1398 The 7th Row



"What do you want?" Alex asked the man.

"Can you recognize the Flameborn Nightsbane, brother?" the man asked.

"I can," Alex said.

"Would you mind finding it for me?" the man asked. "I am in desperate need of it."

"I don't," Alex said. "But you must tell us what you need it for."

"It is to save my daughter," the man said. "She has come down with a condition that could only be cured with a certain pill, but the pill requires that one ingredient."

"To save your daughter? Alright, I accept," Alex said. "But, isn't that a poisonous plant? I don't think I've seen a single poisonous plant yet."

"Oh, the 8th row of fields are all poisonous plants," Talia explained. "You can find almost everything there."

"Oh," Alex said. "Will you girls remain here then? I will go with him and see what I can find."

"Sure, your—"

"Great!" Alex cut them off. "If I don't come back in time, I will wait for you on the rightmost field's gate."

The girls nodded and Alex left. The man followed him as well, surprisingly swiftly and the two of them traversed through the mushroom field, to go to the next one.

The man looked middle-aged and just old enough to be a father. He had a somewhat handsome face and a well-maintained body. 

He didn't have the highest cultivation base, but a Saint Core 3rd realm was decent enough anywhere.

They arrived on the toll bridge where the man brought out a lot of spirit stones to pay to the man.

"Don't worry, brother. I'll pay for yours too," the man said and was about the pay Alex's portion of the feed too.

But Alex quickly pulled out a badge and showed it to the guards who let him in easily.

The man paused for a bit in confusion and looked at Alex.

"Come on, we don't have much time, do we?" Alex asked the man.

"Right," the man said and handed over the fee before running after Alex. 

They both arrived on the 7th field, and Alex had to take a moment to take it all in.

All around him were plants that moved around, their body turning at impossible angles. Vines, roots, everything seemed to move in this place, all of which had just one intention.

To kill whoever came and feed on them.

"Carnivorous plants," Alex said in surprise. "Is that what the 7th row is all covered in?"

"Yes," the man said. "The next one is the poison one."

The man continued moving and Alex followed behind him.

Alex looked around at the various plants, quite fascinated by all of the. It wasn't every day that one got to see kilometers after kilometer of carnivorous plants.

It was a surprise to him how many plants fell under this category. 

When someone spoke of Carnivorous plants, one would think about something such as a Flytrap. They would imagine a giant plant with a part that looked like a mouth that would eat their victims directly.

However, that wasn't always the case.

There were plants out there that did not do that but instead used their vines and roots to strangle their victims and use their bodies as nutrients.

Plants that used roots might directly drag their victim underground, suffocate and kill it, and then absorb the nutrients from that.

Plants that used vines would strangle their victim, killing them quickly and ripping them apart to drop the remains around their roots. The dead body parts would then decay and provide nutrients.

Even before that, they would lure other animals using the meat of their victim and kill them as well to gain more nutrients.

There were also plants that either dropped their hard fruit on their target or send their razor-sharp leaves to cut them up.

One of the trees even used its branches to try and swat its victim. 

Since Alex was in their field now, he was the victim of the sense of the many plants. They attacked him, all with the intention to kill.

As for Alex, he couldn't fight back. At least, not as freely as he could have.

There were obvious restrictions even in this place, and one of the more important ones was that they weren't allowed to kill the plants, no matter the situation.

There were people in the sky, ready to notify someone if one of the people down there were in trouble. Before that, no one was allowed to kill freely.

They could, however, gather ingredients from these plants. 

Which was exactly what Alex did. He brought out a Midnight-like sword and cut through the many plants that tried to attack him.

He cut the rots, the vines, and the branches. He passed through trees that used luring pheromones to attract their victims and gathered the flowers and saps that created the pheromone.

He gathered the fruits and leaves that were sent down to kill him. 

All in all, before he even got to the other side, he had gathered quite a few plants from this field. 

The man that came with him seemed to have no interest in gathering at all. He simply dodged where he could and made his way through the many plants effortlessly.

Alex couldn't help but find that weird. 'I need to be careful it's not a trap,' he thought. At the very least, he could tell there was something suspicious about the guy that he couldn't put a finger on it.

The tears he produced seemed genuine, but who could tell if he hadn't used something to make himself cry? 'Is he planning something?' Alex couldn't help but wonder. 

Whether he was or not, it wouldn't hurt to be careful.

They arrived at the bridge past the many carnivorous plants and went through it. Finally, they arrived on the 8th row.

The Fields of Poisonous Plants.

Alex looked to the left and counted the bridges parallel to the one he just walked through. '3,' he thought. 'So I must be on on the 4th field.'

Now that he knew what he was he could get started.

He looked around at the variety of plants that had no rhyme or reason as to why they were here, except for the fact that they were poisonous.

Alex stopped in front of them all and looked at the man. "I will need some time to find everything, so we will have to slow it down."

"Whatever you need. Take your time," the man said. He was in a hurry, but he didn't want to ask him to speed up.

"If I may ask," Alex spoke. "What happened to your daughter?"

"An accident," the man said. "She went through Qi deviation while practicing a primarily yin-based cultivation technique and ended up entering a coma."

"I found an alchemist to figure out what had happened to her, and he did. But he said that to heal her, I would need a list of ingredients, of which the Flameborn Nightsbane was the only one I couldn't acquire in the market."

"I came with the alchemist in hopes of finding that ingredient here, but it was only later that we realized that we couldn't recognize the ingredient at all," the man said. "As such, I was forced to look for others to help us, and found you."