Chapter 43

“Is there anything I need to be aware of?” Adrian asked the moment the mock fight behind him finished.

Kiyoko shook her head. “No, and in case you’re wondering you’re not needed here.” She fiddled with her necklace. “Adrian?”

He heard it through both his necklace and the air.

“It worked,” he answered, not bothering to use the communication device. If one way worked, then the other would as well. “I’m going to go searching for herbs.”

Step.

“Adrian.” His necklace spoke to him. He stopped and looked back at the oracle. “Don’t gather in the swooper territory; your Ambusher’s tricks might not work on them.”

He nodded. “Thanks.” Then he focused on his new skills. They blossomed outwards, identifying everything interesting within a kilometre of him. It was glorious.

There were around twenty herbs, fungus and plants that he would have been excited to harvest a week ago visible within his range. Adrian plotted a course that was almost a straight line away from the others. After the zuaqliaq berries, focusing on getting expert materials seemed foolish. If he had half a day in the wilderness, then his focus needed to be on master and grandmaster-level ingredients. But, because it would not slow him, his planned path took him past the first concentrated source of energy. If they did not delay him too severely, he would gather as he moved. Parting a bush, he identified what had drawn him.

Yankotas Tubers

Contains variable amounts of force energy. This power can be harnessed in crafting.

Value: Variable depending upon potency.

The plant from above was just a couple of blades of grass, but when he dug into the dirt, he was able to pull out what looked a lot like a pale-yellow deformed carrot. The root in his hand had energy concentrated to low expert levels and while he did not have any recipes that used the reagent he was sure such knowledge would be worth purchasing. Even something simple, like exploding flasks would be useful.

He kept going. Harvesting when doing so would not delay him unduly.

There was an intense pressure that was at least mid-expert-level. Adrian deviated from his planned route to harvest it. There was an old dam covered with lilies and beautiful red flowers.

Redstalk Lotus

The lotus flower that it produces contains a significant amount of water energy that it can use to defend itself by creating high-pressure jets of liquid.

As always, Adrian could look beyond the high-level descriptions to get a higher understanding of the plant. When it defended itself, it used its potential. After four defensive water jets, then it would be useless to him having reduced itself to only an advanced herb.

The technique to harvest it was involved and icky. Adrian would need to swim under the surface of the lotus pads and then slowly work the flower free. If he went too quickly, it would strike back and, trapped in the water it would get him.

Could it kill him? Probably not, but the harvesting wasn’t without danger and it would take a long time. The eight beautiful flowers seemed to float on the water. Their potential and value tormenting him.

Adrian turned his back and left the likely bounty of thirty thousand energy behind. The cost-benefit equation did not add up. Safe harvesting wasted time and cutting corners made the process too dangerous.

He continued on, running and shadow stepping as often as possible to eat up the ground. The unexplored land was valuable, and he picked up a variety of expert-level ingredients but the true payoff, what he was searching for, a herb powerful enough to be described as a natural treasure did not reveal itself.

He missed Jaracol. It would have been nice to bounce ideas off the interface and see if his random run and search to find the treasures was even viable. How common were master-level herbs? Could they hide themselves? He had stumbled across one. Was that occurrence like a hole in one that would happen once in a lifetime or an eagle which was more like once a season or a birdie being every other day? Adrian had never been an outstanding golfer, but right now he lacked the information to judge the validity of his actions. It did not matter that what he was finding was valuable. It wasn’t enough to excite him.

“Adrian.” Kiyoko’s voice came through to him. “You need to return.”

“How long do I have?”

“You have time to harvest anything you find on your way. Just no large detours. I’ve updated your map.”

He consulted his map and did a U-turn in order to follow her directions.

Once more, he fell into the rhythm that let him cover the territory quickly and safely.

A source of energy appeared to him. He deviated slightly to harvest it. At the base of a large gum, there was a sizeable patch of pale green grass.

Yankotas Tubers

Contains variable amounts of force energy. This power can be harnessed in crafting.

Value: Variable depending upon concentration of force energy.

There were a lot of them but their quality was disappointing.

Adrian frowned.

They were barely worth four thousand energy and the five minutes it would take to harvest them were too long. He needed to do better. He had been so busy moaning about not finding something exceptional he had failed to pay attention. The plant sensing skill, if he had bothered to query, would have revealed the lack of quality.

With another shake of his head, he turned away from the plants. In ten to fifteen years they would be worth his time. For now, they were just a distraction.

Adrian consulted his map, and he had been straying from the line Kiyoko had put him on. Adrian corrected his course and started running.

An intense source of energy screamed into his consciousness. It was right at the furthest range of his ability. A full kilometre away.

Yes!

He sprinted toward it and then forced himself to slow.

