CHAPTER 414: CHAPTER 399 SHANGLU

The Origin Force concentration inside the cave isn’t bad.

The Dominating Throne automatically absorbs, replenishing reserves.

Dragon Cypress calms down, carefully examines the dome map, and does his best to memorize it.

Ink Orchid is too excited to sit still, crawling up and down the stone walls, peeking here and there.

"Dragon Cypress!" Ink Orchid suddenly exclaims and jumps up again.

"What’s wrong?" Dragon Cypress tilts his head.

Ink Orchid asks, "Dragon Cypress, I remember a long time ago you told me that the ancestral land of the Flame Spider Tribe is called Shanglu?"

Dragon Cypress’s expression tightens and he carefully inspects.

Where Ink Orchid is lying, there’s a mural carved on the wall, showing an ordinary scene of a caravan traveling on a main road.

Dragon Cypress doubts: Nothing seems out of the ordinary.

Ink Orchid, full of interest, says, "Later you also told me that the Shanglu ancestral land on Ten Thousand Nations Continent is fake, a replica."

Dragon Cypress: "Yes. I heard it from the Grass Dragon."

Ink Orchid lifts a claw toward the dome and says, "Dragon Cypress, look! The real ’Shanglu’ is a place name, and it’s on your Dragon Cypress Continent!"

My Dragon Cypress Continent? Dragon Cypress: "..."

Dragon Cypress: "!!!"

Dragon Cypress raises his head to look.

Ink Orchid flashes and hangs upside down from the dome, quickly crawling, then perches in the southern ocean region. He taps with his front paws, pointing at a large island far from the continent clusters, and says:

"Here! Shanglu!"

At the center of the island, there’s a symbol of a flower stamen carved—look carefully, it’s the plant: [Ten-Pistil Shanglu]

Next to that is a character annotation.

Although unreadable, judging from the symbol’s form, it’s easy to guess its meaning: Shanglu

The location marked by the Shanglu flower stamen is a mountain range, with a single peak.

—Is the mountain peak called Shanglu?

—Or is the island’s name Shanglu?

This island is no small area.

It’s long and narrow.

Its length exceeds 1,000 kilometers, and it’s about 200 kilometers wide.

At the northeast end, there’s a narrow tail, with lots of scattered islands dotted nearby.

Dragon Cypress roughly estimates the total area exceeds 200,000 square kilometers—it can practically be a continent itself.

Ink Orchid is thinking as well, probing, "Is this continent called Shanglu? The ancestral land of the Flame Spider Tribe? The origin of the Flame Spider Roving Merchant?"

Dragon Cypress: "Move your claw, you’re blocking it..."

Ink Orchid flashes down to the ground, stands close beside Dragon Cypress, and craned his head up to look.

Other parts of the continent also have characters marking mountain peak names, but no drawings of plants as identifiers.

Dragon Cypress: "There’s probably no mistake. This miniature continent is named Shanglu, it’s in the tropics, surrounded by ocean, and it’s very likely the origin of the Native Breed Flame Spider. The Flame Spider Kingdom that disappeared from Cloud Trace Continent most likely migrated back to the ancestral Shanglu."

Dragon Cypress withdraws his gaze, slowly turns his body, looks around at the stone walls, and says quietly:

"There’s still another point—nearly all the insect tribes are named after plants, using their flowers, fruits, branches, leaves, or even whole plants as emblems. To be used as a tribe’s emblem, surely it must be unique, ancient and wise, a top-level Divine-Given Seed, or even Divine Grade!"

"Shanglu is just an ordinary herbaceous plant—how could it represent the Flame Spider Tribe? There’s only one possibility—Divine Grade!"

Ink Orchid understands Dragon Cypress’s meaning and joins him in carefully examining the stone wall murals, one by one.

"Here! Here! Found it! Here!"

Ink Orchid, sharp-eyed, immediately spots it, flashes, and lies on the stone wall, tapping with his toes.

Dragon Cypress turns and looks closely.

In the bas-relief mural, at the center of a plain and forest clearing, hundreds and thousands of Flame Spider Warriors are gathered.

Packed densely, tens of thousands of Little Flame Spiders join the fun.

All Flame Spiders are facing a ’little tree.’

