Darting around the garden, Mei picked sprigs of herbs around the garden. For the most part, she did follow the guidelines, afraid she would get into trouble.
But every few plants or so, she would take an extra portion, figuring the goat probably wouldn't be able to tell. She stared at the small pile of herbs in her basket with a satisfied grin.
She quickly left, in search of the next herb garden.
----------------------------------------
Throughout the night, as she went around the mountain like a predator on the prowl, she made sure to visit all the nearest markers. Most of them, unfortunately, weren't as easy to infiltrate as the goat's. She spent minutes searching and gave up, but she managed to enter a few anyway.
Unlike the goat, however, the owners of the dens she next visited were all at home. As she picked their herbs, they would often hiss and growl at her, releasing their terrifying auras. It was quite scary, but Mei somehow managed to pull through.
As she looked into her half-filled basket in satisfaction, orange light began to shine through the gaps of the clouds. It would seem the sun would soon rise.
Mei thought of heading back, but she decided to take another look at the map. The little village she went to was quite a distance away and would take about an hour to hike back to. While she was at it, she might as well pay another beast a visit.
Nuo Fu, apparently a strange horned serpent, was the closest.
The location was, interesting, so to speak. Its lair was depicted as several rings of rock, a waterfall over the entrance. Interesting... She spent the next few minutes hiking over.
Seeing it on a map was one matter, and looking at it directly was another. From a side of the mountain, a cliff jutted out, a waterfall running through it, a lake underneath. Mei reached towards the falling water and resisted it. So strong! Her hands only felt rough wall.
The entrance was probably somewhere in the middle of the cliff. But between the immense pressure of the water and the lack of handholds on the wall, there was no chance of her making it.
But Mei was unwilling to give up. She sat there and tried to think of a plan for a moment. Maybe if she grew out a small tree to block the current... Hah, as if she could do that. All she really had to work with was her body cultivation. She thought of just giving up and heading back, but when she thought about the chance that there were rare herbs within, she felt unwilling to give up.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Hnnn... Mei decided to scale the mountain further and see what she could do from above.
----------------------------------------
It wasn't visible from below, but there was actually a huge lake on the cliff! Odd that the lake wasn't shown on the map though. Maybe the rings were the interior?
She reached a leg into the waters, but couldn't feel the bottom. Lotus flowers with pale golden pink petals bloomed on the surface. Mei checked her slip, and to her delight, these were actually quite valuable! Each flower alone could be traded in for 20 Jade, unlike the cheap herbs that filled her basket.
She thought of swimming across the waters to try to grab them, but looking into the deep waters, she was a little scared. What if some huge spirit fish just swam out and ate her? But Mei had a way to find out.
Soulsense!
Slivers of light appeared in the water, the souls of fish and other creatures within. But far below, an immense presence, a field of "soul-light" obscured her vision. It would seem something powerful was lurking deep below.
Yeah... nope.
Mei decided to just fashion a hook of sorts to pick the flowers. After looking around for a while, she tied several long branches together with grass rope, a curved one at the very front.
It wasn't stable enough to be held straight, so she had to drag it along the ground. Mei was a little concerned, but thankfully, the branches floated. She pushed the branch in, slowly reaching towards the nearest flower.
Annoying little aquatic weeds began to clog the branch, but she didn't dare to shake it, lest the wet ropes let loose. The end of the branch reached around the stem of the plant, and to her delight, her idea actually worked!
Soon, the flower was within reach, still teetered to the lake floor with its stem. Mei tried to yank it off the stem but to no avail. Would be nice if she had her axe on her. Too bad she left it at the dorm. After trying to twist, bend and pull for a minute, Mei gave up on trying to harvest the flower fully intact.
Instead, she used all her strength to violently rip the petals off. The once beautiful lotus floated back, now naked... Meanwhile, a new addition joined her basket: a handful of utterly destroyed petals. It was truly a very sad sight.
Stupid spirit plants, why did they need to be so tough? Even petals were as tough as leather!
The elders receiving the herbs... definitely wouldn't be pleased. Mei wished she had scissors. Resigned, she decided to try to hook lotus pods instead.
It was a much better plan. After violently squeezing them, she was able to get the seeds out. She kept it for the next hour, harvesting seeds until she grew tired.
Finally, remembering what she came here to do, Mei walked over to the edge of the cliff carefully. For how big the lake was, it really was quite surprising how small the waterfall was. She reached out and touched the flowing water. In contrast to the water below, it was so gentle. Mei looked down and saw her casual waving disrupt the falling water, making it splash everywhere...
Wait! That was it!
She quickly looked around, finding a boulder and dragging it over, blocking the little channel that formed the waterfall. While some of the water still escaped, it was now much weaker. split into two separate streams to the left and right. She looked down and just as she thought, a passage was revealed on the cliff!
Though, how she was going to get down there was still a concern. Even without the water, it was still about 5 metres above the ground.
She thought of making rope with grass and trying to climb down from here but shook away the thought just as quickly. No way she would trust some poorly woven grass rope, even if it was made from tougher spirit grass! She would probably be a goner if she fell from this height, even with her body cultivation.
Mei decided to hike back down and approach it from below.