The word explosion, when linked with a plant, brought up bad memories for Johan. It only felt like yesterday when the Night Bloom seed had exploded.

  And now, another plant that could explode sat a few feet away from him.

  When Renolds said, ‘Wait for it to explode, of course’, Johan expected him to follow up with a ‘Just kidding, this is how it actually works’ and explain the real process.

  It felt like those web serial bait-and-switch cliffhangers; he hated when authors did that, but for once, he hoped that was the case.

  Much to his horror, Renolds didn’t say anything more.

  “So, it really explodes?” Johan couldn’t help but ask, inching away from the counter.

  “Very passionately, yes.” Renolds chuckled. “The bright centre you see holds all the seeds. When it explodes, the seeds scatter and the flowers grow, then they explode over and over, unless you harvest them. They are very invasive, I tell you.”

  Johan was already scared, but this guy just kept adding more oil to the fire. Still, Sol flowers were too good for him to pass up.

  “How much time does it take for it to explode?” Johan gulped his worry down for the sake of mon—Hunters.

  “About a fortnight, this one’s about one week old.” Renolds trapped the flower in a wind sphere again.

  Actually, now that he looked closely, a layer of water lined the inside of the sphere. Counting the plant he had grown out of his palm, this guy could use three elements. Hunters could only use one.

  “You are with the Mage Tower?” Johan asked at last.

  “Was.” Renolds glanced at Yuna. “The little lady there invited me to join her guild; it seemed like a fun time, so I followed.”

  “I see. She can be a handful, but please take care of her.” Johan bowed sincerely.

  “Why are you acting like a mom at the parent-teacher meeting?” Yuna blinked. “If anything, you are the handful one.”

  “I will help her till my last breath.” Renolds placed a hand on his chest and bowed too.

  “Not you too.” Yuna gave a defeated sigh as Sasha was too busy scrolling on her phone in the corner.

  “Still, I didn’t expect this reaction.” Renolds turned to Johan, a faint smile on his lips.

  “What reaction?” Johan wasn’t sure if he was talking about Yuna’s minimal exasperation or the fact that Johan had forgotten about the exploding flower. Cause he hadn’t.

  But the reason seemed entirely different.

  “He doesn’t know?” Renolds turned to Yuna, who showed a difficult expression. “I thought he’d definitely know about the Mages since he knew Lady Merilyn.”

  “Johan awakened not too long ago,” Yuna added. “He hadn’t known Lady Merilyn for long either.”

  “Oh. And here I thought he was the trump card she had been cultivating to go against the Mage Tower.” He sighed like he had lost a million while betting.

  “What are you talking about?” Johan hadn’t felt this lost since he graduated high school.

  “My apologies, I often get too excited and forget to explain.” Renolds cleared his throat.

  “You know the rifts, right?”

  “I don’t think I’ll forget about them.”

  Everyone knew about the rifts. Johan even experienced a special type of them. They were incisions in space that connected Earth to other worlds. The Mages of the Mage Tower also came to Earth through them.

  “Yeah, they happened because of us, Mages, not because of the Tower.” Renolds turned serious for once.

  ***

  The clock struck 9 at night as Johan lay flat on his bed. It had been quite a few hours since the bomb was dropped on him.

  When Renolds said that the Mages caused the Rifts, Johan had looked at Yuna, hoping her to deny it, but she only gave a small nod.

  An integral part of history Johan had learned wasn’t true at all.

  The rifts appeared because the Master of Mage Tower used the Tower in their world to cross into a different world.

  How that happened and how it worked, Renolds didn’t explain. And Johan doubted he could understand even if the guy did explain.

  What he did understand was that the Tower had a clock at its base, a clock that counted to ten years. If the Hunters didn’t clear 10 floors within the ten-year time limit every time, Earth would face a calamity.

  The first calamity, a massive outbreak of rifts, appeared after Hunters failed to clear the tenth floor in time, at least that’s what he knew.

  Now, he had learned that the Mage Tower had caused it by accident.

  The dangers of the rifts had split the Hunter force, who couldn’t send all their forces into the Tower, affecting their floor-clearing speed.

  That resulted in the second calamity, as per the history he knew, the Cataclysm.

  This was a lot to take in. Like a lot. Even after hours, he couldn’t wrap his head around this information. It was like the world had suddenly changed.

  But there seemed to be a reason that they had tampered with the truth. The Mages hadn’t come alone; they had brought along 400,000 civilians from their world with them.

  Mages were the Hunters of their world, and they had to make a choice.

  When we failed to clear the Tower’s 70th floor, it started to eat our world. When Renolds said that, cold sweat trickled down his spine.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Goosebumps covered his hands even now.

  How the Tower went about doing that, he wasn’t sure. But to the Mage Tower, they could either die with their world or take the risk.

  They took the risk, and it paid off. Even if it did cause collateral damage, and he wasn’t sure how the Mages felt about that, he couldn’t actually blame them.

  What would he do in their shoes? That’s the question Johan mulled over for hours.

  And no matter how many times he thought over it, the answer remained the same.

  “Guess I am a terrible person deep down.” He muttered as midnight arrived.

  The knock on his window broke him out of the reverie. He jumped off the bed like a startled cat and peeked at the bedroom window, hiding behind a chair.

  When he saw two red orbs floating outside the creaking window, Johan nearly screeched.

  However, his danger sense didn’t react. Worst of all, the supposedly locked window opened inwards, revealing the creature that had arrived.

  It was a black drone, about as big as a football, with four wings. It held a package with two mechanical claws while the third arm, holding a Swiss army knife-like contraption, retreated into the chassis.

  The red glowing orbs? They were just cameras.

