Ren found the flower during the morning patrol sweep.
Selene had them running route-clearing exercises through a new section of the deeper zone, scouting in pairs. Ren was paired with Cassian, which ant he could move at his own pace without too many questions. Cassian was good in the field, but he wasn’t the type to watch your every step the way Iris would.
The crimson-leafed flower was where he had marked it yesterday — growing at the base of a massive corrupted oak, half-hidden by a tangle of mutated roots. It was about forty centiters tall, with a dark stem and five broad leaves that were a deep, unnatural red. The petals at the top were black, curled inward, with faint energy lines running through them like veins.
Most people would have walked right past it. It looked like just another corrupted weed in a forest full of them.
Ren crouched down and ran SCAN.
SCAN — detailed botanical analysis.
Target: Crimson Vitality Bloom (corrupted variant).
Rarity: uncommon in standard environnts, moderate in high-density corruption zones.
Properties: The root system has absorbed and concentrated Crimson Eclipse trial energy over an extended period. The resulting compound — Vitality Essence — is a high-grade genetic material compatible with Plant-pathway and Bloodline Plant Lord seed absorption.
BPL compatibility: 87%. Significantly above threshold for stage-transition contribution.
Harvesting note: The root must be extracted whole and intact. Cutting the stem will cause the compound to degrade within minutes. Corruption contamination on the outer layers must be cleaned before absorption. Recomnd alchemical purification.
Eighty-seven percent. That was the highest compatibility rating he had seen in this zone.
— • —
Cassian was about fifteen ters ahead, checking a gap in the tree line. Ren had maybe two minutes before he ca back.
He pulled out a small field knife from his pack and got to work.
Harvesting a plant with an intact root system from corrupted soil was not sothing most students knew how to do. The standard approach taught in school was to cut the stem, bag the top portion, and bring it to an alchemist for analysis. That worked for common plants. For sothing like the Crimson Vitality Bloom, where the value was in the root compound, cutting the stem was the fastest way to destroy it.
Ren knew this because he had spent four days in the Hollowroot Realm learning the hard way. His first three harvests there had been wasted because he had used the school thod on rare plants. By the fourth attempt, he had figured out the proper technique: loosen the soil around the base in a wide circle, ease the root system out gradually without snapping the secondary tendrils, and separate the plant from the corrupted ground in one smooth pull.
He did it now the sa way he had done it in the realm. Knife around the base. Soil loosened in a half-circle. Fingers into the gap, feeling for the root structure, gently working it free. The corruption in the soil tingled against his skin — cold and slightly greasy — but his filtration held. Thirty seconds of careful work, and the Crimson Vitality Bloom ca out of the ground intact, root system whole, the concentrated compound still glowing faintly inside the root ball.
He held it for one second. Then he activated Spatial Storage.
The flower vanished into the invisible pocket that no scanner on Edius could detect. Gone. Safe. Frozen in ti until he needed it.
Ren stood up, brushed the soil off his hands, and kept walking as if nothing had happened.
— • —
Cassian ca back through the tree line a minute later. "Nothing ahead except more ugly trees and a really angry-looking beetle I decided not to bother."
"Good call."
"You find anything?"
"Just more corrupted weeds."
They finished the sweep and headed back to the main group. Nobody had seen the harvest. Nobody knew the flower existed. As far as the team was concerned, Ren Valis had spent the last fifteen minutes scouting a route and finding nothing interesting.
That was the plan. Keep it quiet. Bring the flower to Eira later when he could do it privately, and ask her to purify it without explaining where it ca from. She was an alchemist — she would know how to process it.
— • —
But Selene had been watching.
Not the harvest itself — she had been fifty ters away when he pulled the flower. But she had been watching the way Ren moved through the forest during the sweep. The way he read the ground, chose his path, examined plants in passing, and stopped at one specific location with the focused precision of soone who knew exactly what he was looking for.
After the sweep, while the group regathered, she fell into step beside him. Her voice was casual, conversational. The tone she used when she wanted information without making it look like an interrogation.
"You move well in the field, Valis."
"Thanks."
"Better than most students who’ve only been to one beginner realm."
A small pause. Ren kept his face relaxed.
"The Hollowroot Realm was a good learning experience," he said.
"The Hollowroot Realm is an F-Class depleted zone. Four days in an F-Class doesn’t teach soone to read corrupted soil, evaluate plant root systems from a distance, and extract specins with that kind of precision."
Ren didn’t answer imdiately. She had seen more than he’d thought. Not the Spatial Storage — that was invisible. But the technique. The fieldcraft. The way he had approached that plant and known instantly that it was worth stopping for.
"I read a lot," he said. His standard answer.
Selene looked at him with the steady, patient expression of soone who had heard that answer before and was starting to find it insufficient. Then she nodded and moved on without pressing further.
But the note she wrote on her tablet that evening, Ren was sure, did not say reads a lot.
— • —
That night, after the camp was set and the fire was burning, Ren found a mont alone with Eira near the supply shelf.
"I found sothing in the field today," he said quietly. "A plant with a concentrated compound in the root system. I think it could be useful for BPL cultivation, but it needs purification to remove the corruption contamination. Can you do that?"
Eira looked at him. "What kind of plant?"
"Crimson Vitality Bloom. Intact root system."
Her eyebrows rose slightly. "You extracted a Crimson Vitality Bloom with the root system intact? In the field? Without an alchemist’s kit?"
"Just a knife and so patience."
She studied him for a mont with the sa careful, thorough look she gave everything. Then she held out her hand. "Let see it."
Ren glanced around. Nobody was watching. He reached into Spatial Storage — to Eira, it looked like he reached into his pack — and handed her the flower.
She turned it over in her hands, examining the root ball, the stem connection, the petal condition. Her expression shifted from professional interest to sothing closer to surprise. "This is a clean extraction. Really clean. The secondary tendrils are all intact. Most Explorer Guild harvesters don’t get results this good."
"Can you purify it?"
"Give tonight. I’ll have it ready by morning." She paused. "Where did you learn to do this?"
"Practice," Ren said.
Eira gave him a look that said she didn’t fully believe him but wasn’t going to push. She wrapped the flower carefully in a preservation cloth and tucked it into her case.
"Morning," she said. "I’ll have it clean."
Ren nodded and walked back to the fire. One step closer to Sprout. One more person who had noticed he was more than he seed.
Kaia pulsed. Warm. Steady. The unease of the corruption zone was still there, but underneath it sothing else had settled — the quiet satisfaction of a gardener who had found sothing worth growing in difficult soil.
— • —
Author’s Note: First real Sprout material secured. Eira will purify it overnight. But Selene saw the fieldcraft, and the questions keep piling up. Thanks for reading!
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