Theron walked into the Fourth Level calmly, his breathing having returned to normal.
He didn’t like to lose control of his temper. Honestly, he couldn’t remember many instances of having done so. The last time…
He remembered a memory from his third day in the Daggers of the Night camp. It wasn’t something he liked to recall… Something that reminded him of how cold he could be when he stopped caring.
The weight of living for something other than yourself sounded nice, but it was also that weight that sank you to the bottom of an abyss. He was smart enough to be aware of it, but uncaring enough to disregard it.
Whether he truly became a monster or not…
Theron shook his head, his focus returning.
He hadn’t just come to the Fourth Level to goad Thessa. So after he defeated her, he went straight to complete his Mana Control exam and continued up.
It just so happened that this would be a nice cover for his actions.
It was already quite weird of him to ask to sit in on the Fourth Year Botany Class. But if he was found perusing Silver Resonance Herbs as well, the second oddity might start raising eyebrows.
Even if they didn’t make the connection with the Verdant Bloomstone, they might think him to have some sort of alchemy recipe he felt the need to hide. The worst part was that with the ways of the cultivation world, even if someone wasn’t smart enough to guess at any of this, just the speculation alone could put him in danger.
His interest in the botany class could be waved away because of his previous infatuation with academics. Clearing that class now would also make several prerequisites far easier.
But right now he was aware that he was walking a fine line.
A line that he had always walked perfectly.
…
Hours later, Theron left the tower with a cultivation method he had wasted all of his bronzes on. His pockets were completely empty, and he had spent them on what was ultimately a worthless technique to him.
But to Theron, when there was time to take risks, he would take them. When it was time to be cautious, however… no one would be more cautious than himself.
’I should have them all now,’ he thought to himself. ’But… this final one… is not quite right.’
Theron had run into a problem he had expected long ago.
Verdant Bloomstone had fallen out of favor long ago. Though it was still very useful for passing on coded messages, because it was so out of circulation, very few used it for that either.
Due to this, this Verdant Bloomstone was almost certainly imprinted a very, very long time ago. Depending on how long ago that was, it was possible that the region had undergone sweeping changes since then.
This could mean two things.
First, the location that this Verdant Bloomstone wanted to direct him to might likely already be compromised or changed beyond recognition.
And second, the herbs used to imprint the code might have evolved, mutated, or even gone extinct since then.
The good news was that up until this final herb, this latter problem hadn’t been an issue. But, it seemed that the final herb had, indeed, mutated somewhat.
The scent was close enough that Theron was sure they were related, but not close enough that they were identical.
And that meant that his code might be off unless he could figure out exactly what it had evolved from.
When Theron had this thought, though, he calmed down. If that was the case, then the solution was easy.
’Whatever the answer is will likely be the only one that makes sense. I don’t need to find a potentially extinct plant. I just need to look up all the plants it could have evolved from and then decode them one by one, swapping in a new one every time the decoding is a failure. Whichever one makes it make sense in the end is the correct one.’ ＲΆＮo͍𝐁˧
There was a small chance that there would be multiple solutions. But… that would be a very small chance.
The solution was close. Soon he would know where this Verdant Bloomstone was pointing him, and what it had to do with Echoes.
**
Theron slowly closed a book in the depths of the Imperial Academy library. His eyes closed along with it.
He leaned back in his chair, feeling the moonlight beaming in from a high, slanted window on the ceiling.
The world seemed to have nothing at all to do with him. He was sure that there was a great deal of commotion after he defeated Thessa so easily, and there would certainly be problems that came with it, but he had a knack for ignoring troubles.
The calm rhythm of his heart made his thoughts flow smoother.
’I see. It’s not the entire smell I need… sometimes it’s only part of the herb. That changes the calculations.’
He shifted his thoughts again.
There were three possible ways to solve this.
The simplest was a word puzzle. Rearranging the names, letters, or syllables of the herbs themselves until the solution was found.
The second most difficult code was the pill code. Using the arrangement of herbs, you would divide them into the pills they could forge, and then use the properties of the pills themselves to decipher what the Verdant Bloomstone pointed you toward.
The most difficult code was the Mana type. In this case, you needed to find the solution by understanding the way your Mana would interact with a field of these herbs arranged in a very specific pattern. Of course, that pattern was also hidden within the Verdant Bloomstone.
Theron had expected it to be the first and simplest form.
It wasn’t.
Yet, all that meant was a few extra hours for him.
Merely an hour before dusk, he opened his eyes. It seemed Vibra’s class was more helpful than he ever thought it could be.
“Hm? Interesting, interesting. Why is a First Year so interested in herbs?”
Theron looked up calmly to find a figure he had been looking for…
Kai.
Yonowai’s good friend.