Chapter 876 - The Spirit Apple Tree Is Sentient?

Lin Mu had given up on the great sword and knew that it was something he would have to store away for the time being.

~Sigh~

"No use." Lin Mu said with a shake of his head.

~shua~

The Great Sword flew past him and finally crashed into ground some distance away. Lin Mu didn't even bother looking at it and left it as it is. The sword would return to the ring when he left the Sleepscape anyway.

Lin Mu decided to focus on the second object that could move around in the ring. Though it hadn't done that as much.

"Is that Wood spirit tulip still failing around?" Lin Mu questioned.

"It did at first, then it found some soil and buried itself inside it. But later it moved and found some spirit stones. It then pulled them into the soil and moves around every so often once the spirit stones run out of spirit Qi." Senior Xukong answered.

"Huh… it became a scavenger." Lin Mu muttered and withdrew the Wood spirit tulip from the ring.

~smash~

"Huh?" In front of Lin Mu, a pile of dirt had just fallen.

~wiggle~

It then started to move, before something very fast shot out of it.

~slap~

Lin Mu blocked the incoming attack with his hand and grabbed onto it.

"It hasn't changed one bit…" Lin Mu said as he gripped the roots of the Wood Spirit tulip.

"Come on out!" Lin Mu said and pulled hard.

~zip~

The Wood spirit tulip started to flail its roots around as it was pulled out of the soil. But it was now that Lin Mu saw something peculiar.

"Is that… a peak grade spirit stone!?" Lin Mu said with surprise.

The Wood Spirit tulip had wrapped its roots around a block of peak grade spirit stone that Lin Mu had extracted a while back. It was holding on tightly and didn't seem like it would let go easily.

"Hmm… it has certainly grown a bit more than before. The spirit Qi fluctuations coming from it are almost at the Nascent soul realm now…" Lin Mu muttered.

But as Lin Mu was holding the wood spirit tulip in his hand, something happened to it. 

~rustle~ rustle~

Its leaves started to tremble and move. A few seconds later, its stalk bent towards a certain direction and it started to exert more force. 

"It wants to go there?" Lin Mu was confused.

"You may as well let it free and see what it does. Not like it can leave the Sleepscape." Xukong suggested.

"Ah, right," Lin Mu said before letting go of the Wood spirit tulip.

~whoosh~

The wood spirit tulip rushed out like a gust of wind and directly went to the Spirit apple tree. Seeing this, Lin Mu was intrigued and wanted to see what exactly was it that the Wood spirit tulip wanted.

~slap~

But just when the Wood spirit Tulip was about to touch the Spirit apple tree, it was ruthlessly slapped down.

~thud~

~rustle~

"What the…" Lin Mu and Xukong were both surprised.

The Wood Spirit tulip that had been slammed into the ground tried to stand up and went towards the Spirit apple tree again, but then a branch of the tree moved and slapped it down again.

~SLAP~

This time, the slap was far more powerful than before and directly buried it into the ground.

"The Spirit apple tree… it moves?" Lin Mu was confused.

"Seems like it is sentient too…" Xukong spoke.

Lin Mu approached the Spirit apple tree, wanting to see what was up with it. His spirit sense extended towards the Spirit apple tree, but couldn't sense anything. It was as if the spirit apple tree was just air and his spirit sense passed through it unimpeded.

"It is the same as before… I can't even sense anything from it." Lin Mu spoke.

"Same here. It is different from before though." Xukong said as they watched the Spirit apple tree beating the Wood Spirit tulip down.

The Spirit herb tried to attack the tree, but to no avail. It was as if a chick was trying to attack a wolf. The only result of that was it getting beat down ruthlessly.

Lin Mu approached them and touched the Spirit apple tree with his hand, finding it to be the same as before. He even touched the branch that it had used to attack the Wood Spirit tulip, but didn't find anything different.

~SLAP~

A different branch moved to slap the Wood Spirit Tulip when Lin Mu was holding onto the earlier branch. It seemed like no matter what happened, the Spirit apple tree wouldn't let the Wood Spirit Tulip get close to it.

~Sigh~

Lin Mu shook his head and looked at the Wood Spirit tulip that was rather sorry looking now. Its leaves seemed down and its stalk was bent. 

"Will it die if this keeps up?" Lin Mu questioned.

"It's a spirit herb, so its tenacity should be high. Even if it looks injured, it should heal itself after a while. It can't die this quickly unless severe damage is inflicted onto it, or its body is cut apart." Xukong answered.

"That's good. Don't want it to die before we get some benefit from it." Lin Mu said and looked at the spirit apple tree.

"Can you understand me?" Lin Mu asked the Spirit apple tree.

He watched on in anticipation but received no response.

"Can you head me?" Lin Mu asked again, but received no response.

"Hmm… shake a branch if you can hear or understand me?" Lin Mu suggested something else.

He waited for a minute but still didn't receive any response.

"Does it not want to answer?" Lin Mu wondered.

"I don't know either. Technically, this is a Garden of karma and it's under your ownership. Anything that happens here should be under your sense, but this apparently is not." Xukong replied.

"Mmhmm… it's certainly strange. Maybe this is due to the growth of the Sleepscape?" Lin Mu guessed.

"It could be possible. Maybe we'll see more things later on.." Xukong agreed.