Chapter 56: The Perks of an Enchanted Garden

It had been a couple of days since Joshua's guild had cleared the floral garden and they had spent most of that time resting and preparing the guild for when the timer on protection from territory war declarations would be cleared for their own territory. If they had stayed a small scale guild that was so much more powerful than all other small scale guilds then it was likely that no one would be challenging their territory any time soon. There were already recordings of their last territory war put up, so small scale guilds would have known to stay away.

The issue was the fact that they had upgraded into a mid-sized guild which meant several people would get very prideful and believed they would have a better chance with their greater numbers. At this point Joshua had yet to fill out his guild completely with tons of space left for more members and he wasn't planning on rushing it. Because of this fact he was certain that other mid-sized guilds probably felt that they could use that to their advantage. That's why he and everyone else in the guild knew that they would be targeted once again. Joshua just hoped by the time the Fenrir Guild becomes a large scale guild they wouldn't have to deal with the same issue once again.

At first Joshua thought that the World Government Guild would try to do something fishy in an attempt to challenge the alliance so he was on guard for that, but there was no way for them to personally get involved since they were a large scale guild and the system wouldn't allow them to challenge Joshua's territory. That's why he had no clue who would challenge them at the moment and would just have to prepare for anything, but before that he had given the members of his guild a break to rest up and spend time off before the territory war. They would all begin to prepare for the territory war the day before it making sure to go over which formations they would use now that there were more people involved.

Joshua spent the first couple of days of his little break doing his usual basic training routine in the mornings, but he would spend most of his day at the battle arena. He'd go there not only to participate in his five fights for the day, but to also scout out other participants for either recruitment or preparation just in case he had to go up against them in the future. By doing this he was able to get a good look at the strengths of some of the other guilds in the hub city.

This also allowed him to gather more points in the battle arena for a future ranking after its system got settled in. The battle arena ranking wouldn't be based off of the overall explorer rankings and would be considered its own thing. So Joshua and everyone else would have to get in as many fights as they possibly could before the system set up the rankings to get a better spot. Joshua had no idea what rewards he could possibly gain from being high on the battle arena ranking board, but Thoren had advised him to do the best he could possibly do with it so he would follow his advice.

Of course there were people out there that were basically spending all of their time at the battle arena day in and day out. Even if you could only fight five times a day most people went out on expeditions that would take multiple days where they would miss time in the battle arena. Thus the people who were explorers that decided to put all their eggs into one basket and only focus on the battle arena day in and day out would probably have a higher ranking than him even if he won every single match.

Outside of fighting in the battle arena Joshua focused on learning more when it came to his sub-job as a doctor. He didn't want to fall behind in that regard since it could end up coming in handy later on. Of course when he met his mother after coming back from the expedition and told her about the garden like dungeon that they now owned, she suddenly pulled him aside and in to her office for a long talk. On that day Joshua learned all about several different plants that could be effective in the medical field when it came to all of the new issues they were coming across. Having a garden that could grow these plants at a blinding speed would be incredibly helpful for the alliance and could give them a huge lead in the medical field going forward.

At this point there were already other smaller hospitals starting to pop up and the rising amount of explorers that were coming back with diseases or devastating injuries that first tier healers couldn't handle was making the doctor support job more common in the hub city. His mother had even gained several new members in her hospital and was far busier than ever before. Luckily fatigue wasn't as a big of an issue for her after the system revitalized her body.

After his mother had gone into her big explanation on how important it was for them to get the garden in good order for the future along with Grace coming in and joining the discussion soon after, Joshua was able to finally break away from the two excited doctors and get some space. Now that he knew how important it would be for them to get the garden up and running Joshua decided to have a meeting with the one person he knew would know everything about dealing with such a situation. It was just a matter of getting ahold of her.

