The Astral soul system-Chapter 144: A massive conspiracy

Astarte could still barely believe that was the the same seed he planted in his garden. Back then she was still similar in appearance to a teenager, with a much smaller flower, but it seemed Mao had taken very good care of her in the time he was gone. In fact, now that he thought about it,her old appearance resembled Sylphie a bit in his mind.

Alarune was a forest spirit he planted in his garden to tend and care for the plants and also protect it with her vines whenever he and Mao left. Her main skill was in healing and helping accelerate the development and growth of plants and make them more bountiful, but she could also defend herself if she needed to despite not being a combat unit.

"I’m just happy she recognized me"

Considering Zen had chosen the most generic, simple face ever for their avatar, his current appearance was just a scaled up version of that. For the first time, Zyro was happy with his choice.

He suddenly noticed Mao staring at him and asked

"What?"

"Nothing...."

Honestly, she was expecting him to either become moody or pissy for absolutely no reason. Astarte hadn’t told her about his... condition,so she’d always just assumed he was a bit off mentally whenever he suddenly became emotionless for no reason and then upset and easily angered. She was used to his frequent shifts and was just waiting for one to happen.

"So...i need to check out my place. Wanna come?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah"

Astarte internally sighed . Their dynamic was totally off. Because he only recently woke up,He could still remember their last time together like it was yesterday and the difference was unnerving. It was like she’d gone from his best online friend to a total stranger in a day for absolutely no reason. They were acting like akward acquaintances.

The two got to the farm and Astarte sighed looking at the desolate surroundings that used to be his little paradise.

"I tried to maintain it for as long as i could, Alarune too, but after a while it just seemed pointless. I didn’t have the skill set and although Alarune could probably keep things going on her own,what was the point if you weren’t coming back?"

Astarte nodded in understand, calmly walking around the clearing the size of a large village he’d created for his farm.

"So we packed up everything useful into the barn and just... stopped. I realized it was too dangerous for Alarune out here without you so i moved her permanently into the cave and just told her to do whatever she wanted"

Astarte nodded, agreeing. Alarune was an NPC, but she was also a spirit,a kind of beast. Usually that wouldn’t be a problem, after all,summoners had their summons and necromancers their corpses, but without the gamer she was bound to, she was just a very powerful, very high reward, and very rare mythical creature.

Luckily he’d gotten her affection maxed out before he left so she couldn’t be turned against him by someone else either.

They headed for the barn next , taking a few minutes to walk there and surprisingly it looked like it was still in good condition, showing that she probably took the time to keep it standing.

His ran his fingers over the surface of the door . It really did feel like yesterday.

He checked and he was still bound to the building. With a thought he opened the door and they both walked in.

"This..."

He looked at Mao but she shook her head

"Don’t look at me, this was all you"

’Oh yeah. I guess I was a bit of a hoarder’

[Oranges(epic)]×599

[Apples(rare)] ×600

[Peaches(rare)]×452

[Corn(uncommon)]×506

[Wheat(epic)]×200

[Rice(rare)]×360

[Potatoes (epic)]×109

There were at least a dozen more different types of plants there and none lower than uncommon grade, some gear, high grade seeds and just some random stuff just scattered around.

Astarte suddenly remembered his old habit of hoarding.

Most people who chose the farmer class would sell their produce after harvesting but he was always a bit... greedy. In fact it wasn’t just crops, even gear didn’t necessarily have to be powerful,as long as it was interesting or just shiny he held on to it, stashing it away, same with seeds, and basically all sorts of random junk, turning his barn into a house for his collection. Mao unfortunately was also a junkie,so there was no one to stop them from roaming around the world just hoarding random stuff(garbage)they found interesting,it was one of the reasons they hit it off so well. Something about watching the numbers on the screen slowly increase to absurd levels made them both giddy and ecstatic. Forget fighting, they usually specifically waited until after big fights to stealthily pick off loot and anything else that looked slightly interesting.

Astarte scrolled through their list of antique trinkets (garbage) and felt a bit nostalgic.

He looked at the barn and silo and used the all-seeing eye to check it’s stats

[Barn and silo(legendary★★★)]

[Defense: 9999999]

[Effect: keeps crops and other items stored frozen in time, stopping them from spoiling]

Astarte looked at the stats a bit confused, last time he checked his barn and silo were only epic grade.

He looked at Mao who seemed to understand what he was thinking and just answered

"I took care of it"

He was about to say he owed her but he quickly remembered what level he was and that she was so strong he couldn’t even see her level even with his all-seeing eye.

"I’ll... make it up... somehow"

Selecting a few seeds and some other items, he left the barn and went towards the dry and empty fields.

He opened his stats screen and selected a skill

[Summon]

[Error. Level too low]

"Just do it the normal way"

Astarte nodded and called out

"Alarune"

The ground suddenly started trembling as a green sigil suddenly appeared on the ground in front of him.The wind seemed to pick up as the fragrance of honey and nectar suddenly filled their nostrils Roots suddenly sprouted out of the ground before anchoring themselves into the ground, followed by vines and flowers and after a few seconds,a large flowerbud sprouted out of the ground before suddenly opening up to reveal Alarune’s....um...fertile body.

As the flower opened up, Astarte noticed a flower pot in her hands

"Master!"

