Chapter 270: Brain Toss, Skull Inquiry
After confirming that the ‘anesthetic aura’ emanating from this big tree had no effect on itself, the Tiger Demon leisurely strolled to the wooden Tree Face that could open its mouth to call for help, and began observing it carefully.
The more it looked closely, the less it could discern whether this wooden face was human or plant.
If it was said to be a ‘Buddha Face’ grown after the big tree suffered pollution, it was too vivid and detailed, almost like it had transformed from a living person; if said to be transformed from a human, it was wooden structure inside and out, without any trace of flesh, more like a tree tumor that had become refined.
“Weird!”
“Save me! Please save me…”
“Eh? There’s actually new rhetoric! Old Man, can you recognize me?”
The Tiger Demon surprisingly discovered that this face seemed to notice itself and slightly adjusted its facial orientation. It aimed the black hollow eye sockets without eyeballs at itself and spoke new lines. It was as if there was consciousness inside this face?
“Help…”
Facing the Tiger Demon’s question, this face stiffly continued to plead for help without responding. Clearly, its spirituality and intelligence were insufficient.
Out of curiosity plus itchiness, the Tiger Demon still raised its right claw and gently swiped, tearing open the big tree’s bark and flipping this wooden face to the left side.
Accompanied by a crisp ‘crack!’ sound, the thick human-face tree bark was lifted off whole like a mask. Relying on the slight connection on the left, it hung in mid-air.
Below the tree bark appeared a scene it had not expected. After peeling off the ‘Tree Face’, it revealed a ‘wooden head’ highly consistent with a human skull. It was still not made of flesh, but the wooden plant fiber traces resembled human facial muscle fibers extremely closely.
It was as if a real ‘human head’ had once been embedded into a tree seed, undergoing cumulative wooden replacement over time. Ultimately, the human head’s flesh, bones, and organ structures all disappeared, replaced 1:1 by wooden structure, turning into a highly precise ‘wood’.
Not only that, the Tiger Demon swiped its claw again, tearing open the tree bark at the ‘Tree Face’ throat position, revealing below a 1:1 replicated ‘wooden throat structure’. This Tree Face, accurately speaking the ‘wooden human head’ below the Tree Face, used this ‘plant throat’ to produce sound.
At this moment, the skinless ‘wooden human head’ had slightly turned its direction, looking at the Tiger Demon and crying for help: “Save me… save me!”
“Damn, this is a bit underworld!”
Seeing this scene that was not bloody but inexplicably made its fur stand on end, the Tiger Demon couldn’t help complaining how this Du Ling Star was so grotesque and twisted. It thought that by mingling with local pollution, it could adapt and integrate.
The result was that reality told it a big tree in the mountains with not particularly high pollution concentration could make it feel doubly uncomfortable both ‘physiologically and psychologically’.
Crack!
The itchy-handed Tiger Demon once again lifted the crown of the head of the ‘skinned wood’. The feel was very hard; this density and strength even exceeded a human skull. Yet it still couldn’t withstand the Tiger Demon’s sharp claws, had its skull cut open, exposing the empty cranial cavity.
“Uh…”
Seeing the wooden human head whose crown of the head was lifted yet remained unmoved, still opening its mouth to call “help”, the Tiger Demon didn’t know whether to praise its professionalism or say it was really a bit scary.
Tiger Demon: “Move this thing to a haunted house, and it would definitely get rave reviews!”
Snake Snake: “Boss, I’m increasingly feeling that he wasn’t grown by this big tree; he should have been human in life!”
The Tiger Demon agreed and analyzed: “First, confirm one thing: it has no pain sensation. Second, it really has no brain, thus no intelligence. Third, this thing seems deliberately preserved by this big tree? Finally, the cranial cavity interior is empty, without the expected Buddha Cocoon, so it shouldn’t be Buddhist Pollution.”
Snake Snake: “It looks a bit like the Wisdom School’s Skull Server, but not quite. Can’t say why?”
The Tiger Demon pointed out the issue: “The grade is too low-level. Compared to Skull Server, this ‘wooden skull’ is too crude and simplistic, like a shoddy imitation. Meanwhile, its high consistency with a human head makes it very precise in that aspect.”
The ‘tiger-headed snake-tailed’ one studied this Tree Face thoroughly, even considering whether to dig it out from the tree trunk?
The Tiger Demon and Snake Snake both agreed that the ‘Tree Face’ was likely a human who had mastered a small amount of Supernatural Powers in life. After death, for some reason, it fused as one body with this big tree. Its physical body was absorbed as nutrients, but the big tree preserved the complete head and vocal organs, which were gradually replaced bit by bit by the big tree’s ‘plant tissue’, ultimately merging inseparably, still able to produce sound to attract prey.
