Around five minutes passed and Sarah had come to Lucas's aid. She didn't know why but the situation seemed very similar as after giving Lucas a hand, he placed his whole body weight on her as if standing had become a taxing job for him.
Lucas had his eyes closed, he had sweat dropping off his head on a regular base.
They all decided to put a hold on the search as the man who could look for food had become half unconscious.
About a minute later, Lucas opened his eyes. But they twitched when he kept them open for a second, Lucas just grabbed his head and pressed it tightly in order to relieve some pain. The upgrade took a toll on him but he was still okay rather than the first time.
He opened his eyes again only to see Sarah in front of him, she was holding his shoulders gently to make him stable and had a concerned expression.
"Sighh... I am okay, Sarah..." He said with eye contact.
"That's a relief, you have been like this for a while now, what's wrong?"
Before Lucas could say anything, his eyes went around the forest. Within a second, his facial expressions changed from pain to dumbfoundedness.
"Ugh... now what?" Sean asked from the side, he had become very annoyed by Lucas's antics. They didn't know that Lucas's 'Herbalism' skill had just leveled up, the first person to achieve it was him.
"I got it... The food... we have it here with us!" Lucas got up with the support of a small tree in front of him.
All the annoyance that the brother had went away at the mention of food, they really were very simple humans.
"That..." Lucas pointed at a small plant on the ground near a tree. It was only two inches long with only one leaf and nothing else. John looked at the small plant and couldn't help but frown.
Sean went toward it and pointed at the small plant, "Is this it?" He asked.
"Yeah" Lucas went to the plant too and crouched down. The plant was near a tree but not too much. There was a gap of two hands between them. Even the tree was a bit peculiar.
Its trunk had purple patches which were a bit hard to notice as they were very light in color.
Lucas had a smile on his face which others couldn't reciprocate. But he didn't mind, he knew what the plant really was.
His hand moved toward the soil around the plant and he started digging around the plant. The others just kept looking at what he was doing. If it was John or someone else other than Lucas, they would have plucked it out with force without this much work that Lucas was doing.
When he dug in a circle for less than a minute, he finally pulled on the one-leafed stem.
CRACK
The soil around cracked when suddenly, a huge silhouette came out of the ground.
"Woah!" Barney exclaimed, it was too unexpected.
When others were thinking that they would have to eat such small plants that would not even make their mouth wet. Lucas took out some kind of a big vegetable or a fruit.
"What is that? And how did you know? Was it the Herbalism skill?" John asked while he came close. He had too many questions that he needed an answer to.
"My 'Herbalism' skill leveled up! I am so happy! At first, I could only tell that this plant's leaf was good for digestion which is present in most of these plants but after the level up, I could tell that there was something eatable here." Lucas said while dusting off the dirt from the brownish sweet potato-looking stuff.
His eyes darted around and a manly excited giggle came out of his mouth as he moved to another plant after throwing the big potato toward John.
===
Glimmerroot
Common
A common grade consumable that grows all around the Forest of Amaeron. When consumed, it can provide nourishment for a few hours. It can make the mouth dry and get stale after two days of taking it out of the ground.
===
"Our problem of food is gone! No more meat for a while!" John was very excited after reading the description. It was something he saw for the first time and was even a bit surprised when the texts popped up out of nowhere.
While Lucas went around and pulled Glimmerroots out of the ground one after another. John passed the food around for everyone to see its description. After five minutes of finding and digging, the group had a total of 10 glimmerroots in their possession with a single different one.
===
Vitalia
Common
A common grade consumable that can give additional toughness of +10 to the skin after consumption. The toughness lasts for five minutes. Vitalia starts deteriorating after ten days of taking it out of the ground.
===
"What a good haul... Thanks to Lucas, it couldn't have been possible without you."
"I keep telling you, Uncle John that it goes both ways. We have different capabilities and everyone is important to the group." Lucas spoke while trying to accommodate another glimmerroot in his hand.
Barney looked at them all with a strange glint in his eyes which did not go unnoticed by his mother. But she decided to not speak for the time being yet the pain in her eyes told enough of how much she cared for him.
They all went inside toward the shelter that was not that far away as they had traveled only a little to the east this time around. Lucas gave a last glance to the tree with purplish patches on it. No one noticed that it was a bit strange as they didn't care but Lucas knew it was something good.
'You are not ready too yet...' Lucas thought and went away with the group, a smile plastered on his face.
He did not know why these plants and trees were not ready to be harvested or how long it will take for them to become ready but he knew one thing, that he will be waiting.
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Thank you for reading the chapter~
Next mission-
120 Power Stones= 3 extra chapters---31/120