The pond itself was surely already a great treasure of heaven and earth, but the tree in the middle of it seemed even more mysterious.

Rezen raised his head to see a small hole in the ceiling. From that hole, sunlight shone brightly, landing precisely on the bloody golden tree.

The tree seemed to be absorbing the sunlight to cultivate. The more sunlight it absorbed, the livelier it became.

"Tell me. What is this, and how do I obtain this great opportunity?" Rezen inquired, and a stream of knowledge directly entered his mind.

This tree was called the Nine Sun Bloodwood, a treasure that even Noble Mages would covet.

Just as its appearance and name implied, it possessed the attributes of both the Sun and Blood.

The Nine Sun Bloodwood was greedy for the sun. It indiscriminately absorbed solar power.

As a tree, absorbing sunlight was already engraved into its nature, but the thing was that this tree was too greedy!

Solar power was extremely domineering. It was an extreme attribute. The sun having the ability to burn the world itself was no secret.

If a living being absorbed solar power without properly adjusting its state, it was easy for accidents to happen. Being injured was already a relatively good outcome, as death was not an impossibility.

The Nine Sun Bloodwood didn't care about safety at all. It would absorb as much sunlight as it could, even at the cost of its life.

Of course, as all things evolved, the Nine Sun Bloodwood also learned a way to protect itself, and that was by absorbing the vitality of other living beings!

If absorbing too much solar power caused it to be injured, it would simply heal itself by absorbing blood.

The blood patches on the pond and the tree were not a naturally occurring part of nature but the blood of real living beings, presumably the blood of the insects in this insect nest.

As for the pond, it was actually also part of the Nine Sun Bloodwood.

As mentioned, the power of the Sun was extremely overbearing. If the tree absorbed the blood of all living beings in one fell swoop into its body, the blood would evaporate before it could be used.

As such, the pond was necessary. Not only was it a pond rich in mana, but it also contained terrifying vitality from thousands of living beings.

Whether it was the tree or the pond, both were great tonics. However, the problem was that such an opportunity was difficult to obtain.

The only fortunate thing was that this tree was really greedy. It would first attack using special pheromones that made living beings fall into a trance.

Once they entered the pond, their bodies would melt into pools of blood.

However, if the pheromones failed to entrance the target, the Nine Sun Bloodwood would not attack again unless it sensed a threat or the target retaliated. In its view, using solar power was a waste, and it was too stingy to do that.

If Rezen were to retaliate and attack, this tree would kill him in a second. After all, despite being a young tree, this Nine Sun Bloodwood was already at the first level of the Great Rank.

It was many times stronger than Rezen.

"The only fortunate thing is that its sentience has not been fully developed yet. It's like a child that hasn't learned much yet," Rezen sneered.

The information transmitted into his mind also taught him a way to obtain this great opportunity.

He didn't need to kill the Nine Sun Bloodwood. Not to mention, he didn't have that kind of ability.

However, tricking a child—how could that be hard?

With the plan already spoon-fed to him, Rezen closed his eyes, and his mind entered the farm.

As long as he didn't attack, the Nine Sun Bloodwood also wouldn't attack in order to avoid wasting its solar power.

It could be said that Rezen was safer near this tree than outside. Ivy could help him remain unaffected by the pheromones, and if other magic beasts appeared, unless they could also resist the pheromones, they would immediately be controlled.

Inside his farm, which had shrunk to a one-kilometer diameter, Rezen appeared. The farm still looked dilapidated and broken, but his situation was far better than when he first arrived at the Savage Beast Realm.

At that time, he couldn't even use his farm until he repaired it. But now, although his farm had degraded, it was still usable.

This was the difference between using the origin energy of a broken realm that could not even produce a true Junior Mage and using a broken Noblesse Artifact.

Despite using what was supposedly a higher-level energy—the origin energy of a realm—the damage was far less severe than using the power of a broken Noblesse Artifact.

Rezen went through the plant seeds he still had saved, and he started planting one type of Spirit Plant.

"The Blood Fruit. It is an ingredient for a higher-grade healing potion. In the outside world, just like the Nine Sun Bloodwood, it has to absorb the blood of living creatures in order to grow."

"However, inside my—inside this farm, as long as I have the seed, it can grow even without blood, and its quality is even top-tier, with no impurities."

"Since the Nine Sun Bloodwood needs 'blood' to nourish its vitality, then would the 'blood' from a Blood Fruit work as a replacement?"

"Its mind is no different from that of a child. This should be able to help grow its goodwill toward me. Even though the farm can only grow Blood Fruits up to the first level of the Second Rank, I can grow many of them in a short period of time."

"The quality might be lacking, but the quantity would be huge and steady. Not to mention, in this realm, the farm could grow in size faster thanks to the high concentration of mana."

Without wasting any time, Rezen continued planting the Blood Fruit throughout the entire farm. The faster they grew, the easier it would be for him to trick the Nine Sun Bloodwood.

--

Due to the current state of the farm, it actually took seven days before the Blood Fruits matured.

It couldn't be helped. Although the farm did not need to be repaired before things could grow on it, it didn't mean that it was in a healthy state.

It was still in a weakened state, causing it to need more time to grow Spirit Plants. However, this speed was still many times faster than growing the Blood Fruits in the outside world.

If it were in the outside world, they would literally take years to grow.

Under Rezen's control, all the Blood Fruits across the entire kilometer of farmland were harvested before he stood at the edge of the pool.

He glanced at the Nine Sun Bloodwood, and as usual, it ignored him. Seeing that, Rezen hesitated no longer, and with a wave of his hand, one Blood Fruit after another landed in the pond.

As soon as the fruits made physical contact with the pond's water, they immediately dissolved into patches of blood.

However, even if there were hundreds or even thousands of such Blood Fruits, considering that they were only at the first level of the Second Rank, this was far from enough to satisfy a Great Rank Nine Sun Bloodwood.

Despite accepting all the Blood Fruits, the tree continued to ignore Rezen. It had received some benefits from this human, but it still didn't care about him.

This didn't dishearten Rezen, though, as he knew that it would take more than one batch of Blood Fruits to become 'friends' with this tree.

With the first batch of offerings provided, Rezen planted the second batch of Blood Fruits.

This time, his farm was in a better state, and the Blood Fruits matured in just six and a half days. It was half a day faster than before!

Just like the first time, Rezen 'sacrificed' the Blood Fruits to the tree, but it still didn't react. It had the attitude that receiving something was better than nothing.

It was good to receive and absorb the Blood Fruits, but it didn't matter if it didn't. It was too indifferent to care about such measly gains.

However, Rezen still continued. As soon as the Blood Fruits ripened, Rezen planted another batch. This time, the third batch grew in just six days.

The farm also grew by one meter in diameter. It wasn't much, but it was a great sign that the farm was recovering.

It seemed that being in a higher realm, while more dangerous, also presented greater opportunities!

Just like that, a whole month had passed. This time, the farm only needed five days to grow the Spirit Plants, and the farm's land increased by seven meters in diameter. After that, the recovery rate slowed down.

It seemed that he still needed to obtain resources in order to restore his farm to the state it was in before he arrived in this new realm.