Chapter 623 - The Prey (2)

Both Alex and I forgot about Ethan, focused on finalizing the negotiations. Ethan watched me formally give up the control over my hair before I started to collect all the accessories thrown on the floor. After I apologized for ruining the accessories, the new agreements became effective. I could tell Alex's impression of me was worsening, breaking through the floor and starting to dig underground. However, I didn't have a choice but to turn to drastic measures for a simple request. They would never consider my requests otherwise.

"I called for my hover car to pick me up at your mansion. I'll be leaving as soon as it arrives," Ethan interrupted us.

"Are you sure you don't want to sleepover? We have many empty rooms," I needed an ally with me.

"He's busy with hosting another event tomorrow," Alex disagreed.

"Flora is more than capable of doing everything on her own," I shrugged.

I needed more hands to help me collect the herbs. It was hard to gather them since they were very sėnsɨtɨvė, needing a certain method. Micah only watched me, not willing to dirty his hands. I needed to create as many recovery items as possible and I didn't have as much energy as yesterday. Although I knew that Alex would help me if I begged him enough, I didn't know how much he would.

"Please? I'll give you more elixirs," I brought out my most pitiful eyes.

I began to pull out an entire pile of elixirs from my inventory, almost filling the hover car. I pushed them into his hands, pretending I didn't notice he didn't have enough space to move anymore. As Ethan became overwhelmed, I didn't stop giving him more elixirs until he gave me the answer I wanted, "I'll leave early in the morning. Flora needs help with the last-minute details."

"So take them back," he urged me.

"I don't have the space. My inventory is already full," I had an equal number of elixirs replaced.

"Please take them. It's our way of compensating you. If you really want to pay us back, you can help us in preventing them from leaking out to others," Alex knew about the secret feature.

"And I'm not giving you them for free. I need your help in pulling out some plants in the garden," I revealed to add.

"What?" Alex spun to me.

"You'll see when we arrive," I waited for the hover car to land.

Maybe Ethan expected the hover car to go inside one of the Roselia family mansions, he briefly froze when he noticed the Monete family crest on the gates. The landing area for the hover cars was closest to the gardens, trying to show its visitors their extravagant decorations outdoors. When Alex opened the doors, I immediately ran out to where I remembered the herbs to be placed. There was no time-space feature in the garden, making time more precious.

Once both Alex and Ethan caught up to me, I gestured to them, "you can start pulling all the herbs out on this side. I need them to create Luke's medicine."

"Aren't these legendary herbs that come once in ten thousand years?" Ethan was stunned.

"Do you know the collection method? If not, I'll have to teach you for each kind," I hoped they knew.

"How do you have these in your garden?" He turned to Alex.

Alex stayed silent, helping me collect the herbs. Unlike me, he was starting to compile them into a huge pile, having a faster pace. I slightly smiled, seeing he didn't ask any questions, knowing I was doing this for Luke. However, I was surprised when Ethan seemed to know the collection method as well, adding to his own pile. My pile was the smallest, not even a quarter to their piles. I was saving a huge amount of time from their help.

"We can move onto the next section," I transferred the herbs into my inventory.

"There's more?" Ethan stared at me in disbelief.

"There's ten more sections to visit," I thanked the mediator inside my heart.

"Your garden is insane," he looked at Alex in a new light.

Unfortunately, the three of us still took around four hours to collect everything. Maybe I should have invited more people to help. Since Ethan was with us, Alex couldn't ask me how his garden had become filled with legendary herbs. It was time to move onto ordering more soup from the kitchen. I needed to dilute some of the medicine. Alex's eyes widened as I ordered around a thousand bowls.

I was hopeless in synthesizing everything together, wasting more than ninety percent of the raw ingredients I gathered last time. Once I took the food with me, I entered a time-space room. Trying to recall the process Micah taught me, I placed some herbs into the compatible elixirs. The method in integrating them together was the hardest part, the bottle exploding the next second from a slight drop in more mana than needed.

Both Ethan and Alex watched me throw out more than half of the herbs they gathered, failing every one of my attempts. It seemed they were studying the method Micah taught me. I brightened when one of my attempts were finally successful, using trial and error to add them to the soup. As I expected, I didn't have enough bowls of soup, struggling to pour in the perfect ratio. I ordered the servants to bring more food while disposing all my failures.

"Your lack of control in mana is the problem," Alex pointed out.

"You're not ready for these advanced techniques yet," he sighed.