The Tiger Demon released a large area of shadow, penetrating downward along this big tree’s root tendrils. It soon discovered various animal bones that could not be completely digested.
These bones were incomplete, left only with the toughest fragments, containing ‘aggregated pollution’ that even the big tree couldn’t digest, counting as low-end sarira.
It seemed this plant, in growing to its current state, had not skimped on deceiving, poisoning, and digesting various animals and lost people. In the neighboring Immortal Path Universe, it would count as a tree demon.
As for this wooden human head, it was the core of the entire plant!
Based on the Supernatural Knowledge he had collected recently, Du Ling Star, encompassing Spirit Layer, Star Realm Layer, Bubble Layer, had Extraordinary Beings with human-level intelligence. Apart from alien immigrants from external universes, they were basically related to humans, with few cases of pure ‘animals’ upgrading to higher intelligence.
So, if you see a sheep-type demonic beast or cow-type demonic creature that speaks human language, rather than guessing it’s a transformed cow or sheep, better guess it’s a human who accepted ‘pollution’, lost control and degenerated into beast form, and stably reproduced to form a demonic beast group.
Similarly, many half-human half-beast, mythical species are not necessarily products of ‘animals + pollution erosion’; very likely humans who lost control and twisted, like the common Demonic Giant Insect in the Underground World.
If evolved from animals, they are also strange animal-plants that devoured and digested humans, occupied the important organ Head, inherited higher thinking patterns, and gained evolution.
But ‘intelligent species’ from animal mutations often lack reproductive ability and are hard to replicate. Those unique ‘demonic beasts, intelligent monsters’ are usually from animals or plants.
For example, this big tree before its eyes, in the Tiger Demon’s view, had potential to continue accumulating pollution to complete transformation and become a unique ‘small Boss’. Just because it perfectly digested a ‘ability user’ and inherited the Head, they could no longer be distinguished.
Snake Snake shook its skeleton head regretfully: “Unfortunately… no brain, evolution failed!”
The Tiger Demon tilted its head looking at the empty cranial cavity whose face skin it had torn off and skullcap pried open, suddenly had a flash of inspiration and got an idea!
“Since the head is empty and unteachable, what if I grant you a brain—how would you respond?! Snake Snake, eggplant!”
Fellow Daoist Yu Jingzi shouted: “Little brain coming!”
Then it opened its snake mouth and spat out a Brain Eggplant, sending it into the ’empty skull’ of this wooden head.
Even before Yuan Zhu entered the Eclosion World, he had processed a batch of Eggplant Goblin heads, refining nearly a hundred Brain Eggplant CPUs at once. With ample stock on hand, he could nurture five half-blood orcs into knockoff Tomato (Gourd) Five Brothers.
Now, another fresh Brain Eggplant CPU was given away just like that. The baby-fist-sized ‘miniature gyri brain eggplant’ had just fallen into the cranial cavity when it quickly took root and sprouted, spreading dense ‘black capillary root tendrils’, piercing into the wooden skull, rapidly shuttling through the ‘vascular system’ pre-reserved inside the ‘wooden human head’.
This tacit cooperation was like a renovation team entering a rough house and finding water, electricity, and gas lines already pre-embedded in the house’s walls and floor.
As the Brain Eggplant rapidly took root and spread, the Tiger Demon felt this empty stiff human head slowly gathering new ‘pollution fluctuation’, gradually awakening bit by bit.
The Tiger Demon’s heart leaped with joy, feeling an interesting change had occurred. So it raised its claw to press back the lifted ‘wooden skullcap’, then also pasted back the hanging ‘Tree Face’.
In its perception, those Brain Eggplant root tendrils (capillaries) quickly glued the cracked ‘skullcap’. Root tendrils emerging from the facial ‘wooden muscle tissue’ also stitched and intertwined the ‘Tree Face skin’ with the ‘wooden skull’.
“Ah!”
The Tree Face opened its mouth and let out a wail: “I, save me! Don’t die! Live, live on! Yi Wood Transformation, Art of Stealing Heads…”
This wooden head or rather this big tree seemed to store a small amount of ‘deceased’ information fragments from life. These strong obsessions were captured and absorbed by the Brain Eggplant CPU thing, and it attempted to read them.
The information fragments successfully read by the Brain Eggplant (dataized soul program) were now shouted out by the Tree Face. In addition, there were large segments of garbled code, incomprehensible.
Snake Snake began diligently translating the garbled code in the Brain Eggplant, continuously extracting valuable fragment information, then summarized: “Interesting, this tree was intentionally modified by this ‘wooden human head’. He was a Rain Courtyard student who mistakenly entered the Misty Mountains… no, he was a student who violated Rain Courtyard rules and sneaked into the mountains to find rare materials.”
