1395 Surprise



"Let us continue, your Majesty," Talia quickly said. "While you may have a lot of free time, we only have a month of it. If we don't use the month's time properly, we'll end up having to pay for the rest of the fields."

Alex looked around at the large piece of land. "Can you even finish going through this entire place in such a short amount of time?" he asked. "There are 100 different fields. You would have to visit 3 different fields a day to get to all of it." 

"Wouldn't it be better to take your time and gather what you can? It's alright to pay for the rest."

"We can't," Talia said in a slightly panicked tone. "It costs 300 Saint Spirit stones just to visit a single field, and we can't stay here longer for a day or we will have to pay again. This is an amazing chance that we cannot give up."

"She is correct, your majesty," Fang Yimu spoke. "This place is a bit too expensive, even though it offers some of the best ingredients in all of the continent."

"I see," Alex said. "I wasn't aware of your ladies' dilemma. Let us not waste any more time then."

They nodded and walked onto the field of herbs. 

Whisker showed his face from Alex's robe, still hidden from everyone, even the girls next to Alex. He looked around and started telling Alex what he wanted to get.

Alex chuckled and bit and picked what Whisker wanted him to get. He also picked what he wanted, which ended up being many of the ingredients that he saw as he passed by.

The girls picked up various ingredients as well, but as they did, they couldn't help but stare at the amount that Alex had picked up.

"Your majesty, do you recognize what you're gathering?" Fang Yimu couldn't help but ask.

"This? Of course," Alex said. "Who wouldn't recognize a patch of Bluefrost grass? Its iconic frozen-blue shade is impossible to miss."

He picked the blue grass as he spoke and placed it into a small wooden box before putting it all back into his storage ring. He looked toward the patch next to him and smiled.

"Oh, they have the Sunspot leaves as well," he said and reached for the small green plant with big leaves that had yellow spots all over them.

Then he looked at the red grass next to it. "Blood Dill, huh? I hear it's good for cooking. I won't be needed that," he said and walked away from it.

The girls stared slackjawed at how easily he named all the herbs. They were even more shocked as he continued doing it even as he walked away.

"There's a Thunderbolt grass, a Heavenly Silvermoon herb, ooh… they have the Serpentbane grass as well."

Alex walked around even more. "Crimson Bamboo shoot should be helpful in some instances. As for this Sacred Tiger lily… uhh… sure, why not?"

The girls followed him in a daze as Alex named plants that they hadn't even heard of before. Fang Yimu knew a lot more than Talia, but even she was surprised that Alex named 2 herbs that he only remembered based on their looks.

As they continued, Alex came across a path of Spirit Cleansing Lily. He had little use for a lily right now, but not taking them when he had the opportunity simply felt wrong.

So, he reached down toward the plant and plucked one of them.

Fang Yimu reacted too late when she saw him do that. She wanted to warn him that he couldn't pick one of these so randomly and instead needed an artifact.

But even as she tried to do so, her voice stuck to her throat as Alex placed the Spirit Cleansing Lily into his storage ring, but the patch of flower didn't wilt. 

"Huh?" the girls couldn't understand why the flowers didn't immediately wilt as they would when someone picked the flowers randomly.

Her eyes widened in shock when she realized that the reason it didn't wilt at all was because Alex had in fact picked the right one.

"You got the right one?" she couldn't help but ask. She was so shocked that she even forgot to address him with respect.

"Hmm? Of course," Alex said. "Want to see me do it again?"

He reached down to another flower patch of the Spirit Cleansing lily and picked out one more Spirit Cleansing lily, leaving the flower bed intact.

"No way," she couldn't help but say in surprise.

"The remaining flowers will wilt in a day or two, and if it is lucky, from it will grow another bed of Spirit Cleansing Lily in the future," Alex explained. He didn't explain how he managed to do it, however.

He walked away, leaving the shocked girls behind who immediately started pestering him with questions that Alex had to answer in the end.

"I told you guys. I am an alchemist with great knowledge. Just because you didn't believe me in the start doesn't mean that I was hiding it from you," he said.

"But… because you are good at making pills, doesn't mean you are good at recognizing and picking ingredients in the wild. Right sister?" Talia asked.

"Yes," Fang Yimu said. "It isn't as simple as seeing an ingredient on its own and naming what it is. In the wild, you have to know what the tree looks like, what the leaves look like."

"You recognized useful roots of herbs by just looking at their leaves. You plucked fruit hiding underneath the leaves by looking at the stem. That isn't something that you simply know just because you are a good alchemist."

"It takes an immense amount of knowledge and experience to see a plant and recognize what ingredient it has."

"Tell us, your Majesty. Have you worked in alchemy gardens as a caretaker before? You only know this sort of thing when you do that," Fang Yimu said.

"Alchemy garden, huh?" Alex thought back to his early day as an alchemist. "I did work in an Alchemy garden when I was young. It was quite a peaceful time, actually."

"See? That's why you know. I can't believe you were this good at gathering ingredients. Makes me wonder what else you are hiding," Fang Yimu said.

Alex chuckled a bit. "To tell you the truth, I actually learned it from a book I received when I first became a player. That was what taught me and helped me become as good as I am today."

"Book?" Fang Yimu's eyes widened. "What book?"

Alex shrugged. "It was destroyed long ago. It was so many years ago that I don't even properly remember its name, just what was written inside," he said.

"So there isn't any chance of us learning from the book?" Talia asked.

"I'm afraid not," Alex said. "But you guys don't have to. You are already good enough as is, and you can only grow from here. You have many years in front of you to keep improving."

The two girls nodded.

"Alright, let's keep moving," Alex said. "It was you two who told me that we needed to get through all the fields in a month, wasn't it?"