Chapter 232 – Star Grass[1]
It wasn’t until the shadow of the cavalry was gone that Laura and the other two walked out of the carriage. They had observed the cavalry, so Laura turned to Green and said, “Grandpa Green, if not for your unyielding attitude, I fear those fellows wouldn’t have let us off so easily. That was really risky.”
Green smiled faintly. “It’s alright. I’ve seen many such situations before. They were just acting, so it wasn’t anything much.”
Laura smiled. “Upon entering the Beastfolk Prairie, such situations will be frequently encountered. The beastfolk themselves, on the other hand, would only take food if they wished to rob. This is the unwritten rule of the Beastfolk Prairie. They still hope that people would bring food there in the future. Moreover, in the eyes of the beastfolk, Terrans look almost identical. With this, Grandpa Green won’t have to worry if anything does happen and can stay in the Black Waste.”
Green smiled and said, “There’s nothing much to do in the Black Waste at this time. Presently, everything that needs to be prepared for the winter has already been prepared. Furthermore, there’s Quinn John there so I have nothing to do. I’ll go with you for now. If there are any issues, I’ll go forth and move to solve it.”
Laura laughed. “Alright. The scenery here isn’t much. It’s not as good as the Space’s and somewhat boring.”
Green chuckled. “The grass inside the Space is taller than the ones here. Certainly, it’s a lot more attractive in there than here, but it also looks too rigid. On the other hand, the Beastfolk Prairie will have changes along the way.”
Laura grinned. As Green had said, in the Space, no matter if it was the farm or the ranch, there wouldn’t be much difference. Everything there was digitized. The grass would be as short in length as everything else and even the few leaves would look the exact same. There really weren’t any changes.
Just then, Green suddenly saw some bushes with a cluster of florets. He couldn’t help but gawk at them, then smiled as he hit his horse into a gallop. Jumping from his horse, he took out his Spiritwind Sword and dug out several clusters of florets from their roots.
Watching Green’s actions, Zhao Hai couldn’t help but be surprised. A moment later, he understood what Green intended. Sure enough, after Green removed the florets from the soil and returned to the carriage, he gave them to Zhao Hai and said, “Young Master, this is one of the most common type of flowers in the Beastfolk Prairie—Star Grass[2]. This Star Grass is unique to the Beastfolk Prairie and is a common hemostatic medicinal herb. Ordinary beastfolk would pick this grass and dry them, then use it on injuries to stop the bleeding. It’s a very effective herb.”
Zhao Hai looked at the clusters of florets in his hands. The entire plant was only about thirty centimeters in length and didn’t seem too extraordinary. Flowers bloomed on top of the grass[3]and the flower had a total of five petals that spread to resemble a small star.
Zhao Hai shifted his hands and placed the flowers in the Space. The Space immediately prompted in a tone:
[Discovered new plant.
Identifying plant. Plant is a herbal, hemostatic plant.
Plant has hemostatic abilities and strong vitality.
Evaluating level. Plant is Level 5.
The plant is seasonal and has a maturity time of ten hours.
Digitizing plant. Plant can now be purchased from the Spatial Shop.]
Zhao Hai nodded. Turning, he saw that Laura and the others had their eyes on him. He couldn’t help but frown as he said, “It’s nothing. The Space evaluated the plant as Level 5 and it has a ten hour maturity time.”
While Green and the others felt some regret, they didn’t really expect much. If such a common type of grass could upgrade the level of the Space, then the Space wouldn’t just be Level 20 right now.
Laura’s eyes shone brightly as she looked around as if in search of something. Zhao Hai gave a faint smile. This was the first time Laura had encountered such a situation, so she felt very curious and went ahead. Nier was also curious. She, however, wasn’t very curious about the plants, but rather, with the magic beasts.
Compared to Laura, Meg was much calmer. She’d already experienced the Space leveling up. If it didn’t upgrade this time, then there wasn’t anything to be happy about.
This was, however, a good start. These plants would slowly build up the experience needed after being assessed by the Space. Since they had just entered the Beastfolk Prairie and already found a plant, it could be considered a good start.
Green watched Laura and smiled as he said, “In fact, there are a lot of plants in the Beastfolk Prairie. Unfortunately, we aren’t beastfolk so we won’t be able to notice them easily. I heard that in the Beastfolk Prairie, the grass itself is divided into different types. There is grass that the cattle could feed on, grass that the sheep could eat, and grass that the horses could eat. Haha. When we speak about our understanding of the prairies, we can’t be compared to those beastfolk.”
Laura smiled. “That’s natural. The beastfolk have been living here for generations, and the Beastfolk Prairie is their home. They would naturally understand it better, but so long as we can buy a beastfolk slave this problem can be solved.”
Green nodded in approval of what Laura said. One could say that the group with the deepest understanding of the prairie wouldn’t be a member of a war tribe, but instead a slave.
The slaves of the prairies weren’t like Terran slaves that had been marked as such. Slaves in the prairie were instead just a sub ethnic race. The beastfolk could easily recognize a slave, so they didn’t need to be marked.
