Chapter 75: The hunt for elusive plants

Resting on my back with a hot water bottle, I wait for the massive migraine to pass. No mass purchases for a while, good to know. Eventually, the pulsing pain receded enough for me to get back to what I was doing. Looking outside, I note the encroaching darkness of nighttime.

This time, instead of building on the water, I build in the sky. Specifically, on the roof of my castle, I build the same style structure as my water guardian kill chamber. This ritual based kill chamber requires it to be built 150 blocks into the sky. Normally it’s an annoying requirement, but I just happen to live roughly at that height in the sky – how convenient.

How does one actually summon this guardian? It’s a little more intensive than the previous, easier boss. This one requires air essence, which I need to craft, to summon. The gold inlay alone needs purified vinteum dust, which isn’t so bad to get… in the game. I need Ars Magica 2 plants to obtain it, which involves me finding a dessert and the other plants within the forest.

To start with the easiest task, let's go plant hunting. It’s a good opportunity for me to continue to grind levels, I suppose. Slowly walking into the forest's depths, firing a dig spell at 10 seconds intervals, I eventually reached my original depth earlier in the day. Staying low to the ground, I keep a steady jog as I run through the forest. I make sure to avoid the odd tree as I look around for the damned plants.

Looking for cerublossoms and desert novas are going to be a right pain in the arse. I am likely to find the blossoms in high mana density areas, which will be relatively easy to find given my mana sense. But finding a desert is going to be the real kicker, as I don’t think I know anywhere there is one. I mentally note to find a map in town towards the closest desert.

Continuing on towards the highest mana density within my vision, I stumble across a witchwood tree. It’s a pleasant find, given that I need a plant that grows under them – aums. Picking the handful of aums growing under the tree, I realize that cultivating witchwoods would produce a virtually infinite supply of the flower. Hitting my head at my own stupidity, I move on.

Walking through, I almost trip on a large root as I spot my first blossom. The beautiful cyan glow is unmistakable. “I wish you were farmable, I truly do.” Harvesting the plant, I head on, quickly finding more and more within the pockets of mana I come across. I suspected that this would be the easiest part of this damnable flower hunt. Coincidentally, a river runs through a mana dense area, which resulted in me gathering a dozen wakeblooms. A pleasant surprise, as, although I don’t need them exactly now, I will in the future.

Eventually, when I get a red skill point, the growth spell part will become available, which can grow these flowers. But, until then, it will have to be harvested in the wilds. Looking at my mana core, I am pleasantly surprised to be level 21, with 1 green point in my heart. Excellent.

Teleporting home, as I've completed my tasks in the forest, I head to bed. I quickly fall into slumber with the day’s exhaustion slipping away like washing dirt off your hands.

I wake up well-rested and ready for the day. I send Jengal the descriptions and sources of infinite orbs by mail just in case he can get a green, or most importantly red, orb for me. Currently working on green orbs really puts into perspective how difficult the red orbs are going to be, especially when trying to get large amounts of them.

Eating a quick breakfast of fruits lightly drizzled in honey, I contemplate always having loved fruits on earth, especially now I have an unlimited supply. Sling decides to crash my breakfast to steal some food. “You can literally walk outside and eat right off the tree.” I say, exasperated at the silly slime.

The slime sits there defiantly until I give in and surrender my breakfast to the gluttonous beast. “Alright, that’s enough delaying.” I need to find a route to a desert, there’s no use waiting.

Teleporting to town while still suffering from my slight morning fog was jarring, to say the least. I nearly fell over as my vision became pretty clouded. I should always wake up first, noted! Still, I stumble out of my house and take a light jog around town to get the blood pumping and my energy flowing. It doesn’t take long for me to feel wide awake and ready.

Heading into town, I feel a pang of disappointment as I don’t spot anyone I know. Nevertheless, I start darting from stall to stall looking for maps. I find a couple maps, but quickly note a distinct lack of deserts… or biomes in general. All of the maps I found simply noted road routes, cities, and towns. I did find one extremely detailed map that I was impressed with. It was clearly hand-drawn with extreme care and attention to detail. Distance markers are on the side and tons of location markers are noted. I internally wish that they made more maps, as they are surely talented.

Leaving with a disappointed feeling, I head to my plan B: the local library. Walking into the familiarly squeaky wooden door, I see the same bored and aloof clerk. After giving the clerk 2 silvers for my entrance fee, I begin perusing the books. After searching through the dusty pile of books for over an hour, I decided to bite the bullet and ask the clerk.

“Sooo, you wouldn’t happen to have any maps with biomes on them, would you?” I say lightly .

He turns to me with a tired expression before pointing at a stupidly large book on the top-shelf. “Thank you,” I say in appreciation.

Climbing on the mountains of books, I eventually snag the book from the shelf. I tumbled slightly at its startling weight. Sitting down in a comfortable cross-legged sitting posture, the book is opened with hope and haste. The clerk didn’t lie, it contains extensive biome locations on its maps. The only problem? It has too much information; containing what is likely half the world's known biomes rather than the local geography.

