Walking through the town, Alex continued to stay snuggled up tightly beside Thorn. Instead of heading out of the slums, and back towards the more reputable areas of the city, Alex fearlessly led them ever deeper into the worst part of town. Countless dirty eyes dangerously followed their every movement, but all the watchers respectfully kept their distance — and Alex knew this was all thanks to Thorn.
While Alex might still be a rank one nob, everyone down here knew that Thorn wasn't. Thorn had advanced to become a rank six nob, before being kicked in the head by a Thunderhoof stallion. The lightning and force had shattered his meridians, as well as addling his thoughts and speech, which forever kept him from growing any stronger — but he was still as strong as any six normal men put together!
Rankings were something that were rather difficult to measure — especially at higher levels — but most people easily understood the lower rankings. A "nob" was simply a normal human; a nobody in the world of spirits. A rank two nob was somebody with twice the strength of most normal nobodies. A rank six nob had six times the average power, and a rank twelve nob was twelve times greater than the average person. This was basically considered to be the "body strengthening phase".
Now, bronze rank came next, and it was already a little more difficult to gauge in terms of power. Usually, sometime between nob rank eight and nob rank twelve, once their body was strong enough, a cultivator would begin to sense the basic flows of energy in the world. At this point, they were considered to be bronze rank, and starting the actual path of cultivation.
Since most bronze rank cultivators never shared their nob ranking, it wasn't difficult to find rank six bronze cultivators who were weaker than rank one bronze cultivators. Just because their bodies were better at storing energy, that didn't mean their bodies were better at lifting rocks or running faster speeds!
And, since the next ranking — copper — started at the point where one could retain the energy in their body, and not just sense and pull from it, it became even harder to judge. A rank six copper might feel the energy less than a rank four bronze, and they might not be as strong as a rank five nob! Without actually fighting, it was difficult to truly determine "power level" based solely off what one's rank was. That's why the various contents and competitions were so important in the world of cultivation — they gave one the chance to truly prove their strength!
But, none of these subtle nuances really meant that much to the people of the slums. Nearly everyone here was nothing more than normal nobbies, so *any* ranking, no matter what color or level it was, was something for them to watch out for. Sure, the various gangs might be able to ambush Thorn and steal the pretty lady by his side — but at what price?
The risk simply wasn't worth the possible reward, and so, Alex and Thorn strolled unbothered freely through the slums. They might be watched by every set of eyes as they passed, but as long as they didn't start anything themselves, everyone else was quite content to live and let live.
"So whar we goinn, Brudder Boobs?" Calmly letting himself be led around freely, Thorn nevertheless couldn't help but ask. Alex had never bothered to explain to him about what they were going to do, except to tease him about working his ass off.
"We're going out the back gates of the city," Alex told him, pointing past a few buildings in front and to the right of them. "That way we can avoid all the hassle of everything in the main part of the city now. Then we're going to work our way around to the right, to the north side of the city, and head up towards the mountains.
"A couple hours travel up that way should put us near the base of Silver Ridge, and we're going to work at the edgeline there today," Alex explained patiently. "I'm going to see about harvesting some Silver Mercurial Grass, and it'll be your job to protect me from any Silver Rodents which might pop up."
"Grass bad," Thorn warned him, while frowning heavily. "Grass kick yur ass," he added, menacingly.
"I know. I know," Alex chuckled slightly, while waving his hands dismissively. "That's why I just want to go out and test everything today. From what I've read up on, Silver Mercurial Grass is toxic to anyone who has even the slightest amount of spirit energy in them — and normally, anyone who's got even a drop of life in them has at least some spirit energy."
"Grass kick yur ass," Thorn repeated, nodding his head knowingly.
"Yep, it sure does," Alex agreed wholeheartedly once again. "That's why you've got to stay away from it and just deal with any of the rodents if we see them. The trainers and all the spirit gauge tools at the school say that I don't have a drop of spirit energy in me. I want to test to see if I'm as utterly broken as they make me out to be, or not."
"Grass kick yur ass," Thorn repeated once again, while glaring hard over at Alex. "Makez yah sick. Makez yah dead," he warned, ominously.
"It might," Alex agreed, shivering slightly at the possibility. "But that's why I gave that healer's kit to Granny this morning. If I get sick today, you can carry me back to Granny tonight, and she can patch me right up.
"To be honest," Alex whispered softly, "I'm kind of hoping that I do get sick. At least then, that'll prove the school and the trainers wrong. It'll mean I've got some spiritual power in me at least, and that I'm not as bad as some type of worthless animal like they all think I am."
"Unn…" Thorn grunted noncommittally but didn't try to stop Alex as they headed out the small set of back gates and started following their way along the right wall. For better, or worse, Thorn trusted his brother.
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After a few hours of walking the small and dusty paths on the northern side of town, Alex pointed to the deep sea of silver weeds that were swaying softly in the wind of the canyon before them. "That's our target," Alex warned Thorn quietly, "Don't try to walk in there, no matter what might happen later. Just keep your eyes open for anything living which might try and ambush us from out of the bush. I don't think it's something that'll actually happen while we just hover at the edge here, but it always pays to be cautious, just in case."
