It turned out that after spending a day of hard work to reach the periphery of the Giant Tree Forest, the expedition team quickly found the location of the waterhole contaminated with the energy of the Well of Eternity under the leadership of Yang Qianyu and other companions who had come once, and launched an investigation into the waterhole.

The survey yielded little valuable information. The ultra-high buoyancy of the pool does not seem to be a characteristic of its own, but is blessed by an external force. The crowd tried to throw some heavy objects into the pool, but they couldn't sink it. Even if you try to dive to the bottom, it is difficult for you to dive deeper than five meters once you enter the water. In the end, everyone had no choice but to use the most primitive and direct method - mining a large piece of rock at the foot of the mountain more than ten miles away and tying it to the body as a load, so that the person who went into the water could "sink" into the pond like a "sinking pond".

The people in charge of the investigation are the 'prophet' Shen Huan and the 'totem witch doctor' Han Jiao who have exploration skills among the people, and the 'Naga Sea Witch' Sun Xiaoyu is also accompanied by the 'Naga Sea Witch' Sun Xiaoyu. The three of them dived straight down for a distance of nearly 100 meters, but they still couldn't see the bottom of the pool. At the same time, the three of them also felt that the repulsion in the water was getting stronger and stronger. In desperation, the three of them could only give up and continue diving, let go of the heavy load, and floated to the surface. However, before ascending, Shen Huan's 'farsightedness' skill finally discovered the secret at the bottom of the pool.

It turned out that this pool was not a backwaterhole, but a tributary of an underground river that emerged from the surface. According to the direction of the underground water flow that has been discovered, the upstream of this underground river passes through the central area of the Giant Tree Forest. 'Water flows downward' is common sense, and the energy mixed in water is naturally unlikely to go against the current. Therefore, the untouched central area of the Forest of Giant Trees is naturally likely to be the source of energy in the pool. After a short discussion, the group decided to venture into the forest to investigate.

The outer area of the Forest of Giant Trees is full of normal trees, and there are magical beasts infested from time to time, including those that attack the expedition team. It's just that these demonic beasts all hit the iron plate hard, not only did they die, but they also became the energy accumulated by the traversers for advanced upgrades.

However, after entering the central area of the Forest of Giant Trees, where extremely tall trees grow, although the type of magical beasts faced by the team did not change, their strength suddenly increased to a higher level.

For example, the giant ape they encountered this time - this is a magical beast called 'ape' by the humans of the world of Iber. 'Orangutan Ape' is average in ape demonic beasts, and according to the exploration techniques of the traversing people, the strength level of the ape is around the 3rd order, and the strength of a very few strong apes is at the 4th level. However, at this moment, in the orangutan group that everyone was facing each other, more than a dozen apes all had a 4th-order strength, and among them, there were three apes that had reached the 5th-order strength. Their attack once caused the traversers to almost suffer casualties, but fortunately, they were able to block the first wave of attacks from the ape group, and then responded in time to annihilate their opponents.

"Sure enough." After the battle, everyone stopped in place to clean up the battlefield. Yang Qianyu said after carefully probing the corpse of the slain ape: "The demon core energy of these demonic beasts is more refined, and the energy nature is also mixed with the energy of the Well of Eternity. ”

"They are native creatures that live in this forest," Zhang Boyin replied on the side, "Since they are contaminated with such a strong energy of the Well of Eternity, then it is obvious that the forest they live in is the source of this energy." We weren't mistaken! ”

The goal was confirmed, and everyone's spirits were immediately lifted.

"Let's get your spirits up!" As the leader of the team, Li Xiang said loudly: "It is estimated that the demonic beasts in this forest have all been contaminated with the power of the Well of Eternity, and their strength is estimated to have improved. Don't be careless when you engage the enemy! ”

"Understood!" After everyone answered in unison, they cautiously formed a formation and continued to go deep into the forest.

The tall trees are leafy, shielding the sun from the sun. Although it is not gloomy, for the indigenous humans of the Iber world, who rely on the sun, moon and stars to determine their orientation, the dense forest is second only to the underground caverns to get lost.

However, this problem is not a problem at all for the traversers, Yang Lixue's 'summoning night owl' always flies in front of the team as the scout of the team, Shen Huan in the center uses 'farsightedness' from time to time to detect the abnormal movements around the team, and Han Jiao, who is at the end of the team, places 'sentry guards' along the way to monitor the retreat and act as a signpost. The three women used their respective exploration skills and cooperated with each other seamlessly, so that the group would not get lost at all, and even drew a rather detailed map of the journey.

At this moment, everyone is holding two maps to compare and calculate the distance.

"Hmm...... We have basically not taken any wrong path. Li Xiang looked at the map and nodded. It is estimated that if we go some further distance, we will reach the center of the 'Forest of Giant Trees'. ”

Just as Li Xiang was calculating the distance, Yang Lixue, who was at the front of the team, suddenly raised her hand to signal the team to stop advancing.

The companions immediately stopped in place after receiving Yang Lixue's signal, and cautiously formed a defensive formation.

"What's going on?" Li Xiang and Yang Qianyu came to the front of the team and asked Yang Lixue, who gave the signal.

"Big brother (Li Xiang), Brother Qianyu." Yang Lixue replied cautiously: "My baby (the summoned owl) noticed that there was a clearing in front of him. ”

－

In the depths of the dense forest, a clearing suddenly appeared, and in the middle of the clearing sat a huge tree, the thick trunk of which was about the thickness of ten people hugging each other. The main trunk towers into the sky and looks quite spectacular.

However, the giant tree looked as if it had long since lost its life. The bark on the branches was completely dry and cracked, revealing the pale torso inside. There were no leaves on the branches, and they were bare like withered human arms, which looked quite oozing.

"No matter how you look at it, it looks like a dead tree." Sun Xiaoyu tilted her head and looked at the dead tree and said.

Everyone nodded silently in agreement—the place they were in was theoretically supposed to be the most central area of the Giant Tree Forest, but the scene here was too far from what they had imagined. The difference between reality and imagination is unacceptable for a while.

Yang Qianyu stared at the dead tree thoughtfully—the dead tree looked as if it had been dead for at least a few hundred years, but the trunk only looked withered, but there was no trace of decay. You must know that the climate in the southern part of the continent is still relatively humid, although it is not the tropical rainforest climate that Yang Qianyu knew before crossing, but it is also a rainy and humid environment. In this climate, most of the vegetation that dies will quickly decay and become nutrients for new vegetation, and it is strange that this dead tree can stand for hundreds of years without falling immortal.

What's more, through spiritual perception, Yang Qianyu can also faintly sense that this 'dead tree' is exuding waves of magic fluctuations.

"The outward image is just an illusion!" Yang Qianyu secretly exclaimed in his heart: "This tree is still alive!" ”