Although her voice wasn't loud, even gentle, when those words fell, they were cold as ice.
The petals of a few man-eating flowers trembled.
In the next second, they quickly shrank back into the ground, vanishing without a trace.
Cen Yao gave a soft tsk.
“Bullying the weak and fearing the strong.”
She flapped her wings and flew down toward the base of the tower.
The moment she landed, the starlight wings behind her back trembled slightly, scattering into countless fragments of light like a brief yet grand meteor shower.
The live stream room wailed once more.
【Ah! No, the wings! I haven't seen enough of them!】
【Streamer, can you really not reveal the source of those wings? I'm willing to buy them with points, sob sob sob.】
【Holy crap, this newcomer isn't right. That fireball earlier was so powerful.】
【It feels like it's at least equivalent to a B-rank explosive item.】
【You mean she just casually waved her hand and threw away what takes me half a year to earn in the Horror Game?!】
【Hahahahaha, comparison really is the thief of joy. I've been here for half a year and only barely got a B-rank item!】
【Is this really a newcomer? That blind kill just now, destroying the man-eating flower without even turning her head, her reaction speed is insane!】
【Agreed. I came over from other rookie dungeons. The streamer is the strongest among this batch of newcomers, bar none.】
【Not just this batch, even the previous few batches can't compare at all, right?】
【That's going a bit too far. Those two, “Nuo” and “Architect”, are also very strong. They feel much stronger than this “Bling Bling”.】
【Stop arguing. Those two are Rookie Kings. Although we don't know what this one's Talent is exactly, it's definitely at least SS-rank. Either way, she's much better than us who only know how to run our mouths.】
【Right now, I just want to know how many more things this newcomer has up her sleeve.】
Cen Yao was unaware of the exaggerated bullet comments. Her attention was currently entirely on that clear-heart vine.
The ground beneath her feet was damp and soft, and the black forest was right before her eyes. The trees were tall and twisted, their branches like gaunt, withered hands intertwining in midair. Human facial features were faintly visible on the bark.
When the wind blew, those facial features seemed to come alive, their eyeballs slowly rolling to stare at Cen Yao.
As Cen Yao walked forward, she cast a shield on herself. Several fire butterflies flew out of her sleeves, slowly dancing around her.
The soft golden light illuminated the path ahead, also repelling the writhing dark shadows at the roots of the trees.
She walked up to the withered tree and finally saw the full picture of the clear-heart vine. The vine wasn't thick, only about the width of a finger, winding around the withered tree three times.
The leaves were heart-shaped and translucent, their veins like flowing silver threads. At the very top grew a few pale-green berries, their skin beaded with dew-like spiritual liquid.
Cen Yao couldn't help but let her eyes light up. It was indeed a clear-heart vine. And it was quite old.
The greatest use of this material was to stabilize the mind and alleviate pollution, which was extremely practical against mental attacks in Horror Game dungeons.
If she could take it out, it would be useful whether she was brewing calming potions or anti-pollution potions.
Cen Yao looked around. After confirming that nothing else was lunging at her, she took out a small silver knife she had pocketed from the high tower earlier.
Gathering potion ingredients couldn't be done haphazardly. Especially with spiritual plants like the clear-heart vine; once the main vine was damaged, most of its medicinal properties would be lost.
Cen Yao squatted down, first using a Cleaning Spell to remove the rust from the silver knife, and then softly chanted a spell to preserve its medicinal properties. A faint light surfaced on the silver knife.
Instead of cutting the entire vine down, she chose the three side vines with the most potent medicinal properties and lightly sliced just below the leaf nodes.
When the clear-heart vine was cut, a bit of pale-green sap flowed out. Cen Yao immediately caught it with a small glass bottle, then plucked a few ripe berries and stored them separately in a piece of parchment paper.
Her movements were as practiced as if she were picking vegetables in her own backyard.
The veteran players in the live stream room who knew their stuff were utterly dumbfounded.
【What is she doing? Gathering herbs?】
【Wait, she's harvesting them so professionally.】
【What material is that? Why does it look a bit familiar?】
【It seems to be a clear-heart vine. I've seen it in the mall before, and it doesn't sell cheap.】
【Clear-heart vine? The material that can be used to brew calming potions?】
【Yes, it's very useful in mental pollution-type dungeons. But it's hard to harvest in the wild; if you do it wrong, its medicinal properties are completely ruined.】
【Why does a newcomer know how to harvest herbs?】
【You're asking me? I want to know too.】
【She really is looking less and less like a newcomer.】
【I think so too. Could it be some big shot wearing a newcomer's skin?】
【Do you know any big shot whose Talent manifests in such a versatile way? Because I certainly don't.】
【I just came over from the neighboring rookie dungeon. The newcomer there is still crying while being chased by ghosts, and she's already starting to harvest dungeon materials.】
【Is this the gap between newcomers?】
【This reminds me of that saying: The gap between humans can be wider than the gap between humans and pigs.】
Cen Yao packed away the clear-heart vine and casually dug out two small pieces of companion silver moss from the base of the withered tree.
Although silver moss wasn't as precious as the clear-heart vine, it could be used to stabilize potions, making it a decent supplementary ingredient.
Since she was already here, she couldn't let them go to waste.
The orb stared at her not even sparing the moss next to the tree roots, falling silent for a few seconds.
“Host.”
“Hmm?”
“You jumped down in such a hurry earlier just because you saw the clear-heart vine?”
Cen Yao wrapped up the last bit of silver moss, her tone perfectly natural.
“Yeah.”
The orb: “...”
It had thought the Host had spotted some crucial clue related to the survival of the dungeon.
Turns out it was just potion ingredients.
Cen Yao added very seriously, “These are real materials. A single clear-heart vine in the mall costs a lot of shock points. Picking them up for free right now basically rounds up to making a fortune.”
The orb actually found itself unable to refute this.
After all, it also felt the Host made a lot of sense.
After harvesting the ingredients, Cen Yao stood up and looked toward the east once more.
Five hundred kilometers.
If she relied on her own two legs, let alone retrieving the rainbow flower, she would be worn to death by whatever random things she encountered on the way.
Not to mention, it was extremely out of character for a Witch.
Rate on N.U.
