Mu Xin was confused by such a condition. He looked at her healthy body and then at her face questioningly.
"Uuuuh, big sis, can't you just go outside if you want? You seem fine and healthy."
The woman giggled slightly, which felt like a gentle breeze.
"I'm sorry, I have forgotten to introduce myself. My name is Shu Hua, and I'm the spirit of this tree. You can call me sister Hua."
She explained as she looked at the big tree.
Mu Xin was stunned by what he heard. He looked at the tree and Shu Hua back and forth with a curious gleam in his eye.
"Sister Hua, you mean you're something like a soul of the tree?"
"That's right. That tree is my real body, while what you see right now is just my spirit, so I can't stay too far from my real body."
She explained patiently as she looked at Mu Xin's state, who wore nothing but ragged clothes with some holes.
"Little Xin, can you tell me what happened to you?"
Mu Xin's eyes twitched slightly, unsure how to answer her.
"I'm sorry, but I actually don't remember anything…"
(I'm not lying! I really don't know!)
Shu Hua looked at his expression for a while before she patted Mu Xin's head gently.
"It's alright if you don't remember. So, little Xin, are you willing to bring me out with you?"
"I'm willing, but if sister Hua can't stay too far from your real body, then how can I bring sister Hua with me?"
The tree suddenly glowed with a bright green light as the trunk split open, showing a deep green crystal the size of a marble. The crystal cracked as shards of it fell.
The roots of the tree then surrounded the shards, binding them and forming a bracelet with the shards hidden away.
The bracelet floated into Shu Hua's hand, which was now sickly pale white.
"As long as you wear this, I can stay with you and follow you from now on, little Xin."
"Sister Hua, what happened to you? You look hurt."
Right now, she looked sickly pale and exhausted. Mu Xin knew this happened because of what she had just done, but he didn't know what exactly she did.
"I'm alright, just tired a bit. So, little Xin, will you bring me out with you?"
She offered the bracelet to Mu Xin as she looked at him expectantly.
Mu Xin took the bracelet and put it on his left hand. The bracelet moved on its own to fit perfectly on his wrist, with a leaf as decoration.
"Sister Hua, what does this bracelet do?"
"It allows a small part of myself to be with you.
Through the connection between that bracelet and my real body, I can send my spirit to your side. This way, I can follow you anywhere."
A loud rumble echoed from Mu Xin's stomach.
He held his stomach, realizing that he had not eaten anything since arriving in this world.
Shu Hua giggled, and one of the fruits hanging on the tree fell into Shu Hua's hand, which she presented to him.
"Here you go. You don't want to starve to death, right?"
Mu Xin took the fruit and looked at it carefully. It was obviously not a normal fruit.
"Uuuh, sister Hua, what fruit is this?"
A glint of light flashed in her eyes as she replied reassuringly.
"Don't worry, it's not poisonous, and it will fill you for the next few days."
Mu Xin froze and looked at her in disbelief.
"Hahaha, sister Hua, you're good at joking."
Mu Xin took a bite of it, and he immediately felt it melt into air in his mouth and disappear, but he could feel that his hunger had vanished.
(What? What happened?)
Mu Xin looked at the fruit stupidly, baffled by what just happened.
On the other hand, Shu Hua laughed amusedly at his reaction.
"The fruit will turn into pure spiritual qi, which will sustain your body for a few days so you won't feel any hunger, and more than that—"
Mu Xin, who was too shocked by the revelation, completely missed what Shu Hua said in a small voice in the last part.
He continued to finish the fruit, and with each bite, not only was it refreshing, he somehow felt lighter, as if he could fly, and he felt far more clearheaded than usual, but he brushed it off as the magical nature of the fruit.
(She just said spiritual qi, so this world is a cultivation world then?)
He silently collected the slip of information as he finished the fruit and threw the pedicel away.
Mu Xin was hit by sudden sleepiness and started nodding off.
Shu Hua used the roots to move him onto a simple leaf bed, which she made with her real body's branches, and gently laid him there as he had already fallen deeply asleep.
"Well, he's still just a child, so it's natural he falls asleep after he's full, and it helps me inspect his body more easily."
She reached out her hand to squeeze Mu Xin's shoulder for inspection.
"So he is just eight years old. Really, what would a boy like this do deep in this forest?"
She questioned silently as she started inspecting Mu Xin's body in greater detail.
Suddenly, she pulled her hand back as if she had just touched something forbidden.
Then she shakily reached out her hand once more to inspect Mu Xin's body.
Her lips trembled as she whispered in disbelief.
"Three… actually three supreme-grade spiritual roots… This is unbelievable. Even in my inheritance memory, the only recorded person with three supreme-grade spiritual roots is dated back to more than a trillion years ago."
Shu Hua looked at the sleeping Mu Xin incredulously. After regaining her composure, she returned to inspect his body in greater detail.
"The three spiritual roots are golden dragon, green lotus, and a lightning that I don't recognize… It doesn't exist in my inheritance memory. What is wrong with this boy?"
Shu Hua trembled in delight.
"If it is him, then he can, surely. While I don't know what that lightning spiritual root is, I know the other two. Both of them are on the list of the 100 strongest supreme-grade spiritual roots. If this boy can't reach Divine Realm cultivation, then no one can. It's just a matter of time for him."