"Okies," Thorn nodded, amiably, as he slumbered off to lazily keep watch.
"And here goes nothing," Alex told himself, biting his lip lightly to try and work his courage up. For all that he'd acted like it wasn't much of a big deal in front of Thorn, he was still frightened of the poisonous grass. Death, loss of limbs, paralysis, organ failure, and even worse had occurred to people in the past who didn't harvest the Silver Mercurial Grass properly — and he was basically going to try to do it naked!
"Hell, might as well be naked," Alex told himself as he quickly took a moment to pull the tattered old dress which he'd borrowed from Granny Stone up and over his head. "No need to ruin Granny's poor outfit any more than it already is, and it's not like it'd offer any sort of protection anyway. Besides," Alex sighed pensively, "if I'm not lucky – and I've never really felt like I have been, considering my life so far – I might end up dragging some of the poison back and affecting Granny with it."
"Nope. Better safe than sorry, as I told Thorn before," Alex reminded himself, as he sat down and pulled both his high heeled boots off. Carefully folding up granny's dress, he sat both of them down on top of it, making certain the thin fabric of the worn-out dress didn't just up and blow off in a strong breeze.
"And with that, I guess there's no more reason to delay…" Sighing deeply, Alex slowly worked his naked body over to the ridgeline where the silver grass swayed softly in the wind. Stopping when he was within arms-length of the swaying grass, Alex slowly laid down flat upon the ground and wiggled ever so slowly towards the first bundle he was targeting, like a snake slithering softly upon an unsuspecting mouse.
"Silver hair, beware," he muttered to himself, repeating an oft-spoken warning very similar to the one Thorn was using earlier. Silver Mercurial Grass, by itself was truly dangerous and poisonous, but it was only half of the problem. Silver Haired Silkgrass tended to grow intermixed with the Mercurial Grass, and the combination of the two spelled an almost certain doom for anyone, or anything, which was exposed to the region which they'd claimed.
Silver Mercurial Grass was long, tall, and brittle, and many times resembled nothing more than common straw or broom sage, except for its silverish sheen. Silver Haired Silkgrass grew intermittently amongst the taller weeds and looked like nothing more than fine silver strands of spiderwebbing or loose hair. The sap of the first was toxic to almost any creature which could channel spirit energy, which was considered to be all people, spirit animals, monsters, and elementals. Only the very weakest and most mundane of animals could endure the poison of the sap, without being affected – but even they weren't safe from the horrors of the Silver Grass Fields.
Silver Haired Silkgrass was thin as a spiderweb, and yet as strong as any processed steel. This thinness, as well as its strength, made it into a natural weapon as sharp as any razor, and being pricked or sliced by it would naturally cause one to jerk or jump back from it – which, in a field of poisonous weeds, wasn't the reaction one wanted to have.
One weed would peel the skin right off your body. The other would poison and infect your blood. "It's no damn reason why nobody ever wants to harvest this crap," Alex whispered softly to himself. "But it's this unwillingness to harvest it, that makes it so valuable," he reminded himself, as he slowly inched closer and closer to the first clump of weeds.
Sweating profusely already, Alex slowly forced his fingers to slowly and carefully dig into the hard-baked dirt that the grass grew within. "Wish I could just use a damn hand shovel for this," Alex lamented softly, "but from what I've read, they won't work if one wants the best, and most valuable, samples."
Sighing deeply, Alex spent the next quarter hour carefully rooting the dirt back from around the base of the cluster of weeds, slowly working until he could wiggle his whole hand under it. Tugging softly, Alex gently pulled on the unrooted cluster with one hand, while stretching and reaching with his other hand to try and unravel the interlocking roots as much as possible, without breaking them.
"And that's one bundle," Alex assured himself, after spending about another quarter hour to cautiously extract the clump of roots from tangling together. Sitting the harvested bundle of weeds off to the side, Alex wiped the sweat of his brow with the back of his hands and took several moments to calm down and catch his breath.
"I still feel fine," Alex assured himself, taking a few minutes to try and inspect the state of his health. He was sweaty, but that could be chalked up to nerves, pressure, and danger. His backside was roasting, but that could be expected from laying exposed under the heat of the midday sun – tomorrow, he was probably going to have one heck of a sunburn on his bare back, but that wasn't from any effect from the poison, at least.
"Two bundles an hour, if I can keep up this pace," Alex counted in his mind, "for the next six hours will get us at least twelve bundles. Unprocessed and raw like this, and that'd earn us at least ten gold selling it. Since most nobbies only earn about a single gold a day, I'd say this is a decent income. It's just not sufficient yet to satisfy our end needs."
"I guess I'll have to think on what comes next," Alex sighed, as he slowly wormed his way resolutely over to the next clump of stray weeds.