The SSS-rank Guide Doesn't Need Saving novel Chapter 90

Chapter 90: Unwanted Attention

The pond beneath the floating stone didn’t so much as ripple, yet somehow light still scattered across it like a hundred fractured stars caught mid-fall. Aisha stood in the doorway a beat too long, struck, no matter how annoyingly, by the fact that something so obviously built to flaunt imperial wealth could also, unfortunately, be beautiful.

For a pure energy stone that huge to appear in the emperor’s residence was beyond her guess. But thinking about the people in the lower sectors dreaming about even seeing one in their lifetime diminished what little astonishment she held onto the huge stone in front of her.

She didn’t like that something useful like that stone could only be used as a decorative piece in the emperor’s residence.

Aisha took her first step into the emperor’s residence. At first, it didn’t look like a room where the ruler of a planet would stay in. Rather, it looked more like a garden with a separate gazebo where a bed was situated. She didn’t go over, as someone else’s bed did not interest her at all.

A golden array of sweet-scented flowers on the side illuminated the path towards the gazebo-like courtyard. Aisha lightly touched the flower petals and curiously wondered if they tasted just as sweet as they smelled.

She reached out to take one petal, plucking it from its buds, and brought it to her nose first. The scent was sweeter now that it was closer. Her mouth parted as she placed the petal into her mouth.

She wasn’t afraid it was poisonous. She’d eaten worse than that, and with the power to even cleanse a miasma-filled monster meat, the flower was the least of her worries.

As expected, it tasted sweet. Maybe like honey or maple syrup?

In any case, they were great for making sweets. Perhaps she could find one later and grow them?

Wait... how are these flowers alive?

Aisha noted the irregularity and looked downward where the stem met the ground. Her eyes widened as she saw tiny little pure energy stones littered on the ground like a sea of stars.

"Do you like it?"

Emperor Nikulaus’s voice drifted from somewhere past the pond. He’d traded his ceremonial robes for something plainer, the sort of outfit a man wears when he wants to remind himself he still has skin and bones beneath all that splendor.

Aisha had already known this, but the emperor didn’t look that old. She didn’t know what sort of sorcery or miracle equipment he had used to make himself look youthful, but if she hadn’t known he was the emperor in her memories, she would’ve mistaken him for Prince Soren’s older brother.

Instead of responding, Aisha stared at the emperor. Where had he come from? She looked behind her at the entrance of the residence where she had entered from, then looked at him approaching in a leisurely manner. Then her eyes moved slightly behind him, but it was darker in the background, and aside from the shadows that seemed to beckon for her to go there, there was nothing else.

Emperor Nikulaus didn’t explain how he had gotten there so quickly while everyone had to deal with the explosion from earlier.

"They’re called Queen Nyxilotte," Emperor said as he got closer to where she stood. "They bloom at night and give off of a sweet smell. I got it as a gift from another star’s empire."

"How do they grow?" Aisha asked, looking back at the flower below. She already had a guess, yet hearing it from the emperor helped her understand some things better.

The emperor stopped beside her. He was taller than her, almost looming, but compared to the two high-ranked sentinels she left behind in the hallway, he seemed shorter now.

He explained, "By using pure energy stones as soil. We crush them into pieces and spread them around before burying the stems of these flowers, allowing them to grow roots. However, it takes a lot of care, and I had to order my servants to change the pure energy stones from time to time once they’re no longer emitting pure light energy."

And wasteful.

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