Before the Main Tournament

Inside the Tranquil Hotel in Bohan.

Despite the many incidents, large and small, that had recently occurred in Bohan, Mage Gareth continued to advance the academic exchange program in an orderly fashion.

Lai and Philly stood once more inside the cleaned-up plantation.

Unlike the vibrant place they had seen on their last visit, the entire plantation now looked like wasteland waiting to be cultivated. Not a single precious magical plant was in sight.

Timothy wanted to fill the plantation with magical plants again as soon as possible. But after losing a stock built up over decades, assembling the same complete range of species would be much harder.

The original variety had been the result of many Alchemists in the Emerald Life Ring working together and bringing plants back from elsewhere.

After the flood destroyed most of them, many of those accumulated species had no corresponding seeds or materials on the market. Finding them again would take time and the Alchemists' continued efforts.

For now, they could only leave the plantation empty and spend large amounts of gold on alchemical materials, cutting into their profits to keep serving the organization's customers.

The disaster had also created a great deal of work for the plantation. New magical plants had to be planted.

And that gave the mages from The Alliance an excellent chance to practice.

Of course, one could also say Timothy was short-handed because of the plantation disaster and had roped these mages into doing free labor.

He led them in burying magical plant cuttings and seeds in the soil, then had them use their mental energy to maintain the Alchemy Devices that created a suitable environment for the plants.

Lai, for her part, thought it was definitely the latter. Timothy had put these mages to work fixing his plantation.

The