Another concentration of power pinged ahead of him and he froze completely.

Ambusher’s Fade snapped on.

Survival instincts kicked in and he focused on the information trickling in.

A monster.

A damn powerful one.

Adrian studied the modest hill in front of him. At its base or potentially within it, there was a class four monster.

That calmed him. Class four he could take, especially with his upgraded spear. He wanted to stroke the amazing weapon, but Ambusher’s Fade restricted the impulse.

A lot of him itched for a fight.

You’re not here for that.

A pertinent reminder. Family had to come first, and challenging a class four, no matter how confident he was carried risk.

Shouldn’t fight it.

But!

There was that initial energy that attracted him. That was a high-levelled plant. It was what he had been searching for all day. The problem was it was awfully close to the monster.

He could scout. “And if it goes wrong, I can always run.” He told himself out loud. “Hey, Kiyoko?”

“Do it.”

“What?” he spluttered, surprised at the instant response.

“I’m an oracle. Sneak in, extract the plant and then run. The beast won’t chase you for very long.”

“I shouldn’t fight it.”

“You can.”

“But?” he asked suspiciously.

“You already know the answer. It’s a mid-level class four. You could win and still lose a couple of days if it takes a leg.”

“Then I definitely shouldn’t fight it. If it can take a leg, it can take a head.”

“Nah. It won’t get near your head because everyone naturally protects their head better than a leg.”

“But if I lose a leg, I won’t be able to avoid its next attack.”

“There won’t be a second attack. Not with the active abilities of your spear.”

Kiyoko believed there was no chance of him losing the fight, and she was probably right. But from what she had deliberately let slip a pyrrhic victory was possible. If he fought the creature, he might be maimed.

He thought of Emily. “Thank you. I’ll play it safe.” If he had Jaracol’s support, Adrian was pretty confident the fight would become trivial, but Jaracol was not there. If he fought, he was on his own and would have to win on his own merits, or at least his and his soul bonded spear’s merits.

“But if I won, would I get a loot chest?”

“Not one strong enough to make a difference,” Kiyoko answered immediately. “You’ve spent so much money that your gear is sort of impressive and difficult to upgrade.”

The oracle, as usual, was right on point. With his World Saver title, he would get a chest tailored to him, but what could it give him that he had not already bought directly from a trader.

“How much energy equivalent?”

Across the communication necklace, he heard Kiyoko laughing. “It doesn’t translate like that and anything you get would likely be soul bound and only a tiny upgrade.”

“Yep, but around how much? The Bird loot must have been worth a couple of million energy?”

“A lot less than Bird.”

“But the Bird was weaker.”

“Debatable, but the Bird almost had a quest associated with it. And it had been killing sapients, and the fight was earlier in the event and you were weaker.”

“And that matters?”

“Of course, dear.” The sudden switch in tone told Adrian he was pushing things too far.

“I don’t want to ask?”

“Maybe five hundred.” Her tone was frosty.

Valued at five hundred thousand, but soul bound to him. It would be something he needed like maybe an alchemical cauldron or a magic quiver or some super object to upgrade the spear. The possibilities were numerous. It was all stuff that he could already buy if he wanted to. It wasn’t worth risking his life.

“Kiyoko, any hints?”

“If you want to hide, don’t use battle wraith near it.”

The communication channel clicked off abruptly.

He grinned to himself. She had answered all of his annoying questions because she had been waiting for him to ask a question that would let her share that last bit of wisdom. If he assumed she was effectively replacing Jaracol, then the battle wraith warning would not just be about the one skill. It probably meant shadow steps were a bad idea as well.

He listened for a stirring of emotion to support the decision.

Silence.

Of course, there was. The interface was locked firmly away.

I’m sorry Jaracol.

Adrian chained eight steps and then resorted to standard stealth, being careful to switch off psychic deterrence as he did so.

As he got closer, he could perceive more about his targets. The monster was not next to his target, but it was damn close. Actively, he slowed himself down. A cloud of silence extended around him and his domain highlighted brittle sticks that might break.

Energy swept towards him.

With a curse, he jumped and grabbed the branch above him, and lifted himself up onto it. Above the top of the wave, he watched it as it swept past and a few metres beyond where he perched the spell disintegrated.

It had clearly originated from the class four monster.

What was it?

There was nothing in regional knowledge, but the more Adrian thought about it the more convinced he became that it was an active perception ability. It was too close to the eddies that his active sensing ability generated to be anything else.

He decided to wait and observe a second wave.

Two minutes later it swept by. This time, he actively studied the magic construction. There were tentacles within it that touched everything, and there was a link in the spell structure back to the monster. His first guess was right, it reminded him of the inner workings of his sensory domain. Though this was more limited and providing he got off the ground, he could avoid it.

