Chapter 277: Cultivation Cave (1/2)

Kenzie noticed Zac’s preoccupation and walked over next to him in front of the Cosmic Water pond.

“What is that flower?” Kenzie said with interest after seeing Zac's stare.

“A present from Abbot Everlasting Peace,” Zac explained. “He gave me a seed from a D-Grade Lotus, I wasn’t sure it would germinate. But the effect here is even better than I anticipated. I thought it would take much longer for it to start growing.”

“What does it do?” Kenzie said.

Zac hesitated a bit, but in the end he decided to not tell Kenzie about the horrible state that the Abbot was in. He trusted his sister to not tell anyone else about it, but he felt he shouldn’t betray the old man’s confidence.

“It produces massive amounts of Life-attuned energy. So it can both heal people and prolong life. It’s small now, but it will grow a lot bigger later. Sitting on it will probably speed up your cultivation by a large degree when you cultivate later,” Zac explained instead.

It was true. The old Abbot had lost a few placements on the ladder the last month, but in the end he had pretty much kept pace with the people on the ladder even though he didn’t go to the hunt. The massive number of beasts had boosted the average levels on the ladder by a huge degree, far quicker than the average speed was on earth, yet he held on.

“Jeeves says it contains intricate signs of life,” Kenzie said as she looked down on the lotus. “But he needs to upgrade to understand it properly.”

“Upgrade?” Zac asked with confusion, finally tearing his eyes away from the small flower.

“Yeah. Jeeves is like a Spirit Tool. He needs to upgrade to keep helping me after I reach E-Grade,” Kenzie said, a small frown forming on her face. “But he doesn’t know what he needs.”

“You didn’t find anything from my treasure pile that could help?” Zac asked.

“No, nothing…” Kenzie said with a sigh before looking up at him with steady eyes. “Zac, I still think we should find mom. Especially now with the Great Redeemer.”

Zac was about to immediately reject the proposition, but his sister sped up when she saw the frown forming on his face.

“Wait, just listen. If she’s really a Technocrat she can help, right? Aren’t they some of the most powerful people around?” Kenzie hurriedly explained. “Besides, don’t you want to meet her again?”

Zac froze, not really knowing what to think about what Kenzie said. Leandra was no longer a part of his life, so he hadn’t even considered her as a solution since he learned about The Great Redeemer. But honestly, what Kenzie said made some sense.

The Technocrats were at least a B-grade force, though Zac guessed that it consisted of lower-grade families and groups as well. But taking care of someone like The Great Redeemer shouldn’t be too large a problem. If their mother had the ability to create something as miraculous as Jeeves, she should possess a lot of other terrifying means as well.

He suddenly remembered the story about the Technocrat who visited the Creators. That man had weapons that could blow up whole planets without breaking a sweat, so creating tools that could kill off a rogue D-grade cultivator shouldn’t be a problem.

However, bringing the attention of the Technocrats might bring more trouble than good. Jeeves was too big a cheat. It didn’t only fuse technology and cultivation, it even seemed to upgrade every single part about her, from her basic constitution to Class choices.

Such a thing would cause a storm the moment it became known in the multiverse. Everyone would want it for themselves, and not just the technocrats. No one would say no to having a tool that worked like a continuous source of free improvements that made them stand out from the rest cultivators.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, there are too many risks involved,” Zac eventually said.

Kenzie seemed to gear up for an argument, so Zac quickly started to explain his thoughts.

“Wait, you should have asked around about the technocrats by now so you know what kind of a force mom might belong to. Almost all forces in the multiverse are their enemies. If we start sending out probes through Calrin we have no idea what kind of problems we would attract. I don’t even think we have the qualifications to start looking for her or the technocrats at the moment,” Zac said with a shake of his head.

“We can’t even buy low-tiered goods. Finding someone from a B-grade force? There’s no chance we can even afford a scrap of information,” Zac continued. “Besides, there are too many things we don’t know about mom.”

“But that’s why we need to start looking,” Kenzie retorted. “Don’t you want to find some answers?”

“I do, but I don’t have anywhere to start. I looked through our house, there was nothing,” Zac said. “Besides, we don’t know what she was even doing on Earth before the integration. Was she in hiding? From who? Perhaps she fled the technocrats and is no longer part of them. If we start asking around for her we might inadvertently cause her trouble.”

The two kept going back and forth for a while, not getting anywhere. Zac could only sigh and somewhat relent in the end.

“I’ll try to figure something out, I promise. But we have to be careful. I don’t want to have some angry Technocrat flashing over here and blow up Earth just to spite mom or something, alright?” Zac sighed.

“Alright, fine,” Kenzie said and sat down to cultivate some distance away.

But Zac saw that she didn’t agree, and he could only shake his head as he sat down himself a few meters away from her. He trusted his sister, but the lives of billions of people were at stake. He didn’t want to muddy the waters any further by dragging a bunch of Technocrats into the mix, so he made a mental reminder to himself to make sure Calrin didn’t do any probes for their mother.

Zac couldn’t cultivate, but just sitting in this extremely nourishing environment felt quite nice as well, and Zac was content to just relax for a bit. He hadn’t realized it until now, but he had been awake almost non-stop for three days.