Chapter 38 - Chapter 38: Chapter 33 Request for Reinforcements i (2/2)

Qin Niu’s mind stirred, thinking the blood of the Ancient Banyan Tree might be valuable.

The small pot in the basket used for feeding the Termite meat was at hand; he might as well fill a pot with it to keep for nurturing his sword later.

With that thought, he immediately took out a jar to catch the flowing sap.

To better collect the sap, he struck the tree with his blade, not hastening to pull it out, allowing the green blood to drip down along the sword’s blade.

The small jar caught it just right.

In about half an hour, it was full.

He sealed the jar with a wooden stopper, placed it back into his basket, and continued chopping the tree.

“Eh!”

When he tried to pull out his sword, he found it stuck as if embedded in the tree.

It was immovable.

It took a great deal of effort before he could pull the sword from the tree.

Luckily it wasn’t embedded deeply, otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to pull out the sword at all.

He didn’t waste any more time and swung his sword to continue chopping the tree.

“Eh, that’s not right, its wound seems to have healed a lot!”

At this moment, Qin Niu discovered something even more bizarre.

The cuts he made before were at least four or five inches deep, but after the slash he just made, he realized the wound had become much shallower, merely two inches deep.

This suggested the tree had a strong healing ability.

His heart sank to the bottom, fearing that if this was true, he would never be able to fell the tree.

Legend spoke of a man named Wu Gang in the Moon Palace, who, for pursuing the Chang’e Fairy, was punished by the Jade Emperor. Stubborn Wu Gang’s love for Chang’e was unyielding, and to make an example, the Jade Emperor ordered him to cut down an osmanthus tree in front of the Moon Palace, promising that once he did, Wu Gang could pursue the fairy.

The osmanthus tree would heal as soon as it was chopped, making it impossible to fell.

Thus, Wu Gang spent his entire life continuously chopping the tree.

Although just a myth, it served as proof that some trees indeed had incredible healing abilities.

The healing ability of the Ancient Banyan Tree wasn’t as horrifying as the one in the Moon Palace, but for the weak Qin Niu, this already posed a huge obstacle in cutting down the Ancient Banyan Tree.

He tried chopping some more, but the wounds on the tree always remained about five or six inches deep.

He also found that the deeper he chopped, the stronger the healing ability of the tree.

Despair had completely overtaken him.

Felling this tree had become a vain hope.

To say nothing of bringing it down by nightfall, he couldn’t even do it in a lifetime.

“I can’t just wait here to die, I need to quickly figure out a way to save myself while there’s still light.”

Qin Niu estimated the time; it should be noon now.

There were six hours left until sunset.

If he couldn’t escape within those six hours, he feared he would be buried in the mountains forever.

Sitting under the tree, Qin Niu forced himself to remain calm, thinking over ways to escape his predicament.

Rash actions were certainly a dead end.

Chopping the tree was futile, marking with cloth strips useless, using the sun as a point of reference also failed… Every method he could think of had been tried and all had failed.

What other way could there be to escape?

Qin Niu racked his brains.

“Right, how could I forget about the termites! Termites have their own unique way of discerning direction; they don’t need any point of reference. If I can get them in here to help guide me, perhaps they can assist me out of this dilemma.”

But the distance from here to the Ant Nest was a bit far, at least over five li away.

Their crawling speed was slow, and under normal circumstances, the worker ants couldn’t stray far from the group or they would die quickly.

“First, let me give it a try; it’s better than just sitting here waiting for death.”

Qin Niu tried to contact the Ant Queen.

Possibly due to the distance, and the presence of the ancient tree’s mysterious powers making the area under it akin to being within a shielded bubble, reaching out to the ant colony was even more difficult.

But Qin Niu wasn’t disheartened, instead he closed his eyes, using the method he practiced last night with the Everlasting Spring Technique to keep his mind in an extremely calm state.

As he closed his eyes, the Everlasting Spring Technique also began operating on its own.

His mind went from restless and anxious to gradually calm.

Strands of refreshing energy started flowing into his body from all directions, at a rate more than ten times faster than bathing in the moonlight the previous night..