Begin As A Tree: Don’t Worry. I’ll Become A God

Chapter 2: The First Believer

Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

“Hi~”

As soon as the boy approached, Gu Xiao wanted to try out his new ability and greeted him warmly.

However, the other party did not seem to hear him. He walked forward and waved the hoe when he reached the tree.

The actions of digging and burying were done in one go, but he ignored Gu Xiao.

“Hey!”

“It’s rude to ignore people.”

After calling out a few times and getting no response, Gu Xiao was so angry that his branches were trembling.

Fortunately, the system stopped him from going crazy in time.

[Stop screaming. He can’t hear you.]

Gu Xiao: “?”

For a moment, the system seemed to feel the condemnation from his soul.

“You just said that the Breathing Technique can allow me to speak human language.”

Wasn’t being able to speak meant to make people listen? If the other party couldn’t hear it, wouldn’t he be lonely?

Gu Xiao was furious.

[Your level is not high enough now, so you can only talk to your believers. When you level up in the future and break through the restrictions of your main body, you can communicate freely.]

Believers? In this wilderness, it was impossible for them to fall from the sky…

Just as Gu Xiao was complaining, he suddenly thought of the little boy who had just come up the mountain.

Perhaps it was because the activity just now far exceeded the limits of his age, after covering the soil with extreme difficulty, the boy leaned against his branch and fell asleep.

“Just because you don’t have believers doesn’t mean you can’t develop.”

With this thought in mind, Gu Xiao was eager to give it a try. “System, quickly teach me how to use the Breathing Technique without using my main body.”

[The host can choose to enter other people’s dreams to communicate.]

The system gave a very timely explanation.

Gu Xiao immediately followed the system’s instructions and seriously used the Breathing Technique. He arrived at the boy’s dream without any effort.

He did not know what this child had experienced, but the dream was the same as his previous expression. There was no color at all.

Gu Xiao did not care so much and started to teach him the cultivation technique.

In any case, after learning his cultivation technique, this boy would be his. He could not ignore him in the future.

Gu Xiao muttered a few sentences and finally finished imparting the cultivation technique.

The boy was still in a daze when he woke up. He looked at the sun, bid farewell to the tree, and left in a hurry.

Another year had passed since they parted.

When Gu Xiao saw him again, he was no longer dragging the corpse up the mountain.

Compared to last year’s scrawny appearance, this boy had grown visibly taller, and the aura on his body was much stronger.

When he arrived in front of Gu Xiao, he muttered about his experiences here alone.

He roughly said that he had a dream here last year and learned this cultivation technique. In the past year, he cultivated according to this cultivation technique and improved in all aspects.

He said that whether the divine tree was sentient or not, he was very grateful to it. This time, he specially came back to see it.

The boy also talked a lot, nagging about all kinds of big and small matters. He talked about all kinds of things, which also gave Gu Xiao a new understanding of the world.

Unfortunately, Gu Xiao was at the critical moment of breaking through and did not have time to respond.

The boy did not expect any response. He leaned against the tree alone and muttered until the sun set before leaving.

Gu Xiao’s breakthrough this time could finally allow him to unleash the effect of the cultivation system—cultivation.

He did not know how proper plants reproduced. Gu Xiao only knew that if he wanted to increase his strength, it was definitely not enough to rely on his bare tree.

He wanted to spread his seed all over the mountain…

It was a little strange, but as long as Gu Xiao continued to extend his roots outwards, with the nutrients he gave, new willow trees would grow on the ground.

The new sapling was both his main body and his descendant.

As the root system spread, Gu Xiao realized that the range of his perception was also expanding.

By the fourth year, the entire desolate mountain had finally recovered and leveled up again. Gu Xiao’s territorial encirclement had finally ended.

Now, all he needed to do was to provide nutrients to the trees and nurture them into towering trees like him.

It was also this year that Gu Xiao discovered that there was another cultivation technique in his mind, but it did not belong to the system.

After the system notification, he understood that this was the cultivation technique obtained by his only believer, the boy from before.

In contrast, his experience was also increasing in equal proportion.

“Holy sh*t, it can do that?”

