This is precisely what the cultivation world refers to as a fourth-tier demonic beast!
Numerous cultivators from the Ninth Alliance rushed to aid various regions. As Lu Qingyang observed with his divine sense, he saw that a creature resembling an octopus had emerged from the sea. Its numerous and terrifyingly dense tentacles made one's heart pound.
Although he couldn't personally experience the power of the eight-legged beast, just seeing it stir the vast sea and raise monstrous waves with a mere movement of its tentacles made Lu Qingyang deeply aware of the terrifying power of this demonic beast.
It was at the early fourth-tier!
No, it definitely wasn't just at the early fourth-tier.
It might have quietly broken through to the mid-fourth-tier, or even higher.
"It seems that the baptism of celestial blood has not only promoted these demonic beasts to the fourth tier but has also caused many powerful ones to leap directly to the mid-fourth-tier, possibly even reaching the late fourth-tier. If there are no fourth-tier cultivators among the human cultivators, it will be difficult to resist them..."
Lu Qingyang's expression was solemn.
He continued to observe the battle, and indeed, the eight-legged demonic beast was overwhelmingly powerful. All the third-tier cultivators of the Fifth Alliance couldn't withstand its onslaught.
Among them, Yang Yan, the great cultivator of the Fifth Alliance, was severely injured. If not for the heavy firepower of numerous artifacts covering him, he might have already fallen to the beast.
When the top cultivators were defeated, the beast horde surged like a breached dam. Lu Qingyang witnessed the beast horde breaking through the defensive Great Wall. His vision was abruptly interrupted by a gaping maw of a beast, signaling the unfortunate demise of the follower who had carried his divine sense.
Quickly, Lu Qingyang shifted his divine sense to other disciples. He saw that the entire defensive line of the Fifth Alliance had collapsed, with numerous demonic beasts successfully landing. The human alliance suffered heavy losses.
He then transferred his divine sense to the Third and Seventeenth Alliances' followers. As expected, the situations in these two alliances were no different from the Fifth.
Several fourth-tier demonic beasts led the charge, making the human alliance defenseless.
Even repeated bombardments with flying swords and artifacts couldn't harm the fourth-tier demonic beasts, and third-tier cultivators were like ants before elephants.
The armies were in rout, and the beasts rampaged.
In no time, as Lu Qingyang tried to shift his divine sense perspective again, he found he could only glimpse the scenes outside the Hundred Thousand Mountains.
Checking the incense smoke, he saw that the original five thousand-plus incense lines had now significantly reduced, indicating that all the cultivators sent to the front lines had perished in the beast tide.
"The human alliance is in dire peril!"
Lu Qingyang's heart felt heavy.
Through this beast tide, he had witnessed many fierce and powerful demonic beasts. Even the top ruler of the Hundred Thousand Mountains' secret realm, the golden jade sculpture, paled in comparison to these beasts.
After all, the golden jade sculpture had not yet broken through to the fourth tier and was still at the peak of the third tier.
If the golden jade sculpture had broken through to the fourth tier, it would have been a different story.
Then, Lu Qingyang refocused on himself.
...
[Name: Lu Qingyang]
[Original Form: Ancient Tree]
[Lifespan: 15/]
[Realm: Early Third Tier (/)]
[Heavenly Court: Not Established (/)]
[Divine Powers: Ancient Tree Roots (Third Tier), Ancient Tree Spirit Roots (Third Tier), Celestial Fruit (Third Tier), Celestial Whisper (Third Tier), True Sight (Third Tier), Ancient Tree Domain (Third Tier)]
...
"Twenty points of cultivation value have passively increased in four days, averaging five points a day. This is the marvel of the ancient tree spirit roots!"
Lu Qingyang mused. Compared to the abilities of spiritual alignment and life flourishing, the function of the ancient tree spirit roots was more evident.
Five points of cultivation per day.
In a year, that equates to one thousand eight hundred twenty-five points of cultivation.
At this rate, even without additional cultivation gains, Lu Qingyang could ascend to the mid-third tier in twenty-five years.
Twenty-five years may seem long, but given his lifespan of tens of thousands of years, twenty-five years is but a blink.
As long as he stays in a peaceful place, Lu Qingyang believes he can reach great heights.
However, facing the current dire situation of the human alliance, Lu Qingyang foresees that he may not get the chance for stable cultivation.
In such a case, the innate talent of the ancient tree spirit roots can't be fully utilized, which is a considerable regret.
Other changes include an increase of forty points in incense.
Lu Qingyang clearly sensed that the Wanqing ancient tree contributed a constant influx of incense to him daily, hence the forty points of incense came from the Wanqing ancient tree.
From this change, Lu Qingyang roughly deduced the role of follower levels.
"Follower levels mainly affect the frequency of incense transmission. Once a follower generates incense, it isn't consumed all at once but is transmitted periodically. It remains unclear when ordinary followers will supply incense again, but devout followers seem to provide incense daily."
One incense per day.
If all five thousand followers were devout believers, Lu Qingyang could gain nearly twenty thousand incense daily.
However, this is nearly impossible.
Only those with the utmost devout faith could become high-level followers.
Moreover, with the current heavy losses among followers, only about three thousand still truly believed in Lu Qingyang.
For a moment, Lu Qingyang considered investing all his cultivation value in nurturing life forms similar to the Wanqing ancient tree.
Fifteen thousand points of cultivation value would be enough to awaken the spiritual wisdom of thirty ancient trees, turning them into his followers.
In this way, Lu Qingyang could earn at least three hundred incense daily.
Accumulating this over a year would yield over a hundred thousand incense, and in less than ten years, he could gather the required incense to establish the Heavenly Court.
He had a premonition that once the Heavenly Court was established, a transformative change would occur.
If he were in a safe place, Lu Qingyang wouldn't hesitate to first cultivate a group of ancient trees similar to the Wanqing ancient tree.
In the short term, this might seem like a loss.
But in the long run, it would be a surefire investment.
Unfortunately, the current situation doesn't allow Lu Qingyang to do this.
Unless he encounters an ancient tree stronger than the Wanqing ancient tree, he wouldn't use the Celestial Fruit to cultivate it.
After all, the incense provided by a third-tier ancient tree is ten times greater than that of a second-tier ancient tree.
If there were an ancient tree with a third-tier foundation, Lu Qingyang wouldn't hesitate to spend some cultivation value to help it awaken its spiritual wisdom and become his devout follower.
However—
In the entire Hundred Thousand Mountains range, the foundation of the Wanqing ancient tree is unparalleled, and Lu Qingyang has yet to find any ancient tree that can match it.
Therefore, Lu Qingyang wouldn't waste his cultivation value.
Every drop of cultivation value is a symbol of strength.
"Let's hope the human alliance can hold on a bit longer, but seeing the current situation, that seems unlikely..."
4o