Death… And Me

Chapter 3659: Let Me Check

”Did you manage to find a way to pluck the Starlight Fruits?” Celis asked, excited.

Roan nodded, using his Divine Sense to share the information with the rest of the group.

Turns out that to pluck the Starlight Energy, you must first sever its connection with the Astral Tree itself. It sounded simple, but if it was, they would have cut the stems holding the fruits a long time ago. They tried it, but even Roan’s pure Dark Element seemed useless.

However, they were doing it the wrong way. What does feed the fruits? The Astral Tree. Why does the Astral Tree feed the fruits with Starlight Energy? Because the Astral Tree’s seeds are inside. The Starlight Energy in the fruits are the nutrients necessary for the Astral Seeds to feed themselves when they germinate.

”The trick is to kill the seeds inside the Astral Fruits,” Roan explained. ”Without the seeds, the Astral Tree loses interest in the fruit, cuts the connection, and the fruits can be plucked out.”

”But just like the stems holding the fruits, we can’t cut the fruits themselves,” Celis commented. They had tried to cut the fruit before, after all. ”How do we kill the seeds inside?”

”It’s actually pretty simple,” Roan continued. ”Celis, you can absorb the Starlight Energy inside the fruit. From what I found in Citchi’s memories, you can use Starlight Energy to sense the seeds inside. Then, you start absorbing the Starlight Energy inside the seeds themselves.”

”Because the seeds haven’t germinated yet, they have very little Starlight Energy inside themselves, just enough for them to stay alive. If you take that Starlight Energy from them, they won’t absorb any more Starlight Energy, dying straight away.”

”However...” Roan didn’t finish. ”This is quite a lengthy process.”

Roan went with everyone back to the Starlight Fruit they had been using before. Finally, he touched it and used the Starlight Energy itself to search for the seeds. It wasn’t hard to notice them, but it was a special case since this fruit was pretty much empty by now. The others would be harder.

Following that, Roan tried to absorb the Starlight Energy inside the seeds... and he could barely pull anything out at all.

Celis and the others were using the Starlight Energy in the fruit to see Roan’s process. Soon, they understood why it was a lengthy procedure. Even though the seeds had very little Starlight Energy, the seeds themselves were very resistant. Pulling out the Starlight Energy inside them was hard.

”Let me give it a try,” Celis immediately jumped in, selecting another seed inside that fruit. As one could expect, the god of energy had a huge advantage with his innate abilities and laws. He managed to pull the Starlight Energy inside the seeds four to five times faster than Roan.

It’s just that it didn’t change the fact he was also slow. ”Considering the number of seeds inside the fruit, it would take me at least two weeks to make them all die.”

Nonetheless, everyone there was excited. Celis would take two weeks to make the seeds die, maybe three to the fruits they haven’t touched yet. Nonetheless, that meant they could acquire a fruit every three weeks. Also...

”Rean, Roan, Kentucky, all three of you, go to other fruits. We will work together. You aren’t as fast as me, but you can do it as well. We could pluck hundreds of these fruits by the end of the eight years opening of the Golden Palace,” Celis said, feeling great.

”Well, I guess it is back to laws comprehension for me then,” Rifindio shrugged. He couldn’t absorb Starlight Energy, so he couldn’t help with that task.

”That’s an important task anyway,” Kentucky commented. ”Stay with me during this time. It will be boring to be alone with the fruits.”

With that resolved, Rean, Roan, Rifindio, and Kentucky left straight away. Due to how big the tree was, the fruits were quite far apart from each other, even though there were so many of them. Nonetheless, they soon found themselves by one of the fruits’ sides, starting the process.

It was exactly like Roan mentioned. Healthy fruits were even harder to get the Starlight Energy from the seeds. The main problem was actually the Starlight Energy inside the fruit itself. It made it harder to sense the seeds inside, which were already resistant in their own right.

In the end, for Celis, it took him around three weeks to kill all the seeds inside a healthy fruit. As for Rean, Roan, and Kentucky, it took them around four to five times that. So, it was from three months to three and a half months, more or less. It wasn’t really that slow. It’s just that other than Celis’s abilities, Celis himself was a Demon Plant, so it also made things even easier for him. Everything seemed to play in Celis’s favor in this situation.

Once again, this was a huge boost. Their group was expecting to be able to use a single fruit every three months. Now, Celis could pluck a fruit every three weeks, while the others could get one every three months. They wouldn’t be cultivating during the next years, but they absolutely would in the years following the closure of the Golden Palace.

Celis finished killing the seeds of a new fruit, and he didn’t even have to put in much effort. As soon as the last seed died inside the fruit, the stem holding it quickly dried out on its own. Even if Celis did nothing, the fruit would most likely fall from the tree in the next few days.

But then, Celis remembered something. ”By the way, this fruit is freaking brimming with Starlight Energy. What can we do to store it? There is so much energy that the Spatial Rings might even break.”

Rean and the others heard that and stopped for a moment. Indeed, that problem had to be solved.

”Kentucky,” Rean spoke to the Minokawa, ”you are the best with Spatial Powers here. Do you think a single Spatial Ring can hold a single fruit?”

Kentucky pondered a bit and flew back to where Celis was. ”Let me check.”