Chapter 257: Time To Hunt
After emptying his inventory s.p.a.ce, Liam still always carried with him a lot of herbs, not just the essential ones.
Since he did not know when he might need what, he usually kept a stock of different items. Right now, he started taking out these things one after the other.
But he did not feed the herb to the egg because that would be impossible. The eggsh.e.l.l won"t magically absorb the different herbs and such.
Luna would still need to consume the herbs on her own if these herbs were useful at all. Otherwise, the effect would not be there.
But that was not the only method. Liam knew another method.
In his slave days, the thing that he had spent most of his time on was plucking herbs in different places, maintaining the guild herb farms, watering them, and taking care of them.
In one of those times, he had observed an NPC execute a weird technique and it was not just any NPC. It was a grandmaster alchemist who was searching for a particular rare herb.
This was one of the alchemy guild quests. Players would invite this grandmaster to their guild after planting this specific herbal farm.
And the grandmaster would also come by and take a look at the farm.
If he was sufficiently satisfied, he would reward an inscription that would make all herbs in the guild farms grow faster.
So when their guild attempted this quest, from a corner of their guild residence, Liam had observed this technique.
He had only observed this once and that too he didn"t know any specific details. He only knew the general idea because he had overheard his master talking about it.
That fatso also couldn"t do it and Liam as well did not have any mana so he could never personally try it.
But now he had the ability. Although it was very improbable he decided to give it a shot as he truly had no other option.
Liam took out one fire-attribute herb after another from the bunch he had taken out and placed a few stalks on his palm.
He then hurriedly circulated all the mana he could sense in his body to this palm.
In the beginning, it was not enough. However, as he forcefully shoved all the mana from his palm to the leaves and the stems, slowly the herb started glowing.
But the next instant, the glow turned brighter and before Liam could control it, the leaves got burnt to a crisp.
"f.u.c.k." Liam dumped the waste on his hand and tried again. This time he used less mana.
The few stalks of herbs once again glowed and now Liam hurriedly brought the egg near his palm filled with these glowing herbs.
The glow once again started getting brighter just like before and it looked like the herbs were about to get burned.
But before that could happen, small dots of light flew out of the herbs in Liam"s palm landing on the egg.
This was the herbal essence. Every herb had this essence. And this was what Liam was also trying to extract, though he never actually expected to succeed.
This was a high-level technique that required careful manipulation of mana. A grandmaster had demonstrated this move.
How could he possibly get it on his first try? His own mana control wasn"t nearly that good!
So the chances of this being successful were next to zero.
However, Liam had never counted on this from the start. Rather than his own talent, what he counted on was Luna"s ability to absorb essences.
In fact, if the egg wasn"t placed near the herb, then once again the extraction might have failed.
The essence being extracted right now is 100% Luna"s doing.
Liam knew that this would work because even back when she was just an egg, before ever hatching, she had refined fire essence and absorbed it.
So if he helped her a bit by circulating his mana, she should be able to absorb the herbal essence as well.
This was one of the spirit beast"s natural qualities. This way was not that efficient because Luna as well was a relatively young spirit beast, so her skill was quite unpolished.
But Liam did not care.
This was his last-ditch attempt. He desperately needed this to work and did not think of efficiency and such.
He watched the herbs and the egg with antic.i.p.ation and the next second, just like he hoped for, the egg started absorbing these small dots of lights.
"Ok. Ok. Ok. Calm down. This might work." He told himself and dumped the set of herbs, replacing it with another bunch of fresh herbs.
This was just the first step. There was still a lot more to go. Luna might be absorbing the essences now, but would it actually help her?
He didn"t know. He repeated the process again and again, every time circulating mana hurriedly.
At first, he was very careful but down the line, all he needed to do was pump the mana and the egg took care of the rest.
"Are you really okay?" He sighed.
After a while, something happened and the spreading of the black color slightly slowed down. The bleeding stopped and the egg did not crack any longer.
Whatever was happening somewhat settled down.
Seeing this, Liam felt like he could finally breathe!
He threw a hail mary pa.s.s and he somehow managed to score a goal!
Liam then blindly took out all the fire-attribute herbs in his possession.
One after the other, he circulated mana in these herbs and continuously fed it to the egg, and Luna as well gulped it all down with voracity.
She was like a black hole absorbing everything that he threw at her.
Soon after a couple of minutes, he ran out of the first batch of fire-type herbs.
Since he had no other choice, Liam then tried a normal herb and weirdly, the essence from that herb as well was eaten by the egg.
"So anything is okay huh?" Liam sighed softly. He only now relaxed seeing that the black color had almost stopped spreading completely.
He still had no idea what he was doing. He was just instinctively feeding the young fox some nutritious essence.
This was the only thing that he could try right now and that seemed to be working?
He continued feeding Luna herb after herb, slowly and steadily running through his stock supplies, and the egg as well continued gobbling up everything.
Liam did not mind. As long as he could somehow make this all alright, just like before, it would be worth it.
He patiently stood at the same spot without moving an inch, feeding everything he had to the egg. The black color also stopped spreading, but the problem was…
The minute he stopped feeding the egg with herbs, the black color once again started spreading.
Liam sighed. It looked like they were not out of the woods just yet. He continued feeding the herbs and started thinking about what to do next.
He definitely did not have enough herbs with him for this to last.
He also couldn"t possibly continue doing this while flying on Talon to reach all the way back to Yleka city or even any other small town nearby.
There was no time and he simply did not have enough herbs to even last that trip. Not to mention, he first had to go to the spot where Talon was.
Right now he was quite far away.
But Liam was not giving up just yet. He had come all this way and he had somehow managed to bring her back from the brink of death.
This was a precious chance that he had obtained to save the little thing. So he was determined not to let her down again.
Just as he was pondering about how to solve this problem, Liam suddenly remembered the other plant that he had in his possession.
He had slightly scooped up the moss from the tunnel walls, but he was not able to identify it. For all he knew, it could be a herb or not be a herb.
But Liam did not have to know everything about the plant to try this out. He hurriedly took out some in his hands and then started circulating mana, just like he was doing to the other herbs.
And bingo!
Luna ate it up as well just like she had eaten all the other herbs.
Here it was!
This was the solution to his problem!
This was it!
The entire underground tunnel was filled with this herb and the tunnel ran for miles and miles. With these herbs, he could feed Luna until she had eaten her fill. There was more than enough.
The only problem was that… he did not know if the herbs were still present… or if even those had already been stolen?
Liam"s face immediately changed. His gaze turned ice cold and his fist gripped the herb on his palm tighter, his anger surging back up again.
It was time to return to that place and hunt everyone down! Whatever they took from him, he would take it right back.
***
Bonus Chapter~~
Please thank Shocked Corgi for sponsoring this bonus chapter!