Vol 2 Chapter 160 : Resources
“This is… the Heart Leaf?”
Veronica could naturally distinguish the appearance of the Heart Gem at different blooming stages. She had seen Bai Jingxuan’s Heart Gem just a few days ago, and at that time, it was still a Heart Bud. In other words, its second blooming must have happened within the past two days.
“It just changed into this form today.”
Bai Jingxuan nodded, confirming Veronica’s guess without a doubt. “Although I felt it was about to bloom a few days ago, I wanted to wait until it truly happened before telling you.”
Her explanation made Xia Liang, who was standing nearby, nod in understanding as well.
“So that’s why when we invited you to go shopping this morning, you didn’t want to come along. You were secretly making a last-minute push.”
Once she understood this key point, a tender smile appeared on her face. She reached out and gently rubbed Bai Jingxuan’s cheek. “You could have told us directly. We would have supported you during your blooming, and that would have been much safer. Why rush into it so impulsively?”
Xia Liang was indeed somewhat surprised by this, but not to an extreme degree. In fact, Bai Jingxuan had already reached the Bud-rank five months ago. She herself had progressed from Bud to Leaf rank even faster than that.
Of course, this was partly due to their outstanding personal talents, but also because they came from the Flower Card Magical Girls and had the advantage of saturated, close-range guidance from multiple Flower Card Magical Girls in later stages.
When Lin Xiaolu first became a Magical Girl, Veronica had already taught the juniors two techniques to increase their total magical power: “Spiritual Thought” and “Force Training.” One method could balance the increase of both total magical power and soul volume but progressed slowly; the other could rapidly raise total magical power but did nothing for the soul.
This distinction was relatively objective and accurate, and it was sufficient for those two juniors who were only at the Seed-rank back then and still needed to learn a lot of basic skills and knowledge.
The vast majority of Magical Girls take half a year to a year to bloom from Seed-rank to Bud-rank, reaching the standard combat power of a Magical Girl. Then, they spend three to four years under the protection of seniors to slowly advance to Leaf-rank. If they have practical combat talent at that stage, they can try to hunt Remnant Beasts more frequently to accumulate the capital needed to push to Bud-rank. However, without talent or a liking for fighting, they often learn basic spell techniques and serve as solid Leaf-rank combat forces, contributing to their city’s security for five years. After a ten-year term, they can expect a comfortable and worry-free life.
Among all these, a repeatedly mentioned resource is the “Echo” obtained from Remnant Beasts.
Magical Girls give the Echo to the Seeder, who then hands it over to the nation. The Echo is used to assess merits and grant rewards. The most crucial rewards among these are the “Love Crystal” and “Heart Honey.”
As the name suggests, the Love Crystal is deeply connected to the “Source of Love.” These items usually appear as irregular pink crystals and serve as the best supplements matched to a Magical Girl’s source of magical power. By assimilating the power of the Love Crystal, a Magical Girl can rapidly increase her total magical power and even nourish her soul. However, the power gained this way is often unstable for a period and requires the Magical Girl to practice diligently and adapt before continuing use.
As for “Heart Honey,” it is another material entirely produced by the Garden. It significantly promotes the improvement of a Magical Girl’s soul. Although it cannot directly increase soul volume, it can greatly amplify the effect of soul enhancement during Spiritual Thought. Its advantage over the Love Crystal is that it can be used continuously to maintain this accelerated growth state.
When Veronica first became a Magical Girl, her peers referred to the process of exchanging Echo for resources to strengthen oneself as “hunting” or “taking drugs.” Nowadays, without her knowledge, the new generation of Magical Girls jokingly call this behavior “recharging.”
To level up from Bud to Leaf rank by “recharging” or “taking drugs,” it requires the Echo from three Pupa-rank Remnant Beasts. From Leaf to Bud rank, it requires twenty Pupa-rank Echoes or two Half-Molt level Echoes. This exaggerated exchange ratio means that it is almost impossible for most Magical Girls to get stronger solely by “recharging.” Unless a Magical Girl has outstanding combat abilities, can participate in encircling Pupas at Bud-rank, and then hunt Pupas solo at Leaf-rank, it is simply impossible to gather enough merits.
However, there is no doubt that the Fangting City squad has uniquely favorable conditions in this regard.
Veronica’s own Heart Gem has already bloomed to the Flower rank, and according to the thousand-year history of the magic nation, there is no possibility of further blooming at the Flower rank. She herself could feel that her abilities had almost reached the limits of what she could grasp, with no path forward beyond this point.
Therefore, since the Moon Festival last year, after connecting with Chrysoberyl Cat’s Eye and even Emerald, and legitimizing Moko, who was originally an unauthorized immigrant, as a Seeder, all the Echo she had accumulated was used to feed her juniors.
With this rapid feeding and the close observation of Flower Cards to minimize side effects through training plans, it was natural that several juniors improved faster than their peers. Of course, becoming Leaf-rank in five months was still an extremely exaggerated achievement.
As for Asou Madoka, she also invested heavily in feeding the Bo’an City squad, which is why the Magical Girls there had rather impressive strength at a relatively young age. This kind of nurturing was destined to help those children grow toward practical combat styles and become a support force for the nation. Both the children and Asou Madoka were well aware of this and tacitly understood it.
Whenever Veronica thought of this topic, she could not help but recall Anya. Even after becoming a Flower Card, Anya never gave up on the idea of continuously improving her strength. With Lin Yun’s support, and even out of his curiosity about the limits of Magical Girl abilities, both husband and wife agreed on a plan for Anya to delve deeper into the path of Magical Girls. The entire household’s expenses were covered by Lin Yun. The Echo Anya earned from hunting Remnant Beasts was partially converted into savings for emergencies, while the rest was entirely turned into Love Crystals and Heart Honey.
Anya’s own formidable strength, along with her willingness to constantly undertake missions and hunt Remnant Beasts to improve herself, gradually made her known as the strongest Flower Card. Yet even so, her Heart Gem never showed any sign of blooming again.
Not until her death.
Because of this, since her comeback, Veronica had basically given up on spending money on herself and focused entirely on investing all resources into her juniors.