Rialyne remained silent. Kyferne started fidgeting as the flowers were dumped in front of him. They soon formed a pile taller than himself. Taking a flower, Rialyne inspected it.
[ Herzoldinne Flower ]
Type: Consumable
Rank: Legendary
Description: This godflower is extremely nutritious. The petals, leaves, and nectar can be eaten or drunk in various ways. Parts can also be made into power, oil, or juice and stored or cooked with other foods. If seeds are directly ingested by a living thing, it will die and become as nourishing as the flower itself. The energy acquired will last for different amount of days depending on the rank and level of the consumer.
'Godflower? What's that? Is this some food of the gods or something? Or it just means it's that rare and strong above other flowers?' Rialyne pondered the description of the herzoldinne flower. She wondered if this information was visible to the monsters of the valley, or if it was only accessible to her.
When she asked Kyferne, he looked at her strangely. Or rather, she read the look on his face as strange since neither could literally see one another.
"Everyone sees item descriptions," he said a matter of factly, making her realize that her system wasn't special in the way that everything was game-ified. In other words, this was natural in this world.
"Are you going to eat it?" asked Kyferne after he finished read the flower's information for himself. "Or..?" He glanced over at the fallen basilisk that everyone had left behind. Since they had won, they could dispose or utilize it as they saw fit.
"Well, we can't make anything eat the seeds. But I might as well Sap this monster." Rialyne extended her skill toward the fallen basilisk. Upon completion, she gained 161070 HP, 10920 MP, 3438 PATK, 1044 MATK, 1719 PDEF, 822 MDEF, 2840 SPD, and 2412 FLX. It wasn't as big of a gain as the wyrm, but it was still far more than anything else she had sapped.
Afterwards, she sent her energy to 'consume' the flower. Rialyne didn't know whether it would work since she was a tree outside of her domain, but certainly if Kyferne ate it, he would benefit instead of her. So that left only the energy twines she used to Sap or attack plants for experimentation.
As she held her imagined breath—Kyferne would throw a fit if she literally did that to his body—Rialyne observed her energy dissolving the flower. She made sure to spit out any seeds and have Kyferne save them in his pockets.
Right after the flower vanished into her energy flow, Rialyne felt a surge of power boiling through her being. 'It worked..?' Her anticipation rose as a system notification rung out.
「 Unknown energy source detected. Analyzing. Please wait. 」
「 Analysis Complete. Fragmented God's Energy confirmed. 」
「 Total amount of units acquired: 84. One unit is equivalent to ten energy stacks of the Host. 」
"....."
"….Rialyne?" Kyferne probed in concern as the girl didn't speak for a while since the flower dissolved.
"Ky…." Rialyne began in a low voice that slowly rose in pitch and volume as she continued, "I think we hit the JACKPOT~!!!"
Rialyne figuratively threw fist bumps into the air and pranced around madly. Kyferne could feel her crazed elation.
"Why? What happened? Is the flower that good?"
"It's amazing! I can only generate three energy stacks a day, but this flower is equivalent to 840 stacks!! You know what this means? I'm basically invincible, muahaha!"
"Err, tone down the corny fake villainous laughing. Are you serious though? So you mean you could essentially heal yourself continuously with these flowers?"
"Yes!!! This is single flower is almost a year's worth of energy I can synthesize! With this whole pile, we're set for decades, no, centuries maybe! And then there're the seeds still left to factor in!"
A giddiness that would almost appear as an overjoyed villain should Rialyne have a face permeated her being. Like a euphoric plotter, all sorts of schemes flooded her mind.
'Yes, with this, I could challenge stronger monsters and accumulate larger bulks of stats! Wait.' A devious plan surfaced to the forefront. 'Doesn't this mean I should battle as many monsters as I can in this valley? I likely won't be able to encounter these many strong opponents back in the forest.'
Although Lenodryv had cautioned them to leave before they encountered any trouble or stirred up anymore bad blood, the idea was too tempting. 'Why should I give up this opportunity just because of that? If I start now, I'll become too strong for any of them to even stop me!'
Rialyne knew deep down that massacring the peaceful valley monsters was wrong. Although Rialyne was a tree, and monsters didn't purposefully attack her like they did a mobile living creature, at least the forest monsters would attack first unlike the valley ones.
In the few battles before the competition, she noticed that they wouldn't fight back unless attacked first. Rialyne didn't think much of this until she found out the reason for their peacefulness.
'But just because some of them can converse with me, and they have a peace accord, does that mean I have to follow their rules as an outsider? It's not like they're all that friendly either.'
Rialyne struggled between her two selves. On one hand, she felt like she betrayed the goodwill of Lenodryv, but on the other, she didn't want to waste the golden opportunity. 'What good did helping others get me in my last life anyway?'
Thinking back to how others took advantage of her kindness whether in academics or social settings, Rialyne felt disgust. Yes, she wouldn't limit herself any longer. She had no connections to anyone and owed none of these valley monsters anything.
As she went through these tug of way stages of emotions and thoughts, Kyferne felt unsettled by the prickles in his mind due to Rialyne. He could tell she was storming again. An idea was brewing, but there must be some conflict too.
He gulped nervously. "Rialyne? What are you thinking of?"
"....power. The power to finally change myself and achieve my ambitions."
Somehow, her steady answer made Kyferne more anxious. 'This girl isn't thinking about in this valley...?' He hoped that they could leave peacefully with the herzoldinne. But like he had suspected, Rialyne had different plans.
"I'm going to fight the valley monsters. There's no need to abide by their rules as outsiders. They can't follow us anyway since they're stuck here."
"I knew it. Of course, you'd think like this..." said Kyferne half-heartedly.
"What?" Rialyne's voice was a little defensive. "They're all just monsters anyway, aren't they? Aren't we supposed to fight them in this world?"
Kyferne sighed reluctantly. "Yes, I just felt bad since they're peaceful here, and we made a friend..."
Rialyne huffed in response. "It's not like we promised that dragon anything. Besides, he said the peace was fake. It doesn't matter to me what happens to them. I need a way to get stronger—it's the survival of the fittest, just like their competition. They're no angels either."
Satisfied with her answer, Rialyne was fully resolved on her decision. Kyferne had no means to argue or restrain her actions, so he could only hope it went smoothly, and his body exited the valley whole and healthy.
But before she could carry out her plan, she had one crucial little problem: how to store the flowers.
Even if she could convert the herzoldinne energy units to her own Host tree's energy stacks, she could only store a hundred of those. Thus, she called Cardisys for a possible solution.
"You obtained fragmented god energy in the valley?!?!" shrieked the shocked shiny cell.
"Yes, now tell me how to store these units. Kyferne can't carry back all these flowers manually. Even if he could we might get robbed on the way back."
Cardisys paused in deep deliberation. This was a major problem for sure. They struck such a goldmine, but they had no apparent means to ferry their rewards back to the safety of the tree.
"Wait... since you're a tree, you can probably store this stuff in your vacuoles, right?"
Rialyne was stony-faced at his answer. "You're getting all biological technical on me? And why did this idea not come naturally when you clearly know I'm a tree for much longer than even I knew?"
Cardisys blinked. She hit the nail on the head. 'Why didn't I think of that right away? A tree is able to do what a human can't. Wait, how come I'm so sure of all this? I don't know what being a human is like...' Cardisys felt a pinching, itching, wringing sensation in his soul, like he forgot something very important about himself. But unable to retrieve the missing memories, he shook the uncomfortable feeling away.