Chapter 148: Perilous Journey (final)

"You are not supposed..."

She was interrupted by another louder crunch as he threw the silver and black vials into his mouth one after the another while seeming to take his time and sample the taste.

"Hmm... It has a fruity taste, almost like candy. Do you have any more of those?" Rowan smacked his lips and looked up at the distressed face of Circe.

"Are you alright? Those are not supposed to be consumed with those methods, their energies may be overwhelming ... But, I can see you don't have any issue with that. Great."

Rowan had not carelessly chewed through the Battle Stimulant on a whim. He had detected a massive amount of energy inside of them that he could not properly identify, but for him, those details were unnecessary.

Anything with a sufficient amount of energy could be consumed, and the pills were not disappointing. The bronze level pill gave him 100 points of energy, the silver was 1,000, and the black gave him a whopping 10,000 points of energy.

He had felt the first Ouroboros Serpent quiver in satisfaction, as he directed all the energies from the pills towards it. He had some idea about the application of this Legendary Skill, and he could not wait to put his thoughts into action.

"How Is it possible to extract all these energies from the Blue Iron flower?" Rowan inquired and brought the flower closer to his face as he checked through it with his Energy Vision, he could barely see a fraction of the energy from the pills inside this flower.

If he were to extrapolate using the energy he was glimpsing inside this flower, then to make the least bronze level Battle Stimulant, it would require more than a million of such flowers, not an equal trade in any sense, and there would be no profit in harvesting these flowers.

Circe paused for a while, and after shaking her head and muttering a little curse, she began to speak, "That is where the mystery of the Great Storm originates from. The flowers do not contain the energies for the Battle Stimulants, it only serves as a catalyst. I can only further explain when the Great Storm Begins."

"Speaking of Great Storms, you were talking about this convoy before we got side tracked." Rowan asked.

"Yeah, well, it all ties back to the Legend of Erohim, but that is a story for later. You see, every ten years there will be a planet wide snowstorm that occurs for three years without ceasing. To preserve life on the planet, there are a series of enormous caverns inside the earth where the people and animals of the planet would have to reside for the duration of the snow storm."

"This planet was occupied 15,000 years ago by my family, it was first deemed worthless by most, but a clever alchemist from our Trading houses came across a unique combination of the Blue Iron flower and the Great Storm that rages every ten years."

"So, to maximize the productivity of the people living on the planet, we had to spread them all over its surface to harvest as much Blue Iron flower as possible. But that brings about a dilemma."

"The Great Storm!"

"Precisely, the storm does not only create unfavorable weather that scours all life from the surface of the planet, it also brings with it vast celestial energies that would ravage everything it touches. Since we have spread our workers all over the planet, it would be a shame to lose them all every ten years."

"So, we used the old ways that the indigenous people had been using to exist on this planet for the last 200,000 years. The Underground Caverns!"

"They have been extensively excavated and repurposed, and we have managed to link most of them into three singular bodies. Three gigantic cities below the ground, where the people and animals would live for the next three years."

"This convoy is the facilitator to convey all these people to the cities beneath the ground, the closest one to us 12,500 miles (20,116.8 kilometers) from us which is Trinad. The other two cities are called Mrinah and Krakow."

They were now flying above the convoy, and Rowan judged the movement speed of the convoy, "with this speed of movement, it should take at least a month to reach Trinad. It is too slow. The greater part of the horde would reach us within two to three weeks."

"Yeah, it will." Circe said softly, she had a faint haunted look in her eyes, "You know, I have been with these people for fifty years and I have seen their older generation pass away, and the youths of before who used to bravely flirt with me are becoming old men, and women. Yet, it doesn't get any easier watching them fade away before my eyes with each passing year."

They both were silent, each of them having individual memories that triggered a melancholic mood over them. Circe was the first to recover, and she pointed down below to one of the rumbling vehicles.

"Let's go below, the seventh Trailer-Motor from the last is your personal camper. You have a cook, maid, and a driver, the largest trailer in the center is mine, there would be a meeting in seven hours. I hope you will be there. Let me drop you off."

As they both landed on the top of the vehicle that had been allocated to him, she turned and was about to fly off when Rowan stopped her, "Hey, about those vials containing the Battle Stimulants, how many of those can you safely give away that would not affect the upcoming defense of the convoy."

"Why do you ask, do you want any?"

"Yeah...I do, as much as you can spare, it would be important to me."

"Do I even want to ask why? I will see what I can do." saying that, she vanished into the sky, and Rowan spent some time with his head bowed in thought.

He was interrupted in his musing by the sound of the hatch opening on top of the vehicle.

Of course, at the moment he stood on top of the vehicle, his senses had already penetrated all of it, and he understood all its components and the three people inside.

His first point of interest was the vehicle itself, the technology it uses was pretty advanced and if he was not wrong, it operated by burning a weird green wood as fuel. A chunk of the wood the size of a fist could power the vehicle for a week.

This vehicle reminded him of the sheer scope of the Empire. Not only that it covered multiple planets, but also within Trion, there were massive differences in living conditions across various nations, not to talk about between Continents.

He knew Trion was an impossibly large world that could never exist in his previous universe, and he truly saw the scale of the planet when he possessed the body of that demon.

Rowan knew it was common to see vast technological differences between nations on a planet. On Trion this trait was further magnified. Which should not really be a surprise, for some small nations on Trion could be the size of his previous planet.

The amount of diversity inside the Empire was stunning, and seeing such an advanced method of transportation on this world was not very shocking to him, he was sure there were other regions in the Empire that possessed technology that was similar to science fiction.

The hatch opened and the face of the driver came through, and it was a burly man with a growing spot of gray hair on his temple. He calmly bowed to him, and Rowan immediately felt a sense of respect for him. He should only be at the peak of the Mortal State, and he was calmly looking at him.

Rowan knew that some Rift State Dominators were incapable of this feat.

"I'm Trevor, your Driver and Navigator, and inside is my wife and daughter. I don't care who you are, but if you hurt my family, I will die with my teeth around your throat."

Rowan arched his brows, now this was a welcome he was not expecting.