He waited for a third and then moved. Two minutes between waves was something he could work with. Adrian continued, making a point of looking upwards and to stay near branches he could climb easily. His approach had been sloppy. If that first branch had not been so handy… well, he would have discovered what was in the loop chest.

Energy swept out.

He jumped and then scrambled up a tree. The ability was incredibly flawed considering he could avoid it this easily. Then again, it was a class four monster and it was a surprise that it even had a sensing technique.

Once the energy went past, he dropped and kept going. Every two minutes just before the energy was due to arrive he would climb a tree to avoid it.

Adrian jogged forward.

The next sweep was close, so he scrambled up the tree once more. The energy flowed past, and he looked toward his true target. His elevated position let him see the plant that he was hunting.

Illusion Flower

Capable of creating complicated illusions to protect itself.

Value 270,000 energy.

Adrian’s alchemical skill screamed in excitement.

This was a regent he could use. The flower possessed what amounted to primitive interface material but was structured in a fashion that crafters could use. This was the opposite to standard monster cores, even though they were made of the same base material, it was structured to make it impossible to utilise the cores calculation function. Instead, the cores could be applied to generate effects related to the magic the monsters had cast while they were alive.

The flower in front of him could be the cornerstone of a permanent illusion or, in his hands, it could be used to bump up someone’s mana by ten or more standard attribute points. It could even be applied to promote catalyse: the creation of a natural core or enhance an existing natural core or even more exotic directions like permanently increasing someone’s mental defence.

Adrian climbed higher up the tree while he thought things through. The class four monster was here for the flower. Anything else would stretch the bounds of coincidence too far and the monster instead of getting its tasty buff was caught in the flower’s illusions. Once he harvested the flower, it would know. And it would be furious. It would do everything it could to kill him and hopefully seize the flower for itself.

His play was to harvest and then run.

His battle wraith, internal haste, and steps were available and with all three engaged he could move as fast as a jet. Then there was his public bag of holding that contained the waste material from the vitality potions. It might be time to put them to use.

The wave of energy passed down below him.

Adrian frowned. He would need to wait for the next one. Despite its tricky nature, an illusion flower was basic to harvest for someone with his experience. If you touched it, then the illusion trap could grab you. If you were stupid enough to damage its leaves, that pleasant dream became a nightmare capable of stopping the hearts of the weak-willed. Yet to him those defences were trivial. For all intents and purposes, he could pluck it almost as easily as a normal flower.

Adrian kept studying it and grinned. It was tricky. Most of his senses including sight, smell and gut told him the flower was just metres away from where the monster remained out of sight, behind a bush. The flower wanted its two enemies to fight each other. Adrian knew it would try to trap the winner when it was hurt. Seizing that moment of vulnerability to seal the victor in a dreamscape they would never emerge from.

Illusion flowers had a history of killing powerful creatures using that method.

Adrian wasn’t at all fooled.

While most of him insisted the flower was next to the monster, his domain painted a different picture. The air currents that physically mapped space were clear that there was no flower in the spot where Adrian’s eyes told him the flower was. Instead, the flower was dead centre in the middle of the clearing. The prime spot, Adrian thought in annoyance. It was right where, if someone told you to harvest a magic plant in a clearing, you would assume the plant would be.

He constructed his plan. Jump down, sneak to the centre of the clearing, use a knife to cut out the earth around the flower and then pour the noxious chemicals out of his bag of holding. Telekinesis to grab the flower and avoid the dream trap and then he would run, dropping the waste product behind him. While implementing the plan, he would keep the flower out of his bag of holding for as long as possible. The moment it went in the class four beast would know. Only when the monster reacted would he bag the flower and flee.

Hopefully, those couple of seconds would give the noxious mess he was dumping time to expand far enough to tangle the enemy in its sticky mass.

As ready as he was going to get, he settled down to wait.

The wave of energy which was the monster’s sensing attack sprayed out. He hoped whatever the monster was that it wasn’t too fast and his escape would be clean.

Kiyoko’s confident.

Adrian reminded himself that the oracle was supporting this attempt. She would not be wrong. That thought calmed him.

The sensory wave went past him

Adrian jumped from the tree and landed soundlessly. Dagger in one hand, spear in the other, he ran silently toward the flower. A couple of minutes of observation meant he knew exactly where to place his feet to avoid making noise.

Everything went perfectly. He stood above the actual flower. Twenty seconds had passed. He would have time to harvest and run before the sensory wave found him.

He leaned down and stabbed the dagger into the ground next to the flower.

Energy pulsed from it.

It was like a chime going off in his head.

In Every Head!

Everything within a hundred metres of the flower knew Adrian was in the clearing. And knew that Adrian was trying to steal the flower.

That class four monster knew.

It was time for a new plan.

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