The lake looked as beautiful at night as it did during the day, the soft glow emanating from the lilies that covered the lake giving it a mystical feel. As Jessie looked over it he couldn’t help but notice that only some of the lilies glowed while others didn't. Walking towards the shore he hoped that the final parts of his quest for some simple materials wouldn’t end in such a catastrophic disaster as earlier. The water was cool to the touch but not as cold as one would have expected from a lake. As he stood in the shallows of the lake, Jessie pulled up his quest screen for the first time in what felt like months.

‘Gathering herbs

25 moon flower blossoms: 0/25

20 yellow water lilies: 0/20

10 dragon blood roses: 0/10

5 tulips of death: 0/5

5 tulips of life: 0/5

Reward: depends on quality and amount returned to the alchemist.’

‘Gathering materials

10 1x1 metre squares of green opal: 0/10

5 branches of a green mahogany tree: 0/5

1 pelt of a giant mountain cat: 0/1

Reward: depends on quality and amount returned to the sculptor.’

‘Hint.

Head to the village library before leaving on these quests.’

‘Learning magic:

Achieve at least the rank of apprentice mage.

Reward:

Personal tutoring for the primordial god of order’

‘Hint.

Mage academies are helpful for mages.’

‘The matriarchs madness:

Discover the reason the matriarch of the Merrian tribe of Fae tried to steal your soul and the blessing associated with it.

Reward: (unknown)’

The two new quests that Jessie now had were related to the slightly traumatising incident that he had suffered not more than a day ago, what intrigued him was that the name of the quest, ‘the matriarch's madness.’ implied that something else was going on other than just some deranged near demigod bitch who was looking for more power. The other quest had to be related to the spell book that he had been given by Death. Looking at both of them Jessie knew he would leave the one about the matriarch for later, when he had the strength the be able to back himself up when he inevitably went looking for the answers. Maybe, maybe after he completes his current gathering quests he would head for the capital to try gain access to a mages academy. Well, he had to finish his gathering quests first, and with that though Jessie closed his quest menu and began slowly walking towards the nearest patch of softly glowing yellow water lilies.

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The water was surprisingly shallow out to where the lilies were located, only reaching half way up to his knees. Slowly pushing aside the lilies of blue and purple as he waded over the the nearest patch of softly glowing yellow lilies, stopping in front of the patch Jessie decided to have a look into the spacial ring he had been given to see if the gods had been kind enough to provide a tool for him to harvest the lilies, seeing as he no longer owned anything with which he had left the village with. To his disappointment there were only the 10 cubes of green opal and the 5 branches of green mahogany, along with the spell book which he was intended to use once he got to the capital, and the morphic weapon in its staff form but no tool that would help him harvest the lilies.

“I’m a fucking idiot.” Jessie muttered to himself a moment later before pulling out his morphic weapon. The staff, made half from a swirling mass of greens and gold and half from a silver wood, stood about as tall as Jessie, around 6 '4". Jessie stared at it he wondered how he might be able to change its form before deciding to just see what happened if he willed it into a new shape, surprisingly that turned out to be the correct way to transform the weapon and he ended up standing in front of a lilly patch with a perfectly balanced sickle that seemed to weigh less then the staff he started out with, because of course magic bullshittery existed.

After taking a look at the quest, Jessie momentarily thought about what he should do. The quest simply asked for 20 yellow water lilies, seeing as the request came from an alchemist, Jessie was sure that she wanted the mana infused ones that glowed softly, but whether she wanted to leave, or the flowers, or the whole plant, Jessie had no clue. Out of curiosity Jessie decided to identify the special ring he was given.

“Spatial ring, uncommon

This ring has an internal space that can be used to store any item as long as it fits within the confines of the space within. The uncommon variety, as well as all others above this grade, contains a stasis effect, this effect will freeze whatever is placed inside in time.

Restrictions: no living creatures may be stored within any spatial ring.’

Well, at least it contained a stasis effect, and with the amount of space still free within it, Jessie was confident with his plan, as so, after transforming his sickle into a shovel, he began gently uprooting the yellow lilies and storing the whole plant inside his spatial ring. The funniest part about this whole process, was that Jessie was literally uprooting large water lilies, but the fact that it still counted towards the overall goal. It didn't even take him an hour to extract and store the 20 yellow water lilies that he needed, though he was currently running low on space in his spatial ring. After harvesting the lilies, Jessie made his way out of the lake before turning his shovel back into the staff which was the default form his weapon had taken. It took him a moment to orient himself for the next location, the grand and imposing outline of the dead peaks which was barely visible by the light of the full moon. It wasn't actually that far away, relatively speaking. It looked close enough that he felt he could reach out and touch it, yet he knew that he would undoubtedly have a several hour walk, and with his stats now actually being at 1 and without the help of Fulor to keep the creatures at bay, jessie knew it would not be an easy trip.

Jessie stumbled upon a small clearing about an hour after departing from the lake, just a small clearing with a random sundial looking rock about the size of a small van sitting in the middle. The cleaing would have been utterly unremarkable during the day, other than the rock of course. But during the night, Jessie found the clearing mesmerising, thousands of flowers bloomed throughout, all glowing a bright white with an undertone of purple. Casting a quick identify on them told Jessie that they were moon flowers. He remembered there was a note in the book he had read before leaving the village about the potency of moon flowers under what moon they were picked, with the full moon being the second most potent, after a blue moon. With these flowers blooming under a full moon Jessie decided to take advantage of it and pick more than the 25 he needed for the quest, he picked a total of 100 moon blossoms and would have kept going if not for the fact he needed the space to store the other plants he was going to get from the dead peaks. At least he knew where the rest of the plants were located. Now he just needed to find them. It couldn’t be that hard, could it?