Chapter 16: Grandma Lijie's Reminder, Gaining Experience
2024-11-18 Author: Amnesty L
That night—
Countless stars twinkled.
The night sky, illuminated by starlight and moonlight, was unexpectedly bright. This was a starry vista Tang Zheng could never have witnessed in his past life, not even in the countryside.
Crackle, crackle!
The firewood in the bonfire ignited, crackling as the flames danced.
Nfirea Bale sat by the fire, holding several herbs and studying them, occasionally sniffing them or even taking a bite.
Grandma Lijie stood by the carriage not far away, checking the condition of the herbs on board.
Of the Rock Squad, only Captain Dosali and Rand, the elder of the twins, stood guard on the periphery.
The remaining two had gone to scout the surrounding area.
At this moment, they were camping out in the wilderness.
According to Captain Dosali, there was a village not far from their current location where they could stay overnight.
However, Grandma Lijie refused, not wanting to take a detour.
Since the carriage held a box of rather valuable herbs purchased from the Royal Capital that needed to be refined quickly upon returning to E-Rantel, they had chosen the fastest route.
Because of this, they skipped some towns along the way entirely.
Such a choice by the client would undoubtedly increase the dangers on the road, and under normal circumstances, it would naturally provoke dissatisfaction among an adventurer team.
After all, the relationship between a client and an adventurer team was merely cooperative. If a client did something unacceptable to the adventurers during a mission, the adventurers could naturally terminate the contract midway.
However, this would require paying a considerable sum to the Adventurer's Guild.
Given the current situation, where they were expected to be laborers and completely disregard safe routes, an adventurer team would have normally come into conflict with the client long ago.
Yet, once the Rock Squad learned that Grandma Lijie was the owner of E-Rantel's potion shop, reputed to be the best alchemist in E-Rantel, all their initial dissatisfaction vanished. They even became much more attentive along the way.
This made Tang Zheng sigh in admiration; the Rock Squad was truly and remarkably pragmatic.
Tang Zheng sat by the bonfire, observing Nfirea Bale's focused movements as he studied the herbs.
At this moment, Nfirea Bale held a slender, root-like plant the length of a thumb in his palm and took a small bite.
The next moment, Nfirea Bale spat out the piece he had bitten off. "So it's a Bitter Root? You really can't tell the difference from their appearance."
After saying that, Nfirea Bale finally noticed Tang Zheng sitting beside him, watching.
"This herb is called Bitter Root. It looks exactly like this Plum Root; you can't tell them apart by appearance, only by tasting."
"Their effects are also different. Bitter Root is suitable for steeping in wine and has a certain detoxifying effect; it's a basic material for making antidote potions."
"While Plum Root also has a bitter taste, it has an added hint of sweetness, making it a suitable base material for healing potions."
Nfirea Bale, who was usually a bit shy, had his eyes light up when he spoke of herbs, and even his voice became much more confident.
"I see."
Tang Zheng nodded, putting on a serious, attentive expression.
In reality, he just wanted to see if he could acquire the "Potion Master" job by learning about herbal knowledge.
Currently, there were no notifications on his status panel.
"Tang, are you very interested in herbs?" Nfirea Bale asked, his bright blue pupils looking at Tang Zheng.
"Indeed, I am somewhat interested," Tang Zheng nodded.
"Hmph!"
Just as Nfirea Bale was about to say more, a soft snort rang out.
Grandma Lijie walked over with her hands behind her back. "Nfirea Bale, don't show off your shallow knowledge."
"Tasting with your mouth is the most basic and also the crudest method of identification. It's not as if you can't smell the difference!" a stern, scolding voice said.
"I understand, Grandma."
Nfirea Bale lowered his head, speaking with a hint of shame.
Tang Zheng averted his gaze. He wondered if Grandma Lijie's scolding of Nfirea Bale also carried a warning for him.
In an otherworld where the dissemination of knowledge was clearly restricted, his recent actions of asking Nfirea Bale about herbal knowledge were indeed somewhat inappropriate.
"No need to be nervous."
"Although I can be a little petty, I won't get angry over something like this," Grandma Lijie said indifferently as she looked at Tang Zheng.
Uh...
She called herself petty, and it was true!
But Tang Zheng, as an outsider, knew that anything he said at this moment would be inappropriate.
"You want to make healing potions just by understanding the traits of a few herbs? Don't even dream of it."
"Since you have some talent in faith-based magic, don't waste your energy on other things. Both martial skills and herbal knowledge are a waste of time for you," Grandma Lijie spoke in an unhurried tone.
Tang Zheng paused, realizing she was kindly reminding him. He quickly composed himself and said, "Thank you, Madam Barerare."
Hearing how Tang Zheng addressed her, the wrinkles on Grandma Lijie's face smoothed out considerably; she seemed quite pleased with the title.
"Bareiare" was her surname.
Tang Zheng had learned this when he was conversing with Nfirea Bale, though he had known it all along.
Thump! Thump!
Two sets of footsteps sounded from the wilderness.
It was Ler, the younger of the twins, and the archer, Bask, who had left a short while ago to scout the surroundings.
As the two returned, the expressions on the faces of the other members of the Rock Squad subtly relaxed.
"Oink... oink."
A weak groan came from behind Ler.
He was carrying a wild boar weighing over 200 jin (approx. 220 pounds), yet he looked unusually relaxed. "Good luck, caught a wild boar! We've got dinner for tonight."
"An arrow through its brow? And it's not dead yet."
"Hey, Bask, your archery has improved again," Rand said with his hands on his hips, looking at the wild boar his brother was carrying, especially the visible bloody hole in its forehead.
"It's just a wild boar," Bask said with a light chuckle.
Thud!
Ler walked to the bonfire and dropped the wild boar from his back onto the ground with a dull thud.
"Tang, it's still got one breath left."
Ler grinned at Tang Zheng and then pointed to a spot on the wild boar's neck. "Strike here, and you can kill it in one blow."
"Thank you." Tang Zheng rose from the bonfire and walked towards the boar lying on the ground, barely alive.
Because Grandma Lijie needed to return to E-Rantel as quickly as possible, their chosen route, while faster, didn't allow for rests in towns.
Grandma Lijie had naturally planned the route in advance and was prepared. She had no lack of food, but her supplies clearly didn't include enough for the Rock Squad or Tang Zheng.
Therefore, besides conserving their own food, the Rock Squad also hunted to acquire provisions, which was obviously not a problem for adventurers.
During this process, Tang Zheng had mentioned that, if possible, he would like to deliver the final blow to any captured prey.
His official reason was that he intended to become an adventurer but had never seen real bloodshed, so he wanted to acclimate himself beforehand.
The Rock Squad had no doubts about this explanation.
Tang Zheng certainly didn't look like an adventurer. Even the lowest-ranked ones knew to carry basic tools for long journeys, a fact of which Tang Zheng seemed completely unaware.
They might question his strength, but they couldn't mistake his inexperience.
So, the Rock Squad didn't hesitate in the slightest. For the duration of the trip, whenever they caught a beast, they made sure to leave it barely alive for Tang Zheng to finish off.
Swish!
Tang Zheng drew a short sword from his waist and walked over to the wild boar lying on the ground, its body still twitching slightly.
Without the slightest hesitation, he raised the short sword and plunged it into the spot on the boar that Ler had pointed out.
(end of chapter)