Jade stepped out of the southern arch of the Dome still lost in thought. As she looked up at the garden area of Star Plaza she stopped in her tracks because she could suddenly feel the trees and plants in all their vibrancy.

She was aware of where they were and how well they were doing. For example, the Peonies that grew in the left flower bed had a little too much water and craved some mana.

She approached one of the peonies kneeling down next to them and focused on the flower.

Common Flower

Mana: 1/2

Genesis Energy: 1/10

‘Okay, Flowers have Genesis Energy, good to know. Maybe all the plants have it’ Jade thought as she inspected the various plant life around her. All of them had one point of Genesis Energy. But all of them had a maximum much greater than that.

Sudden unease came over Jade, but she did not know where came from. She looked around frantically, searching for any signs of danger.

Pedestrians, the families of the awakened a patrol officer, nothing looked out of the ordinary. Nothing she should worry about. But the feeling still persisted, no it got stronger. Jade tried to focus on the feeling, following it to its origin. It was the Flowers, in particular a group of three silver peonies.

She looked closer at them trying to discern what was different about them. From conversation with her mother she knew that some mystical flowers could gather mana and create an effect that ranged from a medicinal purpose to poison to even illusion magic.

Rare Flower

Mana: 2/5

Genesis Energy 1/100

These ones had a much higher maximum for Genesis Energy. She desperately tried to recall what this peony was called. Something about purity and evil. Elation and horror quickly chased each other as she remembered the name it was called Demon Sensing Peony. Mostly useless as a medical ingredient its only purpose was to warn of Demons.

Jade jumped to her feet searching for the patrol officer in the crowd. She spotted him talking to two boys her age. One was tall with blond hair and a sheepish grin on his face. The other one was average sized but he was wearing a black hoodie that hid his face, so she couldn’t see his expression.

Jade jogged over to the Officer but just before she could get there the smaller of the two boys drew a dagger out of his hoodie and stabbed it right into the officer’s chest. This should normally not have killed the man since he was a Cultivator of at least the 2nd Tier. But The knife seemed to be enchanted or somehow magical since the man withered away into a corpse within half a second.

Jade horrified and paralyzed watched as the husk of the police officer rose back up to his feet, two glowing pits of fire where his eyes had previously been.

The blond boy looked at the other boy who was running away and then at Demon. He started yelling: “Monster attack, everybody run!”

Panic spread like wildfire and people started to run away. The Demon on the other hand looked around curiously looking at the crowd and then settled on Jade who was foolishly still standing there.

His husked face stretched in a manner that Jade realized in disgust was meant to be a smile. And then it charged at her with ridiculous speed. Jade looked mortified at the fingernails of the man who had now grown into claws.

The demon leaped towards her reaching his long bony claws to tear her apart when she was suddenly tackled and pushed out of the way of the demon. The tall blond boy had tackled her and dragged her out of the demon’s way.

“Snap out of it, girl, you need to run.” He turned around and faced the demon who was recovering from his failed leap. “Okay, you did the training for this didn’t you, get your self together Ethan.” He took a defensive martial art position and scrounged his forehead really hard and thrust his hand out. Nothing happened.

Jade by now got up and started running away when she turned back and saw the demon hurl itself towards the boy apparently his name was Ethan. “Dodge you idiot.” She yelled at the overconfident boy.

Ethan who was focused to get his concept to work, looked up and franticly and dodged out of the clawed demon’s way. A fast-paced scene of dodging and rolling played out in front of Jade as she tried to think of a way to help. All thought of running away and leaving Ethan behind banished out of her mind.

She looked at her Status trying to find something in her skills to help with the fight. Infusion said she could put GE into anything she could touch. She looked around and her gaze found the Demon Sensing Peony and took a gamble. Purity right, must be good against demons.

She touched the flower and willed her being to infuse her Energy into the peony. Something rushed out of her and into the flower. It started to rapidly increase in size growing to almost 5 feet tall in a moment.

The now giant flower gave of a large Halo of Silver light. The bud moved on his own and angled itself at the still ongoing fight of the boy and the demon. He had by now managed to create a small sword out of fire and was expertly using it to keep the demon occupied.

But that was all, the demon was stronger and faster than Ethan. He could only manage to keep it at bay.

Suddenly the Silver peony pulsed, and a beam of silver light shot at the demon, covering it in silver spores. It shrieked and wailed trying to claw the spores away from itself. Thereby only damaging itself more.

Ethan used that opportunity to plunge the fiery sword in its chest and twisted it violently. The Fire in the demon’s eyes extinguished and it fell to the ground lifeless.

“That was stupid, why did you not run away like I told you. You could have got hurt.”

Jade raised an eyebrow. “I think it was pretty good that I stayed and helped you. Also, you did not run away either so right back at you.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “You got me there, but now let us get out of here. Before more of these show up. Name is Ethan, what’s yours?”

“Yeah, I know, I heard you psyching yourself up before. My names is Jade. But you are right let us get out of here.

As Jade and Ethan ran away from the Plaza,

she checked her notifications.

Demonic Corpse level 3 defeated experience awarded

You leveled up. 5 attribute points have been awarded