But then, he finally got to his first destination. If something like a Blue Moondew appeared in here already, then surely there were going to be other magical plants that he could use to make potions. It was pretty hard to figure out exactly how fast the world would adjust. In the other world, mana was already a thing before the system, things just got a lot worse and more chaotic, so Ashton knew that he couldn't exactly use the timeline of that world as a reference.
"Sorry, bud, but I won't be able to use you in here," Ashton pointed out, looking inward into his vessel. The salamander who was currently still resting in there was eagerly waiting to be called on again, but when Ashton said 'no', it curled up in a ball, like it was pouting, "It's too dangerous, there are too many plants that could get damaged. I don't want this place to burn down."
The salamander didn't listen, and just stayed curled up. Maybe he should set up a campfire for it to rest in tonight, that should cheer it up a little. But still, he couldn't just go flinging flames around in here.
Rather, he wanted to call on the help of the other contract that he had formed earlier. This seemed like a good place to practice with the lesser undine.
He had the Backpacker give him a bottle of water and quickly opened it up. What he needed to sustain the salamander's body was some kind of 'fuel', in this case he decided to go for a simple briquette. But what undine needed was a lot simpler than that. Just a bit of water that it could use to sustain its body. At the elemental's current level, it would need something as pure as possible, so Ashton would use distilled water, but at higher levels, even swamp water should be usable. Once summoned, the water would start evaporating, though much faster than normal of course, and once it was all gone, the elemental would be automatically unsummoned.
Undine, who had been resting inside of Ashton's vessel since the contract was formed, quickly came out and entered the water. Right now, it was almost invisible in there, Ashton could just see some small outlines where the water was moving weirdly.
And soon, around half the bottle worth, so about half a litre, flowed out of it and soon took up the form of this particular lesser undine - a small koi fish.
"Thanks for the help," Ashton smiled. Since the undine couldn't cause any accidental damage like the salamander, Ashton could just let it out like this. But he quickly took control of the rest of the water inside of the bottle.
It was fairly easy to do, especially now that Ashton's channel skill had levelled up a few times. It didn't just increase the range he could manipulate things in, but it also increased his level of control.
With a slight wave of the hand, the small orb of water was flung around. Now, due to the malleability of water, this was the perfect way to practice the limits of his channelling. Especially because he needed to get something very specific out of this to do what he wanted here.
As Ashton moved the water around, the faster it moved, the more it naturally elongated, with some of the water lagging behind the front. Ashton tried to make it thinner, trying to turn it into something like a thin blade that he could use to cut into these plants at a distance. While most of them wouldn't be monsters, exactly, that didn't mean it was safe to get close to them and just cut them with a normal knife. There was a reason why that guy earlier ended up temporarily paralysed.
As Ashton entered the botanical gardens, he continued practicing. He even tried to cut into some of the mundane plants, obviously keeping it to things like tall grass, but it didn't even work. He managed to break some blades of grass, but he didn't 'cut' them. The water simply didn't get thin enough.
"Why isn't it working?" Ashton clicked his tongue, looking at the undine, "Got any tips for me?" he wondered, but the elemental just blubbered away, swimming through the air around Ashton's head.
"I guess not," he sighed, and decided to take a step back. He didn't have the same level of control as the Summoner did. He couldn't just make complex shapes with a blink of an eye, or use a whole lake as an offering for an undine. No, he had to improvise. Take advantage of the natural habits of this magic. And the habit that this water magic was showing was... that it was hard to control all of it at once. Ashton controlled a small part, and the rest lagged behind.
If he just stretched the mass of water out a bit into a thin stream, and continued controlling just the front, then he could turn it into a whip. Ashton waved his hand in front of his body and then flicked his wrist. The water snapped through the air, tearing through the blades of grass that Ashton was aiming for.
"Not as clean as I was hoping, but good enough," Ashton smiled, moving the water back into the bottle for now. There was no reason to waste the undine's power when there was nothing nearby he needed to cut down.
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[[Observer in the Veil] is impressed by your apparent proficiency]
Ashton smiled a little as he read the message, but otherwise ignored it. He figured that the observer was still watching. That was good, actually. Like this, he could hopefully make him even more curious for later. Ashton had something planned for when he met up with Sam.
He moved through the paths of the botanical gardens, and it was clear that there really was already something affecting this place. The council only invaded yesterday, but everything was completely overgrown.
Roots were breaking through the ground, and vines were growing along the pavement and the walls of any of the buildings. The flowers and small trees along the sides were growing onto the path and making it a bit harder to get through. This place really was changing extremely fast. Actually...