A bunch of vines suddenly sprouted out of the ground and tried to grab him but Mao suddenly appeared in front of him,her sword appearing in her hand before shredding the vines

"No. That’s enough"

Alarune pouted slightly, looking annoyed by her interference but didn’t make a fuss and just stayed there waiting.

Astarte wiped a cold sweat, sighing in relief.

Alarune suddenly held her hands out towards him, showing him the flower pot he gave her that was now filled with magical and exotic looking flowers.

"That’s nice,thank you" he said, accepting it from her while carefully watching out for vines.

Putting it down he held out three green crystals towards her.

[Fertility gems(mythic)]

"Alarune,if you don’t mind please"

Nodding slightly, she took the gems and suddenly stuffed them in her mouth.

A green light suddenly started coming out of her body and her flower pod suddenly closed back up. The green light only increased in intensity and spreaded to the ground like a wave , spreading to the entire farm before slowly dying down. The soil glowed green for a few more seconds before going back to normal as well.

The flower pod suddenly opened back up and Alarune looked at him as if she was asking for praise.

"Good work, thanks a lot"

She let out a happy squeal, looking proud of herself.

"Now for the hard part"

"Need some help?"

Astarte nodded

The two started tilling the soil and making hedges, seemingly unfazed by how large their task seemed. While they worked they spoke.

"So, it’s still night on your planet?"

Astarte nodded, remembering that detail. The previous planet he stayed on had a very different orbit from earth’s.

"Yeah. What about you?"

She nodded

She suddenly looked at Alarune who was watching them both with interest

"Remember that weird thing that happened? When it looked like she had a crush on us, and not just one of us but US"

Astarte chuckled.

"Yeah, weird"

"Asta,are you... feeling okay?"

"Hmm? Yeah, what’s up?"

Mao didn’t say anything but she still looked at him like something was wrong. She looked down, seeming a bit conflicted before speaking up.

"You... said the arcade attacked your family’s planet. Is everyone okay?"

Astarte sighed,it seemed he’d have to answer after all.

"I.... I think....one of my moms might be dead "

Mao suddenly froze, looking like she instantly regretted asking that question.

"Asta... I’m sorry,i-"

"It’s fine, she’s tough. I just don’t know where she is right now... but it is a possibility "

The two kept working for a few more hours, talking about old memories and adventures before finally finishing.

Astarte handed a bag of seeds to Alarune and told her what to do. She probably knew better than him how to take care of them so he just let her take it.

Astarte sat down next to Mao, pulling out an apple for each of them from the barn before taking a bite.

They sat in silence for a few minutes before she suddenly spoke up

"I went to an ability school this year...it’s...on earth"

Astarte looked at her a bit suprised.

’Earth? Here?’

"I’m guessing you probably went to one in your own star system. How is it?"

"Fun.... actually, I’m on earth too"

She suddenly looked at him shocked

"Seriously? What about -"

"I moved"

"That’s awesome. We can meet each other in real life "

She seemed genuinely excited as she nudged him a bit.

"Finally chosen an ability? I thought you were going to keep chickening out of facing me in the training zone "

The training zone was another game mode, like a mini game, where people could only choose one ability and had to fight to the death,it was how the military trained abilities.

"Yep, I’ve got an ability, and it’s going to blow you away once you see it" he said, deciding not to tell her who he was until they met. He wondered if she’d be surprised to find out he was the new ability user.

"What city are you in?"

Mao suddenly wagged her fingers in front of his face

"Nice try,you first."

"..."

"..."

".... Fine,looks like neither of us are gonna budge. How about we just pick a random city to meet up in?"

"Works for me"

"Just don’t ditch me again "

Astarte felt a bit akward but he could tell it was a joke and didn’t reply

The conversation died down a bit but she suddenly seemed to remember something.

"Oh yeah, something super weird happened to me a few months ago. I was on my way to -"

[System is completely logged in]

’oh that’s ni-’

"Zyro,log out. Now!"

Theia’s voice suddenly rang in his ears.

’What? But why? I just -"

"This is important,do it"

He internally groaned and with an urgent expression looked at Mao

"Mao Mao, sorry I need to leave"

"What? But we just -"

"My mom’s calling, it’s important"

She sighed and looked away.

"Fine,i guess I can understand that. I... guess I’ve got some stuff to deal with too"

She suddenly turned into light particles as she also logged out.

Astarte sighed but there was nothing he could do but log out

*************

Zyro’s eyes opened but he didn’t exit the pod.

"What is it Theia? I just logged back into the game-"

"That game is a fucking trap!"

"What?"

"I knew something was wrong when the system was having trouble hacking into a "normal game". Normal my ass"

Zyro was really confused now

"Theia, what are you talking about?"

"This "

Zyro’s status screen suddenly appeared and a certain stat was highlighted

[Astra: 180/230]

Wait,that didn’t make sense, Zyro hadn’t done anything in the past few hours, how did his astra get depleted.

"Someone or something is using this game to farm people’s energy on a massive scale. I don’t even know how this is possible,it shouldn’t be possible for humans. It would take a class seven or even an extremely skilled eight to-"

At this point, Zyro had no idea what she was talking about

"What are you even talking about? Is this really important?"

"Yes. Zyro, astra isn’t like aether which is just a fuel source. It’s quite literally the essence of people’s souls,life force. That’s why you feel lightheaded and tired in your soul whenever you deplete it, you’re literally depleting your soul’s excess energy. Someone isn’t just stealing people’s energy, their literally using this game to farm people’s souls"