Chapter 504 - Leon's Avarice
At first glance, the passageway appeared no different from other common passages found in the subterranean world.
However, the passageway before them was not naturally formed.
It was man-made, or at least made by some being. This can be observed by the chiseled walls and semi-flat ground like it had been carved and leveled out.
What surprised Leon was at the other end of the passageway, which was actually not that long and still within the range of his divine sense.
"Ruins of the Nova Civilization, huh?" Leon mumbled.
His eyes flickered with understanding.
"Eh? What did you say? Did you discover something?" Lumi suddenly asked while trying to peer into the gloomy crimson passageway, overflowing with Demonic Energy.
"Nothing. You'll see soon enough, Lumi." Leon responded with a shake of his head
"Fine…"
Shortly after, Leon pointed his index finger upwards before a bright flame came to life on the tip of his finger and brightened up the area.
Lumi distanced herself from Leon subconsciously.
Leon noticed her subtle movement and smiled wryly, thinking that she was still a spirit at the end of the day. She still cannot overcome her natural weakness and fear against extreme Yang elements.
The two followed to the end of the passageway before entering the remnant ruins of the Nova Civilization from ten thousand years ago while passing through the cluster of Demonic Energy in the area.
Leon had some apprehensions against absorbing too much Demonic Energy; thus, they were collected and dumped into the Universal Life Conversion Array.
"Leon, don't push things too far!" Maya's strong voice thundered throughout the Worldspace and quaked the ground. "Otherwise, don't blame if I make all your precious herbs wilt!"
"Haiz… this girl… don't know what's good for her." Leon shook his head with a wry sigh before he mumbled grudgingly, "Why do these women always have to threaten me with my herbs? What did it ever do to them? Some spirit herbs never hurt nobody."
After seeing the herbs growing nicely, Leon withdrew his consciousness from the Worldspace.
If he could keep supplying the herbs with stable Life Energy, it would only be a matter of days before the leading herbs advance to Tier 4 Spirit Herbs.
That is much quicker than the one-year timeframe he had initial predicted when the Sacred Garden was damaged and lacking in Life Energy.
With the right combination of Tier 4 Spirit Herbs, he could concoct batches of Heaven Ascension Pills and allow peak Core Revolving Realm Divine Cultivators to breakthrough to the Heaven Ascension Realm directly.
This was a realm equivalent to Seeking Insight Transcendent.
Alas, there are no Core Revolving Realm Divine Cultivators in the Crawford Kingdom. At most, there are Peak Body Tempering Realm Divine Cultivators amongst the citizens.
'It seems I need to raise the bar for cultivations amongst the people once I return to the empire.' Leon mused.
Each condition for the flourishing age of Divine Cultivation has been met one by one.
He has the World Tree for its endless supply of Spirit Energy, the Sacred Garden for producing high-quality spirit herbs, and himself with the knowledge of Divine Cultivation to achieve each realm.
If there was one thing these things all had in common, it was that they are all related to him in one way or another.
What does this imply?
It implies that not only will he be the leading figure pioneering the flourishing age of Divine Cultivation, he will also be making bucket loads of money, money, and money!
Important things had to be mentioned thrice!
Leon's eyes glowed avariciously.
"Hahaha!" Leon suddenly burst into maniacal deep laughter upon thinking about the endless wealth he could be making and caused Lumi to jump with fright.
"What the heck, Leon? Have you gone mad?" Lumi asked with shock before her eye's flickered with some sort of enlightenment. "Oh, no! It must be the Demonic Energy! Don't worry, I will pull you out right away!"
"Ahem, stop—stop it. I'm fine. I was just thinking about something." Leon coughed awkwardly and explained while Lumi was trying to drag him back to the Heart of Spring Chamber.
Lumi paused to gaze at him suspiciously before asking, "What were you thinking about?"
"…Money. A lot of money." Leon scratched his cheek ruefully.
Lumi was surprised by this answer before she said, "I would have never thought you were such an avaricious person."
"Haiz, me too." Leon sighed while shaking his head. He was not such a person in his past life. It was the mortal struggle of poverty that corrupted him.
The empire needed a staggering amount of wealth and resources for its development.
As long as he was the prince of the empire, he had a duty and responsibility to help his parents develop the country.
'Why does it feel like the wealthiest people were also seem to be the poorest?' Leon mulled over these thoughts.
If the truly poverty-stricken people knew he thought like this, they would have pointed fingers and cursed him to death, drowning him in their saliva.
Shortly after Leon and Lumi reached the end of the passageway, an intense crimson light welcomed them before their eyes laid upon a large open area, slanted on a downward slope.
Marbled limestones and refined alloy walls of old buildings stuck out from the ground, half-buried, while a tilted tower brimming with Demonic Energy could be seen at the bottom of the long slope.
Leon narrowed his eyes on the crimson tower with a studying gaze.
"What the heck is that thing?" Lumi exclaimed before pointing straight at the crimson tower he was observing, "That must be the source of all this Demonic Energy, right?"
"That's right."
Leon nodded.
"If I'm not wrong, that should be one of the old relics from the Nova Civilization, responsible for converting the Sun's Solar Energy into artificial Spirit Energy. However, something must have gone wrong and inverted the artificial Spirit Energy..."
"The Sun's Solar Energy? But this is the underground! There isn't any sunlight here!"
"And that is precisely what worries me... but to think there was an ancient ruin this close to the elven tribe in the underground..."
Leon did not expect to find the source so quickly.. However, that seems to have become the least of his worries.