I Can Give Talents-Chapter 449 - Useless Benefit

Ava noticed Leyvi’s wary gaze and immediately realized what he was thinking. In response, she simply raised her fist in a silent, pointed threat.

I take it back. We might not be fine after all, Leyvi amended his earlier thought.

"Ava, come and hit me," he said, spreading his arms wide in a gesture of surrender. "Unleash all your violent urges on me to your heart’s content before we reach that violence-free zone. Consider me your personal punching bag."

Ava moved closer in a blur and delivered a lightning-fast, precise kick to his shin.

"Ow, ow! My leg!" Leyvi hopped on one foot, grimacing. "Ava, you’re supposed to aim for my body, not my leg. My leg was not prepared for that." He had momentarily forgotten that his shins had recently become her favorite target.

"Lady Ava, how can you hurt your husband like that?" the now plain-looking Pink Enchantress Rose interjected, coming to Leyvi’s defense. "As a wife, you shouldn’t do this. We are supposed to show love and care for our husband."

"We?" Ava’s eyes narrowed dangerously. "When did you become his wife? Are you not getting a little ahead of yourself?"

She still held a deep grudge against Rose and her maids. The fact that she had managed to restrain herself around them this long was a minor miracle.

Rose bit her lower lip slightly, a look of genuine hurt flashing across her disguised face.

"You’re right," she conceded, her voice softer. "I got ahead of myself. I’m just a stranger to him. But still, you can’t act like that with your husband. You must treat him with respect!"

"Hmph. Who are you to tell me how I should act with him?" Ava shot back, refusing to back down.

"Alright, ladies. Stop, stop. No more bickering," Leyvi said, stepping physically between them to de-escalate the tension. He turned to Rose first.

"Holy Maiden, I understand your good intentions, but this is just how Ava and I normally interact. If I truly disliked the way she treats me, I would have put a stop to it long ago. The fact that I haven’t means I allow her to be... barbaric with me."

"Yes, I am sorry, Darling. I jumped to a conclusion," Rose apologized, her shoulders slumping slightly as she looked downcast.

Behind Leyvi’s back, Ava stuck out her tongue in a quick, childish taunt directed at Rose. She felt a distinct, petty satisfaction that Leyvi had openly sided with her.

Seeing Ava mock their Holy Maiden, Lily and Liyan, standing off to the side, were quietly fuming, cursing the clover woman inwardly.

Thanks to Rose’s magical makeup technique, they too had been transformed into plain, unremarkable-looking women.

"Hahaha! Listen, this really isn’t a big deal for me," Leyvi continued, his tone light and genuine. "Others might disagree, but this is just how I am. I prefer my wives to interact with me according to their own personalities, not by following some strict guideline of how a wife should behave. It’s more lively and fun this way. If she is violent, then I just need to get tougher. Easy solution, right, Ava?" He laughed as he explained.

He was speaking the truth. He genuinely enjoyed the unique quirks and personalities of all his ladies. If they all acted the same, there would be no point in having a harem at all.

"Hmph! Who’s violent?" Ava retorted, though inwardly she felt a warm flicker of happiness at his words.

Rose’s eyes immediately brightened, the earlier downcast expression vanishing as if it had never been there.

"Wow, wow, wow! So Darling is someone who prioritizes the freedom of expression and emotion of his beloved ones! I love it! Darling is definitely the best man in the whole world!" Rose began to circle Leyvi again, her voice filled with open admiration.

Leyvi blinked. The best man in the world? Is that not Anda’s phrase? What the heck! Anda isn’t even here and has never met her, but her pandawashing somehow managed to affect Rose anyway. What is this? Long-distance pandawashing?

Lily and Liyan exchanged another weary glance and sighed in unison. Our Holy Maiden really is a different person now. Is this what love does to someone?

After the random chatter, they increased their pace of travel. They moved across the landscape using efficient movement techniques, but kept their energy expenditure to a minimum.

Along the way, they passed many members of Rose’s faction who were diligently searching for treasures in the surrounding areas. Since they were already outside the city, most people deliberately avoided one another, and no interactions occurred.

Two days later, the group of five finally arrived at the boundary of the designated free zone.

"So this is the free zone area, huh?" Leyvi commented as his spiritual sense swept over the sprawling landscape before them. "It’s an entire, massive city surrounding the trunk."

"Fufufu~ That is right, Darling," Rose confirmed. "This used to be the Royal City. It is the biggest city I have ever seen in my life, spanning roughly ten kilometers in all directions around the base of the trunk."

