After spending the better part of the day walking out they were finally in the general area they could expect to find so of the plants. They’d lost plenty of ti to Ben having to stop and gather others from the book he thought he could put to use, as well as letting Thera practice so of her magic on passing creatures, but aside from that they’d managed to keep a reasonable pace and were in the middle of setting up a camp while there was still light leaking from between the trees.
“So is any of that actually interesting?” Thera asked Ben as she peered over his shoulder while he pulled over a dozen different plants from the two spacial bags and got to the business of grouping the similar species together for convenience later.
“Of course it’s all interesting!” He told her, shocked that it could be considered anything but that and started pointing out a variety of them. “Aside from all the branches the guild wanted that can be used to refresh mana and stamina, these leaves here can be boiled down to clean and treat wounds, and this flower can be processed with a few of these roots to give a minor boost to mana recovery for a short ti, not to ntion that every part of this one has different minor dical benefits, but if you don’t separate them and process each one correctly all the effects are lost.”
“Okay, okay, your plants are very neat,” She said to appease him. “What about those ones over there?” She asked while pointing to a separate pile from the one he was currently sorting through.
“Oh those? So have uses when applying alchemy to my blacksmithing, the rest are poisons.”
She was about to pick one up to get a better look but stopped herself when Ben said that. “Why do you need poisons? We’ll be in so much trouble if any get mixed in with what we’re supposed to be handing over.”
“Which is why I’m separating them out now ahead of ti. Besides, it's for my crafting skill. The more branches of it I pursue and try to improve the more experience I’ll get compared to just focusing on one aspect of it like sticking to blacksmithing. I’ve pretty much ignored its alchemy aspects outside of its use in my smithing too, but if I take so ti to learn to refine different potions and poisons it should be good for my skill overall.”
“Still seems kind of risky to try and make casually though, what if sothing happens?”
“I work with fire and molten tals on the regular, this is fine. Besides, they’re identified as poison because the plant itself is toxic to eat or they’ll harm you if they aren’t used in the proper way,” He tried to think of the best way to explain it. “Let’s see, does Sonya have any books on treating anyone afflicted with an animal venom?”
Thera gave a negative so he tried to explain the best he could. “Okay, imagine sothing bites you and it causes your blood to thicken. This,” He said, grabbing one of the plants from the pile. “Can act as an anti-clotting agent once it’s processed. If you get soone to consu it fast enough after being bitten then it might be able to slow down the effects of the poison for them to get to a light mage to detoxify their blood. Of course, this will have to be removed too, otherwise they’d stand the risk of bleeding out, but it all cos down to how it’s used. You should get Falk to loan you so of his books on alchemy, I’m sure it would help with your knowledge skill.”
She seed interested once he started explaining how poisons could be used as dicine depending on the context, so he continued to explain different uses for each one as he sorted them to pass the ti, at least until the notification went off in his head.
All at once he just stopped talking and rested his head in his hand, trying to process what he’d just heard.
“Myriad, what the hell is this?” He muttered to himself, but loud enough for Thera to hear.
“What weird things happened to your status now?” She asked, imdiately seeing to the heart of the matter.
“What makes you think it’s sothing weird with my status, or for that matter that it’s weird?”
He couldn’t be sure, but he got the distinct impression she was rolling her eyes under her hood. “Please, when sothing makes you react out of the blue like that it’s almost always about your status, and you have the weirdest one I’ve ever heard of. How is it you have a bunch of strange and rare skills, but none of the common ones?”
“What makes a skill common? I can’t use magic so you know that’s out.”
“Yeah but look at mine, I have calculate, coordination, and cleaning; three skills the majority of people acquire. Aside from the implication you’re a ss since you don’t have cleaning, how do you keep track of how much mana you use without calculate?”
“Is that what it’s for?”
“Later. First, what did you get? Maybe sothing like poison knowledge? That would make sense given what you were doing unless it’s so other poison skill.”
“It’s not a skill,” He said while sighing. “It’s a title.”
He let that hang in the air but Thera didn’t say anything, just waited while staring at him silently.
“Haa, it’s miracle maker.”
“I an, that makes sense.” She told him, surprisingly unfazed by it. “You heard Onk right? The world just found out we have so powerful allies now, kind of reasonable you’d get the title considering the part you played.”
“The part I played was light blackmail on a race that was going to give in and do this eventually. Hey Myriad, co on and speak up, which god gave this stupid title?”
It took a few minutes, but Ben’s god finally answered him.
“What do you an it was the world?”
“That’s a real fancy way of saying that things might get complicated if anyone finds out about this, but okay, do you have any idea what effects it has?” He imdiately hid the title from his status as he tried to work out what benefits it might include. It was more than a little annoying how vague and undefined they tended to be, but he had to admit that the new one sounded like it would have so decent benefits.
Unfortunately Myriad wasn’t any help.
“Uhg, why is the system so vague? Couldn’t everything have co with a description so people could actually know how everything worked imdiately?”
His god told him, sounding unusually sharp with his response.
Ben was initially shocked by his god’s outburst but understood he’d offended him. “I’m sorry Myriad, I didn’t an anything by it, I just don’t like it when I don’t understand sothing, especially when it relates to changes to .”
The sincerity of his god was touching and caused him to clasp his hands in prayer. “Thank you Myriad, when I need help I’ll be sure to ask.”
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