Endzone: Simulated Apocalypse

Chapter 128: Alchemy's Way

Once things had settled down and the other girls explained to Kirika that this was her new appearance now, it was settled that the group would go do the usual: farming EXP. However, this time, there was a catch.

According to Dianna, in her past experience as a player, forests and jungles such as this were home to many rare and valuable herbs that could be used in crafting potions and elixirs. Of course, to actually craft them yourself, you would need a DEX stat of at least 100 due to its extreme complexity, but Cyanide had Doctor Finch. He quotes, "so long as he brings him the materials, he can make the potions." Alchemy was what the crafting of potions was called in this world, apparently.

And now? Well... here they were, collecting the materialsand a whole damn lot of it at that. There was no telling when they would go to another spot like this, so if this place held plenty of rare and valuable resources like herbs, why not take them all right now?

But of course, as with all things, risk and reward were two sides of the same coin. As such, there would naturally be dangers associated with collecting these herbssome are guarded by powerful mutants, others have traps surrounding them, some will even attack on their own, and some are just stupidly difficult to collect.

Thankfully, the Sentinel of Envy, who had been here for a good couple hundred years now, knew all the locations for every possible species of herbs within this rainforest (which, by the way, was called Shunned Canopy). She even hand-drew three maps using some leaves as paper, somehow, and it was revealed that the herbs were spread out all across this region.

In other words, if the group wanted to collect everything in one day, they would need to split up.

Potions and elixirs, according to Dianna, were invaluable later on. They provided temporary stat boosts and could make the difference between life and death. Hell, they could even provide a second life momentarily, or block all incoming damage for a brief period of time. And so, collecting the materials necessary to craft them right now was pretty important in the long runand besides, harvesting and collecting herbs apparently rewarded a decent amount of EXP as well, so there was that too.

As such, the group divided themselves into three teams, each with a map: Dianna and Ivy (Falcon), Kirika and Luna, and Ragnar and Cyanide. Apart from the way they entered the rainforest from in the first place, there were three other directions the rainforest expanded towards: North, South, and West.

Each duo took one direction each, and agreed to rendezvous back here by tomorrow morningmainly because some of the herbs actually can only be harvested at night or even past midnight.

With this, the team setups were pretty balanced. Each one of them were skilled enough to handle themselves, so there was nothing to be worried about. Yes, this rainforest was dangerous, but... quite frankly, all of the party now were above Level 30, meaning they'd outleveled this area already.

And fast forward to about an hour later, well...

"Alright, Cyanide. I lost the last competition, but I'll shit on you this time around is what I'd like to say, but this is going to be a tedious journey, so turning it into another competition might not be too great of idea," Ragnar said with a smirk. "Now, let's see what's on our list... Insanire, Moonflower, Odium, Prefilicous Sage, Shrieking Mandrake, Anastasia, and uh wait a minute. How the hell do I pronounce this one?"

" Farmakeftiks," Cyanide said with a breeze.

"The fuck?"

"Far-ma-kef-ti-ks," Cyanide repeated, syllable by syllable this time.

"Uh yeah, sure. That. What about this one?"

Ragnar held Envy's list of herbs in this direction up to Cyanide, who promptly read the last one on the list.

" Yobendover."

" What?"

"Yo. Ben. Dover."

"No, no, you want me to what?"

"What? That's how you pronounce the herb's name."

"Jesus Christ, Cyanide, read the D with 'Ben'."

"Yo-bend-ove- oh."

It was then that Cyanide finally realized what the plant's name was, and he fell into silence as Ragnar cackled.

"Ha! It took you way too long to realize, assassin! But still, what kind of stupid plant name is this?"

"Quite the interesting one," Cyanide said, completely unaffected. "But in any case we should move."

"Yeah, yeah," Ragnar said, rolling his eyes and folding his arms. "So? Where's our first stop?"

"Shrieking Mandrakes," Cyanide said. "They're found in tall trees, and there are quite a few of those right in front of us."

"Ah, shit I was hoping we wouldn't have to do those until later," Ragnar muttered. "Fine, fine, whatever. Just know my high VIT stat doesn't cover my eardrums."

Heaving his greatsword up on his back, Ragnar approached one of the large trees and observed them closely. Envy's list also had descriptions for the herbs and where to find them, so Ragnar and Cyanide knew what to expect. Shrieking Mandrakes in particular were found along trees, big trees. They 'camouflaged' themselves within the tree trunk and some within thick branches, but if one looked at the tree for more than two seconds, they would be able to tell something odd about the way it looked. In other words, the camouflage was pretty damn bad.

Even if one spotted them, however, the retrieval process wasn't exactly easy. If they were spooked, they would SCREAMvery damn loudly. It was enough to cause permanent damage to the ears, according to Envy, so some protection was necessary.

" Hey. There's a couple right on this tree right here," Ragnar said, not taking his eyes off the trunk. "You ready? I'll whack the tree real good in a second, and you're gonna be responsible for taking them out. Remember, no guns."

Cyanide nodded and prepared his knife in his hand. "Get on with it."

Ragnar cocked his neck back, stuffed two crumpled leaves into his ears as safety for what was to come, and reared his arms back to prepare his strike.

"Well here goes nothing!"

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