Unfortunately, the purpose of this event wasn’t just to entertain me with some performance and dinner. It was clearly to get the elites of the country an opportunity to rub shoulders with me.

Because right after a long string of performances, the minister came up to thank me again for joining them and told me that he had to leave to attend to his other duties and welcomed me to interact with the locals.

When he left the hall, that was the cue for the others to start approaching me as they came over to start trying to talk to me.

As much as I wanted to just return to my room and actually eat the lukewarm food that they had given me... My responsibilities as a Mortal God representing my country basically forbade me from doing so.

Most of them basically just wanted to introduce themselves to me just to get me to acknowledge them.

Some of them were running businesses and basically invited me to be part of their clientele even though for all they know, I’m not someone who does business.

My assumption was that they were trying to seek the stamp of approval from me to use it as a means to elevate their market potential.

Truth be told, some of them were actually beneficial to us especially the ones who were in the logistics industry as we might need them to ship around some of the stuff we were planning to make and sell on our island.

The problem is that I was a complete newbie in keeping track of such business stuff but fortunately... I have someone who is a shark at this business standing right behind me.

I could already hear Olivia tapping away furiously on her smartphone as she kept notes on each of the people that approached me to introduce themselves.

While I was sad that I couldn’t eat the food because of my mask, I’m eternally grateful for it right now as I just needed to make polite noises at the people talking to me without needing to worry about looking bored or distracted.

Some did try to engage me in conversation by asking me about various things including my personal views on their country and even the other Mortal Gods. Those I basically gave vague and surface level remarks that didn’t really mean anything.

But when someone tries to ask a personal question, Olivia would be quick to shut them down before they can even finish the question.

Eventually, everyone got to at least talk to me for a while and the event officially came to an end after another two hours.

At that point, the food in front of me had already gone cold but I didn’t want to waste the food so I had it brought up to my room with me when we left the venue.

My Guardians followed me back to my room and I was surprised to see someone inside, the person turning around when I stepped in through the doorway.

"Qing! Welcome back!" Maylene greeted me.

I blinked at her, "Maylene? What are you doing here? I thought you were back on the island?"

She grinned at me, "I came here as part of your auxiliary team! I’ll be acting as your support for this expedition!"

I turned to Olivia, wondering if she knew about this.

She nodded, "We planned to bring over some of our own people as well to support this expedition. Namely, a few of the Bunarfs to get them used to helping out as support units. Maylene had volunteered herself to follow along."

Huh... I’m not surprised to hear that we have an auxiliary team supporting us but I am surprised to learn that Maylene came with us.

And after building that tower practically overnight, people were bound to notice so it was crucial for us to get the bunny girls more accustomed to the outside world than keeping them inside as well. Though the main point was to show that they were ’my people’ to get others to stay away from them.

I turned back to the bunny girl and took off my mask as the door closed behind us, "What about the island? I thought you and your sisters were still busy building all the necessary facilities?"

She giggled, "Ehehe~ Well, they don’t really need my abilities right now since they’ve already set up all the building stuff for now. And I’m not that great of a crafter as compared to my sisters so I thought I would be more useful to you here, Qing! You can use me however you like!"

Ahem... I quickly chased away the improper thoughts that came to mind before nodding at her, "I see... Are you sure you’re ok with this? I mean... We are going into another rift, you know?"

She huffed, "I can handle myself well enough. If you’ve forgotten, I was in charge of running around outside our colony to scavenge for supplies. I have also fought those Anomalies on my own before!"

Right... I actually forgot about that... Though I guess considering the fact that our first interaction with her was when she was helpless and clinging to a half broken pillar while surrounded by Anomalies did nothing to help her image with that.

She then noticed the container of food that Leena was carrying and let out a gasp, "Oh! I almost forgot! I prepared food for everyone! Over here!"

She hopped over to the side where the meeting room was located and showed a small feast had been laid out.

Incidentally, there were also machines that look like stoves placed near the wall that were definitely absent when I first inspected the room... Which meant Maylene most likely set them up during the time we were away and cooked all the food we saw here.

She even took the container from Leena and went over to the machine to heat up the food.

Seeing that she had already made all this food, we decided to just partake in it and went over to take a seat at the table and started helping ourselves to the plates of food all around the table.

Most of the food she made seemed to be her attempts at recreating the cuisines from this world with some dishes that were specifically made in the Bunarf style instead.

And despite the fact that they look rather different from the dishes that I know, all of them taste great.

I also got to eat the food that the locals had prepared for me and that tasted great too.

Not gonna lie though... I think Maylene might actually have a talent for this.

Since we would be heading to the rift early in the morning the next day, we decided to call it a day and the other Guardians headed to their rooms to rest for the night.

The only people who stayed behind were Maylene and Olivia, the former remaining behind to clean up after us while Olivia was there to keep her promise of staying close to me while we were in a foreign country.

Although... I’m pretty sure part of the reason was because she wanted to sleep with me as well.

We also decided that Maylene would be sleeping in this room since she was already here anyways though she would be sleeping in the living room instead of in the bedroom with me and Olivia.

Since there was only one bathroom, the three of us would have to take turns using it and the two of them let me bathe first before they would take their turns.

That suited me just fine since I was planning to make use of that time to try and absorb some Qi energy as well.

Once I was out of the bath and dressed up, I headed over to the bedroom and sat on top of the bed to start my meditation, dropping myself into the familiar state where I would then absorb the Qi energy in the air into my core.

I was once again brought back to the illusory space where I was in the courtyard under the tree and I was already used to it at this point so I just sat down underneath the tree and started the process once again.

I had fully expected the process to remain the same as well where I would absorb the life energy in the air around myself but as soon as I directed some of the energy into the tree... The tree suddenly started to grow exponentially. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

I watched as the tree stretched even further into the sky and the branches spread out even further to reach towards the edges of the horizon.

Despite the sudden change, I never stopped pouring my energy into the tree even as it grew to be even more gigantic than before, covering half of the sky from view at this point.

I’m pretty sure if there were clouds in this space, the tree would have already reached them.

Then, as sudden as it had happened, the tree stopped growing and I idly wondered what happened here to cause it to do something like that.

But before I could even think about the possible answers to it, I suddenly spotted something glowing visibly amongst the leaves of the tree above me.

Wait a minute... Is that a fruit growing from the tree itself right now?

...

Is it safe to eat it?