"Backpacker, get me the compass."
The spirit quickly appeared and started looking through his bag, soon handing the improvised magic item to Ashton. His goal wasn't to look for more mana wells right now, so he had put it away. But it looked like there was one very close as well, most likely inside of the botanical gardens. That would explain the fast change. It just meant that Ashton might need to prepare a bit better.
He wasn't sure if he could take on the boss that was hiding out here now, not without some preparations. Considering where it was, it would be some kind of plant-type monster, and those were annoying beyond belief. Either, they restricted movement by tying you down, or they dealt with poison. With the surface-level wounds that Ashton had right now, being tightly restricted would be bad, and he had no means to fight off poisons right now. He should make an antidotal potion first.
Luckily, there were a ton of potion-ingredients around here. Due to the nearby mana well, even the usually mundane plants were going to have plenty of magic in them. While they weren't plants that were common in the other world, Ashton had to improvise all the time anyway.
One of his big tasks was making potions, medicines, ink, food, fixing clothes and items, and doing any other task that the Summoner felt they were too good for. Of course, most of the time these tasks were done in cooperation with another summon that had related magical abilities, but Ashton was still usually the one overseeing those processes. The amount of random recipes stuck in his head was ridiculous, and most of them were completely and utterly useless. But a few would come in useful.
Ashton looked around, using the Pen of Insight to inspect different plants that he either didn't recognize or wasn't sure how useful they were.
Magic-Saturated Rose
Grade - Uncommon
A simple, mundane rose that was deeply saturated with magic, accelerating its growth. Its growth was boosted due to a nearby mana well.
---
Magic-Saturated Grass
Grade - Uncommon
Simple, mundane grass that was deeply saturated with magic, accelerating its growth. Its growth was boosted due to a nearby mana well.
---
Magic-Saturated Oak
Grade - Uncommon
A simple, mundane oak tree that was deeply saturated with magic, accelerating its growth. Its growth was boosted due to a nearby mana well.
Ashton read through the texts written down by the pen. With this, at least he knew that there was no need to inspect most normal-looking things around here. He could just collect useful-seeming plants and use them for potions later on.
For the most part, he just had to worry about the more magical-looking plants. Mostly, Ashton wanted to find the Blue Moondew. There was something he needed to confirm.
While there were similar plants here as there were in the other world, they weren't exactly the same. There weren't oak trees, for example, or at least not in any of the places Ashton had been to. While there were flowers that looked similar to roses, they didn't look the exact same either.
But somehow, a plant called 'Blue Moondew', a name that he actively recognised, being a direct translation of its name in the other world's language. Considering the paralysing venom, he was extremely positive it was the same plant he was thinking of.
And soon, he could confirm it as well. There was a familiar, sickly-sweet smell in the air. It almost smelled like... the sweetest honey-glazed pork you could imagine. After all, what this plant was attracting wasn't just insects, but larger animals and monsters out for meat. And somehow, it must have attracted that trio earlier as well.
Ashton followed the scent, walking down the paths toward one of the greenhouses. The windows inside were cracked open and broken, with roots and vines having pushed through them with apparent ease. Though there was something moving in there, vines swaying back and forth, it didn't seem like the Moondew was in there.
Instead, Ashton continued following the paths and the vines that were coming out of the greenhouse, and the sweet smell became stronger and stronger. Before long, Ashton spotted some dead monsters on the ground. A handful of goblins and ratmen. The blood was fairly fresh, and judging from their injuries, they were probably killed by that trio earlier. The monsters did have some thorns stuck in their arms and legs, though, so what happened was clear.
The moondew had partially paralysed the monsters, and then the trio came along and killed those monsters.
"Actually, that's not a bad idea. It's pretty clever, actually, whether it was intentional or not," Ashton pointed out, smiling a little as he looked at the moondew in front of him.
The plant, usually quite small, had grown to the point where some of its many light green tentacles stretched up taller than Ashton himself. On each of the tentacles, a number of dark blue, hair-like spikes were growing out, with each one having large, fist-sized droplets of liquid hanging off them.
A thin membrane was surrounding each droplet to keep it together. If you were careful enough, you could just pluck them off, and the membrane would slowly harden once detached, letting you collect a lot of the 'venom', or in this case it was maybe more accurate to call it poison, very easily.
Ashton opened the bottle of water with a smile on his face, pulling out the whip of water.
"With this, I should be able to make something pretty good," he said, as he made the whip snap at one of the massive carnivorous plant's tentacles.
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