Gathering Wives with a System

Chapter 658: Appearance Of Crop Spirits, Strange Disappearance

He and Celia had spent the entire night inside the Mirror Dimension. Emily shouldn’t have been able to enter it so casually unless something about her abilities had changed.

Isaac thought about it for several seconds before reaching the most likely conclusion. ’So she’s learned to phase through sub-dimensions.’

It probably wasn’t true dimensional travel. The Mirror Dimension was still connected to reality rather than existing as a completely separate world. Even so, slipping through that boundary without relying on a skill was an incredible achievement.

’The Netherworld’s heir really is frightening,’ Isaac thought with a smile. Pride naturally welled up inside him as he looked at the sleeping Emily.

Unable to resist, he buried his face against her neck again and planted another kiss on her nape. Emily complained in her sleep before weakly trying to escape, her body squirming without even opening her eyes. Isaac teased her for another few moments before finally standing up.

Using the control over the Mirror Dimension, he gently transferred both Emily and Celia back onto the bedroom’s real bed without waking either of them. After making sure they were comfortable, he quietly left the room.

His next stop was Alice’s bedroom. As expected, Selene was sleeping beside Alice.

Isaac smiled knowingly as soon as he saw the scene. He could already guess what had happened during the night. Selene had probably sensed the enormous fluctuations caused by Alice and Celia’s breakthroughs and couldn’t sleep, then decided to check on them herself later.

After hearing the situation from Emily, she had simply stayed beside Alice until morning. Meanwhile, Emily had likely woken up before dawn while still half asleep. Acting on instinct, she had unconsciously phased into the Mirror Dimension to find Isaac before falling asleep again.

The image made Isaac shake his head with a quiet laugh. Did they forget what sleeping was for? Why were half of his wives moving around so much at night? After confirming that Alice was still resting peacefully, he left the house to begin the day’s farming.

The moment he stepped outside, however, his footsteps came to an abrupt halt. His eyebrows rose slightly as he looked across the farmland.

Countless tiny motes of light floated gently through the air. Some drifted around the farmhouse, while others hovered peacefully above the fields. The entire farm seemed to glow with countless tiny stars.

There were hundreds of lights scattered throughout the estate. Yet despite their numbers, Isaac instinctively felt that they weren’t all separate individuals. Instead, it seemed as though several beings had divided themselves into countless smaller bodies.

”Surprised?”

Isaac turned toward the familiar voice. Water quietly rose from the ground before gathering into a graceful figure. A moment later, Avery stood beside him with her usual calm smile.

”I am. Are those crop spirits?” Isaac asked.

”They are. To be honest, I’m surprised as well. It’s been an incredibly long time since I’ve seen even one of them, let alone so many gathered in one place,” Avery replied.

”They’re really that rare?” Isaac asked, looking back toward the floating lights.

Avery folded her arms as her expression became thoughtful. ”They are somewhat rare. After the Red Rain devastated the world, crop spirits disappeared almost completely. Most people assumed they had gone into hiding, and that explanation made sense for a while. But since a thousand years ago, I never encountered even a single one. That was always strange to me. Even if they were hiding from the Red Rain. There should have been at least a few sightings somewhere over the course of an entire millennium. Instead, it was almost as though they had vanished from existence.”

Isaac frowned slightly as he listened to her explanation. It sounded like there was a deeper mystery behind the disappearance of the crop spirits. Still, it wasn’t something he needed to investigate right now, so he pushed the matter to the back of his mind.

His gaze shifted toward the tiny lights drifting lazily above the fields before returning to Avery.

”Are these spirits similar to you?” he asked, curious.

”Not exactly. I am an elemental spirit, while these are crop spirits. We are both spirits, but that’s where the similarities mostly end. They don’t possess true intelligence like I do. It’s more accurate to say they have a nascent intelligence. Think of it like humans and other carbon-based lifeforms. They’re related in a broad sense, but they’re still fundamentally different,” Avery answered.

Isaac nodded in understanding. The explanation was simple enough to grasp, so he didn’t ask any more questions. Instead, he walked toward his fields and began the morning’s farming routine.

At first, the crop spirits ignored him completely. They floated aimlessly above the crops, occasionally circling around a plant before drifting away again. None of them paid him any particular attention.

That changed the moment Isaac activated his farming skills. The floating lights suddenly froze in midair as if something had startled them. A heartbeat later, dozens of them rushed toward Isaac all at once.

They circled him excitedly, forming rings of glowing light around his body. Some gently bumped against his shoulders, while others rubbed against his cheeks or landed briefly on his hands before floating away again. Isaac let out a quiet chuckle.

”So you like my skills that much?” he said with a smile. The tiny spirits didn’t answer, of course. They simply continued flying around him happily as he finished tending the fields, making the entire process strangely peaceful.

Once the farming was complete, Isaac walked toward the lone Vitality Grain Seed Tree growing near the edge of the farmland. Unlike ordinary crops, this tree could only be cultivated from a single seed. The seeds it produced couldn’t become more trees and could only be planted as normal Vitality Grain crops.

Isaac knew the species had originally been created through genetic engineering by the Florathi. They had gifted him this tree after finding about his Talent, although it was only a Tier 0 specimen. He had no complaints since receiving something like this for free was already generous enough.

Standing before the tree, Isaac raised a hand, and used the Evolution Bloom ability of the Seed of Providence skill.

Mana immediately poured out of his body and flowed into the tree. The trunk trembled violently as the enormous amount of mana seeped into every part of it. Isaac could tell the consumption was far greater than usual because the ability was altering something that had already fully matured instead of simply nurturing a growing crop.

Even so, the amount of mana required barely registered for him. The transformation continued for several long moments before finally coming to an end.

When it was over, the tree looked completely different. It had grown nearly twice as tall as before, while its trunk had become much thicker and richer in color. Its leaves had changed into a deep shade of blue, and clusters of Vitality Grain seeds hung from its branches like ripe fruit.

More importantly, the mana radiating from the tree had increased dramatically. Isaac immediately harvested every seed using his farming skill. A notification appeared before him, and the moment he read it, a small grin spread across his face.