Chapter 66

Hoid had plenty of experience using his innate gift, and finding what herb was the most valuable simply required him to place a numbered coin before each herb on the table, then toss a set of dice. When the total count of the dice came to 34, Hoid pointed to the herb with the coin numbered 34 in front of it and said, “That’s the one.”

Keith found it somewhat absurd. “It’s that easy?”

“Not exactly,” Hoid shook his head and explained. “There’d be no way for me to find the right herb if I didn’t get involved by investing 10 billion gold in you. By doing so, I invited myself to a great deal of risk, and only then would finding which herb was the most valuable result in a positive outcome for me.”

Keith hmmed in understanding as Hoid continued, “Also, finding out which herb we needed cost me some of my luck energy. I’d need to endure three weeks of misfortune to regain what it took.”

Keith had a decent idea of what that entailed. Whenever Hoid activated his innate ability’s misfortune mode, he’d quickly fall victim to all sorts of pitiful experiences, like birds pooping on his head, frequently tripping or breaking fragile things. That was the only way for him to gain luck energy.

“Well,” Hoid picked up the herb called Moon Dew Leaf and handed it to Keith. “How long for this to grow?”

Keith stored the herb in his Collection Grimoire before placing it on a free plot in his Farming Simulator. When he saw the timer, he exclaimed, “6 days and 13 hours.”

Hoid wasn’t concerned. “I know some people with farming-focused innate gifts trying to grow herbs from Serenity Canyon, and they take about just as long.”

Keith thought of a problem and said, “I get seeds whenever I harvest a fully grown herb on my farm, but now that I have so many plots, it’ll take several months before I have enough Moon Dew Leaf seeds to fill them all.”

“A small matter,” Hoid waved his hand. “The military should have acquired a large stock of Serenity Canyon’s herbs by now. I’ll go there and get what we need. Oh, you should come too, or you might break something valuable while I’m gone.”

Holding back the desire to comment, Keith followed Hoid through the busy streets until they arrived before the military’s contribution exchange center. The place was absolutely packed. There were over thirty counters for exchanging resources, all of which had long lines, showing that the military had plenty of alluring items people wanted.

While waiting in line with Hoid, Keith witnessed all sorts of transactions. He even saw someone exchange for the armor set Zeidrick was crafting earlier.

Finally, when it was their turn, Hoid passed an ID badge to the person operating the counter and said, “I want 501 Moon Dew Leaf herbs.”

The young lady glanced at the card and was stunned. Grandmaster Alchemist? Level-5 Authority? As far as she knew, only a handful of people had Level-5 Authority in the military, and anyone who did was a top-level figure. Fortunately, she didn’t embarrass herself and instantly recovered from her shock.

“One moment,” she said, manipulating her magic tablet. A second later, a small box arrived atop the counter in a brief flash of light.

Keith was astonished when he saw this.

The last time he went to an item exchange was with his Aunt. Back then, the clerk had to find the goods in a warehouse in person. However, just now, the items arrived in a second. Based on Keith’s guess, there was some sort of smart warehouse capable of identifying and then teleporting items based on commands given by a magic tablet. The complexity of the formations involved here was unfathomable. Whoever came up with them was a genius.

After leaving the contribution exchange center with the herbs, Keith’s opinion of his grandfather rose. Hoid could’ve used his unlimited access to buy out the military’s stock of Moon Dew Leaves to turn a profit once people discovered its value, but he didn’t, showing that while Hoid loved making money, he had a bottom line.

When the exchange center was out of sight, Hoid turned to Keith. “Okay, I need to get back to work. Those old fellows in the military want me to spend my hard-earned luck discovering new potion recipes. Just because I’ve been saving up these past few decades, they think they can take advantage of me? Hmph.”

“I’ll keep you updated on the farm,” Keith replied, somewhat surprised that Hoid had such an important job considering his annoying personality.

Hoid gave a curt nod before separating from Keith, but he stopped after taking a few steps. Looking to the side, he asked, “How are they?”

“Good,” Keith answered, knowing who Hoid was referring to. “Did you know they didn’t talk to each other for 20 years? It was only recently they made up, and now they hang out all the time. You should reach out. What do you have to lose?”

“I’ll think about it,” Hoid muttered before walking off.

Keith sighed upon seeing Hoid’s indecisive attitude. Why were his mother and grandfather so stubborn? Mariane demanded that Hoid apologize, and Hoid was too prideful to admit he was wrong. Why couldn’t they both just move on?

Shaking his head, Keith decided to find his dad and see how he was doing.

****

Over the following month, New Hope’s borders expanded every day. Countless buildings popped up to satisfy the ever-increasing population who went out to explore Serenity Canyon, resulting in unfathomable quantities of resources to pour into the military warehouses. With those resources, artisans under the military researched day and night to push the boundaries of their skills. Whether it be adventurers or tradespeople, everyone was leveling up.

Besides building infrastructure for the populace of New Hope, the government spared no expense to defend the gateway leading to the Innate Dimension. Fortunately, New Hope sat at the bottom of Serenity Canyon’s eastern border, so the military had a several-mile-high wall to take advantage of. All the public knew was miners worked day and night to dig into the wall. As for what was going on inside? That was classified.

The only geographical disadvantage New Hope had was the bowl-shaped lakes to its north and south. Due to them being slightly above New Hope, an enemy would simply need to create a small opening to drown New Hope in water, so the military built fortified dams at the two lakes to prevent such a disaster.

During the fifth week after the gateway opened, adventurers had almost fully explored Serenity’s Canyon’s northern, eastern, and central regions when one party discovered something startling: a beehive the size of a Rift.

The part of the hive above the surface was hundreds of feet high and thousands of feet wide, with the underground section being a mystery. It was a structure so large it boggled the mind. More importantly, the party that discovered the beehive returned to New Hope with an item that sent waves throughout the population.

[Mythic] Life Essence Honey – Level 550

Description: Consume to permanently increase Health by 1, Mana by 1, and a chance to raise a random primary stat. Effect decreases the more it's consumed.

The revelation of an item on par with an elixir caught everyone’s attention, and considering how large the beehive was, it was sure to contain plenty of Life Essence Honey to go around.

The discovery came just as the long-anticipated broadcast tower appeared in New Hope, extending the coverage of the magic network into the city, so news about the bee hive and its Life Essence Honey spread like wildfire.

Not long after, the military deployed several squads to probe the hive and learned a great deal. After the preliminary scouting, the military coordinated with the various adventurer groups to devise a battle plan before setting out the next day.