The Idle System Box Set

by Pegaz

  If I sell them, they will sell even faster than the shatavari and for more, too.

  While deep in thought, John continued to harvest all the herbs, occasionally tasting a few. He only kept the seeds of the holy basil and shatavari. That was when noticed three flowers near each other in the far corner of the room. He walked up to them and checked them out with his Immortal Eye.

  Jewelweed

  Life Power: 450,000

  Impurities: 0%

  John’s eyebrows shot up, eyes bulging out a little and his jaw dropping in shock.

  Jewelweed? Where did I get this from again?

  It took John a few minutes before he went through his memories and remembered where. During his first long-distance mission with the Rogue sect, he bought it from a small flower shop on the planet. But the one he bought had only twenty Life Power, and the woman said it was twenty years old.

  Was the Life Power on that planet really thin? I kept cultivating from my Storage Space and never tried to cultivate using that planet’s Life Power. Could it be that this jewelweed is much better than holy basil, but because of the planet’s thin Life Power, nobody has ever noticed before…

  John ran the numbers in his head. With 450,000 Life Power between six years, with the added fact that this place allowed absorption at 1.5 times the normal rate, this plant would absorb fifty thousand Life Power per year on the surface, and seventy-five thousand Life Power per year in the farm. It was five times better than holy basil, and it also had 0% impurities, too!

  There are only three of these plants, which is a shame. But I can see hundreds of seeds between the three. This plant must be one of the best the universe will ever see.

  John wondered if the woman had lied to him about the flower being twenty years old. Still, he wasn’t too troubled. He was primarily focused on monopolising the market for this flower. If they only sold a few each year at the Adventurer Guild’s yearly auction, it would leave enough resources for him and Sarah to cultivate from the rest of the plants while giving them a decent sized income at the same time.

  Since the plants would be one hundred years old by that time, John projected the flower would be at 0% impurity and five million Life Power. That was almost enough to guarantee a quality change in the power of a person under Rank 5! They would have a much higher chance of achieving a breaking through. For cultivators, that plant at one hundred years old would be almost priceless. The rest of John’s garden and the other two herbs paled in comparison; John considered even keeping them to himself.

  Hopefully, these plants can grow closer to each other without killing each other off.

  Recalling the planet he got this from, he remembered something else. The guild master from the same planet he got this plant from, who had raised his guild rank after becoming an immortal didn’t have a sin count.

  Because it hadn’t been that long since he got the skill to see the person’s sin count, at the time he assumed it was normal to not being able to see everybody’s sin. But after all this time that man was the only one.

  The memory sat in John’s brain like a cold slab of chalk. He wondered if the guild master maybe had been wearing something that could block John’s Immortal Eye skill.

  He could have even been a Sider.

  John gulped. There was a sense of excitement burgeoning from within him, but he knew he had to focus on the task at hand. He spent the next hour creating two more farms, each one 100 by 100 feet with an 8-foot ceiling like the first one.

  Once the farms were complete, he finished harvesting all the plants from the first farm. He then proceeded to plant seeds. On the left farm, he planted the holy basil. On the right, he planted the shatavari. On the final farm, he planted jewelweed. Satisfied with his work thus far, he proceeded to build ninety-nine more farms for each plant, totalling in three hundred farms. He created them going the same direction, away from the cultivation caves.

  He stumbled upon a few underground caves along the way. These obstacles forced him to take off his shoes and create a solid floor underneath him using the earth element, which cost him a lot of Toxin Power. Luckily, there were no monsters or creatures in the surrounding area that could be a threat to his plants. Just to be safe, though, he made walls surrounding the farms, too.

  It took almost three days to dig out all two hundred ninety-seven farms. After he finished creating and double-checking them all, John finally went back to the cultivation caves and flew out of the opening.

  When he teleported back to their home, he put the stone teleport rune in his Storage Space. Feeling accomplished, he decided to check up on Sarah in the shed. It was a short walk, and when he arrived, he saw the room had been completely cleaned out. It was bare: empty of patient beds, desks, or chairs.

  She must be looking for the right furniture first. That was the only explanation he could think of.

  Moving on, John looked at the front garden. After the three days that he was away, the puppet had finished sharpening it up. The grass got cut nice and even, the trees and bushes were trimmed, and there was even a growing flower bed, too. Walking around to the back garden, it was in the same condition. John could only nod his head and admit the puppet did a great job.

  He found Sarah was sitting down in the living room.

  “Want to fire a round of the rocket launcher on the arena now?” John asked with a smile.

  Sarah laughed and leapt out of her seat. Before he knew it, John was being dragged to the admin building. Apparently, he walked too slow.

  Chapter 49

  Summons

  When they arrived at the arena, they noticed the elders had locked the gates.

  John and Sarah flew over the arena walls and landed inside. Once within the walls, they saw that the giant ring was still in place from the tournament. Before he created the rocket launcher for Sarah, John took advantage of the ring and discreetly skimmed another millimetre of metal off. This time, he skimmed enough nano metal to create a house sized block in his Storage Space.