Gu Xiao was shocked. Even though he had not met a living person for four years since the boy’s visit, he had already begun to fantasize about the days when his believers were all over the world and he could level up as easily as drinking water.

Becoming an immortal or a god was just a matter of time.

Just like that, another six years passed. Gu Xiao took care of his children and grandchildren under the illusion of a beautiful future every day.

Finally, the entire mountain became the willow tree’s world, and the ecology of the mountain gradually recovered. All kinds of birds and little beasts chirped, and Gu Xiao was finally no longer lonely.

When the boy, who had already grown into a young man, came here again, he almost thought that he had come to the wrong place.

After bypassing the dense willow forest, the young man still found Gu Xiao at a glance.

He said that in the past ten years, he was even more certain that the divine tree must have manifested back then. However, he was not strong enough and was afraid that he would cause trouble for it.

Now that he had gotten his revenge, he could finally come and thank it without worry.

“Divine Tree, although you can’t speak, I believe that you must be the god of this place.” The young man directly knelt down in front of Gu Xiao, looking especially pious.

After so many years of leveling up, Gu Xiao could already speak. Just as he was about to give it a try, he saw a tiger staring covetously not far behind the young man.

Without thinking, Gu Xiao hit the tiger with a branch and it fell to the ground.

“Divine Tree! You really are a Divine Tree!” When the young man saw the tiger, he first panicked, then burst out with a strong sense of surprise.

Gu Xiao had completely lost the intention to speak. Over the past ten years, he had no idea how many miracles this believer had attributed to him. He might even have become a spiritual pillar.

However, in reality, he might be even worse than the other party. He could not grant anything proper now.

Instead of letting the other party’s fantasy shatter, it was better not to expose it from the beginning.

As usual, the young man did not expect any response from the Divine Tree. After he finished speaking, he sat at the bottom of the tree to rest and only left when it was dark.

When the young man returned, the entire willow forest rustled as if it was protecting him.

Suddenly, a demon beast darted out from the depths of the forest and charged straight at the young man.

However, before it could approach, it was pierced by a willow branch and instantly turned into nourishment for the willow tree.

The young man seemed to have sensed something and turned around, but other than the sound of the wind, he did not see anything.

Watching the young man leave, Gu Xiao sighed softly. “Seriously, if you want to do something bad, check the surroundings. Not everyone can be prey.”

With that, he collected all the materials from the demon beast’s body, the willow forest regained its calm.

After that, Gu Xiao did not meet anyone for several years.

Suddenly thinking of the young man, Gu Xiao muttered, “I forgot to ask his name…”

Fortunately, his persistence was not in vain. After decades of cultivation, he finally reached Level 3 and obtained a Mortal-grade cultivation technique.

He had another bargaining chip to develop new believers.

Just as Gu Xiao was thinking about it, he realized that the experience provided by the believers suddenly weakened until it disappeared.

‘What happened?’

Gu Xiao’s doubts were not answered until five years later.

At this moment, the young man who had left once again went up the mountain.

It had clearly not been long, and he could not be considered old. However, at this moment, his hair was already white, and he looked like a withered tree.

However, there was no sorrow on his face. A woman and a little girl came with him.

Gu Xiao knew that he had gotten married.

Back then, when they first met, the other party was still a child. In the blink of an eye, his daughter was already so old.

Although the system had been keeping track of time, after becoming a willow tree, Gu Xiao’s perception of time seemed to have become sluggish as he grew older.

He felt like he was living every year rapidly. Anyway, there was no one around every day.

It was only at this moment that Gu Xiao truly realized the ruthlessness of time.

After the middle-aged man introduced the Divine Tree and his wife and daughter, he continued to talk about his experiences over the years.

He said that he had been harmed by an evil person and his cultivation had dissipated. He had become an ordinary person overnight.

Turning from a cultivator to an ordinary person was much more terrifying than not cultivating at the beginning.

The man was once very depressed. Having lost his cultivation, he also felt that he had let down the Divine Tree’s nurturing, so he did not dare to come and see him.

It was only when he met his current wife, who gave him company and encouragement, that the man slowly walked out of his trauma.

“Lord Divine Tree, this should be the last time I will visit you.”

Before he left, the man said this. He looked at his wife and daughter beside him with an incomparably gentle gaze.