Emery woke up even before the first light arrived. He sat on his bed thinking about what should be his next course of action while considering the revelations Gaia and the Lady of the Lake had shown him last night. As he exited his tent and breathed in the crisp air, he figured all things he needed to do lied on a single thing. It was simply power, he needed to have more than enough power to take matters into his own hands; he had to be much more powerful than his current state.
Since Killgragah stayed at the place of power where the stone was, training at the spatial space was not an option until he accomplished what the black dragon had asked. And although Nimue, the High Priestess had mentioned she would teach him about Gaia and cultivating the elements, he felt that wouldn't be enough to achieve everything he had on his to-do list.
Finally, his mind wandered to the Magus Academy, he remembered that on his last day, the acolytes who were on the top rankings, particularly the ones on top, received a great amount of contribution points. As far as he knew, contribution points could be exchanged with a multitude of things at Golden City. So, in order to match those acolytes who were in the top one hundred last time, he needed to rake in as many contribution points as he could and exchange them into something that would empower himself.
Emery's eyes fell on the dimming plant hugging the trunk of a tree that had a house on its branches. Remembering this one was one of the reasons he came here, he went ahead and picked up a basket, strapped it on his back and picked the plant.
He spent the next couple of days exploring the Forbidden Forest with Morgana who still didn't talk much as she followed in silence and gathered a large variety of plants that resonated with his plant element affinity. Emery picked up multiple types of mushrooms, flowers, roots, and even some wild fruits and vegetables he had found lying on random spots of the forest.
The more he explored the forest, the more he found appreciation for its hidden beauty and hidden floras and faunas. Every day he discovered new stuff and found comfort in the abundant presence of the plant and trees. He climbed the highest trees, swam through the river, explored the hills and caves and even trekked through the swamp. He found thousands of different species of plants in the wilds.
[Universal Flora Level 1 - activated - analyzing flora...]
[Analyzation complete]
[Insignificant for the database]
Although most of what he had found with Morgana had no value after analyzing it, he still found himself learning about these different kinds of wonders.
[Analyzation complete]
[Unidentified medicinal herb]
[Unknown properties]
[Register to database for one contribution point?]
It took him two weeks to collect all the plants he found that had some value on them and stored it in his tent, which now looked like a druid's house. He found more than a hundred species of unidentified medicinal herbs, and six of them were categorized as rank two medical herbs. Of course one of these plants was a blue flower that had a bead-like structure beneath its blue petal head.
A few times during the last two weeks, he went out with the Fey wolves to hunt, to bond and to improve his innate skill named Wild Hunt. During those hunts, Emery found it interesting that there were indeed unique types of animals living in this forest, which was one of the probable reasons how rumors of monsters roaming the forest came into being.
He hadn't seen anything like the vine monster back in Elder's Respite though. Mostly, they were differently colored animals and according to the girls, some of the animals, like the silver furred rabbit seemed to increase their strength. However they were extremely rare and they would usually track one for days or, in worse cases, weeks before they could get a glimpse of it. So, even though Emery wanted to see one of that silver furred rabbit, unfortunately, more time was needed to even find one. Because of this as well, he wondered if there was a spell in the Magus Academy where they could study animals similar to the Fragmentation spell Aeon had sold him.
After two week of scouring the woods, it was time for him to start focusing on increasing his points. For each unidentified herb analysis Emery received one contribution point, and for the rank two he received ten contribution points. So far, he accumulated 170 points from all the plants in Mistshire and also 120 points from the apothecary store in Lionarch City. Adding the plants here, the total contribution points he had now was 530 points.
Of course all he had done was analysis, not fragmentation. Extracting the essences was more lucrative than simply analyzing these plants and herbs.
Emery closed himself inside his 'druid house' for a whole day and started extracting hundreds of plants one by one.
[Fragmentation]
[One essences found]
[Unidentified herb rank 1 data received. You are awarded 10 contribution points]
[Fragmentation]
[Two essences found]
[Unidentified herb rank 2 data received. You are awarded 100 contribution points]
After using fragmentation for the hundredth time, Emery laid down on his bed full of sweat. This was the first time he had felt like this, so he guessed there was a limit in using spells. Nevertheless, this was worth it. He grinned in great satisfaction as he checked his total contribution points.
[Total contribution points: 2115]
Remembering how Klea had received 1,000 contribution points for being part of top 100 acolytes, he now had twice of Klea's, which he would be using for the upcoming year of Magus Academy.
He then got up, categorized, and stored each of the plants neatly. He wanted to start experimenting with them, but there were just too many of them at the moment and he thought it would take weeks to really find new useful recipes. So, he decided to just focus on improving the quality of his most useful recipes, the cleansing potion, and the strength paste.
[Strength paste]
[Once applied to the parts of a human body, it could stimulate the muscles in the part it was applied to, increasing muscle strength twice of its normal capability. Be advised, the increase is temporary and cannot be used repeatedly because it would damage the muscles.]
[Cleansing potion]
[Drinks that can remove harmful bacteria and toxins in the body.]
With enough blue powder material to experiment on and with the help of [the universal flora knowledge], finally Emery able to increase both recipes into their maximum potency.