Ch. 243: Gathering Mushrooms, Gathering Water, Gathering... a Knife?

"Mushrooms? What mushrooms?" Mo Fei asked.

"Ley-Bloom Fungus," Lily said. "And some herbs while we're at it. I want to make herb pouches."

"You mean the kind I mentioned before, for making soups and stews?"

Lily nodded. "To try it out. We have to go to the abandoned mine on the outskirts, go into the tunnels to turn over rocks and dig roots." She paused. "Going alone, I'm afraid I won't have enough stamina."

The abandoned mine on the outskirts... The guy from Greg's group who took the box ran into a huge pack of rat-hound monsters deep in the outskirts' abandoned mine too.

Mo Fei looked at Lily's frail frame.

Though they might not necessarily run into anything, if they actually did, with her physical shape, she wouldn't even be able to run away.

"All right, I'll go with you," Mo Fei said. "When do we head out? Tomorrow morning?"

"Yes." Lily nodded. "Once the herb pouches are blended, the first batch is yours."

---

That evening, Victor came up from the basement. He had barely taken two steps before being blocked by cargo crates stacked in the corridor, leaving him no choice but to squeeze sideways between two piles of crates.

"How long are these going to sit here?"

Behind the workbench, Mo Fei looked up. "They're being moved out tonight."

"Can't even walk through," Victor grumbled, continuing toward the door.

Just as his hand touched the doorknob, a pool of black shadow rippled across the workshop floor. Corone surfaced from the shadows alongside several woven wicker baskets overflowing with herbs. She swept a glance over the room full of cargo crates, and just as she was about to speak, her gaze fell upon Victor by the door, halting abruptly.

"...Victor?"

Victor turned around. "And you are?"

Corone stared at his face, only speaking after a good while: "I saw you when I was a child. You haven't changed a bit."

Victor frowned and studied her for quite some time before finally shaking his head. "Don't remember."

He pushed the door open and stepped out into the night.

Corone remained gazing at that door.

Mo Fei recalled the conversation he had overheard back when rescuing Tang Tang. Eternal youth or whatever... could that actually be real?

He hesitated for a moment, then decided not to pry. He simply held out the cargo manifest: "Let's check the goods."

Corone pulled back her gaze, took the manifest, and went crate by crate checking the Chamber's cargo; Mo Fei inspected the baskets she had brought. Once both sides finished verifying, she tucked the manifest away.

"No issues." She withdrew an herbal medicine packet from beneath her shawl. "Here is this round's compensation."

Mo Fei accepted the herb packet, had ZIP compress the cargo into cargo blocks, and let Corone sink back into the black shadows with them.

...

Early the next morning, Penny came to collect the baskets of herbs, leaving behind the usual five gold coins as a brokerage fee.

Mo Fei handed off the remaining work and shop-sitting to Toby, slung the delivery box packed with tools and an Ether lamp onto his back, brought Prototype No. 1 along, and headed out with Lily.

---

After leaving the city, Lily stopped and started along the way, casually gathering herbs.

Eventually, they walked up a gravel slope.

Mo Fei's pace slowed.

Looking at the pitch-black mine entrance atop the slope, he thought: This... looks like the place I came to when gathering herbs for Victor before. It was also while gathering mushrooms inside that I ran into Valk and helped him fix his Spirit Phial.

Two sets of wheel ruts pressed into the gravel slope, the tracks still fresh, leading straight into the mine entrance. Trapped in the crevices beside the wheel marks were a few tufts of fur, some gray and some yellow, looking like shed hairs from cats or dogs.

Lily's gaze swept over the wheel ruts, and she stepped right over them.

Mo Fei remembered the caged wagon Greg had mentioned again. Could this really happen to be the place?

He hoisted the delivery box higher onto his back and quickened his pace to walk ahead.

"I've gathered Ley-Bloom Fungus in this mine before. Follow me."

---

Inside the mine tunnel, it was dark and damp. Relying on memory, Mo Fei led Lily to the spot where he had originally gathered the fungus.

The scattered stones remained where they had been, but there was nothing beneath them.

Lily squatted down to look, then looked up at him.

"Ahem... I cleared this spot out last time. Let's look further inside."

The further in they went, the wetter the rock walls became and the dimmer the light grew.

Mo Fei lit the Ether lamp. The two searched all along the rock walls and finally found Ley-Bloom Fungus beneath a large boulder.

Mo Fei shifted the stone aside, dug out the Ley-Bloom Fungus roots, soil and all, and handed it to Lily.

She tucked it into her satchel and pointed to another rock fissure nearby. Following her guidance, Mo Fei worked his way from one fissure to the next, digging along.

Just as they had gathered almost enough, Lily suddenly pulled up her sleeve to cover her nose and mouth. Right after, Mo Fei caught a pungent stench that stung his nasal passages, drifting from deeper within the mine tunnel.

This smell... is so similar to corrosive potion. Victor said natural Aqua Fortis can be found in caves, could it be...

"That's enough." Lily put the last mushroom into her satchel, her voice muffled behind her sleeve.

"I want to check something. Wait for me a moment."

Carrying the lamp, Mo Fei followed the odor inward. After just a few steps, there was a splash underfoot as he stepped into a shallow puddle.

Sizzle—

White smoke rose from beneath his foot. Mo Fei hastily yanked his foot back. A ring had already been eaten into the sole of his shoe, tiny bubbles still fizzing along the edges.

He stared at the puddle and activated All-Seeing Gaze.

[Aqua Fortis]
[Note: Extremely corrosive. Capable of dissolving the host's soles.]

"Gee, thanks for the helpful note," Mo Fei gritted his teeth.

The trail of moisture stretched deeper into the tunnel. He raised the lamp to illuminate ahead. In a lower depression pooled an even larger expanse of liquid reflecting the lamplight. The surrounding earth was gleaming white, completely distinct from the dark brown soil and stone elsewhere in the tunnel.

[Creta White Clay]
[Status: Moist]
[Note: Impervious to Aqua Fortis. Congratulations to the host: container and contents acquired in one go.]

The kind of earth Victor mentioned that could hold Aqua Fortis must be this.

He looked down at his shoe. Does this count as stumbling upon treasure without even trying?

A tentacle poked out from the delivery box, reaching straight for that pool of standing liquid.

"Hey, don't touch that!" Mo Fei pinned the tentacle down. "It's extremely corrosive. Do you want to dissolve into a puddle of green slime?"

Mo Fei found a flat rock surface, used an iron nail to scratch out a Shaping Array, then dug out a large chunk of white clay and set it on top.

Channeling Artificial Ether, he activated the array. The etched lines lit up, and under the array's guidance, the white clay drew inward and stretched upward. Moisture and impurities squeezed out from the surface bit by bit as the clay tightened firmer and firmer, finally solidifying into a hard white ceramic bottle.

Mo Fei scooped Aqua Fortis from the large pool to fill the bottle, sealed the opening tightly with white clay, and stowed it into the delivery box.

Great, no need to run to the black market now.

Mo Fei dug out more white clay, intending to bring it back to the workshop to transmute several containers.

While he dug and dug and dug, Prototype No. 1 poked its head out from the top of the box, its black beady eyes staring fixedly at a nearby fissure in the rock.

"What is it?"

Prototype No. 1 ignored him, slid out of the box, and reached its tentacles into the rock fissure to rummage around.

It rummaged and rummaged and rummaged, finally dragging out a long, slender object that landed with a sharp clack beside Mo Fei's feet.

Mo Fei bent down to pick it up, wiping away the dirt coating its surface.

"Is this... Valk's hunting knife?"