Master Of None

"What is crystal ginger? You really need to ask?" Remey was shocked that Walker had not heard of it before. She knew he had read a lot of the books in the library, especially the ones that were left from the previous alchemist owner of the mansion.

Walker's look said that he wasn't going to deal with the sarcasm as he took the small slime cores from the others. "Pssh, Crystal ginger is a species of ginger that absorbed too much mana while it grew. It stops being a cooking ingredient and instead develops a special property for unique mana potions."

So it just makes better mana potions? If that's it then why did you run so fast? We could just buy it then." Gil was completely lost in why having one better ingredient was so amazing. Remey could already make high mana potions without this crystal ginger and they worked fine. They didn't need rare and fancy ingredients when they could make do with what they had.Â

"If you listened and let me finish you wouldn't sound sooo dumb now." Gil managed to tick off Remey by interrupting her with his opinion.Â

"Please just ignore Gil. I have never seen you rush so fast. What makes it a unique mana potion?" Su stepped in as the mediator for this situation. She had no problem pushing aside any tension to find the facts in the situation.

"Crystal ginger is unique because it basically formed super small mana crystals out of plant material. Meaning that the potions it is made in to have a chance to permanently increase the consumers' mana. It is also one of the only medicines for someone with mana bleeding disease." Remey had only even heard of this herb since it was so rare.Â

"When I was little I saw the old man explaining that if his apprentices ever see any of this to spend their entire life's earning on it then whatever they have in them. The fact that these slimes uncovered some is enough to cause a stampede of alchemists to come digging. They even ate some."Â

Remey looked like she was ready to shed tears seeing that some crystal ginger roots had started to decay. Her hands began to swiftly harvest the roots that were still undamaged. "Can we save pieces by cutting off the decay?" Walker now understood the rarity and reaction Remey had when she realized what it was. He could only think of trying to get as much as possible.Â

"Well you can but if you do that you are going to cause the mana to bleed out. It pretty much makes it useless anyway. Just dig up the roots that are here. Leave the regular ginger, they might become crystal ginger in a few years." Remey was still digging up roots looking for remaining crystal ginger roots.Â

Walker joined her along with Gil and Su. Midnight prowled around keeping watch for more enemies. Onyx seemed to be staying in his tattoo form resting more and not coming out. Walker had half a mind to wake him and as for help but realized that onyx would have trouble digging for the roots so he shook the thought from his head.Â

"Oh, I found one." Gil held up a shiny tan root the size of his thumb and quickly buried a regular ginger root back in to the ground. Reney grabbed it and gave it a hard look while turning it n her fingers.Â

"Walker, store this and this." She tossed the two roots she had to Walker revealing that she had found one the size of her open palm.Â

Unfortunately, they started to dig around but only found some decayed pieces and regular ginger. If Remey had not seen the crystal ginger when she did it was sure to have been completely dissolved by the small purple slimes. "I am going to store the purple slime bodies not. I will use an old coin bag for the cores, I feel like our collection is going to get bigger and bigger as we get closer to the massive slime.Â

After looking for a short while more Remey was finally satisfied that they had found the only crystal ginger there was to be found here. She was already going over potion recipes and thinking about the possibilities the party could have if they drank a unique potion.Â

Su had been curious about something since Remey said it in the first place. "Remey, what is mana bleeding disease? I have never heard of it and we had many healers try and diagnose my mother's illness. Not one ever brought that up."Â

"Well, I am not surprised. Mana bleeding disease is where a person's body can't hold on to the mana they produce. Those that have it will have their mana bleed from their body at all times. If they don't live stationary life they will end up low on mana and never come out of a coma."Â

"Wait so they would need mana potions at all times?" Gil heard Remey's explanation and started to add up how much gold it could cause to afford to fight such a disease.

"Something only they very rich could survive. Not to mention the people who don't have a system and can't even control their mana." All Walker could hear was that this was a disease that could easily end a life. Not only that, but if someone wanted to function they needed to constantly throw gold around for mana potions which was a whole mess in itself.Â

"Exactly. It is very rare though. The odds of meeting someone with it are less than once in a lifetime. I am sure we will never meet someone with it." Remey brushed it off making it seem like a complete impossibility.Â

"I guess it's good that such a terrible disease is rare. If it was common then it would be a huge problem for a kingdom." Gil could only imagine how many people could fall to this disease. Even nobles would eventually turn out of potions of gold to buy potions.Â

"Ugh, we are a huge mess after digging around in the dirt looking for all of that crystal ginger." Su was just noticing all the much she had gotten on her armor and shields.Â

"When we find a place to rest later we can try and clean up. There is plenty of water to use my grand elemental manipulation to make some water balls for cleaning." Walker thought it would be a worthwhile use of his magic if they could get a little cleaner at some point.Â

Wow, the trees are really affected in this area." Reme realized that the path that the decay was leading through was bringing the party in to a scraped area. The trees were much closer together but the problem was that the passing massive slime had infected many of them with decay. The branches were starting to rot off and if they were not cut from the main tree then the decay would destroy it.Â

"We should start to cut the decaying branches to try and save the trees. If we leave it like this the forest could lose thousands of trees. Look how close they are." Su made very good points. By slowing their pursuit they could take the timeÂ

Not a single one argued with what she thought they should do, it was the right thing. If the forest continues to take damage as it was then many would lose their lives. Even more so than the goblins, they had just befriended would end up extinct regardless of being hunted or not.

The party brandished any blades they had to cut away the branches that were going to spread the decay. The smaller branches and sapling had already gone too far but the party still had the time to save the larger trees.Â

Walker saw that the decay was so powerful that it was infecting the very center of the branches. The decay was working from the inside out. He realized that some of the smaller trees were also too far gone and went in to chop them down completely. This took the party some time but they were still able to make slow progress forward.Â

Looking back after a few hours their path had a strip of decaying branches and trees neatly piled up away from the edges where the healthy trees grew. They had made a big difference in a short time. The worrying part was that the decay was very intense for the small number of slimes that had been there. "You guys don't think another party has come through where and hunted any larger slimes?" Gil spoke these words as he kicked some mud in front of him. He had found what seemed to be tracks, and they were not from a monster.

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