Look closely—it’s not actually a tree. Judging by the relative size compared to the Flame Spider Warriors, it’s a "Shanglu" plant about fifteen or sixteen meters tall.

A herbaceous plant!

Non-clonal growth?

It doesn’t look like a Divine-Given Seed, nor like Divine Grade...

It looks more like a Life Seed nurtured by a Roving Merchant Spider King.

However, the Life Seed of the Flame Spider Roving Merchant can’t blossom or bear fruit, yet the Shanglu plant at the top in the mural sports a uniquely vivid purplish-red fruit.

The surrounding Flame Spiders are all raising their front paws in celebration—their posture shows they’re celebrating the fruit’s ripening harvest.

The mural isn’t just a single panel,

Next to it are murals depicting Native Breed Flame Spider Warriors managing and caring for this giant Shanglu plant.

It’s a full set, in detail, describing this Shanglu’s blooming, fruiting, fruit growth, and ripening harvest, with the Flame Spiders gathering and reveling.

Dragon Cypress: "This is an exceptionally rare herbaceous Divine God-Given Seed! No, not an herbaceous plant—its stalk has already turned woody, it evolved into an arbor."

Dragon Cypress: "Its blossom-fruiting cycle is eight years, with only one flower and only one fruit produced each cycle."

Ink Orchid: "Eight years?"

Ink Orchid counts—it’s true.

Nine murals depicting the Shanglu Divine-Given Seed—the ninth one shows Flame Spider Warriors eating the Divine-Grade Gromwell Fruit after harvesting.

Too bad it doesn’t record its effects.

Ink Orchid suddenly thinks of something and says, "Dragon Cypress, isn’t this Divine-Grade Shanglu Divine-Given Seed a lot like the One-Glimpse Fruit?"

Dragon Cypress: "The blossom-fruiting pattern is similar—a Divine Grade!"

Ink Orchid: "What about the ability type? It must be amazing, right?"

Dragon Cypress bobs his tentacles, then shakes them instead.

Divine Grades are all spontaneous mutations produced during the creation of Divine-Given Seeds by ordinary plants.

The mutations of Divine Grade are infinitely varied and extremely bizarre.

So, there’s no way of guessing it.

Dragon Cypress glances aside to examine other murals.

According to the Grass Dragon, the Flame Spider Tribe’s ancestral land also held a Divine Stone called ’Huan’ that could protect the Flame Spider Tribe from getting lost in Origin Force Reincarnation.

They search all over but don’t find it.

The bas-relief murals are more decorative in nature.

Some depict the Native Breed Flame Spider Tribe farming and managing territories, and the Traveling Flame Spider Tribe trading.

The majority simply depict and record the regions’ mountains, rivers, animals, plants, and so forth.

Dragon Cypress’s gaze turns back to the dome map.

...

Ink Orchid looks left and right but finds nothing new; bored, he returns to the metal door, gathering Primordial Energy at his toes and stubbornly picks at the door seam.

The Dominating Throne’s Origin Force is now fully replenished.

Dragon Cypress also has now thoroughly studied the dome map, memorizing the important rivers, mountains, and lakes.

"Ink Orchid, let’s go!"

"Heading back?"

"This round of exploration revealed something significant—let’s report it to the Huagi Divine Tree and see what it says."

"Ohhh—"

Ink Orchid points at the ground: "Dragon Cypress, a sample! Bring it back for the Huagi Divine Tree to check, confirm whether this is the Jinhe Pattern ability enhancement granted by the Divine-Grade Jinhe Fruit. If it is, see if the enhancement can be reversed."

Dragon Cypress sweeps out his spiritual power and, only now, notices a thin dusting of extremely fine black powder scattered on the ground beneath the door seam.

Are you really going to scrape that up?!

Dragon Cypress is speechless for two seconds but then praises enthusiastically: "Ink Orchid, you’re so clever!"

Ink Orchid calmly replies, "I’m not clever at all, it’s just that some ants are way too dumb."

Dragon Cypress: "..."

Ink Orchid has also mastered sarcasm.

Dragon Cypress pulls a Spider Silk Bag from the Throne, dabs some water with his tentacle, guides the droplet over the ground, sweeps up the metal powder, and puts it in the bag.

Preparations complete; time to set out.

On the way out, they check several Starship Cabins, but as expected, these have long ago been stripped and emptied.