Chapter Forty-Eight: Limits and New Ideas

"This one looks to be about seventy-two meters tall."
"This one's sixty-eight meters."
"Hmm, this one is impressive, it’s grown to nearly eighty-one meters."
...

Two hours later, Ji Yu, in his current deer form, had grown to a staggering length of twenty-seven meters, with a shoulder height of eighteen meters—a colossal creature that inspired sheer terror at a single glance.

What was even more alarming was the sinister black fire flowing between his stag hooves and legs. This black fire only adorned the spotted deer's pelt, appearing as vivid and lifelike patterns—almost as if true flames danced and flickered along his fur.

Countless swirling star clusters also rotated along his belly and torso, each one in constant, shifting motion around the deer's massive body.

But it was not just the body and legs that had changed. The head and neck of the deer had undergone dramatic transformation as well. Fine hairs upon the deer's crown shimmered in shades of red, black, and white, all writhing and twisting as if alive—slender and agile, yet carrying a faint sense of horror.

In stark contrast to these unsettling hairs, the stag’s antlers seemed almost sacred: two thick, branched horns, each nearly six meters long, glittering with clear, liquid-like radiance, as if made of flowing crystal.

Altogether, the deer had become unrecognizable, an awe-inspiring figure not easily approached.

Yet, for all his terrifying aspect, Ji Yu’s wise, sapphire-black eyes calmly surveyed the towering trees before him, analyzing each one.

"It appears each tree’s maximum height varies, but the difference rarely exceeds ten meters."

In two hours, Ji Yu had forged a broad road nearly three hundred meters long, bordered by forty-seven newly created guardian trees. Each tree soared skyward, its dense crown shading much of the path below, creating a concealed woodland trail beneath their boughs.

During the creation of these guardian trees, Ji Yu had finally tested the limits of life-grafting’s effect on trees and observed the finer changes to his own growth.

All the guardian trees were standard first-level life forms, each with its own inherent limit. This limit was most clearly reflected in their height. Once a tree reached its limit, it could no longer absorb even the slightest bit of life energy.

Even when Ji Yu forcibly infused them with life essence, hoping to push them beyond their level, every attempt failed. The life essence poured into these overgrown trees would quickly dissipate into the world, utterly unusable.

Ji Yu deduced the reason: breaking through to a higher life level couldn’t be achieved by simply piling on life energy. There had to be some personal opportunity or catalyst. It made sense—if life energy alone sufficed, his spotted deer form would already be godlike.

Thus, Ji Yu concluded that life-grafting’s greatest strength was to swiftly return a life form to its peak state at a given level, not to enable unlimited breakthrough and growth.

With this realization, Ji Yu had clarified the role of life-grafting in his arsenal. It was a divine ability, certainly, but one within the “healing” category—a restorative power, not without its flaws.

One such flaw soon became apparent: after his life force reached seventeen units, the absorption rate dropped. Where once he’d gained 0.01 units every two or three seconds, it now took three or four seconds. The further he progressed, the slower it would become.

Still, this change was minor. Overall, the spotted deer’s growth remained swift. Instead of reaching the second-level life form’s limit in six hours as he’d originally thought, it would take two or three days. That estimate factored in the continual slow-down in growth rate.

Two or three days—was that truly slow?

No, Ji Yu was more than satisfied. Consider the oak tree, which had required a month of his diligent nurturing to approach forty-one units of life force. Yet the spotted deer, on only the second day, second hour, had already reached 17.63 and would soon surpass Adam the Oak’s record.

The power of life-grafting was undeniable.

Ji Yu even speculated: if only the spotted deer could reach the oak’s location, the two forms could complement each other. In just two or three days, he’d have two extraordinary incarnations at the second-level life form’s peak.

But that was only wishful thinking for now—an ocean lay between them, and in his current state, the spotted deer could never safely cross.

So Ji Yu turned his focus back to constructing the woodland trail and planning the creation of a biological army. Yet during this process, he discovered some problems.

First, the guardian trees, mostly between sixty and seventy meters tall, were so massive that they toppled or overshadowed nearby ten-meter trees. Ji Yu was forced to eliminate all these smaller trees that had been crowded out or deprived of sunlight. If he left them, they would die anyway from lack of nutrients and photosynthesis. The added workload was a burden, but at least he made use of the resulting debris.

Second, though Ji Yu hoped to use life-grafting to form a biological army, he ran into another issue. He’d seen birds in the area, but the moment they spotted the spotted deer, they fled in terror. As for animals, they were hopeless—driven mad or sent running for their lives.

Ji Yu had even witnessed a wild rabbit, caught by curiosity and peeking out from the grass, drop dead on the spot after gazing at the spotted deer. Truly dead—whether from fright or from some unseeable influence, he could not say.

At last, Ji Yu understood: with the deer’s current presence, creating a biological army would be exceedingly difficult.

Still, he had an idea. If the “unseeable” quality of the spotted deer was a side effect of the Purple Moon energy, perhaps if he captured some animals driven mad by the moon’s influence and infused them with life energy, he could restore their sanity.

The probability seemed high. Ordinary creatures affected by the Purple Moon energy often broke through to a second-level life state, and with that came greater intelligence.

If the spotted deer could save and bring such creatures under his sway, they would make suitable recruits.

With this plan in mind, Ji Yu resolved to spend more time wandering these deep mountains while creating guardian trees. Mutant creatures might be rare, but in the vast Jishui Mountain Range, there should be no shortage.

"Excellent. It seems I’ve finally found a way to deal with mutant creatures. Not bad—I must give it a try!"