Chapter 40: Tower Quests

Chapter 40: Chapter 40: Tower Quests

After bidding Barney farewell at the forge, Rowan made his way back through the bustling academy corridors to his dormitory room. He locked the deadbolt behind him, pulled the curtains closed, and lit the soft mana lamp at his study desk.

He pulled out his heavy leather-bound textbook, Advanced Soil Dynamics & Leyline Harmonization, along with his personal notebook. While the practical exam on Plot 36 was well under control thanks to his Obsidian Roots, the written section of the Sol-Aethel Mid-Term Exam was notoriously rigorous, testing deep theoretical mastery of mana-flow mechanics, soil chemistry, and elemental synergy.

Rowan flipped through his notes, reviewing the core theoretical principles likely to appear on the paper.

Rowan dipped his quill into dark blue ink and spent the next several hours practicing complex mana-array diagrams and solving matrix equation problems. He analyzed case studies on failed crop restorations, noting how previous students made the fatal error of trying to force rapid growth through raw magic rather than fixing the soil’s underlying mineral conductivity first.

By the time he closed his textbook, the ink on his final practice diagram had dried cleanly. He had memorized the formulas, mastered the theoretical edge cases, and understood precisely how Senior Lecturer Vane structured his trick questions.

With his practical plot quietly restoring itself in the background and his theoretical preparation complete, Rowan turned off his desk lamp, fully prepared for both halves of the upcoming Mid-Term Examination.

***

Rowan closed his notebooks, locked his dorm room door, and drew a quiet breath as he summoned the golden rift, stepping through into the warm, mana-saturated air of Eden.

The twilight canopy of the primordial tree greeted him with its soft, soothing luminescence. Before setting up his new planting beds for Wednesday’s upcoming harvests, Rowan walked over to the central ledger stone beside the subterranean pool to review and log the complete experience yields accumulated across his entire active crop inventory.

He brought up the domain’s cultivation interface to formally record the full batch output:

[PRIMORDIAL DOMAIN: FULL HARVEST LOG]

[E-GRADE CROPS]

* High-Vitality Tomatoes (35 kg × 3 EXP/kg) ───────────── +105 EXP

* Ignis-Sweet Corn (25 kg × 5 EXP/kg) -──────────────── +125 EXP

[D-GRADE CROPS]

* Luminous Mana-Soybeans (15 kg × 10 EXP/kg) ─────── +150 EXP

* Stimulant Coffee Cherries (10 kg × 15 EXP/kg) ─────── +150 EXP

* Azure Recovery Poppies (8 kg × 15 EXP/kg) ───────── +120 EXP

* Mature Frost-Melons (5x | 12 kg Total × 50 EXP/kg) ──── +600 EXP

TOTAL CATALOGED HARVEST EXPERIENCE: +1,250 EXP

With his entire harvest fully logged and organized into delivery crates, Rowan gathered his tools and began laying down fresh rows of soil matrix for the next growth cycle, ensuring Eden International would stay fully stocked for the next day.

[Level Up]

[ STATUS WINDOW ]

Name: Rowan Vance

Age: 15

Class: [Tier 1] Gardener of Eden (Transcendent)

Title: Blessed by Polaris

Affiliation: Imperial Suburbs (Civilian)

Level 6 (310 / 2,000 EXP)

[ STAT POOLS ]

<anno data-annotation-id="f712815c-ffcd-53c5-a483-f6f013622c3f" data-title="Mana Pool: 190 / 190 ">Mana Pool: 190 / 190 ¹</anno>

<anno data-annotation-id="4ae223ee-8f92-b9d6-2dbc-2b419fe06b35" data-title="Stamina Pool: 180 / 180">Stamina Pool: 180 / 180¹</anno>

[ ATTRIBUTES ]

Vitality (VIT): 18

Strength (STR): 18

Agility (AGI): 18

Intelligence (INT): 19

Wisdom (WIS): 19

Unallocated Stat Points: 0

[ CLASS PERKS & PASSIVE TRAITS ]

[Passive Class Trait] Green Thumb (Grade I): Increases seed germination success rate by 15% and reduces minor environmental stress (moderate drought, slight soil acidity) on cultivated crops.

[Civilian Trait] Resilience: Slightly reduces fatigue accumulation during prolonged physical labor under poor conditions.

