb of the King of Ku, all the generals and soldiers of the ghost army were resurrected and sacrificed by Zhang Hao.

However, what was sacrificed were corpses; the ghost soldiers they transformed into remained.

It seems this mute army is repeating the same things they did before they died.

As they passed by, a system notification sounded in Zhang Hao's mind.

[Ding! Congratulations, host, you have completed exploring the Qinling Divine Tree. You have been rewarded with 15 fusion attempts.]

[Ding! Congratulations, host, you have encountered a key plot point and triggered a hidden quest: Explore Misty Village. Quest reward: Doubled reward for exploring the Qinling Divine Tree (the exact multiplier depends on the progress of the quest, but is guaranteed at least 2x).]