Even from hundreds of meters away from the herbal garden, one could smell the medicinal fragrance in the air. Lush green, morning sky orange, rose pink and various colors of plants welcomed Michael with a sway in the wind. The disciples were watering the herbs regularly under the supervision of Elder Reiner who now built a swing in the middle of the herbal garden to spend his free time in this peaceful atmosphere.
At the present moment, the herbal garden was approximately 500 square feet in area. Quite a distance from the garden area, he noticed a couple of workers digging through, "what are they doing" he asked Gaya
"We'll build a dome covering the garden, a glass dome, it'll be grand" her eyes sparkled with excitement talking about the dome
"Of course, we don't have enough coins to start the construction. They are just digging the ground for the foundation" Michael nodded. Expanding the herbal garden would definitely increase the sect's legend as well as help him make varieties of potions and pills. Since Gaya was a Core Formation warrior, he could start expanding the garden with no fear of someone stealing his herbs. He also planned to use the Aragoth as his protection charm.
"Elder Reiner" the look-alike of Gandalf was startled noticing Michael's cultivation level, his jaws opened wide, "Young Man, when did you reach the Body Strengthening stage and how did you jump four levels?"
He came forward leaving the swing, "Nether Realm, Elder Reiner, I was lucky to find a few rare herbs, do you want to see them?" Elder Reiner's face brightened as he nodded vigorously like a little child.
Michael flicked his wrist ordering the system to place all the herbs in the storage in front of him. The very next moment, Ninety-eight to be exact herbs appeared in a neat row, making Elder Reiner almost faint on the spot because all of them were rare, extremely rare.
He didn't open up the matter that he gave Legendary herbs like Tiger Cress, Diamond Leaf, Oglio root, and Cavern Petal to Aragoth in exchange for the alchemy supply contract.
"SO MANY…..HERBS!!!" Elder Reiner dropped to his knees, smelling, feeling, touching the herbs one by one. Although he didn't recognize many herbs in here, he could sense the powerful medical Arch Energy radiating from within those herbs.
"You really had a great time there, didn't you?" Gaya knew about his actions in the herbal garden, still, seeing these herbs with her eyes slightly shocked her.
"Pretty!" Cindy's big eyes sparkled looking at the Ocean Jasmin, which was a transparent ocean blue flower, the sweet fragrance and the beauty of the five-petal flower overwhelmed Cindy,
"It's called Ocean Jasmin, am I right Ghost?" Suddenly he heard the voice of Claire, turning around he saw Sect Leader Claire, as beautiful as the Ocean Jasmin itself walking towards him with a smile like a morning sunray.
Her golden blonde hair now became more golden and wavy, dancing in on her shoulder, "You're right, Sect Leader Claire"
"You have grown stronger" Claire clutched his biceps playfully, not as stunned as Elder Reiner. After hearing what Gaya did to those adventurers and Michael's feat during the phoenix auction fair, she herself had grown stronger, tougher. She wanted to be the leader everyone follows to death, not a sissy.
What could make her afraid when she has Ghost behind her?
His reputation had even reached the Capital city, the king of Bredia himself treated them with the utmost respect because of Ghost. He was the Guardian for all of them.
Michael didn't fail to notice the confidence in her eyes, the woman in front of him was not the meekly soft Claire he first met, this was a new person. Not only her, everyone in the sect seemed to be a new person, he affected the greater than he expected.
She gave a quick kiss to the baby dragon on his shoulder and then she looked at the little Cindy. When Michael put the little girl down, she immediately went straight to the OCean Jasmin, burying her nose onto the petals. Just as she was about to pluck the flower, Claire grabbed her little hands, " Cindy, If you love a flower, don't pluck it. Because if you pluck it, it dies and it ceases to be what you love. So if you love a flower, let it be. Love is not about possession. Love is about appreciation"
Michael didn't mind Cindy pluck the flower, of course, he would have reminded her of the preciousness of the flower before giving it to her because he would never spoil her, however, Claire's words made more sense,
"Yes, Teacher Claire, I will not pluck any flowers I promise"
"Good" Claire ruffled her head giving her a warm kiss on the forehead.
"Elder Reiner, shall we start planting them?"
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For the next few hours, Elder Reiner, Michael, Jack, and many male disciples got their hands dirty planting each herb in the suitable place following Michael's instruction. Gaya, Claire, and the girls made lemonade, keeping the workers energetic while the baby dragon played fetch with Cindy. The scene resembled the scenes of a happy feel-good movie.
Michael mixed the Netherel ash with the soil in the right ratio to make the herbs grow faster and healthier. The previously 500 square feet garden now became almost triple the size as many of the herbs Michael brought would take a lot of ground to grow.
After finishing planting them, he plucked enough leaves, roots, flowers, and parts of the herbs to make new pills and potions.
"What are we gonna make?" Gaya came after they had done all the dirty work, though she was with Claire who made lemonades for them, the snake was only there to drink them, not to work, not to help.
"Wisdom potion, Mind control pills, love potion, Elemental resistance potion, Perception pills, Hallucination potion, Camouflage potion, Enhanced Healing potion and the one we talked about" the latter was the pill to counteract the lie-detecting potion, there was a chance of Celina bring this potion to test him to see if he had anything to do with Jane's death.
This recipe to neutralize the effects of the lie-detecting potion could only be concocted by him because he bought the recipe from the system. There were two ways to see somewhen whether lying or not, that potion and the lie detector array. The latter was better than the potion, it could even detect a half immortal's lies but it had downsides, it cannot be transported, and extremely expensive to create one in the first place. According to Gaya, Nagaland has one and the Church in Kingdom Zainad.
Even an immortal couldn't relocate or transport the array, let alone a puny Body Strengthening warrior like Celina.
"Sect Leader Claire, we need to discuss something, call all the Elders'' He was calm, collected, and radiated confidence in his eyes. Seeing his demeanor Claire didn't worry much but nodded.
"The matter about the Broad River sect, right?" Michael nodded at Gaya. He wanted to take a bath before attending the meeting with Claire and the Elders because he was reeking blood, sweat, and Netherel. He then sent Cindy to help the Elders any way she can. After the little girl's figure disappeared from their sight, Gaya spoke,
"I asked around about the Broad River sect, they are relatively a small sect that has a total of 152 disciples,10 teachers, four elders, and one sect leader who is the strongest, Core Formation level 5" Gaya served him with the information she collected about the sect, "they mainly focus on Runes but those jokers only have one 3-star Runemaster and a couple of 2-stars teaching runes"
"What about the sect's location?" asked Michael
"Near a Broad river in Sarton, hence their name. They don't have huge lands such as us though"
"Hmm, they'll be our first branch" Michael and Gaya grinned devilishly sharing the same thought.
"Also Gaya, I want you to teach cultivation to Cindy's friends, we should nurture them from little to make them loyal to us, that way, they'll make a great loyal army in the future" He turned into an assassin because those drug dealers abused him and the kids in the orphanage to smuggle drugs, it was the starting point of his path to becoming an assassin. Although he would never abuse those little kids, he did decide to use them, his path to rule this world shadowed his moral codes. To become a ruler of this world, he had to sacrifice a part of his soul, the seed of the dark lord inside him had already started to sprout, more than he wanted to.
"I like the way you think, human" She returned a devilish grin of her own.
At the present moment, he did not know what he was slowly becoming. He was thinking that everything's under control, except the universe, the higher power has a different plan.
However, does everything in this world is black and white?
What makes Michael the bad guy and what makes Noah the good guy?
Is Michael really the bad guy for planning to use those innocent kids?
"There's something you should know about the Broad River sect, Human"