Spirit Taming

Chapter 434: Flowers Under Rocks

The gathering of herbs was something that both Ella, Maria, and Isa exceeded in over Clark. Isa was a merchant, therefore, she had learned to care for the products she would sell. Her family had spent hours giving her the knowledge she needed to be able to properly pick, store, and then sell high quality herbs.

While this was just because of the importance that came with a mercantile family, it was something that truly surprised Clark. He watched as Isa was able to carefully pluck the green trumpet flowers at the base of each bloom. This lets the flowers remain intact as a plant and grow new buds later.

Ella and Maria were different stories. Ella had been looking for many things that would further her research in the wisps species. Therefore, she had learned about the natural materials such as herbs. Maria had just begun her interests in alchemy. That was why she had learned from Ella and the others what she could.

It was the desire that pushed her to carefully work exactly the way that she had seen her friends working.

This left Clark with the analysis and watching the others. When it came down to how fast he learned, he was definitely at a disadvantage. He had learned some things about the herbs around him which was good. But harvesting them the same way that an alchemist would was tough. Especially since he lacked the skills that came with real alchemy.

He could only do what the system shared with him, nothing to a high degree.

That didn't mean that Clark couldn't gain the right materials or information from the system. The gotcha wheel had many different things on it. If he could get another career or skills related ticket he might be able to get a master alchemist one. If he could get a master herbalist it might even be better since he would understand herbs in general better than just about anyone else.

This was all for the future though. For the moment, he was focused on the things he was working on. The herbs he wicked were few, but he did his best to keep them in perfect quality. The group didn't pick too many though. They had a list to go off of and only picked a few extra in case they did not have enough. It would be foolish to pick the bare minimum then have to rush back during the healing.

When they had finished gathering the spindly moss and the green trumpet flowers, the group met near the second stone path that led to the second floor. "Just letting you know, the paths are somewhat odd down on the second floor. The way that the herbs are left to grow allow them to make natural paths.

Just be careful not to step on them." The apprentice that saw them going down gave a friendly warning which was appreciated.

"That means we should stick together as we look for the bright blue bell. If the herbs grew wild and no one is working on keeping them in one spot, that means we could get lost. That would just slow us down." The warning was good and everyone agreed with Ella as they moved down the stone path.

It was easy to see that the stone path had been placed over the basic cavern floor. There were still very high ceilings that had many of the glow worms on it for light. They didn't appear to react at all to the group moving. Even the glow sting jellyfish floating here and there had no reaction to the glow worms either.

This prompted Clark to finally use his analysis on the tiny dots of light that he could see on the ceiling.

'Spiritual glow worm

These are considered on the most peaceful beasts around. They will remain a glow worm for their entire lives unless other elemental energies are added to them forcefully. They have a natural spiritual healing aura. This allows them to slowly help attract and heal injured beasts.

They are also favored by those that live with long term injuries that can not be healed because they naturally help combat pain.

Rarely, beasts will eat them. The beasts that do eat them often have a unique spiritual ability and affinity. Sometimes they are eaten by beasts with blood spiritual typing. A unique typing that not many beasts can control or possess. The other…'

The information was more or less what Clark had expected. However, he had not expected that he would be reading that there was something that ate the spiritual glow worms. He also wondered if the healers understood that these glow worms were potentially able to grow in to other forms. Not that Clark would ever help in forcing a beast to grow.

Forcing a beast to grow would be very bad for the long term health of the beast overall. Especially if they gained negative qualities because of that.

The unique blood and spiritual typing was also odd. The blood typing was hard to control. Brad understood this most out of the group, but the blood moon cult clearly had influence over many blood type beasts. how else would they have blood in their very name? That alone brought infamy to the blood typing of any beast.

This just made Clark feel that much more unsettled. What other beast could be blood typing down here other than a rare species of glow sting jellyfish or a shark. The iridescent shark that no healer had mentioned showing up on either floor. The idea the elders had and the rumor that was spread as false that there was a third floor was becoming more and more believable.

"This floor is a little colder but I think there are more herbs here." Isa looked at the second floor spanning ahead of them. It had the same design but the only things that stood out were the herbs. Some had expanded and taken over the ground in groups.

There were some vines that used stalky grass like plants as their means to grow higher. Others had grown right on the cavernous pillars that connected to the ceiling. What truly caught their attention were the fact that almost no one was down here.

The apprentices had mainly stayed on the first floor and only one or two wandered here and there appearing to be leaving soon with full baskets of the herbs they needed.

"We should ask them if they saw the bright blue bell." Ella said this as she moved to speak to one of the apprentices. But after a moment, the group saw a shake of the apprentice's head and they were heading back up to the first floor.

"It's fine, we can hunt around for it. The blue bell is a small flower that grows in a spiky grass. It is easier to spot since those flowers are white and those are red. A bright blue color will stand out the most." Clark did have a lot of positivity for this herb. The color blue was normally rare in nature when it came to the flowers.

Not that he could always support this theory since he had seen his fair share of them.

However, as they moved through the cavern, they saw that the herbs were radically changing. Some spots appeared to have herbs that were binding one another with their own roots. It was a classic overgrowth in areas. Yet, they could also tell that it was just the way that herbs would naturally move through their lifecycle.

Some of the herbs were such that needed to feed off other plants to be able to grow. Clark's analysis was telling him small details while the group moved. He was learning a lot that he shared with his group.

"Here it is!" Maria jumped toward the luminescent blue color she saw near a pile of rocks. Some different glowing mosses were growing around them as well. Between two of the rocks was a small section of greenish grass growing with one small bright blue flower that glowed ever so slightly.

The bell shaped flower was angled upwards which was odd but inside they could all see the small amount of nectar that they had to collect. "This is too little. The notes we have require us to find ten more of these flowers." Ella had the paper out and was looking at the small flower with her eyebrows crumpled.

"Well, they are growing through the rooks so we just have to move them." Isa called out her perfect crystal golem and it began to push aside more of the rocks and expose a few more of the bright blue bells. They only were buds though, forcing the crystal golem to move even more of the rocks. Unfortunately, some were a bit too large.

It was only a matter of time before one of the larger rockets shifted and the entire group was forced back.

'Quest- Luminescent swarm

The third floor of the glow sting swarm dungeon has been uncovered after being hidden by herbs and rockets many years ago. The beasts within will sense the new hunting grounds and begin to flow out.

Requirement: survive the small swarm that escapes and delve in to the third floor to retrieve the luminous heart flower.

Reward: 10 basic gotcha tickets, 1 large ice crystal, 1 large fire crystal.'

Nothing about the quest made Clark's mind feel calm. He just knew that the dark space he saw between the rocks that had now been opened was nothing good. It was exactly as his nerves had sensed. And exactly as his luck seemed to go.