Chapter 234: Plants

“Ding, congratulations host, you killed the Third Tier mutated plant Solarwheel Flower, you gained two thousand three hundred and fifty Experience Points.”

Hearing the System’s prompt in his ear, Su Lun finally relaxed. Monsters like the Solarwheel Flower were not much of a threat to him; the tricky part was that their vital spots were underground, making them hard to kill.

“Sir, are you alright?” Seeing the fight was over, Kite quickly stepped forward and asked.

Su Lun shook his head. “I’m fine. Take your men and dig this area open, dig out the Solarwheel Flower’s roots for me.”

“Yes, sir!” Kite immediately accepted the order, then took dozens of Soldiers and began digging along the Solarwheel Flower’s roots. The Soldiers Su Lun brought were mostly Elite Spearmen, aside from some Spearmen who were about to upgrade to Divine Spear Guards. With the army expanding, they needed to participate in more battles to level up quickly.

While the Soldiers were digging, Su Lun took a small knife and began processing the Solarwheel Flower’s mouthpart. The ferocious mouthpart had already lost its vitality and lay limp on the ground. Although it looked scary and terrifying, its pollen was actually good magical material.

The hallucinogenic pollen could be used to make hallucinogenic potions and was also needed as an ingredient in many potions, such as the Azure Blue Potion—a potion used to boost mental power. It required the addition of this hallucinogenic pollen. After drinking it, a large number of illusions would appear before the user’s eyes. The user needed to break through all these illusions to gain an increase in mental power, roughly about 1-2 points. It was effective for those with mental power below 25 points.

Originally, Su Lun didn’t know much about these materials; it was entirely because Heatherway forced him to memorize them, so he wouldn’t miss out on good items when he encountered them.

Su Lun picked up his knife and prepared to cut into the Solarwheel Flower’s mouthpart. But as soon as the knife got close, the previously lifeless Solarwheel Flower instinctively bit at Su Lun. However, Su Lun was prepared for this. With a flip of his hand, a lightning ball instantly appeared in his palm and hit the attacking mouthpart. A powerful burst of lightning energy erupted instantly.

The Solarwheel Flower’s mouthpart trembled and twitched repeatedly until it finally stopped moving completely. This mouthpart had similarities to a venomous snake; even after death, its head would still attack anything that came near.

After the lightning attack, the Solarwheel Flower’s mouthpart was completely dead. Su Lun then started collecting the pollen. Although the Solarwheel Flower looked like a flower, it actually wasn’t one. Its pollen was stored in a sac on the mouthpart. Su Lun searched for a while, cut open the mouthpart, and found a fist-sized fleshy sac on its side wall, which contained the Solarwheel Flower’s hallucinogenic pollen.

After finding the pollen, the remaining mouthpart was also cut open, and the body of the Zhenbei City Soldier, now reduced to chunks of flesh, was retrieved. Although it was unrecognizable, as a war casualty, Zhenbei City would cremate his body into ashes and bury him in the martyrs’ cemetery.

Although this practice was laborious and time-consuming, it was very important to the Soldiers. This behavior gave Zhenbei City’s army a belief that other armies lacked. In armies of this era, those who died in battle were usually buried on the spot. If they were lucky, a tombstone might be left; if not, there would be nothing.

Moreover, death benefits for Soldiers were often embezzled. Of course, more often than not, there were no death benefits at all. Only after winning battles would the Nobles show some mercy and distribute a tiny portion of the spoils as compensation.

Zhenbei City was different. All Soldiers who died in battle received a death benefit. If they had made contributions, the amount would be even larger. Typically, Zhenbei City’s death benefit was five times the Soldier’s annual salary and was paid in one lump sum.

The distribution of death benefits was very strict, and Su Lun kept a close watch on this. He did not want a situation where the benefits ended up in someone else’s pockets instead of the Soldiers’ families. Once such a scandal occurred, it would greatly damage Zhenbei City’s reputation.

Besides the death benefit system, Zhenbei City also gave preferential treatment to martyrs’ families. For example, their land was exempt from taxes for ten years, and the orphans of martyrs would be admitted to the school that Zhenbei City was building for education. Additionally, the City Hall had to send officials every year to visit and comfort the martyrs’ families.

It could be said that Zhenbei City’s army was the most loyal army in this world.

The Soldiers worked quickly. The Solarwheel Flower’s roots gradually became visible as the many Soldiers dug. Although Su Lun already knew the underground part of the Solarwheel Flower was large, he was still shocked.