  “Why are you hiding behind the chair?” Sasha’s voice came from the drone.

  “I was looking for the pen I dropped.” Johan stood up, clearing his throat.

  “Sure. Anyway, here’s the S-Rank Hunter phone.” The drone placed the package wrapped in brown on the desk beside him.

  Johan ripped the packaging and looked at the black phone box. It felt like velvet to the touch and had the S.M. logo in pure gold.

  Inside was a phone made of carbon fibre and magik steel, 6.3 inches long with rounded edges, some manuals below, and a plain metal. It felt like a brick in his hand.

  “A phone that costs two million should at least come with a charging brick. There isn’t even a wire in this. No wireless charging either? Tsk Tsk.” Johan clicked his tongue, judging the phone company like a phone reviewer.

  “It charges with magik power and sunlight.” Sasha’s bored words cut through the room.

  “I know, I was just… nevermind.” Johan sighed and booted the phone.

  He planned to download the network carrier app and login into his account, at least that was the plan.

  “Why is my account already logged in?” All his messages were also read. Johan looked at the suddenly silent drone.

  “Delivery complete, bye!” The Drone turned to leave, at least it tried to.

  “Where do you think you are going?” Johan held onto the metal body, careful enough to avoid the fan blades. Even at full power, this drone couldn’t break free of his grip as he put all his strength into it.

  “Don’t be so rough or Tommy will break!” Sasha’s panic echoed in the room.

  After a short game of tug-of-war, it seemed like she finally gave up and turned the fan blades off.

  “I’ll come clean ok, just let Tommy go.” Even after listening to her resigned voice, he didn’t let go.

  “Answer first, or Tommy gets it.” He smirked into the camera.

  “Ugh… I just wanted to make sure no one suspicious was contacting you.” Sasha added. “It happened to Guild Leader, too, so I was worried.”

  “What happened to Yuna?” Johan almost released Tommy just then.

  “Senior didn’t tell you?” She sounded a bit shocked, but also smug?

  “Seems like you don’t care much about Tommy?” His smile deepened.

  “…Since she started looking for potion suppliers, the second son of the S.M. family had been constantly contacting her.” Sasha started with a reluctant tone. “Even after she declined their support, he keeps messaging her now, and then, I saw him in your messages and just looked out of worry.”

  S.M conglomerate’s second son wasn’t very well known, aside from his involvement in the S.M. Alchemy Line. He also supplied a few guilds with potions and was mentioned in the news a few times. But unlike S.M’s main industries, like health foods, electronics, and magik machinery, the potions only made about 1% of their profits.

  Johan didn’t really care much for him before. But now he couldn’t see him as anything more than a spoiled rich brat.

  “Can you let Tommy go now?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Johan placed the drone on his table, and as the fan blades started to spin, it took flight just as easily. It was a good thing he hadn’t caused any damage to it. “This drone means a lot to you, huh?”

  “It was the first drone Senior Yuna bought for me, of course, it is important.”

  Johan was truly glad no damage was done. He turned back to his phone, planning to restore his files from the cloud, but he found them all on the phone.

  “Son of a…” By the time he looked up, Tommy had already made his escape.

  Johan could only sigh. Well, companies already sold their users’ data anyway. At least Sasha wasn’t planning to sell it; he hoped so.

  What could she even get from selling the data?

  Everyone and their aunt seemed to know his contact details now. As he thought about this, he had gotten at least 100 notifications and constant calls. The good thing was that his phone didn’t lag, nor did it stutter.

  He very quickly went into the settings and blocked calls and messages from unsaved contacts.

  The biggest benefit? He could now use a phone in the Tower and document the growing process to make himself visual guides!

  Still, Johan was against using this phone for it. If Sasha had accessed his data once, no one could stop her from getting it again. The only solution was to buy a separate phone to keep in the Tower and record data on that one.

  “I feel like I am forgetting something very important right now.” He muttered, picking up the Sol Flower.

  Even when he entered the potion workshop, placed his phone face down, and used Translocation, he couldn’t put a finger on this uneasy feeling.

  “Well, if it’s important, I’ll remember.”

  With a jolly mood, he said hello to Eunally and Nunally, both working in the carrot farm, walking past the sleeping guardian beast, Johan reached the tent where he grew Night bloom flowers.

  He already had like 15 Detoxifying potions in the storage tent, but a few more won’t hurt. But before that, he had to plant the Sol Flower.

  A little distance away from the tent, since the scattered seeds would fall within a 3-meter distance from the flower according to Renolds, he dug a small hole with a trowel. Removing the flower from the pot, he gently placed it in the hole and poured fresh soil around the stalk.

  According to Renolds’ advice, he poured in some magik water and stepped back. As the water seeped into the soil, the fire surrounding the Sol flower’s bud grew longer and straighter. It was like one of those fancy cigar lighters.

  About six days remained till this flower exploded. He’d start harvesting it after that and prevent the spread. Plus, he expected the potion, the one he would make from this flower’s petals, would have high demand.

  Only a fool wouldn’t buy a potion that could increase their power.

  Pleased with his forward thinking, Johan worked on growing the Night Bloom flower 10 times and turned them into potions. After that, he sat in his storage tent and cycled the newly grown vegetables through his storage.

  The Seed sense skill had a similar mechanic for levelling up, so he planned to use Sherry leaf seeds to level that up since he could get 100 of them in a single pouch. The carrot plants, the ones grown from carrot tops, gave him 500 seeds per plant.

  The bigger issue was to use Seed Sense on each and every seed.

  But what else could he do?

  To prevent the Tower from eating Earth, he had to work hard.

  To survive the new world, he needed this new perspective.

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