The name "Heartseed" hung in the air of the Hearthline council room like a potent, dangerous spice. Reign's revelation had shifted their perspective once again. They were no longer just defending their philosophy against a criminal enterprise; they were caught in the middle of a mad treasure hunt for a culinary holy grail.
"The Heartseed…" Kael murmured, his face pale as he scrolled through the academy's digital archives. "It's barely a footnote in most texts. Listed under 'Culinary Mythology' and 'Unverified Agricultural Legends.' Most serious scholars dismiss it as an allegory."
"What does the legend say?" Nyelle asked, cutting to the chase.
Kael read from his tablet, his voice hushed. "It speaks of a single, ancestral plant that was the progenitor of all other flavorful vegetation on earth. The 'First Plant.' It wasn't one thing—not a fruit, not a vegetable, not an herb—but a living nexus of all potential flavors. The legend says that a single seed from this plant, if cultivated and consumed correctly, could attune a person's palate to the 'origin frequency' of all taste, granting them an intuitive, perfect understanding of any ingredient."
"The palate of a god," Izen said quietly, finishing Reign's warning. "That's what Nochelli is after. The ultimate shortcut. Why steal one chef's palate code when you can possess the source code of all flavor itself?"
The sheer, megalomaniacal ambition of it was staggering. Belphar Nochelli was not a common thief; he was on a quest to become a deity.
"It's just a myth, though, right?" Grit said, though he sounded uncertain. "A fairy tale."
At that moment, the door to the room opened and Dean Quirin walked in. He had an ancient, leather-bound book in his hands, its pages yellowed and fragile with age. His usual enigmatic smile was gone, replaced by an expression of deep gravity.
"A fairy tale with very deep, and very real, roots," the Dean said, placing the book on the table. He opened it to a page with a faded, hand-drawn illustration. The drawing depicted a gnarled, ancient tree, but instead of bearing one type of fruit, its branches were laden with an impossible variety: glowing apples, shimmering herbs, star-shaped roots, and flowers that seemed to be woven from light itself.
"The Aethertaste Academy," the Dean began, his voice taking on the tone of a historian revealing a long-held secret, "was not originally founded as a school for chefs. It was founded by a society of botanist-philosophers. They called themselves the 'Gardening Sages.' They weren't interested in cooking duels or star-ratings. Their sole purpose was to find, protect, and study what they believed to be the last living descendant of the First Plant."
He pointed to the drawing. "They believed the Heartseed was real. And they believed it was hidden somewhere on these very grounds."
The council was stunned into silence. Their home, their school, was not just a campus, but the secret hiding place of a mythological artifact.
"Did they ever find it?" Nyelle asked, her voice a whisper.
"No," the Dean said with a sigh. "They searched for a century. They cultivated every square inch of this land. They documented thousands of unique plant species, many of which now form the basis of our most prized ingredients. Their research became the foundation of modern culinary science. But the Heartseed itself… it remained elusive. Over the centuries, their original mission was forgotten. The society of gardeners became an academy of chefs, and the great quest was relegated to myth."
He closed the ancient book. "Belphar Nochelli, however, is not a chef. He is a historian of stolen things. He must have stumbled upon the Sages' original, uncensored research. He doesn't believe the Heartseed is a myth. And Reign's fragmented memories confirm it. He's actively searching for it. His operations at the academy weren't just a business venture; they were an excuse to have a foothold here. To dig."
The pieces of the puzzle slammed into place. The Shadow Market's presence, the elaborate technologies—it was all part of a grand, centuries-long treasure hunt.
"So where do we even begin to look?" Grit asked. "The campus is a metropolis. He could be digging anywhere."
Izen, who had been listening intently, walked over to the window. He looked out not at the bustling central campus, but at the sprawling, wild green expanse of their own Greenhouse Project. He looked at his fields, where flawed vegetables were telling stories of struggle, at the greenhouses where herbs were drinking in the memory of coffee grounds, at the symbiotic beds where bitter roots and sweet tomatoes were locked in an endless, delicious argument.
His eyes fell upon a section of the project they had never touched. A far, overgrown corner of the old Sector Gamma, dominated by a single, colossal, ancient tree. A tree so old it was rumored to have been there before the academy was even built. The gardeners of the Agronomy Guild had warned them away from it, saying the soil around it was "stubborn" and "uncooperative," refusing to grow anything they planted. A dead zone.
He thought of the Gardeners' original mission. He thought of Nochelli, the hunter. And he thought of himself. A boy who didn't add, but listened. Who found treasure where others only saw trash or a dead end.
"Nochelli is looking for the plant," Izen said, his voice dawning with a new, profound understanding. "He's thinking like a treasure hunter."
He turned from the window to face the Dean and his friends.
"We need to start thinking like gardeners."
He pointed toward the ancient, stubborn, overgrown corner of their own backyard.
"And I think," he said, a thrill of impossible discovery in his voice, "that everyone has been digging in the wrong place."