“After entering the mountains, he used self-made equipment to resist the ‘mist’ mental pollution and erosion. But as time passed, the defensive effect began to decline, while he heard much ‘polluting knowledge’, and finally unsurprisingly got lost. During the lost period, he wandered here with already poor mental state, knowing he couldn’t escape alive, so he came up with a bold idea.”
“Yi Wood Transformation Technique, a longevity secret technique he heard. After ‘skinning the living person’, graft into a big tree, use tree bark to wrap and replace the original skin, accept plant nourishment, share long life with the tree… As for Art of Stealing Heads, it’s basic knowledge promoted by the Knowledge School. One can remove one’s own head without dying, refine it into a natal Server, then steal others’ heads and graft onto one’s own neck.”
The Tiger Demon found it very amusing, then was stunned: “Wait, Art of Stealing Heads, the Head Robber Group that Zhou Chu mentioned to Meng Xi! She warned Meng Xi not to step onto the head-stealing evil path! How did it become Knowledge School’s basic knowledge?”
Snake Snake replied: “This Tree Face head doesn’t know how many years it’s existed. The era he entered the mountains was probably decades or even a hundred years ago. At that time, the Knowledge School was even still in Rain Courtyard, hadn’t moved to Taixi City. So Art of Stealing Heads likely hadn’t yet been classified as ‘forbidden evil technique’, belonging to basic curriculum?”
The Tiger Demon complained: “Rain Courtyard back then was so open, teaching Black Magic instead of Black Magic Defense class?”
Snake Snake: “Pretty much! This guy was already bewitched in mind by ‘polluting knowledge’ before death. But he also knew that before successfully ‘skinning and transforming’, he might die from excessive blood loss. So he combined Head-Stealing Technique with Transformation Evil Technique, chose this big tree, planted his own head into it, sharing the plant’s lifespan.”
“Initially, its head could still function normally. But as time passed, its humanity began to lose, pollution erosion continuously strengthened, ultimately becoming a living dead, then completely losing soul consciousness, brain also atrophied and disappeared, leaving only a large amount of ‘lingering thoughts’ in pollution form, permeating and spreading throughout the tree, gradually worn away.”
“Now, with us installing Brain Eggplant CPU, plus a bit of ‘plant attribute’ compatibility, we successfully activated the already wooden ‘head’, collecting a small amount of ‘lingering thought information’ after death—this is thanks to Ghost Companion Divine Ability’s compatibility with Yellow Springs Aura.”
In Snake Snake’s explanation, the Brain Eggplant CPU, as a byproduct of Ghost Companion Refinement, also carried a bit of ‘underworld (Yellow Springs/death) attribute’, perfectly able to collect the ‘residual soul resentment’ left in the big tree for interpretation.
Hearing this, the Tiger Demon was somewhat disappointed: “So, its intelligence still can’t answer questions, right?”
The ‘polluted creatures’ captured in the mountains were all weak-minded ones unable to communicate. Perhaps mammalian animals were somewhat smart, barely able to communicate with humans. But the ‘mammals’ it (Tiger Demon) caught were all deeply eroded by polluting energy; even without entering demonic path, they were all twisted and mad, brains burned out, not quite normal.
Snake Snake: “Communication and answering questions is impossible. However, this tree over the years has attracted, bewitched, and devoured quite a few ‘polluted creatures’ in the mountains. When these animals were digested and absorbed, some ‘memory scenes’ were also preserved. This should be the wood’s lingering instinct before complete death.”
In Snake Snake’s view, the wood didn’t die suddenly but survived for a time with polluting knowledge Yi Wood Transformation. Before complete death, he had seized dominance in ‘shared human head’ form combined with this big tree, living freely for a while.
After secondary transformation, it actively modified this ordinary big tree. In ‘human head + tree’ form, it started a new cultivation tree life, creating ‘vocal pleas for help, anesthetic aura’ and other strange means.
Unfortunately, good times didn’t last; ‘polluting knowledge’ hidden dangers were too many. This big tree also had no time to transform before starting to degenerate. But the lingering instinct still persistently digested and absorbed various ‘polluted creatures’, extracting essence, even harvesting soul fragments…
Now, Snake Snake quickly marked out multiple areas in this nearby Misty Mountains suspected to have ‘super predators’ or ‘high-energy polluting spiritual lands’ by reading these ‘animal memory fragments’.
Snake Snake was overjoyed and quickly made a patchy map, presenting it to its own King: “Congratulations King, just one last step to opening the mansion! Let’s go house-hunting and location-scouting right now!”
The Tiger Demon was equally happy, swiped another claw to flip open the already regrown Tree Face; then another claw to lift the skullcap and dig out its own Brain Eggplant CPU, then satisfied: “Let’s go!”
