30 The Dark Forest II Edited

For the next ten days, Jayde continuously moved in the direction of the small cave, collecting herbs that she needed. When Jayde came across any herb listed on the inter-dimensional market, she would carefully dig it out the whole plant, being careful not to damage the roots, and then replant them into pots she had whittled out of wood.

She had a plan — that as soon as she could afford to — she would purchase the herb garden upgrade available in the Pavilion and then replant these herbs. Exchanging herb on the inter-dimensional market was a sure-fire way for her to earn points, at least until she could start to take on missions through the inter-dimensional mercenary board.

Thankfully from the old guy's notes on herbology, she had picked up quite a bit of knowledge about taking care of herbs, and to her delight, she had found that she had quite the green thumb when it came to growing things. Jayde also found a strange sense of peace in dealing with her plants, in the federation she had never had the opportunity to garden as she discovered that tending and caring for these plants soothed her soul.

At the last river she had camped at, Jayde was lucky to have found over five dozen lily pods. Lily pods were one of the treasures of the Dark Forest, they were a type of plant, that grew in the rivers and lakes of the Dark Forest, no-one knew where they came from, but legend says that a visitor from the Upper Realm brought it with him when he visited the Lower Realm.

Lily pods were shaped like a gourd, with a plug at the top of the lily pod, which you could open and close. The liquid contained inside the lily pod was filled with spiritual water, not only was this spiritual water great for replenishing a person's qi, but it also had a mild healing effect and could help with one's cultivation. Jayde had discovered by accident though that the most exciting benefit of the lily pod, was that if one were to place a cutting of a plant within the pod, the plant would quickly start to produce roots.

Jayde had spent two days at the river edge, making herself a couple of shelves from trees that she cut down, then opening fifty of the lily pods, she had decided to keep ten lily pods for herself to use, she made cuttings of all the herbs listed on the inter-dimensional market. Since she had read in the old man's herbology book that the 'plug' of the lily pods was in actual fact the seed of the plant, and if returned to water it would reproduce, Jayde threw all the plug lids back into the river.

When not busy with tending to her plants, and building shelves Jayde spent her time quietly sitting on the river bank fishing. In the evenings she would grill some fish over her campfire while watching the spectacular sunsets.

***

During the next ten days besides from picking herbs, Jayde ran into quite a number spirit beasts. At the beginning of her adventure, the creatures were quite challenging to kill, and each battle was drawn out, with Jayde sustaining quite many injuries.

Through her daily battles, Jayde's fighting prowess was increasing, and she was also becoming more familiar with her fire magic. It had been difficult initially for Jayde to rely on using magic during combat, as it was something she was really unfamiliar with, but now she had started to trust in her magic, and combined with her martial skills she was finding that she longer struggled with the spirit beasts. With her daily usage of her fire magic, her cultivation was growing in leaps and bounds, and Jayde could feel that she was approaching the threshold of the barrier to the second rank.

That evening after Jayde had made camp, Jayde contacted Isha. She was worried that she would have to delay her cultivation as she was still two weeks away from the cave. Jayde asked Isha if she could use the Pavilion to breakthrough again. Getting his confirmation that it would fine and that she wouldn't be breaking the rules, Jayde set her mind at ease and went all out in the next two days to reach the barrier.

It was on the night of the twelfth day that Jayde felt that she could finally make her breakthrough. Teleporting directly to the Pavilion, Isha opened up the small initial room that she had used previously for her to enter. This time her breakthrough was easier and quicker. After advancing to the second rank, Jayde exited the small room.

Walking over to Isha, Jayde then retrieved all herbs and spirit stones that Isha required for making the potion to heal her dantian from her spatial ring. After handing the items, Isha left to concoct the potion needed. Jayde then walked over to the screen on the wall and activated the inter-dimensional market. Selecting the herb section, Jayde managed to make over twenty trades with the herbs she had available.

While waiting for her trade goods to arrive via the exchange system, Jayde spent that time transplanting her seedlings in the lily pods to the newly vacated wooden pots.Using some of the spirit water she watered her new plants, as according to the herbology book she had read this would speed up the growth of her plants.

After she spent some time sorting out her spatial ring, the inter-dimensional market pinged her that her goods were ready. Collecting just over a hundred Qi gathering pills, Jayde immediately traded these for points. Jayde also managed to sell some of the skins, beast blood and spirit stones that she collected.

As alchemists were rare in many dimensions, Jayde was able to earn a considerable number of points, and while spirit stones were not that valuable, the beast skins and beast blood were pretty valuable as they were used to create magical rune scrolls.

Once Jayde had completed all her trade she was pleasantly surprised to have found that she had earned herself two hundred and twenty-five points, and including her five points saved she now had two hundred and thirty points.

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