Without proper context, it did not sound particularly impressive compared to the scale of many cultivation cities.

"Holy Maiden, how big is this colossal trunk again?" Leyvi asked.

Now that he was finally this close, the true scale of the tree was becoming palpable. Even with his fifty-kilometer range, his spiritual sense could only cover a tiny fraction of the trunk’s surface. It stood before him like a dark, living mountain, an impossible wall of bark that eclipsed every structure in sight.

"It has a base diameter of roughly five hundred kilometers," Rose replied, her own face still reflecting awe even after two years of knowing this fact. "It is a truly monstrous tree, one of a kind."

"Five hundred kilometers..." Leyvi repeated, slowly grasping the sheer, mind-bending scale. "That means it has a circumference of over fifteen hundred kilometers, right? Holy... This Royal City stretches that entire distance? That is unbelievable."

For an average Core Formation Realm cultivator, traveling that distance even at a fast pace would take several days, including necessary rest. For a mortal human wishing to walk around the city, it could take over a month.

For Leyvi, the very concept of needing multiple days just to circle a single city was pretty mind-boggling.

"Fufufu~ If Darling wants to find precious treasures, this city is the best place to search," Rose said, her tone turning conspiratorial. "Most of the treasures I have collected came from here. In my entire faction, there are about twenty six hundred members, but you probably noticed only a few hundred people back in my main city, right?"

"Yes," Leyvi nodded.

"That is because most of them are here. But it still feels empty because the city is so impossibly vast, and people tend to cluster in specific areas. Like right now, I sent out my spiritual sense and did not detect anyone nearby."

Leyvi had already detected a handful of people within his own spiritual range, but he decided to keep that observation to himself.

What attracted his attention the most were the silhouettes his spiritual sense detected high up on the colossal trunk. Within small holes and crevices in the bark, he could make out the distinct shapes of large buildings. To the tree, these spaces were mere pores, but to humans, they were cavernous rooms and halls.

Beyond those shadowy outlines, he could see nothing else. For some reason, there were no glowing plants or fungi on the trunk itself, leaving its surface in utter, light-swallowing darkness.

"What are those buildings up there? Do you know anything about them?" Leyvi asked.

"Wow! Darling’s spiritual sense is truly amazing! You can see that far?" Rose exclaimed, genuinely impressed.

Leyvi simply nodded in confirmation.

"Those buildings up there are the Royal Palace complex, along with the residences of the king’s relatives and probably his ministers," Rose explained. "Many people speculate that the most valuable treasures in the entire Mystic Realm are hidden there. But unfortunately, nobody can go up to claim them."

"I remember. It is another kind of restriction," Leyvi said, recalling the earlier discussions about the impassable climb.

"Fufufu~. Come, Darling. Let me bring you to the nearest stairs. You can experience for yourself why everyone is stuck down here." Rose gestured for him to follow as she began to move.

"Sure," he replied, keeping pace with her.

Sometime later, the group finally reached the very base of the trunk.

"So, this is the colossal tree," Leyvi murmured, reaching out to place his palm flat against the ancient bark. The contact felt solid and immense. An instinctive understanding settled in him, that no matter what he tried, he would not be able to damage this living monument.

At that moment, he felt a sharp, unmistakable surge of anger through his mental connection with Lapin.

Oh, right. Senior Lapin hates this colossal tree. He had to live in hiding his entire life because of this thing.

"Darling, that is the stairwell. Go and try it," Rose said, pointing toward the grand, wide staircase that had been carved and built to wind its way upward through the network of ’small’ spaces in the tree’s bark. "The record so far is twenty-four meters high."

"Only twenty-four meters?" Leyvi repeated, his tone skeptical. "That is a harsh restriction. The lowest building is at the fifty-meter level." He moved toward the stairwell, his curiosity piqued.

He stepped onto the first stone stair, bracing himself for the expected pressure or resistance. Nothing happened.

Huh? Nothing?

He took another step up. Still nothing. Another step, and still he felt no different.

Weird. Where is the restriction? There is no pressure on me at all.

He continued, step after cautious step. Before he knew it, he had climbed the entire flight of stairs and found himself standing on the lowest level of the ancient palace complex, the grand structures now looming around him.

What is going on? How did this happen? Leyvi was utterly baffled.

A few moments later, a long-dormant memory surfaced in his mind.

Don’t tell me... It’s my Tree Climbing Expert benefit!

It was now a useless, forgotten benefit he had obtained from the Talent Bead, one he had never imagined would have a practical use nowadays.