Chapter 23

Due to super strength and previous training to adapt to the gravity difference, she and the others did not show any problem moving.

"As you all know, our mission is not to just land on Earth. We will now start the next step, building our own base on Antarctica."

They clicked on several buttons to build large tents. They configure the tent setting. These tents were like moving smart houses. After an hour of work, it was all finished.

The research group on Antarctica would be the first major study on Earth lifeform from moon humans, even though they already have a general idea of how lifeforms on Earth works from books from Earth, especially from humans, the problem was that human science was still too primitive to satisfy moon humans lust for knowledge.

To the supernatural side of the world, Antarctica was a wasteland. No magical life form could be found in Antarctica, being magicians, demonic beings, etc.

Even the Ice Giants, the mortal enemies of the Asgardian gods never bothered colonizing Antarctica.

First, because they never found some special resource like magical metal and Antarctica was still too hot for their magical crops to grow.

Second, all their invasions to work were in other to cut off the number of worshipers the Asgardians got. With the supernatural being kept as a secret, they could only make fake natural disasters with magic.

I imagined that as the Vikings converted to Christianity, the Ice Giants may stop bothering them altogether.

The research team proved the supernatural idea of Antarica somewhat wrong. On the hardest and most desolate corners of Antarctica, hidden among normal vegetation there were magical plants.

Antarctica's extant flora presently consists of around 250 lichens, 100 mosses, 25-30 liverworts, and around 700 terrestrial and aquatic algal species. Species of moss endemic to Antarctica include Grimmia antarctici, Schistidium antarctici, and Sarconeurum glaciale.

Just two native flowering plants, Deschampsia antarctica (Antarctic hair grass) and Colobanthus Quitensis (Antarctic pearlwort), are found on the northern and western parts of the Antarctic Peninsula. The continent of Antarctica itself has been too cold and dry to support any other vascular plants for millions of years.

The scanty vegetation of Antarctica is a result of the chilling temperature, lack of sunlight, little rainfall, relatively poor soil quality, and a lack of moisture due to the inability of the plants to absorb water in the form of ice.

This magical plant we found in Antarctica, was named magic sage plants because they absorbed mana like senjutsu users absorbed magical energy. They remained well hidden among Antarctica for fear of being eaten. They were sentient plants, as smart as humans. The eldest of them were an Antarctic hair grass and an Antarctic pearlwort, which were a couple. These two claimed that they lived before Antarctica was completely separated from Australia.

They were a lifeform similar to tree spirits, but instead of being supernatural beings that have a symbiote relationship to plants, they were plants that gradually absorbed mana until becoming something beyond plants.

They were plants with an extremely rare mutation, their descendant had overall the same change from becoming a mana sage plant as any other plant, which was close to zero.

They remained unmoving, but they were experts in mind arts, with their consciousness living deep inside a mind dimension, created by their collective consciousness.

Most plant species only have one of them who became mana sage plants, except Antarctic pearlwort, the Antarctic hair grass, and the Schistidium Antarctici, which have two mana sage plants from each species. The first two species had an elder plant, which helped a normal plant break through to become a sage mana plant.

These two great elders, also helped, any plant break through to become sage mana plants, when they were able to sense this plant's mana manipulation. Plants before this breakthrough, had too weak of a conscience to be sensed, so the elder could only sense their mana.

However, sage plants have a conscience sensing much larger than their mana sensing, the elders could feel consciences through all of Antarctica, but their mana sensing only extended to ten kilometers.

The last has a pair of twin moss, that share the same rock that ended up collaborating subconsciously, 'cultivating' together and becoming sage plant partners. When these twin moss combined their conscious form, they reached the same level of strength as one of the two eldest plants. The twins were the highest authority after the two great elders. The great elders were each an Ultimate class, while the twins separated were High Class and ultimate class, when they combined.

The twin moss also helped other plants to become sage plants.

Becoming a mana sage plant was not easy, as having a mutation that allowed them to absorb mana was not enough, they needed to be able to resist long enough to be able to form a mana shield, a defensive mechanism, that prevented them from being killed by the ambient man, with cold tendencies, by shielding and filtering this wild mana.

Their mind dimension was quite special, because in some way it was physical, so the dimension could absorb mana to strengthen itself, which was also a resource for the plants to cultivate their souls.

They would, however, need to cultivate their bodies separately, but a stronger soul would make body cultivation faster and easier.

The dimension also worked like a unique magic formation, which allowed the plants to cast an illusion that was close to reality warping.

The dimension had three kings, who worked as centers of the dimension and had the power of enforcers, the two great elders and the moss twins( which shared a seat).

The researchers found something abnormal about the mana in some areas of Antarctica.

In the end, they would need to set up a teleportation circle, which worked on Antarctica cold mana and was developed on an emergency note by Medea; to teleport magic researchers to help them solve the anomalies. The two groups had to unite to, with the remote coordination from Medea and Prometheus, solve the mystery. Which, led to their discovery of the mana sage plants.