ACC Chapter 8 Trouble Arrives

We reached a demarcation that hadn't been there during my previous visit, a transparent light blue energy field formed by an array. It was waist height, with water levelled at its halfway mark, submerging the soil and part of the roots from the mutated maize plants. All the droplets that had been sailing through the air converged into the artificial pond, increasing its volume.

But what was interesting to me was the fact that the maize plants within the demarcated area weren't dying even though their roots were submerged within the liquid. Instead, through the combination of my divine sense and wood core, I sensed the feeling of contentment from the plants. They were thriving within, akin to rice in paddies.

"I wasn't expecting this..." I started while moving my gaze to Lily, who didn't appear surprised except for a small movement of her eyebrows.

"...but from the information I am gathering, I can infer how this came to be."

The roots, the exposed fiber that I could see, had turned blue, with the color even encroaching upon the lower half of the stem. The blue then mixed with the green gradually from that point, becoming lighter and lighter until it vanished entirely upon reaching the junctions where the leaves joined the stems, making it so that they stayed a vibrant green, with somewhat faint green veins.

The maize was still a little bit under the halfway mark on its growth cycle, which was a full 3 decades.

If this had happened during the budding stage, then I wouldn't have been as joyful as I was now.

"Reed, my energy sense is fundamentally different from yours, so I might have missed something during my scans, is there something I missed?"

The question from Kasoli broke me from the daze I was about to slip into.

"Send me the data from your readings."

I perused everything instantly. With Kasoli's energy sense, he could detect the changes that were being made to the genetic structure by spiritual energy. My wood-attuned core had already significantly altered and enhanced the genes, but from the data I was sorting through, the water-attuned spiritual energy had somehow made other changes that harmoniously melded with mine, thereby giving birth to this unique plant.

"Give me a moment."

I released my divine sense, cutting off the data from my other sensory organs.

The first thing I focused on was the artificial pond of water, which was composed of 2 parts pure water and 1 part water-attuned spiritual energy.

And the roots were absorbing the contents of the pond in exactly such a ratio, while also absorbing a bit of the nutrients within the soil, transporting everything towards the leaves, which, through sunlight absorption synthesized everything to form some sort of new sugar that was then transported to the rest of the plant to aid in its growth.

Spiritual energy was an energy that defied common conventions. Since the inception of this world, it had existed, yet even now, there were still many puzzling things about it. For example, for some reason, it could interfere in RNA transcription, causing the birth of entirely new proteins that could never be produced by an organism under normal circumstances!

"There are many things about what I have seen that would warrant me to mull them over."

Maybe, if I could manage to figure everything out, I could get my nascent soul to simulate the end product after harvesting, and its effects. But that was computational power intensive.

I would need to go back into seclusion for a couple of years, but now wasn't the time.

So, with a thought, I catalogued the data within my mind into a folder and kept it away in a memory cluster for future contemplation.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Kasoli, continue observing. If any other changes happen, you can notify me."

Abruptly, a fluctuation appeared within Kasoli's body, his gaze shifting to the ground. His artificial eyes had narrowed, as if there was something beneath the ground that only he could see.

"It looks like trouble has come to you, Reed."

Kasoli's lips widened into a smile upon those words.

"What do you mean?" I asked, genuinely puzzled.

"Simba is here."

"Simba... Ah! You mean that brat. Why would you call such a minor character, trouble?" I asked calmly. Though, I knew that there was no way that Kasoli would say that lightly.

"It looks like you haven't really caught up on recent events. Two years ago, the brat broke through."

A chill caused the hairs on the nape of my neck to stand up.

That calm gaze, and those intense red pupiled eyes were things that would haunt anyone's nightmares.

"What brings him here?" I tried to feign composure. When the brat had been in the Core Formation realm, all his creepiness hadn't mattered as I could have won any battle against him even though he was a prodigy...

"You know well enough. After all, he's blatantly releasing his aura, with the void alight with orange flames right now."

There was the urge to facepalm that I stifled. My heart had started accelerating.

"It looks like there's no avoiding this." With a sigh, I made my way back towards the hangar.

-----

With my hands crossed before my chest, I stood there, upon the railing, gazing out into the void of space, my eyes focused on a dot of light far away, no bigger than a fist.

With my extraordinary eyesight, I could see him in the orange flames billowing around his form in a diameter of ten meters.

He was just floating there, within the void of space, clad in his symbiote that was protecting him from the deadliness of space.

Those red pupils with a vertical slit running down the middle were staring straight into my own with the intent to challenge.

I could see even more within. There was something brutal about the man caged within. This was a man no one would love to face in battle. Actually, he wasn't a man, but a male demon.

Just the word demon alone brought up some thoughts about them. They were another civilization occupying the same planet as us. Their path of development had diverged from ours, causing us to become entirely different civilizations. Even historians and scholars had said that this abnormality was probably one in a zillion in the known universe.

How could two species, birthed from the same planet, spawn two different civilizations?

-----

Lily (POV)

My body had frozen. This was the most common reaction of prey in the presence of an apex predator. I had been arrogant, thinking that I could at least trade a few moves with a Nascent Soul cultivator at the early stage.

My eyes and divine sense were the only things I was capable of drawing upon. Even my core wasn't capitulating to my commands, spinning far too slowly.

My mind was clear, yet my body had somehow had its instincts activated.

(Do you fear me?)

That question was transmitted through divine sense and yet, the hairs on the back of my nape rose up as a terror enveloped me.

I don't know how it happened, but after that question, I found myself standing directly in front of a massive lion, with each strand of hair among its fur, wider than me. Crimson pupils were looking down at me intensely, exerting a pressure that terrified me. They were huge enough to give the Sun a run for the money.

I tried to struggle free of my invisible bindings, with each idea failing, to the point that despair enveloped me and a resolve to explode my core was birthed within me.

I couldn't win. I couldn't fight back. But I could at least die with dignity!

Before I could go through with that decision though, the lion vanished and I was returned to reality, with the only difference being a blue spherical barrier around me.

"Good riddance, Kasoli. I hadn't noticed."

I turned towards Mr. Reed, who was looking at me with a look of worry. For some reason, that gaze induced a warmth within me.

"Miss Lily, you were about to detonate your core, which would have ended your life then and there. I think you should find some artifact to guard against Nascent Soul manipulations...actually, Reed! Find her one! With your tendency of running into monsters, this was bound to happen!"

"Sorry about that."

Once again, Mr. Reed apologised before turning his gaze towards Simba in the distance, with a serious and sharp gaze this time.

Now that I could think calmly once again, I dredged up information about Simba from my memories.

This kind of information shouldn't have been available because of my status, but by borrowing Mr. Reed's clout, I had managed to gain access.

Demons were different from us humans in the way that information proliferated. Most of it was kept secret, only proffered on a need to know basis, or by having the stronger fist.

Simba was a ruthless character that had killed the previous demon king of the Mpologoma tribe the moment he had broken through.

And the thing that made him even more dangerous wasn't his strength. It was his cunning nature. To him, if anything got in his way, he would use any means necessary to get rid of it.

"This is going to be troublesome. We might need to contact the President himself."

"Why?"

This was just a spar, right? There was no need for such drastic measures!

"Demons aren't the most reasonable sort. If anything can be solved with strength, then even the rules and laws can be broken. Now that this Simba has come with a challenge, this battle could end in fatalities. And no matter who dies, it might spark a war."