Chapter 35: Investigation Report

If one were to ask why Tighnari felt absolutely no joy despite his workload being lightened—and, in fact, felt quite resentful—the answer would have to begin with his mentor, Nafis, a Sage of the Amurta Darshan.

As Tighnari’s former teacher and the current Amurta Sage, Nafis had recently become deeply intrigued by the rumors of a "divine manifestation" in the Avidya Forest area. However, as a Sage, Nafis was constantly buried under an endless mountain of research proposals and funding requests that required his approval. Faced with such abstract projects from his students as "A Comparative Study on the Effects of Various Vegetables on the Mental State of Farm Workers and the Prospects of 'Vegetable Therapy'," or "Exploring the Possibility of Using Dance Apparatus to Train Livestock to Improve Agility and Coordination," or even "Comparing the Effects of Different Catnips on Feline Behavior to Determine Their Preferred Varieties," Nafis feared for his reputation in the academic world and ultimately could not bring himself to leave the Akademiya for field research.

Yet, as the rumors of the "divine manifestation" grew, Nafis thought of his most brilliant former student—Tighnari, who was now serving as a Forest Watcher in the Avidya Forest. Concerned for the region's development, he decisively ordered Tighnari to submit a comprehensive investigation report of no fewer than 20,000 words on the recent anomalies. Faced with this blatant abuse of authority, Tighnari, who owed much to his mentor, had no choice but to bite the bullet and comply. And so, long after his graduation, Tighnari found himself once again gripped by the familiar, suffocating terror of his thesis days.

"There's no helping it," he sighed. "I'll just have to investigate them one by one." He made a mental note to make whoever was responsible for this pay when they returned.

Equipped with paper and pen, Tighnari began by documenting the areas where the anomalous plants had appeared. Although he knew full well that this was the result of Lin Feng’s influence, the affected areas were so vast and the plants distributed so irregularly that Tighnari could only write the following analysis in his notes:

"Investigation finds that the plants in the rainforest have been affected by unknown factors and exhibit the following common characteristics:

1. The plants have grown three to five times their original size; fruit-bearing shrubs such as Zaytun Peaches and Sunsettias show a significant increase in yield.
2. Flavorful plants like Padisarahs, Mint, and Spice Fruits have, according to traveling merchants, seen a surge in popularity and market value.
3. The plants show signs of elemental interference, bearing strong similarities to crops treated with the 'Blessing of the Abundance.'
4. [Remainder of notes]

Summary: The rainforest flora has undergone significant changes in traits due to an unknown factor, resulting in increased economic value. However, due to the diversity of species and their widespread distribution, no specific pattern has been identified yet."

"Done!" Tighnari snapped his notebook shut, satisfied with his morning’s work.

Having completed the first part of the report, Tighnari was shocked to realize just how profound an impact Lin Feng had truly made on the rainforest. The region had always been sparsely populated. It was so vast that the indigenous people—the "Forest Walkers"—didn't even need other jobs; simply gathering natural resources was enough to sustain their families. Unlike the merchants who profited from trade or the Forest Watchers who drew a salary from the Akademiya, the Forest Walkers had lived there for generations. Restricted by the Akademiya’s bans on knowledge dissemination, they could do nothing but pass down their survival experience to the next generation. Even with the Forest Watchers present, the monsters emerging from the Ley Lines, the Withering Zones, and the predatory beasts meant that deaths and injuries were common.

But ever since Lin Feng arrived in Gandharva Ville, the Forest Walkers had been moving through a forest safer than ever before, gathering resources in unprecedented abundance. With their survival conditions improved, they had even begun to worship this suddenly appearing "God of the Rainforest."

And that was merely the impact of the common plants flourishing; the truly miraculous aspect lay in the mutated specimens. To be blunt, a single detailed report on any one of these plants would provide enough academic credits for his juniors to graduate with ease—perhaps even enough to fast-track a student from a novice researcher to a full-fledged Dastur.

Because these plants were scattered randomly and were few in number, most scholars who came to investigate returned empty-handed. It was only because Tighnari possessed a Vision, allowing him to track elemental traces, combined with reports from other Forest Watchers, that he had been able to compile a preliminary summary in a single morning.

"It’s truly astonishing. To produce such massive changes in traits... if Lin Feng were to enter the Akademiya, even if he just found a patch of land to farm, he would likely be nominated as an Amurta Sage."

Faced with such superhuman power, Tighnari felt that his own research into plant hybridization and variety improvement at the Amurta Darshan was as simple as a preschooler's hobby experiment. Because he already understood Lin Feng’s unique nature, and because this level of research was far too advanced, Tighnari didn't feel too defeated. After all, one cannot compare a human to a monster.

He took a meat roll from his bag and, while eating his lunch, set off to find the people who had been helped by these rainforest changes. Aside from the obvious environmental impact, the key factor that prompted Tighnari to give the Forest Watchers a holiday was the assistance these travelers had received from the unknown presence. The rainforest seemed to have developed a will of its own; whether it was someone getting lost, injured, or going hungry due to lost supplies—events that previously required multiple Forest Watchers to resolve—everything now seemed to be settled by a series of coincidences. Even if someone ate bad mushrooms and fainted in the forest, they would happen to collapse right next to plants that could neutralize the toxins and restore their health—sometimes the patient would even consume the plants while sleepwalking.

It all felt wrong. Tighnari even had the urge to go and dig Lin Feng out right now—if he didn't ask him face-to-face how he did it, he felt he would be suffocated by his own curiosity.

"Sigh... how am I supposed to fob off my mentor? If I just write nonsense, he’s definitely going to tear me to shreds, isn't he?"

Recalling the classmates who had been so thoroughly criticized by Nafis during their school days that they questioned their own existence, Tighnari shuddered and decided to do his best to fabricate an investigation report that sounded at least somewhat plausible.