Chapter 117: Do You Understand the Sheer Value of the King of Alchemy!
Although Vivian felt a pang of regret over these treasures and valuables, they were indeed things she could part with.
Even if Noah were to empty the entire treasury, Vivian would at most feel a slight heartache, but beyond that, it wouldn't cause any significant impact on the Lady of the Lake.
However, those items not stored in the treasury... were fundamentally different in nature.
"Although I lost seventy Fairy treasures to you, that was actually the result of me getting carried away and forgetting to calculate properly, as there are only about sixty Fairy treasures in total."
"And while most of these can be given to you, there are three among them that I hope you will leave within the Lady of the Lake's magical realm."
Vivian spoke very sincerely, and seeing her like this, Noah felt somewhat puzzled.
"Now that you've been healed, your prophetic abilities should have returned as well... so you should already know my choice. Or are you saying that, in your prophecy, you believe I'll agree if you ask like this?"
Noah had actually been quite confused by everything Vivian had done in front of him earlier.
After all, in his view, Vivian possessed prophetic abilities.
When she hadn't yet recovered her powers, being tricked once was understandable, but now that her prophetic abilities had returned, she should have been steering the course of today's events.
Yet, to Noah's surprise, Vivian seemed as though she hadn't prophesied the future at all.
Or perhaps... this was already the optimal course of action she had chosen after predicting the future?
Noah couldn't understand this.
Hearing Noah's words, Vivian shook her head slightly.
"My prophetic abilities have indeed returned, but my vitality hasn't recovered that quickly. So, if I want to prophesy a more specific future, I still need some time to fully recover. As for the broader, more ambiguous future..."
At this point, Vivian also felt puzzled.
She hadn't failed to prophesy—she had roughly glimpsed the ambiguous future last night.
In the future she saw, she and Noah were clearly in that kind of relationship!
But after she brought it up today... why was Noah reacting this way?
Vivian found it completely incomprehensible.
It was precisely because the vague future she had painstakingly glimpsed yesterday wasn't unfolding as she had expected that she now felt particularly anxious.
"...Such a future is very vague, with only a general direction and no specific details. In the future I glimpsed at that time, at least two of the three treasures I hope you'll leave behind should indeed have been left by you, but I'm not entirely sure how exactly that came to pass."
"So, even though it's quite ironic for a Prophet like me to say this, rather than blindly trusting a vague future, I'd prefer to make an effort and try for myself now."
After experiencing her own attempt to have Noah marry her, only to be directly rejected, Vivian was now less certain about what exactly that future entailed.
Noah, meanwhile, nodded and gestured for Vivian to lead the way and show him around first.
The first of the three treasures Vivian hoped Noah would leave for the Lady of the Lake was a massive tree located at the center of the lake.
"Although it's different from the Fairies' World Tree, this tree is also crucial to the Lady of the Lake's magical realm... It wasn't formed naturally but is instead an ancient Alchemy-based life form, the very core of the Lady of the Lake's magical realm. If it were taken away, the magical realm would begin to wither, shrink, and eventually be destroyed."
Hearing Vivian's explanation, Noah turned his gaze to the tree.
It seemed he had no real use for it—so if he were to completely empty the Lady of the Lake's remaining treasury, leaving this tree behind wouldn't be out of the question.
However...
Originally uninterested in the tree, Noah paused as he approached it, then walked over and placed a hand on its trunk.
Seeing that Noah seemed interested in the core of the Lady of the Lake's magical realm, Vivian hurriedly added more details.
"This tree was created a long time ago. Aside from maintaining the Lady of the Lake's magical realm, it serves no other purpose. Moreover, due to its extreme age, some of its internal structures have deteriorated. Otherwise, as you've likely seen, both the Land of Shadows and the Fairy Forest are densely populated and vast in territory. Only our Lady of the Lake's magical realm has a small population and limited territory—just this large lake and its surrounding area."
"The reason is that the core tree has aged."
"Although its mystical properties have strengthened over time, its aging has also resulted in low fertility among us Lady of the Lake beings born within the magical realm. Our numbers have never exceeded a thousand, and the magical realm's territory remains very narrow..."
Just as Vivian was earnestly listing the tree's uselessness and flaws, she saw a golden light suddenly erupt from the tree trunk Noah was touching!
In that instant, thousands of Magic Circles, large and small, materialized around them, each engraved with intricate patterns.
Noah looked up at them, his hands moving swiftly through the air. Soon, he rearranged the Magic Circles, reconstructed some of them, and finally sent them flying back into the tree in their new formation.
After completing this, Noah stepped back a short distance.
Then, the tree on the lake's central island began to grow, expanding ten thousandfold in the blink of an eye.
The entire Lady of the Lake's magical realm started to expand, its once clearly visible borders now vanishing from Vivian's sight.
Even White and Merlin were quite astonished by this sight, let alone Vivian.
"This... this... If I'm not mistaken, it seems the great tree has been repaired, and along with it, the size of the Lady of the Lake's magical realm has been expanded. And if that's the case, then the issue of our Lady of the Lake's numbers should also be resolved, right?"
Vivian first muttered to herself, then looked toward Noah, who was walking toward her, and couldn't help but ask, "What exactly did you do?"
"Just a simple repair of an old object that had a few issues. Nothing too remarkable, right?"
Repaired? But this is an ultra-ancient Alchemy creation... Even the Alchemy accumulated by the Lady of the Lake over so many years couldn't fix it...
According to the last words left by a former elder skilled in Alchemy, who has since passed away, to repair this great tree, one would need to be at least two or three stages stronger than the current Lady of the Lake's Alchemy just to attempt it!
And even an Alchemist of that level wouldn't find it easy to repair!
Just how strong is this guy's Alchemy?!
Vivian, who was well aware of the significance of this, was about to say something more, but Noah interrupted her before she could speak.
"Alright, don't be surprised over such a small matter—this thing, as you said, is indeed useless to me now that I possess the World Tree. So, if you're willing to offer all the remaining treasures in your treasury as payment and rent, then I have no problem lending it to you."
"So, what about the other two items? Take me to see them."