In front of Shang was a humongous sunflower.
It was nearly three kilometers tall, and its yellow petals shone in the evening sun.
It looked peaceful.
But in truth, it was actually an extremely dangerous Ancestral Beast called the Yellow Sunbreaker.
It didn't pose a danger to everyone, but any Ancestral Mage that came close to it would be attacked.
While being around the flower, it was better to be weak than strong.
Shang walked over to the gigantic flower without any fear and stopped in front of one of its gigantic roots.
He summoned a small emblem and put it at the base of the root.
CRRRRRR!
The emblem began to expand, pushing the root away from the stone beneath it.
A couple of seconds later, a small cave was revealed behind the root.
Shang simply stepped forward until he was inside the cave.
CLING!
Shang used his mind to pull the emblem, keeping the root upright back to him.
BANG!
The root collapsed onto the hard stone beneath it with a lot of power. Luckily, there was no actual tension between the ground and the root. It was just gravity pulling the root down. Otherwise, the tools the Agents used to pass through this spot would need to be replaced every time they walked through there.
All the light was cut off by the root, and the cave fell into darkness.
The cave was barely ten meters long, and it looked about as inconspicuous as any other spot around the Yellow Sunbreaker.
Shang walked towards one of the walls and summoned a small jar of blood.
This was similar to the kind of blood he had used to paint his sign, but there were still some differences.
Shang dipped the tip of his finger in the small jar and painted a symbol on the wall that looked a bit like an overemphasized S.
SHING!
The wall in front of Shang lit up in red light for a moment and vanished.
Shang only stepped forward.
Five seconds later, the wall behind Shang reappeared but without the sign.
This was the only way to enter this specific branch of the Temple of Blood, and after seeing all of these precautions, one could understand how the Temple of Blood could still operate successfully while being publicly targeted by basically every major organization.
Even though Yellow Sunbreakers only attacked Ancestral Mages, High Mages and Archmages still didn't dare to venture close to one. This kept any and all High Mages and Archmages away from this location.
On top of that, Yellow Sunbreakers were very useful for the ecosystem. They absorbed Neutral Mana and released it into the surroundings as Fire Mana, Earth Mana, Light Mana, and even some of it as life energy.
Yellow Sunbreakers were often surrounded by thick forests filled with life, specifically due to the life energy they give off. Their relatively peaceful nature and the strong Mana they give off attracted many High Beasts and Arch Beasts, filling the surroundings with life.
Because of that, most of the local hegemons wanted to keep their Yellow Sunbreakers alive. They were essentially living fertilizer for their lands.
Additionally, they didn't even need to guard it. Yellow Sunbreakers were not weak, and such a big specimen had to be in the Mid Ancestral Mage Realm at least.
Only powerful wandering Mages, Enforcers, and the upper echelon of the organization controlling this territory could fight something like that.
And that was where a branch of the Temple of Blood resided.
It was an extremely secure location, especially since the power of the Yellow Sunbreaker distorted any Spirit Sense that tried to look at it from afar.
No one would notice the extremely powerful and complex Magic Barrier below the flower as long as they didn't directly stand on one of the Yellow Sunbreaker's roots and focused on searching for a Magic Barrier.
Lastly, this place was in the middle of a thick forest, over 1,000 kilometers away from any kind of civilization.
Inside the cave, Shang walked for a couple of seconds before some candles around him lit up.
Of course, the light of the candles didn't make a difference to Shang.
A couple of seconds later, Shang stepped into a big hall inside the cave.
This was a natural hall that was about 50 meters high and 20 meters wide.
Some smaller roots could be seen on the walls of the hall. Surprisingly, they didn't directly extend into the hall and kept themselves to the walls.
Yet, if someone looked closer, they could see that the roots were actually pushed to the side of the cave by a lightly pulsating Magic Barrier.
The Magic Barrier was pulsating with a gentle blue light, and Shang could feel quite a lot of Water Mana coming from the bottom of the room and going into the roots.
At the bottom of the hall was a lake of incredibly clear water. This wasn't just any water, but highly concentrated Water Mana. It was so concentrated that it even assumed liquid form.
Just like how normal water evaporated into the surroundings, the Water Mana evaporated upward, filling the entire cave with a beautiful blue hue.
The Water Mana then entered the Magic Barrier, which then fed it to the roots.
This had several uses.
First of all, one could inspect the surroundings with their Spirit Sense, but they couldn't just look through someone's body or into their body.
By giving the Yellow Sunbreaker so much Water Mana, it treated them as a valuable source of Water Mana and completely surrounded this hall with its roots, hiding the hall from any kind of Spirit Sense with its body.
Additionally, by constantly giving the Yellow Sunbreaker Water Mana, it didn't try to destroy this annoying stone in the middle of its root network.
Of course, all of this came at a high cost.
A Late Archmage with a Water Affinity needed to stay here during all times and focus on creating Water Mana for the Yellow Sunbreaker.
That was quite expensive.
Inside the natural hall were a couple of wooden huts. The Yellow Sunbreaker didn't like metal or hard rock, which was why nearly everything in here had to be constructed with wood.
The natural and simple feel of the surroundings would make one think that an environmentalist organization was living here, not the infamous Temple of Blood.
Although to be fair, this location was special and looked very different from the black, red, and purple color scheme the Temple of Blood preferred.
And this was the entire branch of the Temple of Blood.
There were only ten people in total stationed here, including Shang, and right now, there were seven inside the hall.