Accepting my fate, I begin to narrow down my location within the book to figure out where the closest desert is. Taking a terrifyingly large amount of time, I eventually found the desert I was looking for. Travelling a few towns over then deviating largely from the road will result in a large stretch of the desert located next to a mountain and ocean.

I fall back in my seat in thanks, as I have finally found the information that I needed. Looking over, I see the clerk looking at me with equal parts annoyance and humor. “Fine, fine; I will leave. Enjoy your dusty old books. They are some of the worst around anyway.” I don’t dare to say it out loud and get banned. You can never have too many sources of books, after all. I would rather not lose a convenient, if poor, closeby library.

Before leaving, I decide to pay Cassie a visit. ‘knock, knock.’ I wait a moment as I hear a rustle and then movement behind the door. It quickly opens, revealing Cassie with some rather funny bed hair.

“Hey Aeternum, good morning.” She says quickly with a slight mumble.

“Sorry, did I wake you up?” I say apologetically.

She shakes her head. “No, no, I needed to wake up anyway; don’t worry about it.” She says as I quickly take in the fact she is in pajamas.

I wince at having woken her up. I didn’t realize it was so early. “Sorry about that. Anyway, I thought I would say hello. I will be visiting a local desert soon, so I’m unlikely to be back for a little while.”

Her face droops slightly, “Okay, would you like to come in?”

Removing my helmet to reveal my smile, I replied “Yes, I would love that.”

As we walk into the now more furnished building, she begins walking to her kitchen to make tea. “Don’t worry about it, let me” I say while stopping her.

I walk into her kitchen to prepare us some tea. It’s a rather difficult job, since the kitchen was unfamiliar. There’s nothing to be done but persevere, as she was far too tired to be messing with a saucepan of boiling water.

Bringing us 2 steaming cups of golden tea, I set them down before seating myself next to her on the sofa.

“So, did you have a good night?” I ask, making small talk.

Cassie mumbles for a moment before speaking, “Yeah, yeah, it was alright I suppose.”

Clearly, she is still half asleep. It's rather funny seeing her trying to… human in the morning.

“I can come back in a little while if you want, let you wake up,” I say as I go to get up. She just grasps my arm and pulls me back down to my seat.

“Don’t be silly, I am just a little sleepy. Sit your ass down.” She says with a slight blush. Her hair is a mess, flying in every direction.

“Here, at least let me,” I say as I brush her statically charged hair behind her ear.

She doesn’t pull away from my hand, but instead shuffles slightly in her seat while avoiding my eyes.

She shyly replied “Thanks.”

We sit there for a time, an inch closer than earlier, just silently appreciating each other's company. She nearly dozed off half a dozen times, which I found both cute and funny until I had to dry drool off my shoulder.

“Hey, Cassie; you awake there?”

“Uh, what?” she said as she rubs her eyes.

“Lost you for a second there, you sure you don’t want to go back to bed?” I ask, finding her attempts to stay awake admirable but unneeded.

She pauses for a moment, internally debating whether she wants to spend more time with me or her bed. Eventually, her tiredness causes her to give in, and she walks soundlessly to her bed. Right before cresting the stairs, she turns around and loudly says “I will say hello when I am not half-asleep, good night.”

I choose not to correct her that it's morning, then excuse myself. I find that the streets are even busier in the rising sun. Quickly losing myself within the bustling town, I find myself at the gate that I need to leave from to travel to the desert. I quickly bought and ate an apple from a passing merchant before exiting the town.

I take a short moment to look back and enjoy the hustle and bustle of the town before quickly taking flight with a sweet pastry from my bag for the ride. The roads were just as busy as earlier, with carriages riding up and down them. Gliding lower to the ground, I spot a 2 wheeled vehicle, a motorcycle. What's most shocking is that it appears to be a carbon copy of a vehicle from Earth. Most motorized vehicles here have a weird piping system in a steampunk style or other type of deviation.

I take a long moment to appreciate the vehicle. I have plenty of time, since it doesn’t move quite as fast as the earthen variety of the vehicle. It seems to max out at around 40 or 50 miles per hour, which is a similar speed to my belt of flight. “I need a flight upgrade.” Soon, I will have awakened draconium and a 2000% speed bonus if I so choose it. What a world it will be then. There will be no more slowly moving from location to location. I could make it to the capital in less than a week, I would hazard to guess.

Having enjoyed the distraction, I face the reality of the fact that I am going to need to fly for a few days to get to this damned desert. If there is a closer desert, it isn’t on any local maps. What a shame, I say. I wonder if there are any other options for faster flight? I know a cloud pet allows for a flight with double the speed of creative flying. It’s not like it's easy to get a cloud pet, but it’s food for thought, nonetheless. Maybe I could make a fighter jet or something, although that involves messing with completely new and unfamiliar mods. That would be annoying, to say the least, when I could just be patient and get awakened draconium armor. Choices, so many choices. I have too much time on my hands.