Chapter 110: Desert

The three moved to the willow grove.

Under the influence of the healthy willows, the desert soil had improved somewhat, no longer as loose as before.

Stepping on it, one could feel it had become compacted.

From afar,

five or six trees with strong growth had stretched thin spiritual barriers, blocking out the erosive wind and sand.

Dimeia stared in astonishment at the scene before her.

She immediately turned to Kalist, her face filled with delight.

“Did it work?”

“No.”

The elf replied with a sour expression.

A sense of frustration welled up inside her.

Who knew what that human had done—he’d granted the trees the potential to absorb spirituality without altering their fundamental nature.

This had infinitely raised the upper limit of the willows.

Even high-tier cultivation mages might not be able to accomplish such research.

Awakening a tree with no potential usually meant grafting it with a high-tier plant that already had potential—but that would directly fuse the low-tier plant into the high-tier one, resulting in nothing but a high-tier plant in name only.

Another method was to fuse spiritual organs from animals or insects.

Insects were best; plants showed relatively low rejection toward them.

But even then, most results were grotesque creatures with jointed limbs.

Fifty years ago, a mage created such a plant-insect, and an accident caused a lab leak.

That plant-insect escaped into the wild.

A new species with no predators and self-replication ability—how terrifying that was goes without saying.

It directly led to the decline of a small nation due to food shortages.

“Huh? Then what about these?”

The witch found the elf’s answer utterly baffling.

“Ask him.”

“Him?”

Dimeia turned to the forest warden the elf pointed at.

Her expression turned strange.

To be honest, a spiritual warrior had nothing to do with plant-modification spells.

Though logically improbable, her elf friend was not someone who lied.

“Just a little trick.”

Luo De noticed her gaze and smiled modestly.

His smile looked utterly deserving of a punch to Kalist’s eyes.

“So this was Master Luo De’s work!”

A girl’s voice came from behind.

Sharon, a dog-kin girl from the Magic Control League.

She carried a large document case, dressed in a fitted, professional outfit that gave her a distinctive charm.

Seven days had passed; she had previously scheduled a visit with Luo De to test the concentration of malignant factors.

“Sharon, good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon.”

The dog-kin girl smiled sweetly at Luo De.

The upper echelons had approved her application and decided to recruit this forest warden with exceptionally high spiritual resistance into the Magic Control League.

If the invitation succeeded, as the recommender she would earn a substantial amount of internal points.

These internal points were one of her promotion metrics—unquestionably important!

“Oh~ So it’s little puppy Sharon? Where’s your tongue? It’s hot out—should be hanging out.”

Seeing Sharon, the witch Dimeia smiled sweetly—but everyone could see the hidden irritation.

“When you awakened, did you melt your brain and stuff garbage inside? Why can you only spout nonsense?”

“You!”

The two glared fiercely at each other, as if sparks flew between their eyes.

Tally had appeared beside Luo De without him noticing, her face alight with excitement.

She clapped her hands cheerfully: “Good, good, I love watching women fight!”

“Didn’t I assign you to stand guard? Where’s Vivian?”

He’d originally assigned the succubus to patrol the willow grove and clear out demonic creatures, to ease Bond’s burden.

But both of them were lazy and had snuck off to sleep together in the trees, forcing Vivian to come help.

“She’s checking on the emerald tree’s broken branches—they don’t look well at all.”

As Tally spoke, she watched Sharon and Dimeia bickering.

She grinned happily.

Come to think of it,

the emerald tree’s broken branches might be in such poor condition that the [Spiritual Growth] couldn’t even identify them as an object—no target, no recognition.

Now, only Vivian’s ability to nurse them back to life mattered.

Luo De walked over to the elf and asked quietly:

“What’s going on with them?”

“They were classmates at Bahadur Magic Academy, then both dropped out. As for what happened—I don’t know. Could you please not stand so close?”

Kalist felt his breath brushing against her ear.

Elves’ ears were highly sensitive; perhaps because the previous matter hadn’t fully settled, this sent her mind spiraling.

“Uh—”

Rejected by the girl’s sour expression, Luo De felt a pang of discomfort.

True to her nature as a succubus ever attentive to her master, Tally immediately came over, smiling as she tiptoed and patted his head.

“It’s fine, Tally loves snuggling with her master~”

“Fine. Today you get an extra meal.”

“Yay!”

Soon, the bickering on the other side paused.

Kalist asked Dimeia about procuring materials.

To her surprise, Dimeia looked utterly exhausted.

“I was supposed to return a week ago. The spell materials I ordered in Coral Bay couldn’t arrive because the Heavenly Flower Kingdom blocked the shipping lanes.”

“Then I heard the merchant ship paid a price to pass—but then the Sirens revolted and established a no-go zone on the route, demanding enough sailors be thrown overboard.”

“I don’t know if the ship threw sailors, but it finally reached shore—only for the ground golems to start attacking the harbor… Fine, fine, I’m just unlucky. Even as I neared Shiying Town, I got robbed—those mine-dwelling ratmen attacked me directly!”

The witch sighed, utterly drained.

Simply fetching materials had turned into such a mess.

“In the end, it’s still a problem of insufficient manpower and declining royal deterrence. The Snow Hill Evening News says most regions of Aithelon are facing the same situation.”

Luo De said.

“Perhaps. Though the kingdom now appears open and tolerant toward many races, its past treatment of numerous sentient species was deeply flawed—those seeds of discontent were planted long ago.”

She shook her head.

Sharon, the dog-kin, interjected: “In my view, it’s because Aithelon grew too aggressively in its early days, provoking so much resentment.”

She wasn’t from Aithelon—she was born in a small nation called Monte Carlo.

Today, Monte Carlo still has territorial disputes with Aithelon.

Dimeia didn’t deny her words.

Instead, she turned to Kalist and said:

“Since Master Luo De has a method, should we still continue our research?”

“Of course. The purpose of spell research is to transcend oneself—not to compete for superiority.”

Even as she spoke, Kalist’s gaze toward Luo De still carried unresolved frustration.

Luo De smiled, about to speak—

The bracelet Xiao Ke sent him vibrated faintly.

He sensed something, and hurried up the slope to look out.

Amid the swirling yellow sand, a heavy black tide moved slowly, radiating slaughter.

As expected, the sand tornado’s demonic tide was nearly at the forest’s edge.

(End of Chapter)