Chapter 29 - Nightshade Flower Field, The Goldmine
Walking towards the first bunch of Nightshade flowers, Shane exerted his mana gathering technique to see small dark mana particles swirling around.
This helped him spot the Nightshade flowers more easily making him want to exert the mana gathering technique more often.
However, in the end, he noticed that he was forced to focus too much on the mana gathering technique, causing him to lose some of his concentration on the overall situation.
As such, he would only exert it sometimes in order to look where exactly Nightshade flowers were.
Compared to five days ago, Shane wasn't even tensed up while walking around the outskirts, plucking the Nightshade flowers.
3rd-Wild stage shadow-snakes that shot out of the mud were either severed by Shane's dagger or pricked by Umbra's shadow needles and the two of them didn't waste time after killing them.
The only thing that Shane did with the corpses was putting them up for sale in his store and setting the price for 25 bronze coins which was slightly higher than what he would receive from the system.
Nevertheless, Shane did that to increase the sales in his shop in order to reach the required amount of gold coins that was needed to unlock the upgrade section sooner.
The Shadow-snakes were almost immediately purchased, as their organs could be used to manufacture medicines, while one could also fashion an armor with the scales, even though it would only be a [Mortal (Common)] one at most.
Some poor households without any adventurers that hunted beasts to gain funds still purchased it for a few silver coins in order to give their children at least some kind of protection on their path of cultivation.
The scales could also be used to brew potions but they were trash quality and not that rare. Hence, Shane's quoted price of 25 bronze coins was definitely fine, considering that these Shadow-snakes were even smaller than Umbra with a size of 30 centimeters at most.
Shadow-snakes were also called mini-snakes by some humans but that didn't make them less lethal.
Umbra was not even a 3rd rank wild beast but he was already larger than the other shadow-snakes due to his quality.
One could say that Umbra was also stronger due to the slight enhancement in affinity he had received due to Shane's innate skill.
As he walked around the valley's outskirts, Shane wanted to clear it before entering the more dangerous base of the valley.
He wanted to prevent any shadow snakes from attacking his back while he focused on the main Nightshade flower field.
His first set of potions was already used up though Shane was not even halfway through the outskirts. His finances had already increased by 13 silver coins due to the large number of shadow snakes he killed.
But, that was not his main purpose and Shane's clothes were completely soaked due to the rain and mud.
The raincoat he wore had already been ripped apart and Shane felt that it was useless to purchase a new one, now that he was already wet
He looked like a beggar right now but he was the least bothered about his appearance..
Increasing his income was much more important right now! Two hours later, Shane had plucked 200 Nightshade flowers. He was amazed at his own speed which was much faster than on his earlier visit.
Had his speed increased remarkably or had he just been extremely slow five days ago?
Shane didn't know, but before he did anything else, he requested the system to send the first batch of Nightshade flowers to the Corvi race.
This package would have to be accepted by the Corvi assistant he made the contract with.
If the package wouldn't be accepted within a period of 3 hours, it would be sent back, leading to a setback in Shane's plan.
But he was confident that the Corvi merchants had instructed the system to accept the packages in exchange for the prices from the list which they had previously agreed upon.
Until the Corvi race accepted the package, the Nightshade flowers would stay in his spatial ring, which was the most important reason for him to purchase a second, larger spatial ring.
Shane estimated that his package would be accepted maximum in an hour. Thus, he would have more than enough space in his spatial rings to hoard more Nightshade flowers. With that in mind, he continued his trip through the outskirts of the lower part of the valley.
An hour later, a notification popped in his head but he decided to ignore it. He couldn't afford to be distracted when fighting a Shadow-python at the 5th rank of the Wild stage with Umbra's help.
The python wasn't as fast as Shane but on the sloppy ground, it was definitely more difficult to evade a one-meter-long python's attack which was additionally enveloped in shadow mana.
Umbra distracted the Shadow-python by attacking it with shadow needles aiming at its eyes. Shane bent down, almost touching the ground before he pushed himself towards his opponent, slashing out with his tempered shiolite dagger, and severed the shadow python's head.
One could say that Umbra was Shane's hidden weapon because one could barely notice the small snake coiled around Shane's neck.
Attacking with shadow needles in the darkness was also slightly evil. Even though the Shadow-snakes and -pythons had an exceptional sight in the darkness, it was still slightly difficult to notice the paper-thin needles if the focus was set on a 1.8m tall human.
However, what made him wonder more, was that Umbra was the only Shadow-snake he ever saw manifesting long-range attacks from all kinds of wild staged beasts he faced until now.
Maybe this was because of Umbra's higher quality or the desire to help Shane out, even if he was weak... But he did not receive a satisfactory answer, even after questioning Umbra.
Nevertheless, it was still an advantage Shane and Umbra would use in order to defeat the Shadow-pythons and it was fortunately not that difficult.
Shane wasn't sure if peak-Wild shadow-pythons or even Shadow-pythons at the Elite stage were currently around him. But he was certain that he would only meet them in the center of the main Nightshade field. There were still more than enough Nightshade flowers for him to collect until he would meet opponents at this rank.
If everything went downhill, Shane could still use prismarine-luminous crystals while overclocking them to escape, even though this meant Shane had to forget about the main Nightshade field.
For now, survival was more important. Another two hours had passed which was indicated by the countdown of his second set of potions running out.
In the last three hours, Shane had hunted more than 50x shadow snakes, 5x mid-wild shadow pythons, and collected slightly more than 300 Nightshade flowers.
The second batch of Nightshade flowers was already sent to the Corvi race, but Shane avoided looking at the notification, showing the number of gold coins he had received. Additionally, Shane also decided to ignore his finances, as everything else could be seen there as well.
Inside his shop, the corpses were hot selling products that vanished faster than he could refill them, and even the shadow-python corpses he set at a price of 1 silver coin were immediately purchased.
From the sales of his shop alone, Shane would have amassed a small fund of 30 silver coins. However, compared to the estimated price for the Nightshade flowers, it was considered a drop in the ocean.
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