After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World - Chapter 726

Chapter 726: Wood Element (Part 1)
While the others were training outside, the lord was also practicing her own elements. This time she was focused on an element: Wood, and she was practicing in the comfort of her own gardens.

They summoned the newly-arrived Thorance for his knowledge of wood elements. He was called to the gardens to help her out, and was soon brought in to meet with the couple.

The handsome Thorance with his light-colored curly hair and sleepy eyes couldn’t help but appear more awake as he was faced with both the captain and his famous wife.

Leon, the only wood soldier user remaining, used the element as an aggressive element, which wasn’t applicable to her. Thorance, a support, was called for the purpose of training her.

He looked startled when he saw her but he couldn’t look for a long time because he felt the captain’s stare.

“Hello, Ms. Althea,” he said, “My name is Thorance—”

His voice died when he saw the garden behind her. His eyes widened at the beautiful sight and he was very tempted to leave the other people and just be with the plants.

He didn’t of course. He had worked under many nobles, and not one would be forgiving if he did so.

He was overthinking things of course. Althea could naturally see how his eyes brightened at the sight of her plants. She smiled. This was actually good. After all, this meant this was his passion, and that was the best type of employee.

“Have you gardened a lot before?” She asked. He flinched under her attention before gathering himself to answer.

He nodded. “I was born and raised in a small town south,” he said, “When I awakened, I immediately applied as a gardener in the Chancery. I was hired by a bigger town, also South, which was great because I can visit my hometown relatively often.

“In such a big town, there are plenty of wealthy nobles. My skills were often used to maintain the sensitive gardens of nobles.”

In such towns with a lot of nobles, they took status symbols very seriously. One of these symbols was a healthy garden with exotic plants.

One would think that gardening wouldn’t be hard in a place like Xeno with amazing refresh rates. However, this was not the case. Althea herself knew too well that plants wouldn’t grow well if not in their proper environment, even if they were planted in system farms.

On the contrary, they were a bit more ‘picky’. They would grow extremely well under the right conditions, but wouldn’t sprout at all if it wasn’t.

In Xeno, unless one had either specialized knowledge of plants or a support-type wood elementalist, it was too difficult to care for plants not endemic in a place, and so his services were very popular in Towns.

Unfortunately, one (or a few) ladies fell in love with him and it caused quite a bit of ire among their fathers and husbands, so he was forced to resign and find a new place to get hired in.

“Why do you choose to focus more on the milder side of the wood element?”

It was understandable in her case as someone who dwelled and studied in plants, but this was an odd choice for others—especially in this world where all aggressive skills could save your life.

The young man’s eyes softened and he smiled. It was such a gentle smile that hit the maternal instincts of women.

“I have loved plants since I was a child. My father was also a gardener, and so was his father.” It was such a great honor for the family to have him awaken as an elementalist—much more so as a wood elementalist.

How could he waste such a good element by using it for aggression?

This answer impressed Althea and she immediately turned to her husband, looking at him with those large emerald eyes of hers.

“Husband, can I hire him? My garden could really use a bit more of his kind.”

Garan didn’t answer immediately, looking at the soft-looking man in thought.

He wasn’t a fighter and the plants with Althea were much more sensitive than those in Ferrol, so he didn’t have much reason to refuse. Anyway, it would make his wife happy.

He nodded and his wife giggled, letting him get a nice smooch as a reward.

“You’re hired,” Althea said with a smile. “You will be helping me attend to my experimental gardens and farms, greenhouses, as well as the Gaea-owned farmlands outside.”

“Thank you, Miss!”

Althea nodded at his story, wanting to know more. “Tell me more about your skills before you go—only if it’s alright with you,” she said, belatedly remembering that aborigines were usually very hush-hush about their skills.

Thorance was very happy for the job and didn’t mind letting her know more about it. “My skills are Woodland Camouflage—which allows me to blend in with plants completely undetected for about 10 minutes—as well as Plant Sense, where I could have an idea whether a plant is healthy or not.”

Althea was intrigued. She already had the latter, so she was particularly interested in the Camouflage skill.

Thorance paused and thought of how to explain it. “Hm, it’s a skill that had to do with one being one with the plants.”

“Can you tell me how?”

He nodded. “You need to feel like you’re the plant,” Thorance said, “Surround yourself with wood energy and then melsh with the tree you wish to camouflage on.”

“To do this, you got to combine with the tree with your whole being as someone who can control wood.”

“How?”

“I will show you,” he said and proceeded to find a nearby tree, which happened to be a young one they had transplanted there.

The young man then bent his hips and buttocks, raising his arms and closing his fingers, curling them in a weird pose that was apparently reminiscent of a young tree with lots of bends—apparently to mimic the tree’s “pose”.

Althea’s eyes twitched.

“…”

He looked too silly; Althea suddenly didn’t want to do it anymore.