Chapter 231: Plant Hunting

When the exam started and the apprentices began to scurry around the biomes like lost animals, another person wearing master clothings was seen visiting the top floor. The master was an unusual looking one, a dwarf.

Master Anmir, who was about to relax, swiftly approached the man when he noticed his arrival. Despite their similar clothing, the attitude Master Anmir showed to the other person was strangely respectful.

"Hello, Master Grom. Is there anything I can help you with?"

The dwarf, named Grom, replied with a smile, "Master Anmir, there's no need for you to be like this. I am just checking out on the apprentices who are currently taking the exam. I only hope you didn't make the test too easy for them." 

Upon hearing that, Master Anmir flashed a smile, "Of course not, Master Grom. I will never do that. This time, I have increased the passing grade to 90%. I even put a special pill as the fifth item of the exam's assignment."

Raising one of his eyebrows with interest, Master Grom approached the table located in the center of the hall, where dozens of storage rings were seen. He then grabbed one of them and examined its content, or rather, examined the special pill. Looking at the pill in his hand, the dwarf laughed, "I guess you really don't want many to pass the test, don't you?"

Nodding his head, Master Anmir firmly said, "We don't need any more of those second rate apprentices. As long as I am in charge, I will assure you only the best are allowed to be our assistant."

"Very good. Very good." Master Grom answered.

-----

Currently, all 105 participants were concentrating their minds, as they tried to analyze all five items.

When Emery lifted his head and looked at the surroundings, he realized several other apprentices apparently had similar skills like his [Fragmentation]. Most of them looked unassuming, but there were also a few of them that managed to catch Emery's attention because of how eye-catching their spells were.

There was an apprentice who used a water sphere to absorb the plants as a way to analyze them. Emery also saw one apprentice using a beast as his method of analysis. For a brief second, he wanted to ask if that was even allowed.

When Emery glanced at the senior acolytes who watched them, it looked like they weren't concerned about it at all. Probably the end result was what mattered in this exam. 

Well, after giving it much thought, Emery realized it might even be a special trait. After all, someone who managed to train a pet to help identify tens of thousands of different ingredients should be quite exceptional.

Emery then casted his gaze away and spotted Sabil, who was analyzing the items. Looking at his demeanor, Emery was sure Sabil had his rank 2 [Analyze] skill along with rank 2 [Universal Flora Knowledge]. Because unlike him, Sabil looked like the studious guy, who reviewed his material over and over to come prepared.

The next person who caught Emery's eyes was the little girl he helped, which surprisingly used the most basic, ancient way of analyzing. The girl lifted the potions and brought them closer to her mouth, before she proceeded to give them a taste.

Each time she tasted the items, a different weird expression would appear on her face. Looking at the girl's conduct, Emery worried about her state after the exam. What if one of the items wasn't supposed to be consumed orally? Or worse, what if it was a poison?

Alas, Emery didn't have the time to worry about the others, as he himself was troubled by the assignment. Moments later, he noticed Sabil and the girl seemed to be done with their analysis and went to the biomes, probably searching for the ingredients.

Shaking his head roughly, Emery swiftly gathered his focus and casted [Fragmentation] on the fifth peculiar item. Several seconds passed as Emery waited for the spell to show its result; in the end, the spell managed to analyze the ingredients of the pill.

Most of them were ingredients from various tier 1 and 2 plants. However, there was still one unknown ingredient detected, which was probably another tier 3 rare ingredient. Combined with the two unknown tier 3 ingredients found among the four lower tier items, there were 3 unknown ingredients out of 20.

As the exam time was limited, Emery decided to search all the other 17 ingredients first before thinking about the other three unknown ingredients he needed. After all, three hours was barely enough time to find 17 ingredients amidst the ocean of flora before him. 

As he walked through one of the biomes, Emery parsed the information of each object before him carefully, lest he accidentally walk past the ingredients in question. 

Tree, fern, grass, shrub, moss, mushroom, seaweed, water plants, even simple rock; all objects were carefully scanned by Emery in his endeavor of finding ingredients. Luckily, Emery had his [Nature Sense] spell, which unexpectedly helped him a lot finding his targets quickly.

Knowing the location and finding the plants was one thing, but taking the right part of the plant was another different matter. With different characteristics each plant possessed, Emery needed to take an extra careful approach on handling them. For example, there were some plants with twin stems, while others had triple stems. Some of them could be easily destroyed by a slight rough touch, while others had a defensive mechanism which allowed them to fly away when approached.

Fortunately, Emery had some basic skill regarding the matter from his time exploring the Chrutin Forest. Despite that, it still needed him more than 2 hours to finally gather all 17 ingredients from the various plants. After double-checking the 17 ingredients and storing them inside the ring, Emery only had approximately half an hour to find the other three remaining ingredients. And to make matters worse, Emery didn't know how to do exactly that. Heck, he didn't even know the plant's name or appearance.

At the moment, Emery felt extremely stupid for not getting the rank 2 [Analyze] skill and rank 2 [Universal Flora Knowledge]. He really didn't prepare anything for the exam, just jumped into it straight ahead. His actions were exactly like waging a war empty-handed and now he had to pay the consequences of his own foolishness.

True, with the [Fragmentation] spell, Emery was able to separate the essence of the items, letting him receive the exact plants he needed to search for. However, the spell didn't tell Emery where to locate it or even the name of the plant. So Emery really didn't know where to start.

While Emery was in a dilemma, a figure suddenly approached him, "Brother, do you need help?"

Turning his head around, Emery found that the figure was the little girl he helped before. With just one look, the girl was able to recognize all three ingredients Emery was confused about and tell him their information, the approximate location where the plants might be and their complete description.

When the girl finished her explanation, she added, "By the way, brother… I am Karin. I'm sorry, I am in a hurry as well. I hope my information were of help to you."

As he watched the girl walk away, Emery was unsure if he wanted to follow the girl's information. If her information was wrong, Emery would waste his time and lose his chance to succeed in the exam.

Thinking for a while, Emery decided to try to follow the girl's clues, as he didn't have any better option. At least, the situation was better than him just searching in the dark. Moreover, he also had another skill that could be helpful to make sure the information Karin gave to him was not wrong.

When he approached the location described by Karin, Emery immediately used his innate ability [Wild Hunt]. Using the increased sense of smell bestowed by the ability, Emery could match the plants through their smell. 

When his enhanced nose led him to the plant, Emery used [Analyze] on it, but he was still unable to receive the information of said plant. But from Karin's description and the smell, Emery believed it was the right one. So, he swiftly departed to search for the other two ingredients.

The process was smooth sailing until Emery found the last ingredient, which got him confused. It was a particular mushroom that had the same exact colour and texture from the essence he got as the result of [Fragmentation]. However, it didn't smell the same. 

With only several minutes remaining until the end of the exam, Emery decided to use his [Nature Sense], and focused his sense of smell again. Several seconds later, he noticed an abnormality. His nose found a tingling spell emanated from a particular red-colored plant which appeared to be consuming the mushroom. A parasitic plant.

Emery swiftly dissected the parasite and found the crushed mushroom inside its body. Surely, this was the correct last ingredient. After he collected it, Emery rushed back to the hall.