  Once this was over, he created a rocket launcher for Sarah. For this demonstration, he reduced the amount of Toxin Power from two hundred to fifty for the main Explosion attack. Sarah held the rocket launcher over her shoulder and aimed for the middle of the ring. She pulled the trigger, the recoil after it launched making her body sway backwards a little. She had enough strength to hold her ground but didn’t expect the recoil to be so strong.

  The rocket launched to about two hundred feet away from Sarah and exploded with a roaring, rumbling.

  BOOM!

  While Sarah couldn’t feel the heat of the explosion, she got pushed back a few feet from the force alone. When the fire pillar part of the attack ended, she was dragged back a few feet on top of that. Despite this, she remained unharmed, laughing at the thrill.

  “This is such an experience,” she said in between her excited gasps for air. “With this weapon, you could kill almost anybody below Rank 7, right?”

  “Not quite.” John shook his head. “Fighting a person who knows about this attack would make this weapon useless.”

  John proceeded to explain that the distance needed to be far, or else it could injure the users, too. With a higher ranked person, the attack could possibly be avoided as well. Having prior knowledge of the attack would also keep people from facing them directly, and could even result in a suicidal charge. Being that it was a slow-moving rocket, it was easy for immortals of all types to avoid from a far enough distance.

  “This weapon is for taking down an enemy with you,” John concluded. “That, or bluffing the enemy to run away from you. Any other situation, our swords would be more useful. The only exception would be as entertainment at a party.”

  Sarah let go of the rocket launcher which disappeared as it fell.

  “Sounds plausible considering our speed.” She nodded as she spoke. “If you fired it towards me, by the time it flew to where you aimed it, I could be thousands of feet away. I could even teleport miles away.”

&nbs
p; As she finished speaking, an old man flew down to the ring and stood close to them. John and Sarah looked at each other, then smiled nervously at the man. They were not supposed to be here and got caught red handed.

  The old man was the grand elder currently guarding the arena. He remembered both of them from the tournament and knew better than to ask how they got into the building. Apparently, the pillar of fire had alerted him of their presence.

  As compensation and an apology, John made another rocket launcher and asked if the man wanted to try it, too. To John’s surprise, the man agreed and took the rocket launcher off him.

  John explained how it worked and within a few minutes, the man was going a bit trigger happy with the thing. While the force of the explosions didn’t affect John or Sarah, the man had to shield his face after every blast. Despite this, his eyes burned with pure excitement. The grand elder laughed at each explosion the weapon created, marvelling at how simple it was. He asked many questions but John only said it was a secret and couldn’t answer him.

  After saying goodbye to the grand elder, John and Sarah flew back to the administration building to teleport back to the sword section and headed home.

  When they arrived, they saw Lexis was standing outside the gates and the worker puppet turned butler was on the other side of the gate but it wouldn’t let her in.

  The worker puppet could not speak; it could only nod or shake his head at Lexis’ questions. As the moments passed, the masters of the home approached the manor. Seeing John and Sarah were back, the butler puppet opened the gate to let them in. This action came as a surprise to Lexis, who thought he was inviting her inside. When she felt a hand on her shoulder soon after, however, she jumped in fright.

  John and Sarah broke into a fit of laughter. Lexis’ face reddened.

  “How come you came to see me so soon?” Sarah’s laughter died down and she was able to ask.

  Without hesitation, Lexis rushed into Sarah’s arms for a hug.

  “Whatever you said to that woman worked!” She squeezed Sarah’s waist in excitement. “Instead of trying to get me kicked out of the sect, the two of them are getting married! My master received an invitation! The wedding is two months from now.”

  The news surprised both John and Sarah. They both imagined that the suitor would leave the planet and go home or look for somebody else that could get Lexis kicked out. The last thing they thought would happen from Sarah’s threat was that it would result in a marriage.

  “So your troubles are over.” John forced his shock aside and smiled. “Congratulations. We won’t get a wedding invitation, so let’s just forget about them.”

  Sarah and Lexis laughed as Sarah brought Lexis inside the house.

  A few hours later, Lexis was about to leave the house when she turned around, a somewhat sad look in her eye.

  “My master is planning on taking me on a trip to help me get combat experience,” she said with a twinge of hesitation. “He said it will take a minimum of five years. I’m… gonna be gone for at least five years. I’m really going to miss you both so much.”

  “I was once told,” Sarah said slowly and warmly. “That you need to do everything you can in the early years to gain strength when you’re weak. Then, you can become a true immortal and do what you want for eternity later on in life, when you’re strong.”

  She took a deep breath before speaking again.

  “So go with your master,” she said, her words shaking ever so slightly. “Learn as much as you can and gain as much strength as you can. Then come back when you’re much stronger.”

  Lexis nodded her head and gave Sarah a big, teary-eyed hug before she left. John stood beside Sarah and the two of them waved goodbye.

  “Who told you that?” he asked nonchalantly. “I remember telling you something similar, but that was for Dao Companions.”

