Chapter 250: Someone Important
Camille made everyone get out of the car, and then they walked calmly through that sacred forest, taking in the atmosphere of the place.
"The power of our empire is called Heart of Nature. It all comes from the World Tree, and we created this little isolated place so it could flourish," Camille explained, speaking calmly.
"For this place to keep existing, we need to invest 70% of everything we earn into things related to natural power. That’s why it’s really hard for us to grow stronger or climb the rankings on Earth... but the benefits are worth it. The World Tree grants us the Heart of Nature, and with it, everyone gets a crazy amount of vitality and youthful energy... depending on your talent, of course."
She smiled slightly. "I got mine when I was 14. Because of my talent, by the time I turned 20, I stopped aging completely. Even though I’ve lived for quite a while now, I’m still only halfway through my life. For men and women, the main benefit shows up in different ways, but everyone becomes insanely tough and hard to kill. Poisons barely affect us, and even if we lose limbs or take wounds that should be fatal, we recover and regenerate without trouble."
Everyone nodded, visibly excited.
As they got closer to the World Tree in the center, they admired the plants and the incredibly beautiful scenery around them. There were no animals—just pure natural life.
"You guys don’t use this stuff for anything?" Lucius couldn’t help but ask.
Camille sighed. "These plants can only grow like this because of the resources we buy to keep the place alive. None of them have reached even 1% of their true potential, so they just stagnate and grow really, really slowly. That’s because we can only provide the bare minimum needed to keep the World Tree alive. We’ve tried selling the herbs to alchemists from powerful planets... they all said the herbs were basically useless compared to what they had in their own worlds."
She let out an annoyed snort. "Alchemists are the biggest assholes around. Arrogant as hell, zero shame. Of course they could buy this stuff just to use as a base and grow it in their homes... but they offered ridiculous prices and didn’t even bother to negotiate..."
The four of them sighed, finally getting a better understanding of the situation. Camille was a bit... explosive, and she didn’t take being treated like a fool very well. She just couldn’t stay calm dealing with those types, so she preferred to curse them out and not sell anything for such a low price.
On other small planets, there weren’t any alchemists at all. And on the bigger ones, they looked down on everything and everyone and didn’t really care about buying stuff like this. And using the herbs for anything else would be a huge waste. It was better to just leave them be, and with enough time, they might become more powerful.
"This is good. Veyle’s gonna love this place," Lucius muttered calmly. "She’s a talented alchemist. If you give her a chance, you’ll be surprised."