They gather around their campfire for the night. Courtney is sorting out the loot, mostly throwing away decrepit gear. Lily is being pampered by Rachel. Jason however has his back to the fire as he gets a little gardening in.
The ginseng is coming along fine, but it still has a couple years left till it has matured. The focusing tea plant has a faster growth rate than normal tea, but it is still a few months out before he can harvest some.
However the other three plants are all ready for harvest and so that gives him a bit of work to do. The energy herbs had been ready already, but he had waited for the bloody lingzhi and gloom weed.
The bloody lingzhi is the easiest to harvest. While his snips are not the best tool for the job but being made of sealed silver made them the best he had. After a bit of work, he cut the mushrooms off his two logs. The only catch is he has to turn the cut end upward after he harvests them.
When on the log, the bloody lingzhi acts just like any other mushroom of the type. However after detached the insides liquefies leaving only the wood like exterior as a sort of cup. Jason waits five minutes to make sure the insides had all been completely reduced to the blood like liquid. Then from his pack he takes out a couple empty glass bottles he had saved from the health potions he got way back at the start.
Ready, he tips each mushroom into the bottles until just a smidge of liquid is left in the last lingzhi. That last few drops he pours into his mouth to get a taste of it. As it touches his tongue there is a small jolt as the Qi in the juice is drained away by his cultivation. Otherwise it tasted like the richest of lingzhi tea. Though that makes some sense as the liquid skips the whole brew it in water step.
Lingzhi done, Jason decides to try a different method of harvesting the energy herb. With great care so as to not break the roots, he digs up one of the plants. Herb in hand, he shakes and rubs the roots to drop the soil back into the planter.
Once the plant is free of dirt, Jason bundles the roots together and sets it aside and repeats it with three more of the energy herbs. Going by the book, this was the best way to preserve the berries for drying. Though he kicks himself for not having bought anything to store the various herbs in. The dry berries are nice, but keeping them preserved when fresh would be more useful for feeding Lily.
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The last two energy herbs he leaves alone with plans for harvesting them later. Because of how the various plants interact with one another, he didn’t want to mess the balance up. Though speaking of balance, he still has the six gloom weeds to harvest.
Gloom weeds need a different method to harvest. Energy herb did best when leaving as much of the plant attached as possible so it could funnel more Energy into the berries. The point of gloom weeds is that they lack power so instead he has to trim as much of the plant off the berry in one go.
In one go because the plant itself still contains power. That power is being kept out of the berry only because of the plants suction. This means that when the piece is detached the power in the stem will rush into the berry and if there is enough ruin it.
Honestly, for gloom weeds a small paring knife made of sealed silver would have been better, but Jason can mimic that with his shears. It's a little difficult, but it will work. He holds the black strawberry-like fruit and inserts the tip of one of the shear’s blades into it at a shallow angle. Then in one smooth motion he spins it around the entire top and pulls the berry away quickly.
The first few berries he harvests end up wasted. Their light absorbing black turns a reflective gray color as power enters the berries. His actions are just a touch too slow. After that though he gets the hang of it and harvested 28 berries total with each plant bearing only four to seven berries each.
Once harvested though, storing them is as easy as putting them in his pack. The berries won’t last as long as they would if kept in a power tight container but unlike the other plants their nature prevents rotting. In fact, each berry seems almost more crystalline than fruit after harvested.
All the berries harvested Jason busies himself with weeding and planting. He uproots four of the now berryless gloom weeds. With his fingers Jason turns the soil to ready it for the next plants. Unhappy with the results though spends some more time breaking up some clumps of dirt left over from his less than careful removal of the gloom weeds.
Now happy he plants four each of gloom weed and energy herb. Jason considers switching the places he plants them, but shrugs it off. Next time he can mix the dirt around a bit, plus he has the roaming loam bonus to fertilize it.
All that is left is the lingzhi which is taking care of itself already. The small stumps left attached to the stump have completely turned into blood like liquid. Most of that is nutrients and power, but a small portion is spores to spread the plant. Even if the stumps weren’t already colonized by the fungus, they would be now.
The package of spores he had received might have been dry, but this liquid is their natural way of spreading. They grow on trees and when disturbed enough the inside and bit that they attach to the tree turns to liquid. The scavengers will feast on the liquid and spread the spores to other places suitable to their growth. An ingenious way of spreading as scavengers would very much be in prominence around battlefields.