Chapter 16: Grandmother Lizzy’s Reminder, Gaining Experience

Words : 1348 Updated : Sep 12th, 2025

That night— Stars dotted the sky. The night sky was surprisingly bright, adorned with starlight and moonlight. In his previous life, even in the countryside, Tang Zheng had never seen such a clear starry sky. Crackling, crackling! The firewood of the campfire ignited, sending crackling sounds as the flames danced. Enfirea sat beside the campfire, holding several bundles of medicinal herbs, studying them. He occasionally sniffed them and even bit off a small piece to taste directly. Grandmother Lizzy stood near the horse carriage, inspecting the condition of the herbs on board. Within the Rock adventurer team, aside from the leader Dosali and the elder twin brother Rand who were standing on the perimeter keeping watch, the other two members had already gone to scout the surrounding area. At this moment, they were camping out in the wilderness. According to leader Dosali’s reminder, there was a village not far from their current location where they could find lodging. However, grandmother Lizzy refused, as she didn’t want to take a detour. Because the carriage carried a crate of relatively precious medicinal herbs purchased from the royal capital, they needed to return to E-Rantel quickly for refining. The route chosen was the fastest one. Because of this, some towns along the way were skipped entirely. Such a choice from the client undoubtedly increased the danger on the road. Under normal circumstances, this would naturally cause dissatisfaction among the adventurer team. After all! The relationship between the client and the adventurer team was purely cooperative. If the client did something unacceptable during the mission, the adventurers could naturally stop the contract halfway. However, this required compensating the Adventurer’s Guild a considerable amount of money. Given the current situation—having to act as laborers and refusing to follow the safe route—the adventurer team would have already clashed with the client long ago under normal conditions. Yet! Once the Rock team learned that Grandmother Lizzy was the owner of the E-Rantel Apothecary, hailed as the best pharmacist in E-Rantel, all their original dissatisfaction vanished completely, and they even became much more attentive along the way! This made Tang Zheng sigh inwardly: the Rock adventurer team was truly pragmatic to an extreme degree! Tang Zheng sat beside the campfire, watching Enfirea concentrate on studying the herbs. At this moment, Enfirea held in his palm a slender, root-like plant about a thumb’s length and bit off a small piece into his mouth. In the next moment! Enfirea spat out the small bite he had just taken and said, “So it’s bitter root? From appearance alone, you can’t tell the difference between the two.” After saying this, Enfirea noticed Tang Zheng sitting beside him, watching. “This herb is called bitter root. It looks exactly the same as this other one, plum root. You can’t distinguish them by appearance; only tasting can tell them apart.” “The effects are different too. Bitter root is suitable for infusing in wine, has certain detoxifying effects, and is used as a base ingredient for making antidotes.” “Although plum root also has a bitter taste, it carries a slight sweetness, making it suitable as a base ingredient for healing potions.” Enfirea’s naturally shy personality brightened up when talking about herbs, and his voice grew much more confident. “I see.” Tang Zheng nodded, showing a serious listening expression. In reality, he just wanted to see if by understanding herbal knowledge he could acquire the “Alchemist” profession. At present, there was no indication on his attribute panel. “Tang, are you very interested in herbs?” Enfirea’s bright blue eyes looked at Tang Zheng. “Yes, I am somewhat interested.” Tang Zheng nodded. “Hmph!” Just as Enfirea wanted to say something else, a light scoff sounded. Grandmother Lizzy approached, hands behind her back. “Enfirea, don’t flaunt your shallow knowledge.” “Tasting with your mouth is the most basic and also the lowest-level identification method. Your nose isn’t useless for detecting scent!” The scolding tone carried a hint of sternness. “I understand, Grandmother.” Enfirea lowered his head and spoke with some shame. Tang Zheng withdrew his gaze. He wasn’t sure if Grandmother Lizzy’s scolding of Enfirea was also a warning directed at him. In this otherworld where knowledge dissemination was clearly limited, his recent inquiries about herbal knowledge to Enfirea were indeed somewhat inappropriate. “No need to be nervous.” “Though I am a bit stingy, I won’t get angry over such a trivial matter.” Grandmother Lizzy looked at Tang Zheng and spoke faintly. Uh... She called herself stingy, which was true! But for Tang Zheng, an outsider, whatever he said now would be somewhat inappropriate. “Just because you understand the properties of a few herbs doesn’t mean you can make healing potions. Don’t even think about it.” “Since you have some talent in faith-based magic, don’t waste your energy on other things. Whether it’s martial arts or herbal knowledge, it’s just wasting time.” Grandmother Lizzy’s voice was calm and steady. Tang Zheng was stunned, knowing she was kindly advising him. He quickly replied, “Thank you, Lady Barayalev.” Upon hearing Tang Zheng’s form of address, the wrinkles on Grandmother Lizzy’s face smoothed considerably. She seemed very pleased with the title. “Barayalev” was her surname. Tang Zheng had learned this during conversations with Enfirea, though he had already known it. Step! Step! Two sets of footsteps came from the wilderness. It was the twin younger brother Ler and archer Baske who had gone scouting earlier. With their return, the expressions on the other two Rock team members’ faces relaxed slightly. “Whimper... whimper.” A weak groan came from behind Ler. They saw Ler carrying a wild boar weighing over 200 jin (roughly 220 pounds), looking unusually relaxed. “Lucky, caught a wild boar. We have dinner sorted for tonight.” “An arrow pierced through the forehead? Yet it’s still alive.” “Hey, Baske, your archery skills have improved again.” Rand, hands on his waist, looked at his younger brother carrying the boar, especially the visible blood hole on the boar’s forehead. “It’s just a wild boar.” Baske chuckled lightly. Bang! Ler walked to the campfire and dropped the boar to the ground with a dull thud. “Tang, it still has one breath left.” Ler said cheerfully to Tang Zheng, then pointed to a spot on the boar’s neck with his finger. “If you strike here, it can be killed with one blow.” “Thank you.” Tang Zheng stood up from beside the campfire and walked toward the wild boar lying on the ground, still twitching slightly. Because Grandmother Lizzy needed to hurry back to E-Rantel, although the route chosen was faster, they could not rest in towns along the way. Grandmother Lizzy had naturally already planned the route well and was prepared. Food was not lacking but clearly did not include the Rock team and Tang Zheng. So! Besides conserving their own food supplies, the Rock team also hunted for food and provisions. This was obviously no problem for adventurers. During this process, Tang Zheng mentioned that if possible, he wanted to perform the finishing strike on the captured prey. The official explanation was: He intended to become an adventurer but had never seen bloodshed before, so he wanted to adapt in advance. The Rock team had no doubts about this. Because Tang Zheng truly didn’t look like an adventurer. Even the lowest-level adventurers would carry some tools when going on a long journey, but Tang Zheng had no such awareness. Maybe they doubted his strength, but they could tell from his lack of experience. Therefore, the Rock team had no hesitation. Whenever they caught a beast during this time, they would leave it alive with one breath so Tang Zheng could kill it. Swish! Tang Zheng drew a short sword from his waist and walked over to the wild boar lying on the ground, its body still twitching slightly. Without hesitation, he lifted the short sword and stabbed it into the spot Ler had just pointed out on the boar.

Chapter 16: Grandmother Lizzy’s Reminder, Gaining Experience

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