  “That’s my friends and family version of what you said,” Sarah replied quietly. Her eyes were becoming a bit misty.

  “You going to miss her?” John tilted his head. “Five years is still a long time. I don’t know about you, but I’ve still got the mentality of a mortal because of my memories from Earth.”

  Before Sarah could reply, a man walked through their gate and headed to their front door, the butler puppet trailing behind him. John and Sarah saw him through the Scan immediately. From John’s recollections, the man was a normal elder. He remembered him from the meeting room when John got the Rogue sect spies killed.

  When the man arrived at their front door, he addressed the couple.

  “The sect master is requesting to see you both for a very important matter,” he said. “Please follow me.”

  “Give me a minute to tell my workers we’re going back out.” John nodded. “Please wait for us at the gate.”

  The elder nodded and walked away.

  John commanded all four worker puppets to come to him and gave them another order on top of what they’d been given. The new order was to let nobody inside the house while they were away.

  Satisfied, John locked the gate behind him. All three people travelled to the administration building to be teleported. Along the way, they tried asking the elder what the meeting was about, but either he didn’t know or wouldn’t answer them.

  Inside the elder meeting room, Frank, Fred, and Alisha were standing around a circular table. On top of the table was a map. When John and Sarah arrived, the elder that brought them here did a martial art salute and left.

  The three people standing around the map looked up, saw John and Sarah, and smiled.

  John had a bad feeling when he saw their expressions.

  Chapter 50

  Gryphon

  “Thanks for coming!” Fred was the first to speak. “We have a little situation on our hands and we want to ask for your help. You will get paid for it, and of course, you can refuse it.”

  John shuffled on his feet a bit, his suspicion rising.

  “We asked you because you two can somehow fly without a sword,” Frank continued. “Being former assassins, your tracking abilities will come in handy. And finally, your speed will be a great asset for this mission as well.”

  Knowing where this was going, John knitted his brows and looked at Sarah who only shrugged her shoulders.

  “Who do you need to be killed?” John asked with a dark expression. “If it’s so important, then why can’t a higher-ranked person like an elder or grand elder deal with it?”

  Alisha spoke before either Fred or Frank could.

  “It’s not a person but a creature. The creature is called a black-feathered gryphon.” Her voice echoed through the hall. “These creatures are trouble for cultivators as they can sense Life Power from a much further distance than normal creatures.”

  Alisha went on to explain that the gryphons would sense those with Life Power and turn into shadows when danger approached them. Anybody above Rank 5 would be noticed from miles away, thus making it impossible for them to catch the creature. In addition, the creature was mostly in flight which meant that anyone below a Rank 6 would have even more trouble with hunting it down. To top it off, its claws and wings were a tough as metal, and it could spew a black poisonous smoke from its mouth.

  “It is terrorising a family of cultivators,” Aisha finished with a fire alight in her eyes. “They’re part of our alliance and the location is only four teleport jumps away. It won’t even take you three days to complete the quest and get back. The reward is generous since it’s an emergency. So… What do you say?”

  The couple exchanged glances.

  “I don’t mind going,” John replied confidently. “What about you?”

  “Yeah.” Sarah nodded. “We’ve been on this planet for over six years already. A little holiday on another planet will do us good.”

  They redirected their gaze to the three elders in the room.

  “We’ll do it,” John proclaimed. “Give us all the information you have and we’ll leave now. Don’t worry if we don’t return straig
ht away. We’ll be taking a holiday after the mission.”

  Alisha laughed and handed the map to John. She indicated which teleport runes they need to take, as well as the name of the family in need. With all the information in hand, John and Sarah left the meeting room for the teleport station.

  When they were on the Sword Sect’s public planet, John saw the queue for the public teleport system and opted to use the Rogue sect’s teleport room instead. Sarah agreed, so they used the planet’s teleport system to return to the city with the carnivore giraffes. On their way to the Rogue sect’s teleport room, they encountered one carnivorous giraffe, but when it noticed them, it fled.

  At the teleport, John calculated the path they need to take to arrive on the same planet as the gryphon. Within minutes, they walked through the teleport rune and disappeared.

  It only took two minutes to arrive on the designated planet. They looked at the map Alisha had given them. After cross-referencing his World Map in the system, John determined that they were about two hundred miles away from the place this map had the gryphon sightings marked.

  Before moving on, John asked the system to show the maps it had scanned. He brought out the maps inside the teleport room and gave them Sarah. Funnily enough, her Storage Space was almost full so she gave John a few things to make space. John only tossed her things into one corner of the Storage Space. Sarah had a habit of keeping the maps she already scanned, which took up a lot of space. John wondered if she was planning on giving them away to the Sword Sect officials, or maybe even to Lexis.

  After transferring the maps, they both made their way to the gryphon’s location. They used no Toxin Power at all, as they could not guarantee their masks could hide it from a creature who was sensitive to it. Their first move was to go to the family the creature was terrorising and to pry more info from them.