The above-ground mouthpart of the Solarwheel Flower was only about one-fifth the size of its underground part. As the soil was cleared away, the roots of the Solarwheel Flower were fully exposed. In the center of the roots was a huge, tumor-like thing—that was the Solarwheel Flower’s vital spot.

This tumor already had a large gash, and the blood inside had drained out. However, Su Lun didn’t care about that; instead, he started searching for something on the tumor.

Soon, Su Lun found a red, egg-sized gem-like object. This was the most valuable part of the Solarwheel Flower, called a blood essence stone by Wizards.

This item itself was toxic, with paralyzing and hallucinogenic effects. Once the toxicity was neutralized, it could be used to brew a potion that permanently increased lifespan.

One Solarwheel Flower could increase lifespan by about ten to fifteen years. Because of this, such items were highly sought after on the black market, selling out immediately whenever they appeared. Although this was a fantasy world, for those below the Legendary level, lifespan was still an insurmountable problem.

Once one reached the Legendary level, even Warriors with the shortest lifespan increases could live two to three hundred years, while Wizards could live up to a thousand years. However, most Legendary Warriors didn’t live to three hundred. As front-line fighters, each of them had fought their way through mountains of corpses and seas of blood, getting injured as commonly as eating meals. But if they were injured too much when young, it would affect their lifespan.

This blood essence stone had no effect on Legendary Wizards, and they had better natural treasures to use, such as the Fountain of Youth, Water of Life, and other miraculous items that could greatly extend lifespan.

But for those Nobles, such life-extending potions were very tempting. After all, few Nobles felt their lives were too long.

This potion wasn’t very useful for Su Lun himself. Although he was a Warrior, he also practiced as a Wizard. Moreover, when he advanced to the Legendary level, he awakened a Domain power. Even by normal lifespan standards, he would definitely live longer than a Legendary Wizard.

Su Lun didn’t plan to use it himself. Instead, he intended to have Heatherway brew it into a potion and then trade it. If this item appeared at an auction, he believed those Nobles would surely offer him a satisfying price.

After storing the blood essence stone safely, Su Lun had the Soldiers burn the Solarwheel Flower’s roots and ordered the army to withdraw from this forest. If more mutated plants like the Solarwheel Flower appeared here, these Soldiers wouldn’t be of much use. So he decided to explore alone.

Ordering Kite to defend the camp, Su Lun entered the forest alone. This forest was very eerie; there were even few insect sounds. Although the plants looked lush, there was a sinister feel to the place.

The sky was already somewhat dark, and the light in the forest was even poorer. Su Lun cast Invisibility on himself and circled around from the side. While passing through the Thorn Forest, there were many strange-looking trees and flowers around. Their sizes were noticeably larger than ordinary plants, somewhat resembling an ancient primal forest.

Su Lun deliberately touched some of these plants with an object. The entire plant moved slightly, but they didn’t attack. Perhaps these plants didn’t need to feed yet. Su Lun even discovered a plant similar to a willow tree.

This plant had many vines that swayed in the wind, seeming normal at first glance. But Su Lun, who had read the monster guide, recognized it at once: it was a Caromance Tree.

When not attacking, this plant was no different from ordinary plants. But once it attacked, its many vines would immediately coil around like snakes. It would secrete large amounts of hallucinogenic and paralyzing fluids to immobilize living creatures, while simultaneously injecting digestive juices. Animals injected with this fluid would have their muscles, internal organs, and even bones dissolve into liquid, which the Caromance Tree would then absorb.

Although this plant was ferocious, it was good material for Wizards. Many Wizards intentionally cultivated such things. The trunk of the Caromance Tree had good magical conductivity, making it excellent material for crafting staffs. The hallucinogenic fluid it secreted was also an ingredient in some Magic Potions.

Su Lun looked at the Caromance Tree before him, frowned, and observed the surroundings for a while, muttering to himself, “A Caromance Tree? Is it wild or was it intentionally planted here?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Su Lun did not attack the tree but carefully bypassed it. After getting past the Caromance Tree, Su Lun continued deeper into the jungle. Soon, a large field of light purple flowers appeared ahead.

After quietly approaching, Su Lun noticed that this flower field didn’t seem naturally grown; instead, it looked artificially cultivated. Although the flowers weren’t trimmed, some traces of human tending could still be seen.

Moving closer, Su Lun also recognized the flowers planted in this field. These purple flowers looked very much like tulips, and they gave Su Lun the feeling that they seemed alive.