Luckily for Joshua he had come across Thoren the next morning taking a break in the cabin that Joshua had in his training area. Although the dwarf had been laying low recently and taking his work more seriously so that his longtime rival wouldn't come and pitch a fit about him skipping out on work, he still came by from time to time. Instead of taking long days off like he used to he'd just take an hour or so long break instead keeping him from getting in trouble. Joshua asked if Thoren could get ahold of Ysildea for him and of course Thoren didn't want to since that would be a clear give away that he was still taking breaks at Joshua training ground. Joshua was able to convince him by just getting Thoren to give him a way to contact him in the future so it would look like he had called up Thoren and asked instead of Thoren hiding away and skipping out on paper work.

With all of that settled Joshua was able to get a meeting with Ysildea later that afternoon since the elderly elf was far more on top of her work than Thoren ever was. When Ysildea arrived her aura caused all of the plants in the forest of the training ground to brighten up at her appearance. Joshua smiled at this since it confirmed that she was the right person to ask questions about the garden.

"It's good to see you're doing well Joshua. Thoren told me you wanted to see me. Does it have anything to do with your aura again?" Ysildea said with the faintest smile as she walked over to Joshua where he was sitting down and meditating in the forest. He quickly got up and greeted her back.

"Thanks for coming so soon. I wasn't exactly expecting you to show up right away." Joshua said with a smile of his own. "This time it's not about my aura, but something else that my guild came cross in our exploration recently."

"Hmm, I guess I'm not too surprised you're already finding new things so soon. It's always easiest to discover all sorts of interesting secrets during the early phases of a worlds change. Why don't we talk about it while taking a stroll through the forest? It always calms me down after a day of work."

"Sure, lead the way." Joshua said as they started to walk alongside each other. The forest seemed so lively with Ysildea around. It would react slightly to Joshua's aura, but it was on a completely different level to the affect she had on all of the plants in the surroundings.

"So what is this discovery that you have found. It must be something that's of great interest to you if you had to ask me questions about it specifically instead of Thoren." She said with a small smile. That smile pretty much told Joshua that she already knew that Thoren had still been getting away from his work even with the little work around they had come up with to explain how Joshua got Thoren's attention.

"It's a dungeon that we came across that kind of turned into a garden of sorts as a reward after we cleared the place. It's not something we've ever seen before and since it turned into a garden I thought you would be the best person to talk to about it." Joshua explained.

"Hmm a closed dimensional space as a reward…that's fairly lucky."

"Closed dimensional space? It seemed to be a part of the area when we first entered it. We had to climb down into it through a forest to get there in the first place." Joshua explained.

"That's often the case with some natural dungeons, but usually the interior is its own little subspace. Especially in the scenario where it becomes a reward in itself. For that to happen it has be a sub space so that others can't enter the location without your permission. I'm guessing you were given a key to access the place in the future." Ysildea said with a small brightening to her eyes at the find that Joshua's guild had come across.

"Yes. The key creates a portal so that we can enter the place at any time. I guess what you said does explain that fact." Joshua said with a nod after getting a better understanding of the reward they had gained. "The garden seems to increase the rate of plant growth depending on the location you plant it inside of the dungeon. The core area has a ten times growth rate according to what one of Lilly's beast companions explained, then there are cavern areas that have a five times growth rate, and the rest of the space seems to have a three times growth rate."

"That's pretty amazing. I've created a few subspaces with similar set ups to that, but it's rather rare to find such a thing naturally, especially so early on. You can use the garden to grow plants that you find out in the world or universe that are incredibly rare to come across. The environment of such a garden will change itself to help grow the plants to perfection." Ysildea explained. "Plus you can also buy some interesting seeds from the system of different plants with medical uses, or plants that could be used in food, but any rare plants won't be found in the system that way. You will have to get them through the auction."

"Thanks for the advice. Now I've got a bit of an idea of what we can do with the place."

"There are some plants out there that can take centuries to millennia to grow on their own so having such a garden can cut that time down drastically." She said with a smile as she walked ahead while Joshua stood there shocked at the information. "Sometimes it's a good thing to have a different perception of time after all."