Gardener of Eden

Chapter 28: Chapter 28: Bountiful Day

Rowan returned to his residential building, walked down the quiet hallway, and unlocked the door to his room. Closing it firmly behind him, he turned the deadbolt and pulled the blinds over the window. He set his coat on the back of his desk chair, ensuring everything was quiet in the dorm corridor before stepping into the clear space between his bed and desk.

Closing his eyes, Rowan focused on his inner core. The faint pulse of spatial resonance flared, and the dorm room vanished around him.

The heavy, pristine air of his personal domain rushed into his lungs. The sky above was illuminated by a soft, perpetual twilight, and beneath his feet, the soil hummed with dense, untamed vitality. A short distance away, the sprouts of his recently planted Ignis-Sweet Corn and Azure Recovery Poppy were already thriving under the 10:1 time dilation, their vivid emerald and pale blue stems drinking in the ambient mana.

Rowan walked toward the central plot beneath the sweeping boughs of the primordial tree. He reached into his belt pouch and pulled out the remaining experimental seeds he had harvested and sorted during his previous session: a handful of high-density soybean seeds and a small cluster of Highland Coffee beans.

”Let’s see how much we can push the nutrient capacity this time,” Rowan murmured.

Kneeling in the rich, dark soil, he prepared two separate seed beds. In the first furrow, he planted the high-density soybeans, intending to use them as an enrichment crop to naturally elevate the Nitrogen and Mana density of the domain’s soil. In the second furrow, he placed the Highland Coffee beans, spacing them carefully to allow room for deep root systems.

Once the seeds were nestled into the earth, Rowan extended his hands flat over both plots. He closed his eyes, tapping directly into Breath of Eden (Lv. 2).

A vibrant, golden-green light surged from his palms and sank deep into the soil. The ambient mana within the domain swirled violently, rushing toward the seed beds like a funnel. The ground trembled slightly as the seeds drank in the raw life energy, their cell walls flexing and adapting under the forced evolutionary pressure.

Within seconds, the soil cracked open.

Green shoots broke through the surface, rising at a visible pace. The soybeans spread rapidly into lush, broad-leaved bushes, their roots forming glowing, mana-infused nodules beneath the surface that visibly brightened the surrounding dirt. Next to them, the coffee plants shot upward, expanding into dark-green wooden shrubs that almost immediately began producing tight clusters of deep ruby-red coffee cherries.

Rowan inspected the leaves of the new coffee shrubs, feeling the faint, hum of active mana contained within the cherries. A single brew from these beans would far surpass standard stamina potions sold in the district markets.

Dusting his hands off, Rowan stood up and admired the thriving, multi-colored rows stretching across his domain. With two active crop cycles progressing simultaneously, his domain’s agricultural output—and his progression—was accelerating faster than ever.

Satisfied with the night’s work, Rowan took a deep breath, centered his focus, and stepped back through the spatial rift into the quiet comfort of his dorm room, ready for a full night’s sleep.

The system interface flared before Rowan’s eyes as the second experimental cycle settled into the domain’s matrix, calculating the forced evolution and germination gains:

[ EXPERIMENT CYCLE 2 COMPLETE ]

CROP YIELD BREAKDOWN:

* 10x Luminous Mana-Soybeans (Grade-D Soil Enricher): 200 EXP (20 EXP per plant)

* 8x High-Grade Stimulant Coffee Shrubs (Grade-D Stamina Reagent): 200 EXP (25 EXP per shrub)

* Forced Evolutionary Mutation Bonus: +80 EXP (Breath of Eden forced divergence success)

TOTAL EXP GAINED: +480 EXP

CURRENT PROGRESS: Level 4 (560 / 1000 EXP)

Rowan closed the floating notification with a thought. With 560 EXP already secured toward Level 5, his domain was rapidly building momentum toward its next tier expansion.

Rowan walked over to the newly sprouted rows, plucking the dense clusters of Stimulant Coffee Cherries from the shrubs and gathering the fully formed pod bundles of Luminous Mana-Soybeans.

