Chapter 424 - Herb Collecting

At night after the first competition ended, Uncle Wang invited everyone to a banquet. It was to appreciate their hard work for gaining 25% of the gold mine's profit for the village.

Auron's teammate was delightful with this banquet. After all, they didn't even do anything to get this banquet.

"Thank you for your hard work that we get a portion of the profit! Here are some bonuses for your effort! I hope you will continue your best at the group fight!" Uncle Wang thanked everyone as he gave a red pouch for each of everyone here.

The eyes of Auron's teammate became brighter in front of the red pouch. They didn't need to do anything, and they already got a bonus. Each of them quickly snatched the red pouch since they were afraid Uncle Wang would take back his words.

Auron was the only one who calmly accepted the red pouch. He took the pouch and looked inside. There were 100 golds inside. It was not a small amount, nor was it a lot. However, Auron gladly accepted it.

Auron did all of this for his proficiency, and money was the second thing that was in his mind. Of course, he was grateful for this money. Auron continued to eat then head back first to his room.

Auron knew that Uncle Wang did this for the Fourth Prince. Although Auron had met the Fourth Prince on many occasions, he still wary of him and didn't trust him completely.

After all, Auron didn't know what was the motive for the Fourth Prince approached him. Was it just for his secret, or there was another hidden agenda? Although the royal family seemed peace on the outside, he didn't know whether there was internal conflict among the princes and princesses. Auron still didn't want to be drag into the royal family's mess right now.

With that, the first day of the match had ended. The next day, it was the time for the next tournament.

On the second day, the tournament's theme was the herb collecting. The second-day venue was the gold mine. Everyone gathered at the gold mine. 

As it named implies, the match was about gathering herbs that scattered around the area. The tournament time limit was 12 hours. Each village would send two members as a participant. Then, with the gold mine as its starting point, the participant could roam as far as they wanted to search for the herb.

Although they could roam as far as they wanted, throughout the history of the tournament, not many people would walk too far away from the gold mine. It was because of several reasons.

First, they could use their movement skill, but they could not use any means of transportation or cities and towns teleportation portal. Second, after they got the herb, they still needed to submit it back to the referee to be judged. And, the referee's location was only near the gold mine. Which means, they needed to go all the way back to the gold mine to get the point.

Third, the referee committee dispatched several clerics to be the referee and helped the participant when in danger. However, the committee obviously would not cover the entire world. They would only dispatch the clerics for 100 kilometers from the gold mine.

The herb that they gathered would be submitted to the referee. After they offered the herbs, it would belong to the referee committee entirely. In return, the committee would give them a point. This point was the one that would be used to determine the winner.

For this match, Auron didn't participate. Instead, the tanky swordsman and the thief were the ones who would be going to attend.

Before the match began, each of the representative's belonging was searched and confiscated. They could only bring their weapons and equipment: no healing items, no money, and no other item they could carry.

If they were injured, they could go and asked the clerics that were dispatched around the area to heal them.

10 minutes later, the match began after every participant was searched. As soon as the match started, every participant scattered around.

Convid Village's participant didn't scatter and went as a group. At first, they were excited to participate in this tournament. As they had tasted the bonus yesterday, their vigorous spirit made them searched everywhere they went in detail.

However, it was not easy to find the herb. After four hours of searching, they could only find a bunch of low-grade herbs.

Another four hours of searching and they could not get what they wanted. As time went on and the result they got, they were dejected. Moreover, when they went back to the gold mine and submitted the herbs, they could see that their village's point was the lowest among the villages.

With a sad heart, both of them decided to look farther than what they had before. One hour later, they were exclaimed excitedly. The goddess of luck was blessing them. After killing a monster, they found a cave where the monster resided. And, inside it, there was a massive trove of herbs, from the low-grade up to the high-grade herbs.

Greed started to cloud their minds. The thief immediately snatched everything, and he didn't forget to persuade the swordsman and shared it with him. At first, the swordsman hesitated. However, because of the thief's continuous persuasion and the fact that the submitted herbs would not belong to them anymore, the swordsman became greedy and agreed with the thief.

After clearing the cave, both of the thief and swordsman went back to the gold mine. They acted like they were dejected and submitted the low-grade herbs and a little bit portion of the middle-grade herbs. And, they kept the rest of the herbs hidden at a place where only both of them knew about it.

As a result of the greediness, Convid Village, who had the chance to win if both of them submitted everything they got, lost the match and ranked 5 out of 6.