Furthermore, slaves in the prairie had a lot more freedom than the Terran slaves, and they were more dependent on some war tribes for survival. In this place, they would herd and work for the war tribes. Due to this, the slaves’ understanding of the prairie was quite high. They knew which grass would be good, where good water could be found, and where magic beasts roamed.
Slaves had their own reason for existing. With regards to the beastfolk, magic beasts encompassed everything. No matter how formidable a beastfolk war tribe was, it would still be weighed by how many magic beasts they had. Magic beasts, however, were trained and raised by the slaves. So long as the slaves raised the magic beasts well, the beastfolk would reward them in turn. With this, the slaves worked very hard.
Due of this, as long as Zhao Hai bought some beastfolk slaves, they would gain a better understanding of the flora within the prairie. In fact, many beastfolk didn’t realize how important this knowledge was. Although the beastfolk did have their own writing system, they didn’t have any record of these aspects.
Here in the Beastfolk Prairie, most of the ethnic races didn’t have their own slave tribe due to their low battle strength. If they had many slaves, then they would just be snatched by those war tribes. If wouldn’t do them any good as it would just lead to a slaughter. This was a common occurrence in the prairie.
There were many ethnic races that, because of their massive properties and inability to protect them, were eliminated by the war tribes. Afterwards, they would just be converted to slave tribes. This was the law of survival here in the prairie.
Green nodded and said, “Buying slaves is a must. But don’t worry about it too much. We must move slowly. First, we will need to take a look at the situation here in the Beastfolk Prairie.”
Laura nodded, smiled, and said, “I understand this since Artest had reported much of this to me before. Unfortunately, the information collected isn’t very comprehensive, so our understanding is still limited.”
Green nodded and looked around. He didn’t see any traces of a tribe, so he turned his head to Zhao Hai and said, “Young Master, we must move a little bit faster. The cavalry soldiers from Ironwall Fortress appear and disappear in this area frequently, so the beastfolk don’t come around here. We need to find a beastfolk tribe as soon as possible. Seeking shelter for the night with them would be best.”
Zhao Hai nodded. “That’s fine. If we meet a tribe, we can also do some transactions with them. Haha, I want to see what kind of beastfolk we encounter.”
Laura also smiled. Beastfolk rarely went into Terran settlements, so the local people living in some small areas wouldn’t be able to see a beastfolk in all of their lives.
Since they needed to hurry, they raised their speed slightly. Unfortunately, they didn’t manage to encounter anyone this day. This was normal, however, as the Beastfolk Prairie was very large. In addition, they were in the buffer zone between the Terrans and the beastfolk. This place would be sparsely populated.
Evening came and they still didn’t encounter any beastfolk. They went back inside the Space and passed the night there.
Night passed without any discussion.
Next morning, Zhao Hai and the others continued to venture deeper into the Beastfolk Prairie. Zhao Hai wanted to take it easy so they moved slowly. On the way, they were observing the surroundings and also gathering and digging up many types of grasses and flowers and placed them in the Space. Unfortunately, most of the plants they encountered were common. Although some were collected by the Space, they didn’t give much experience. Since the Space was now Level 20, upgrading became difficult.
Zhao Hai, however, didn’t give up. He understood the reality of the matter and could only do things slowly. Worrying about it would be useless.
To truly understand, just the Carrion Swamp itself had a wider variety of plants when compared to the Beastfolk Prairie. The Carrion Swamp, however, was dangerous. If he let Zhao Wen and Cai-er jointly search it and the Rank Nine experts of the Carrion Swamp knew of this, they wouldn’t be friendly[4]. Right now, Zhao Hai was focusing on the Beastfolk Prairie instead.
During noon that day, Zhao Hai was called by a blood-colored eagle. Zhao Hai looked up and saw the blood-colored eagle circling in the air, giving out cries from time to time.
Zhao Hai watched for a while, then turned to Laura and said, “Not far ahead of us is a small tribe with a few hundred people. We’ll arrive there by evening and rest.”
Laura didn’t oppose, instead nodding as she said, “Alright then, but we must be careful. The beastfolk might turn out to be robbers. As I see it, we should call out a few more undead so that the beastfolk wouldn’t act too unreasonably.”
Smiling, Zhao Hai said, “No, don’t forget that I’m currently a magician. I believe the beastfolk wouldn’t so casually annoy us, so be at ease.”
As they spoke, their speed increased. Three hours later, Zhao Hai stood atop his carriage. He saw a flag fluttering a bit away and knew that this was the place.
Notes:
-This chapter was MTL’ed. Please leave a comment for constructive criticisms and advice. Thanks.
-Please support the author if you love this novel.
-Please check out the Editor’s footnotes, thanks.
Footnotes:
[1] 星星草 – Xīngxīng cǎo. Dunno why author uses double ‘star’ character. Reinforcement? ↩
[2] Yea, author calls the thing a flower in this sentence, 花, but names it grass, 草. Also, in the earlier paragraph, Green is cutting down florets, 小花, basically little flowers. ↩
[3] Still unsure if it’s a flower or a grass… I’m not a botanist. ↩
[4] Weird seeing as how Zhao Wen is one of the more average strong members and Cai’er is the effective ruler… which Rank Nine would really care if they just picked a few plants?