Chapter 217: Complications

Chapter 217: Chapter 217: Complications

Even with imperial politics in turmoil and the cult’s shadow pressing in from beyond the borders, commerce never stopped. Least of all for Eden International.

Rowan had spent time climbing the upper reaches of the Tower. In that time, his mother had been fighting a quieter war of her own. Martha had looked at the surging demand for the estate’s premium goods, done the arithmetic, and doubled the farmland from twenty-five acres to fifty. The orders had stopped being requests and become pleas. Buyers who once haggled over quantity now haggled only over delivery dates.

He had heard it all over dinner, in pieces. His father kept trying to slip in a modest word of pride, and his mother kept steamrolling past it with figures: contracts signed, warehouses leased, a second set of ledgers just for the new fields. Rowan had listened and nodded. Beneath the warmth of being home, he felt the weight settle in his chest. Every one of those contracts rested on something only he could provide.

When the meal was done, he excused himself and stepped out into the cool night air.

The stars were out in full, and the new fields stretched away beneath them, far larger than he remembered. The old boundary stones now sat in the middle of the farm, and past them the turned earth ran on into the dark. The air smelled of damp soil and night-blooming flowers, with the green tang of young stalks underneath. He walked the perimeter slowly, boots sinking into soft ground, until the house lights were small behind him.

At the edge of the northern field, he knelt and pressed his palm flat against the earth. It was cold and faintly damp, and it already seemed to be listening.

He closed his eyes and let his breathing slow.

[Breath of Eden – Lv. 8]

The power rose from somewhere beneath his ribs and ran down his arm. When it left his hand, a pale emerald light spread across the soil in a slow ripple, like a stone dropped into still water. It moved outward in rings, past the first rows, past the old boundary stones, past the limit of what his eyes could follow. A low, steady hum came up through his knees as the fields began to answer.

At Level 8, the skill was no longer the gentle blessing he had first learned. It felt less like pushing power into the land and more like conducting it. He could sense each acre as its own presence: the thirsty corner by the creek, the stretch where the soil ran sour, the vines that strained toward the light. The mana-rich moisture sank deep into the roots. Latent blight and stubborn impurities that no farmhand would ever have noticed were drawn out and dissolved. Along every stalk, root, and vine, growth quickened and nutrients settled, locking in a quality that no ordinary harvest could match.

The light brightened, held for a heartbeat, and faded into the dark soil, leaving the ground faintly warm beneath his hand.

Rowan opened his eyes. For a moment the whole field seemed to breathe in unison, the young leaves trembling in a wind that wasn’t blowing.

He stood and brushed the dirt from his palms, and a quiet satisfaction eased the tension in his shoulders. The Tower had taught him to fight, and the cult had taught him to fear what was coming. This was something simpler. His mother would have her harvest, the workers would have their wages, and the people who ate this food would never know what had gone into it.

Whatever waited beyond the borders, this much he could still protect.

He glanced once more across the glowing dark, then turned back toward the house. By first light the farmhands would arrive with their scythes and baskets, expecting an ordinary reaping. What they would find instead would have them wiping their eyes and muttering that the fields had gone mad.

Rowan allowed himself a small smile at the thought and went inside to rest.

***

Three days passed in a rare, fleeting slice of domestic peace at the estate. Rowan spent his time alternating between monitoring the explosive growth of the newly expanded fifty-acre fields—whose crops, nurtured by his agricultural mastery, were thriving beyond all expectations—and ensuring his mother’s health remained stable and stress-free amidst the gathering political tensions.

However, on the morning of the fourth day, the quiet atmosphere was abruptly shattered.

Fastened beneath his coat, his phone flared violently to life, pulsing with an urgent, blinding golden light that cut straight through the estate’s wards. Rowan tapped the screen, and the projection of Emperor Aurelius materialized, his face etched with severe strain and deep alarm.

"Rowan," the Emperor’s voice echoed, tight with urgency. "The initial course provided temporary relief, but the virus... it has adapted. The engineered strain is fighting back with a malignant ferocity, overriding the previous purification doses. Lyra’s vitals are beginning to destabilize once more. We urgently require a full week’s supply of the primordial spring water to break its resistance."

Without a second of hesitation, Rowan severed the projection.

A week’s supply would typically be twenty-one servings. But leaving anything to chance when it came to a living, mutating bioweapon was out of the question.

Rowan reached into his system inventory, pulling out bottle after bottle of the pure, 100% concentrated primordial spring water. He didn’t just pack a week’s worth—he carefully lined up a dozen full bottles into a secure, reinforced spatial container, providing an overwhelming, massive excess designed to completely drown out and incinerate whatever resistance the cult’s toxin had left.

Securing the heavy crate, Rowan handed it directly to the waiting imperial courier unit stationed at the estate’s perimeter gates, accompanied by precise instructions for an escalated, multi-stage dosage protocol.

With the shipment hurtling back toward the capital at maximum mana-speed, Rowan returned to the quiet grounds of the estate, knowing he had flooded the palace medical bay with more than enough raw vitality to turn the tide once and for all.