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Wait, this... is this the Azure Heart?!

It’s not, I can’t believe this thing can be taken alive from the Guardian Spirit!

Yino looked at the white flower in the Tree Spirit girl’s hand with a look of incredulity on his face, as if he had seen someone hand over their own heart during broad daylight.

Although Lily’s smile radiated warmth and sunshine, for some reason the scene still seemed eerie in Yino’s eyes. He swallow weakly and carefully took the blooming white flower from her.

This was indeed the real Azure Heart. In the game, after the ancient tree demon went berserk, if players could survive a while in the demonic disaster in the Demon Abyss, elders from the righteous path would come and suppress the ancient tree demon together.

And during this time, our protagonist was not just an observer either.

After the bitter battle of the elders, when the ancient tree demon’s health bar was depleted, the protagonist could charge up and use their sword to deal the final blow.

When the ancient tree demon was completely defeated, the protagonist would unlock an achievement. And as the demonic disaster of the Demon Abyss dispersed, a white flower would gradually fall from the sky. This was the Azure Heart.

But once the Azure Heart wilted from the ancient tree demon’s chest, it would quickly rot. Players had to quickly put it into a high-level storage ring before the Azure Heart dissipated.

One second too late, and either the Azure Heart would wither and rot, or the elders would appear in time and take the Azure Heart away.

In other words, this was a mysterious item that players could only obtain by lucky chance during the game’s early stages through intense competition.

And in the early stages of the game when it first opened, although Yino managed to take the Azure Heart before other elders noticed, he still had no idea what this item was for after researching it for a long time. When he long pressed the item icon to check its properties, it just showed a string of question marks. But because the Azure Heart was the highest quality item, Yino was worried it would rot and was unwilling to take it out of the storage ring to experiment, and even more unwilling to ask others. If others found out he had such a valuable treasure on him, he would definitely be envied and coveted.

So the Azure Heart was temporarily put away by Yino in his storage ring.

Later... Until the third volume’s Western Demon Abyss arc, when Yino went to Western Province City, he met a certain infamous merchant in the game. When the merchant saw the astronomical numbers on the Hundred Spirits Pavilion’s buyback interface, his mind was momentarily clouded.

Due to the tight resources early on, Yino couldn’t resist the temptation of spirit stones. In the end, he sold his first gold quality sacred artifact for a sky-high price of seven digits to the Hundred Spirits Pavilion Lord.

Yino still remembers to this day how that dog of a merchant laughed when he got the Azure Heart.

It wasn’t until the main plots of volumes four and five were finished that Yino’s cultivation reached the peak of Nascent Soul stage. When he looked at the materials list for breaking through to the Divine Transformation stage, Yino suddenly realized - in the early stages he wasn’t able to figure out what the Azure Heart was used for because his cultivation was too low. This item turned out to be a top-tier universal key that could help the protagonist break through to the Divine Transformation stage!

With the Azure Heart, many miscellaneous materials could be skipped. Once there was enough experience, it could be directly refined to break through to the Divine Transformation stage.

Without the Azure Heart, players would have to run around the world and grind bosses to gather various materials according to different attributes. And that dog of a game designer, in order to milk players’ online time, didn’t even release a dungeon sweep function until the game had been open for several years. In the end, Yino sat in front of his computer and ground for so many major versions that he nearly died from overwork, but that rag company only begrudgingly released a limited quantity item called "Sweep Scroll"!

Setting aside the game and not talking about it, what really made Yino feel frustrated was...

The protagonist’s later stages were not just limited to basic sword cultivation. Various attributes and professions could be unlocked.

And the later the stage, the more heaven-defying the breakthrough materials became!

At this time, the value of the universal breakthrough key [Azure Heart] became even more precious!

This was why Yino had such a deep impression of this flower.

But who could have imagined, this thing wasn’t something that could only be obtained by killing Lily, and even if it was called the Azure Heart it didn’t really represent Lily’s heart.

"Brother..."

"This flower is called the Azure Heart. It represents Lily’s wholehearted devotion... although to a cultivator like brother it may not seem very valuable... but in the customs of our Azure Forest, the most precious things are all left for the most precious person!"

"I... don’t have much savings or treasures. I only have this little white flower to give to brother..."

Lily hid her hands behind her back, seeming a bit shy in front of Yino. But she still mustered up the courage to smile and tell Yino about her homeland’s customs. Continue your journey on Lokepub

Actually, deep down Lily wasn’t very confident either, because she also knew that this flower held the most meaning for Yino as a memento.

If it were her sister, who had been in the Western Regions all along, she would definitely be able to take out treasures more valuable to cultivators to give to Yino...

But Lily… just a little sapling that had been sealed in an ancient temple for over a hundred years? She didn’t know what outer world cultivators needed, so she could only take out this one single pretty white flower from her chest.

"No... no no no..."

Seeing the little girl starting to feel a bit sad, Yino quickly put the white flower into his storage ring. His eyes shining with gratitude he said, "How could it be something without value? This is Lily’s wholehearted devotion. Just for this alone, to me it is already priceless!"

Yino was rather excited. Unexpectedly, this trip to the Azure Forest not only allowed him to freeload two villainesses, but he could also freeload this top-tier treasure the Azure Heart.

But there was still one thing Yino was concerned about -

"Lily, there is something your brother is quite concerned about."

"What is it?" Lily tilted her head slightly.

"You see, this flower was growing on you. Now that you’ve picked it, the Azure Heart has left Lily’s body. Won’t there come a day when it withers away and disappears?"

Yino examined the storage ring carefully, his tone heavy as he asked.

As soon as he spoke, Lily also gasped in surprise.

After all, in the hundreds of years since she was born, this was the first time Lily had picked the white flower from her chest. As the ancient tree demon, her instincts told her this flower was the most precious, which was why she dared to pick it and give it to Yino. But as for whether it would wither...

"I’m sorry... Lily really doesn’t know either..."

"But since the Azure Heart represents all of Lily’s devotion to brother, as long as Lily’s feelings remain, it should never wither away in brother’s hands!"

"So in the future, no matter when, brother only needs to take out this little white flower to look at it. This way it means Lily is always by brother’s side!"

The treegirl rested her hands on her hips, smiling brightly as she spoke.

The laughter of the little girl was naturally infectious, let alone coming from a golden-haloed ancient guardian spirit. Under the bathing of the tree spirit’s holy light, Yino gradually felt a sort of healing sensation.

But very quickly, as if Yino thought of something, he covered his mouth with one hand and suddenly drew in a sharp breath -

"Ah, so Lily isn’t sure if it will disappear or not..."

"Well then, if... if..."

"If this flower really wilts and goes bad... will Lily blame me for not taking proper care of it?"

"How could I blame brother! Later on, I will just pick another new one to give brother!"

Bathed in the holy light, the little tree spirit rested her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest. Her smile was full of kindness and pampering affection.