“Miss Annabell, this way, please. Be careful of the swamp underfoot; it’s the disguise of the second-grade man-eating grass. Don’t step into it.”
Deep in the Elven King Ruins, Charlotte was like a skilled local guide, leading the way briskly ahead. She had no magical fluctuations, but every step, every direction she gave, was so precise it made one’s scalp tingle.
Annabell followed behind, playing with a herb that emitted a faint fluorescence in her hand, her heart already blooming with joy.
‘So satisfying! Simply too satisfying!’
Originally, she thought this potion gathering trial would be a laborious task, having to bump around like a headless fly in this boundless botanical garden.
But who would have thought that Charlotte would awaken her ‘walking potion encyclopedia’ cheat at this time!
Under Charlotte’s guidance, they perfectly avoided all worthless weeds and hidden traps, and along the way, like autumn wind sweeping fallen leaves, they precisely collected those priceless high-grade magic herbs into their bags.
“Stop.” Charlotte suddenly stopped by a freezing cold pool.
In the center of the pool, a peculiar lotus grew alone. This lotus was half a frost-like deep blue, and the other half burned with a crimson flame. Two incompatible attributes of water and fire actually coexisted perfectly on one plant.
“This is the ‘ice-fire twin lotus.’” Charlotte lowered her voice, eyes sparkling with excitement.
“A top-grade fifth-rank magic herb! Not only can it greatly increase a mage’s mana capacity, but it’s also the core material for refining the ‘breakthrough potion.’ In the outside world’s auction houses, this single plant is enough to exchange for a small castle!”
Annabell raised an eyebrow. “Just pull it out?”
“Absolutely not!” Charlotte quickly waved her hand, explaining seriously.
“The ice-fire twin lotus is extremely sensitive. If you touch it by pure physical means, or with only a single attribute of mana, it will instantly self-destruct, leaving not even a trace.”
“You must simultaneously use ice and fire magic of equal intensity, wrap it up, cut off its mana connection to the pool, and only then can you successfully harvest it.”
Saying this, Charlotte bit her lip in distress. “Miss Annabell specializes in ice magic, right? But we don’t have fire…”
“Who said it has to be a fire mage?” Annabell’s lips curled into a confident arc.
She took out a magic scroll glowing with red light from her storage ring, and gently rubbed it with her fingertips.
“Extreme Freeze!” “Fireball spell scroll, release!”
In an instant, Annabell’s left hand surged with bone-chilling frost mana, while her right hand crushed the fire-attribute scroll.
The two streams of mana, one cold and one hot, under her precise control, transformed into two semi-transparent mana hands, simultaneously reaching toward the center of the pool. The ice hand grasped the red flame petals, and the fire hand held up the blue frost petals.
A soft sound.
The ice-fire twin lotus detached from the water intact, and Annabell steadily put it into a special jade box.
“Success! Miss Annabell, your control over mana is simply perfect!”
Charlotte watched with sparkling eyes, not sparing her praise. The mana from a scroll is usually very volatile; to balance scroll mana and one’s own mana so well, this talent is simply terrifying.
Annabell felt a bit lightheaded from the praise, but on the surface she maintained the cold persona of a villainess young lady, nodding indifferently. “Just a trivial trick. Continue leading the way.”
“Okay!” Charlotte’s eyes sparkled, full of motivation.
Now Charlotte had only one thought in her mind: to stuff Annabell full! Stuff all the best and most expensive things in this ruin into Annabell’s magic ring!
Not long after, the two found a dwarf tree full of crystal-clear fruits behind a hidden cave.
“Miss Annabell, that is the ‘magic crystal fruit tree’!” Charlotte pointed excitedly ahead.
“Each fruit contains the purest non-attribute mana. Eating one is equivalent to a month of meditation training! It can be said that what hangs on this tree is not fruit, but piles of top-grade magic crystal stones!”
Annabell’s heterochromatic eyes lit up.
‘Magic crystal stones? Isn’t that money?!’
“Pull it out! Uproot it! Move the whole tree and soil together!”
Annabell waved her hand grandly, fully displaying the greedy nature of a villainess young lady.
The two cooperated with tacit understanding. Annabell was responsible for breaking through the surrounding guardian magical beasts with violent magic, while Charlotte was responsible for guiding how to completely dig out the magic herbs.
In less than an hour, Annabell’s magic ring was stuffed full, and the harvest was even more abundant than several years’ inventory of a medium-sized mage guild.
Meanwhile, in the central area of the botanical garden with the richest mana.
Fourth Prince Charles was sitting on a large rock. His two subordinates, one being a certain Noble A and the other an assassin trained by the Royal Family, were sweating profusely as they frantically picked magic herbs around.
The three of them joined forces, directly set up a cordon in the central area, and forcibly occupied the most fertile land. Whoever dared to approach would suffer their merciless attacks.
“Your Highness, the magic herbs in this area are really too much. We simply can’t finish picking them all!” Noble A wiped his sweat and ran over excitedly to report. “At this pace, there is absolutely no problem for the three of us to sweep the top three places of the trial!”
Charles let out a light laugh and closed his folding fan.
“Naturally. Things I, the prince, have set my eyes on cannot be taken by anyone. Although Annabell has astonishing mana, she is nothing but a woman who only knows how to fight and kill. In this vast medicinal garden, without knowledge of pharmacology, she can’t even find a decent magic herb.”
The Wise Assassin leaned in and said in a low voice, “Your Highness, that mana-less commoner following Annabell seems a bit strange. The fact that she could obtain the relic gem is no coincidence. Perhaps she carries a secret about the Elven King’s legacy.”
“I have noticed it too.”
Charles’s eyes flashed with a sinister greed. “A mana-less ordinary person, worthy of touching the Elven King’s treasure? When the herb gathering time ends, find an opportunity to capture that commoner called Charlotte.”
“I will squeeze out all the secrets on her, as well as that special jade pendant. As for Annabell… heh, once I, the prince, obtain the legacy, even the Duke’s Estate will have to bow down to me!”
Just as Charles was dreaming of dominating the Empire, a loud noise came from afar, and a figure flew backward like a kite with a broken string from deep in the forest, crashing heavily onto the boulder at Charles’s feet.
“Ouch… It hurts so much…”
Charles focused his eyes and his brows furrowed sharply. Wasn’t this pig head lying on the ground, bruised and swollen with two front teeth missing, exactly one of the lackeys he had sent to patrol the perimeter?
“What happened?! Who beat you into this state?!” Charles roared angrily.
The lackey, with a mournful face, holding his heavily swollen cheek, cried out indistinctly, “Y-Your Highness! It’s that Annabell! That crazy woman!”