The Martial Unity

“You must be Mother Alicia,” he remarked with an intrigued expression. “I am Zogan Myrnwel. Pleasure to meet you.”

“Pleasure to meet another one of human civilization’s greatest defenders.” She smiled with a good-natured expression. “I see human civilization is well-defended with powerful warriors like yourself.”

“Hahaha, you flatter me.” The Tempestuous Fortress stepped aside as he gestured the Emperor of Harmony and the Mother of Nature to enter. “Please continue.”

Emperor Rael guided her through the facility as she studied with a curious expression. While it was different from the rest, it was also a lot smaller and not nearly as impressive as many of the other grand structures housed within the massive manifold. She didn’t quite understand what the Emperor of Harmony wanted to show her by bringing her here.

“What is this place?” she asked with an intrigued expression.

“You’ll see,” Emperor Rael replied as he took her inside the establishment, winding through several layers of security of various Martial Artists of different Realms before they finally made it to the very core of the establishment.

The core of the establishment was a gigantic spherical chamber with several circular rows of computer terminals, with a large team of scientists and researchers monitoring data coming from a large number of sensors placed at the center of the giant room, panned towards an even smaller spherical glass chamber, containing a strange, particular specimen.

The entire room, the entire facility, revolved around what was at the very epicenter of the room.

“Behold…” Emperor Rael’s tone was heavy. “Behold the source of the manifold.”

The moment Mother Alicia rested her eyes on it, she froze.

Her eyes widened with shock as her body shook where it stood.

She understood the significance of what she was looking at in the blink of an eye.

“This…” she whispered with a aghast tone. “This… is not of this world.”

Her remark was one of pure instinct.

In reality, she didn’t have a particularly strong basis to make the claim that she had made. It was entirely possible that the esoteric flora in the Panama Continent was so divergent that it produced flora unlike anywhere else in the entire world.

And this was actually the case.

Mother Alicia herself had beheld the exotic flora of the Panama Continent when she connected with the flora network of the continent, communicating even with sentient, intelligent trees that were so giant that they could be mistaken for smaller Mother of Natures.

But when she gazed at the strange, white, almost translucent body of the little plant that radiated an ephemeral hue, she couldn’t help but grow certain of her instinct.

“That… that is an alien specimen.” Her voice grew more certain.

The air grew heavy as her heart began racing.

Her sapphire eyes sparkled with shock, wonder, amazement, and curiosity all at once. She could feel that her relationship with the specimen was markedly different from that of any other flora lifeform that she had ever beheld in her entire life.

Even before she had achieved Singularity of Nature, she had been a gifted dark elf when it came to manipulating nature. She possessed a great affinity for all flora across the entire continent.

Even when she stepped out of West Genora and traveled the world in her youth, she had managed to form bonds with all the flora she had ever come across.

The same was true even for the exotic flora of the Panama Continent, even if their esoteric mechanics eluded her.

But the plant before her was different from every other plant she had ever run into.

Its physical form registered to her as a plant, but given that it was an alien, she had absolutely no idea what it was. On top of that, her deep senses told her that the plant was connected to the space-time manifold that they were in.

It was beyond her fathoming entirely.

“This is an alien specimen that we found on our continent a few decades ago,” Emperor Rael remarked. “We have been studying it scrupulously and carefully through the best biotechnologist of our civilization, who is regrettably not working here anymore, and we have also been making use of it to hide this training regime.”

He deliberately kept the time acceleration part to himself.

He didn’t want her to deduce anything about the differing flows of time inside and outside the manifold.

“…Please allow me to try and manipulate it.” Mother Alicia’s tone was almost one of pleading. “I wish to confirm to what extent my nature manipulation is effective against such a creature.”

“I’m afraid I cannot do that this time,” Emperor Rael remarked. “This alien specimen is of unimaginable value to us. I cannot jeopardize it by simply allowing you to play around with it with your nature manipulation without adequate preparation. Perhaps when Rui returns from his travels, I will feel secure enough to allow you to conduct your experimentations on it. Although Rui could probably handle it himself now that he has learned some nature manipulation.”

She heaved a deep breath, trying to compose her reaction.

Yet, she couldn’t hide her disappointment.

“Do not be like that,” the Emperor of Harmony chuckled. “I did not bring you here merely to stub you. While I cannot allow you to directly play around with the subject, I can sell you a lot of the data that we have collected on it. You will have much to learn from it.”

Her sapphire eyes lit up at those words with a hint of enthusiasm.

“Yes, we would love that,” she replied with an eager tone. “With the data, we will be able to understand much of its biology and functioning, allowing us to gain a good understanding of how much it differs from our flora. This will be invaluable to us!”

Emperor Rael’s golden eyes shifted towards her knowingly.

“It won’t be for free, of course. It goes back to the matter that we discussed regarding the flora network technology.”