Carrying the fresh harvest across the soft, glowing grass, he approached the base of the massive primordial tree towering over the domain center. Beneath the winding roots, a narrow carved passageway led inward to a hollow trunk chamber—a naturally climate-controlled room infused with gentle, ambient mana where time stood completely still for stored organic items.

He neatly arranged the soybeans and coffee cherries onto the wooden shelving built directly into the inner bark of the tree. The faint blue glow of the chamber wrapped over the crops, sealing their freshness and vitality indefinitely until he needed them for alchemy, brewing, or market sales. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Satisfied that his harvest was safely secured, Rowan stepped back out of the tree hollow, took a deep breath of the domain’s crisp air, and focused his mind to exit.

With a soft shift of light, he stood back in his quiet dorm room. Unlocking his door to set it on a standard latch, Rowan climbed into bed, pulled up the covers, and drifted off into a deep, restful sleep.

The crisp, pre-dawn chill still hung over the academy grounds as Rowan made his way toward the research quad. Overhead, the sky was a deep shade of indigo, fading into soft amber at the eastern horizon. Softly lit pathways wove through the silent gardens, leading straight toward the glowing glass domes of the agricultural sector.

Rowan pushed open the heavy brass doors of Dome Gamma, greeted instantly by the warm, humid sweep of rich earth and fresh foliage. Automated misting systems hummed overhead, casting a translucent veil of moisture over the terraced plots.

To his surprise, the dome wasn’t empty.

Several of his classmates were already scattered along the central walkway, bent over their assigned plots with notebooks, lanterns, and portable mana meters in hand.

Near Plot 12, Eliana was kneeling in the dirt, carefully wiping dew from the leaves of her Frost-Lily sprouts while recording growth parameters on her tablet. A few aisles over, Kaelen was frowning as he adjusted the localized heating conduit on his plot, muttering under his breath about fluctuating soil temperatures.

”Morning, Rowan,” Eliana called out softly as he passed, giving him a weary but pleasant smile. ”You’re up early too. Professor Vane wasn’t kidding about the baseline growth speed requirements for this term.”

”Morning,” Rowan replied with an easy nod. ”Better to get the measurements in before morning lectures start.”

He walked down the cobblestone aisle until he reached Plot 36.

Unlatching the protective glass casing, Rowan leaned down to inspect the sprouts. Under the influence of his subtle Breath of Eden infusion from the previous night, the seeds had broken through the topsoil with exceptional vigor. Thick, vibrant green shoots stood roughly eight centimeters tall, their leaves firm and radiant with a faint, healthy sheen.

Rowan brought up his student interface and scanned the plot’s telemetry node, logging the growth metrics to his official academy ledger:

Plot Number: 36 (Assigned: Rowan Vance)

Soil Matrix: C-Grade Nutrient Base

Germination Rate: 98.4%

Current Status: Optimal (Stage 1 Vegetative Growth)

”Wait... is that Plot 36?” Kaelen’s voice came from two rows over as he walked by, holding a soil moisture probe. He stopped dead in his tracks, staring at Rowan’s lush green shoots before looking down at his own barely visible sprouts. ”How are your stems already that thick? Did you overload your plot with mana fertilizer last night?”

”Just careful seed prep and consistent moisture control,” Rowan said smoothly, tapping the glass shield closed and locking it back in place. ”The C-Grade soil does most of the work if you don’t over-saturate it.”

Kaelen grumbled something about lucky seed batches, though there was a look of genuine respect in his eyes as he went back to adjusting his heating coils.

Rowan wiped his hands on a cloth, checking the clock on his wrist tag. The morning sun was just beginning to crest the trees, illuminating the high glass panels of the dome in golden light.

With his daily plot telemetry successfully logged, Rowan exited Dome Gamma and set off across the main plaza toward the Ironforge District to meet Barney at his workshop.