[Hidden Potential] Dormant Genius (Mind & Nature): Due to Legendary (L) growth affinity in Intelligence and Wisdom, skill learning speed for mental, ecological, and botanical concepts is exponentially heightened.

[Primordial Renovation]: Cleansed and rebuilt by cosmic life energy. All chronic infirmities are permanently cured.

[Breath of Eden - Lv. 2]: Passively accelerates growth, vitality, and evolutionary potential of surrounding life.

[Domain: The Virgin Soil]: Unlocks access to the Primordial Garden (10:1 Time Dilation).

[ EQUIPMENT & INVENTORY ]

Pouch of Heirloom Seeds: Empty

Standard Suburban Clothing

Identification & Awakening Registration Tag: Civilian Class

Sol-Aethel Academy Student Pass (Honor Points: 50)

***

The atmosphere inside Sol-Aethel Academy’s Grand Amphitheater was charged with an unusual mix of tension and quiet murmuring. For the first time since orientation, the heavy oak doors had swung open to seat all first-year faculties together: Vanguard Combat, Elemental Evocation, Blacksmithing, Alchemy, and Agricultural Cultivation.

Rowan sat near the middle tier alongside Barney Ironforge, who was leaning forward with his thick forearms resting on the desk, eyeing the armored Vanguard students sitting across the aisle.

At the center of the raised podium stood Vice-Dean Sterling, flanked by senior instructors from both combat and non-combat faculties. Behind them, an oversized, shimmering blue projection of a jagged obsidian spire rotated slowly in mid-air—the Spire of Trials, the academy’s tethered regional Tower.

"Silence," Vice-Dean Sterling’s voice echoed across the hall, amplified by a wind-elemental rune spell. The chatter died down instantly.

"Up until now," Sterling began, his sharp eyes sweeping over the hundreds of assembled students, "you have trained strictly within the confines of your respective faculties. Combat professions learned field tactics; production and gathering professions mastered their crafts in controlled environments. That isolation ends today."

He tapped his cane against the floor, and the holographic projection shifted, displaying a intricate floor plan of the Tower’s 1st through 3rd layers.

"In six weeks, the Academy Mid-Term Examination will not take place on campus grounds," Sterling announced, causing a sudden ripple of hushed gasps across the benches. "You will be deployed directly into the Tower as integrated expeditionary units. A Tower raid cannot survive on martial strength alone—and non-combat awakeners cannot remain passive spectators behind safe walls."

Sterling stepped toward the front of the stage, outlining the mandatory objectives for every class archetype:

1) Vanguard & Evocation (Combat Professions): Responsible for perimeter defense, clearing localized monster surges, and securing forward resource nodes on hostile terrain.

2) Blacksmiths & Crafters: Stationed at forward encampment bases within the Tower layers. Responsible for maintaining equipment durabilities under active corruption aura, field-repairing cracked armors, and custom-forging specialized elemental gear tailored to floor bosses.

3) Alchemists & Apothecaries: Responsible for real-time field brewing, synthesizing anti-venoms against floor-specific toxins, and supplying high-grade stamina and mana recovery potions under strict resource constraints.

4) Farmers & Gardeners: Deployed to contested soil zones and ancient leyline nodes within the Tower. Responsible for purifying corrupted soil, planting rapid-growth mana crops, establishing self-sustaining supply outposts, and cultivating specialized flora required for high-tier alchemical brewing on-site.

"Your grades will be evaluated as a joint unit score," Sterling concluded coldly. "If a Combat squad pushes forward without securing their Farmers’ supply node, they will starve and fail. If a Blacksmith fails to repair a Vanguard’s shield before a wave, both fail. If an Alchemist runs out of ingredients because their Agriculturalists couldn’t cultivate the local soil, the entire unit forfeits."

Beside Rowan, Barney let out a low whistle, a grin spreading across his face. "Field-forging inside a live Tower layer under monster pressure? Now that is real smithing."

Rowan quietly leaned back, looking at the projection of the corrupted soil zones on the Tower’s lower floors. While the other Agricultural students around him looked pale at the prospect of entering a live dungeon, Rowan’s eyes remained calm. With his Gardener of Eden class abilities, Breath of Eden, and the purifying capabilities of his crops, a live Tower environment was less of a threat and more of an untouched expanse waiting to be cultivated.