Lord blessed by the elves

Chapter 85 Another Discovery
Sam turned pale and broke out in a sweat from the barrage of questions. He hurriedly protested, "No...no, Lord Raoul! That tree is really different. Its leaves are blue and they even glow slightly! I swear on my whole family's lives, we've never seen anything like it!"

"Blue leaves? And they glow?" Lauru pretended to pick his ear, his tone even more contemptuous. "Hmph, maybe you're seeing things, or maybe the miasma in the forest is making you dizzy! I think you're just trying to scam the reward! Get back to work and stop wasting my time!" With that, he waved his hand impatiently, as if shooing away a fly.

Sam was so anxious he almost knelt down, pleading with a sob in his voice, "Lord Raoul, please, just let them know, what if it really is..."

"What if what if! I said no means no!" Laur interrupted him, his attitude firm.

Just then, a clear voice, tinged with dissatisfaction, came from around the corner of the corridor:
"Lauru! Who are you yelling at?"

Elena, clutching a thick picture book, curiously peeked out. She had just grabbed some snacks from the kitchen and was about to go back to her room to read when she was drawn by the commotion. Her clear eyes first glanced at the arrogant Rauru, then at the trembling, almost crying serf Sam, and her little face immediately showed confusion and displeasure.

"What's going on? Why are you making such a racket?" Elena frowned, looking at the two locked in a stalemate.

In her view, jumping around and making noise in the castle was her privilege, and she would be unhappy if others dared to make a loud noise.

“Young Miss.” Raul quickly put on a respectful expression and pointed at Sam to complain, “It’s this ignorant serf who insists on seeing the young master. I’m trying to get rid of him.”

Elena turned her gaze to the anxious serf Sam: "What do you want with my older brother?"

Sam, as if grasping at a straw, quickly bowed and replied, "Reporting to...Miss, I discovered a strange tree I've never seen before in the woods. Remembering Young Master's previous orders, I came specifically to ask Young Master to take a look..."

"Shut up!" Lauru immediately snapped. "Young Master is busy with countless affairs of state. Do you think you can just see him whenever you want, and make a trip for a broken tree like this?"

Elena wasn't particularly interested in the strange tree, but she disliked Lauru's arrogant attitude of taking charge of his older brother's affairs even more. Besides, she was secretly planning something; with her daily, unwavering training time fast approaching, she'd be more than happy to find an excuse to sneak out and slack off for a while.

So she nodded and said, seemingly fairly, "Yes, my brother is indeed very busy. How about this, I'll go with you to take a look."

Upon hearing this, Lao Lu became anxious: "Young Miss, you mustn't! The woods outside are dirty and messy, and there might be snakes, insects, and rodents there. How can you go to such a place? What if you get hurt..."

"Shut up!" Elena interrupted him impatiently, because her keen ears had already caught the familiar footsteps of her older brother, Kruze, coming from the other end of the corridor! It would be terrible if her brother caught her trying to avoid training. "I have to go now! Lead the way!" she urged Sam.

"Yes, yes, yes! Thank you, Miss! Thank you, Miss!" Sam was overjoyed and responded repeatedly. He didn't care about Laura's ugly expression and quickly led Elena out of the castle through the side door.

A moment later, Kruse appeared in the hall, looking around: "Where's Elena? Where did she run off to again?"

He had just searched the entire castle but couldn't find his younger sister, and was getting a headache. After asking a few servants, a young maid timidly told him that she thought she had seen the young lady following a serf toward the woods, saying... saying she was going to help the young master "share his burdens".

Upon hearing this, Kruze rubbed his temples, feeling both annoyed and amused. His sister was truly resourceful in her attempts to avoid training.

However, the fact that she could use such a high-sounding reason as "helping her older brother share his burdens" shows that she has grown quite a bit.

“This girl…” He shook his head helplessly, but when he thought that she had gone to the woods with the serfs to see some “strange trees,” a thought stirred in his heart.

Could it be... that another discovery has been made?

He decided to go and see for himself, partly to catch his lazy sister back, and partly in case he found something.

Elena rested her chin on her hand, tilted her head, and looked the seemingly ordinary pine tree up and down. After a long while, she still couldn't figure out what was so special about it, and couldn't help but purse her lips: "Isn't this just an ordinary pine tree? What's strange about it?"

Serf Sam quickly stepped forward and pointed to the top of the tree, explaining, "Young lady, look closely! This tree is indeed a Hornas pine, but the biggest difference between it and a regular Hornas pine is that at the very top, it has an extra-large, oddly shaped 'pine cone'! I've been cutting firewood in this forest for over ten years, and I've never seen a Hornas pine bear such a cone!"

Following Sam's pointing finger, Elena squinted and strained to see, and sure enough, she spotted a pine cone-shaped structure at the top of the tree canopy that was noticeably larger and seemed to have a more complex outline. She nodded seriously, then posed a question that caught Sam completely off guard: "So... can we eat this strange pine cone?"

"Huh? This..." Sam was speechless for a moment, his face turning red. He had no idea whether this strange fruit was edible.

Seeing this, Raoul was about to take the opportunity to mock Sam when he heard a hearty laugh from behind him.

"Hahaha……"

Elena shrank back like a kitten whose tail had been stepped on, and turned around guiltily. She saw that her older brother, Kruse, had somehow appeared behind them, with a half-smile on his face, and a strangely shaped monocle on his right eye.

Kruze ignored his sister's little scheme and focused his gaze, through the Elf King's monocle, directly on the peculiar pine cone at the top of the Hornas Pine.

With the unique vision granted by the lens, he could clearly see that a gentle and continuously condensing magical aura was swirling around the pine cone, as if life was being conceived and flowing within it.

“As expected…” Kruze realized that this familiar phenomenon of magic gathering was exactly the same as before Zi Zi and Huang Deng were born.

This seemingly ordinary pine tree is indeed nurturing a new spirit insect, and it is very likely a spirit insect related to wood, resin, or such tree species!
(End of this chapter)