Chapter 2210: Chapter 2210 Greenery Greens

--- Kat ---

The greenhouse was the same as it had been before. Now minus the people that had been captured that day of course. Appoline was going from plant to plant and poking at them. Occasionally she’d drop a bit of potion on them, and other times she’d bite into it before writing down quite a few notes from such basic tests. So Kat felt like asking, "How are you able to find out so much information from just a few tests?"

"Well firstly, not all of these are new plants, that one over there..." Appoline pointed to a purple bush that looked somewhere between a wattle and a rose, with a large central stem but a lot of soft delicate petals that spun out from that centre. "... is called the Peasant’s Gold. It used to be an exceptionally valuable flower though it’s far too easy to grow for it to stay that way.

"Still, the name stuck and that one seems to be a slightly different variant to the one I’m familiar with... but based on the few things I did test it doesn’t seem to be meaningfully different alchemically. Perhaps slightly stronger if used for a perfume or something but that’s not my specialty and I don’t know if I care.

"The other way I manage to get such info is by seeing how the plants react. Like that one over there," Appoline pointed to a small green shrub that looked almost like it was a most covered rock. "That’s called Devil’s Fist," Appoline paused and glanced at Kat before shrugging. "It’s called Devil’s Carpet because it’s actually related to a moss called Devil’s Carpet that evolved into a bunch. I tasted it to confirm that this one is indeed as poisonous as I’d expect."

[Oh my god I can’t believe they actually called the moss that!]

*It’s dangerous moss. It seems reasonable to me.*

[Well... you know what? You keep that idea.]

Kat decided not to react and continue to pay attention to Appoline who was pointing at another plant. This one looked like a palm tree but it was rather short, only coming up to waste height. It also had quite the diameter and based on the age it seemed to be, grew outwards instead of upwards like you’d expect from a palm tree. "This... I don’t really know what this is.

"It doesn’t seem to have any notably strong properties. While theoretically you can make potions out of anything, not everything is good for making potions. It’s probably acceptable for healing potions if I wanted to be wasteful, but depending on how swiftly it goes there are a few chances for it to still be useful. The issue is that I don’t see any seeds on it so I’m not certain how it reproduces..." Appoline shrugged and moved on to look at other things.

Though Kat wanted to ask, "So... is it really safe to be eating poisonous stuff here?"

"Eh... for me? Fairly. I’m not entirely immune to my own alchemical poisons but I am quite resistant to natural strains below my rank. The stuff here is barely Rank 1 for the most part so it’s even safer. In theory anyway. I do have a few antidotes. Mixing poisons in my stomach also has the potential to cause other issues, but it’s unlikely. I’ve long decided the slight risk to my health is an acceptable cost to learning more," Appoline explained.

"Not worried about long term complications? I know some things linger in the body and only become a problem after certain thresholds," commented Kat.

"I’m quite certain I can fix any of those issues. If I need to replace my entire skeleton I DO have a potion for that. I can fix eyes, tongues, hearts, though the heart replacement is a bit iffy..." explained Appoline. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

"That... I didn’t realise you could do so much..." mumbled Kat.

"Well I certainly wouldn’t sell most of those potions. They’d be ridiculously expensive for a normal person to acquire and the ingredients are rare. Doable though, and if I was dying, which I’m rather sure I’m not... then I’d be willing to pay the cost associated to brewing the cure," explained Appoline. "Well, that or paying for a high Rank healer to fix whatever issues I have. Depending on the issue that might be cheaper."

Kat nodded as Appoline continued to canvas the area, leaving no stone unturned, somewhat literally in a few cases. Appoline sniffed around and lifted more than one rock, plant, or other object on the ground that was blocking some sort of other discovery. Kat wasn’t entirely sure how many things Appoline found, as some were similar enough to just be a different version of the same plant... but for a few Appoline seemed much happy about a specific specimen rather than the group.

Eventually though, Appoline was simply in the middle of the room sniffing around with a frown on her face. "What’s wrong?"

"I suspect there’s a hidden greenhouse here. Compared to the reports of other areas the greenhouses are somewhat small and none of the plants here are particularly rare. Even the ones I’ve never heard of aren’t all that useful from what I can tell... and that seems very wrong to me. If you have a secret underground bunker filled with greenhouses at least some of them are going to be Rank 2 equivalents... but nothing. Not a one. I’d maybe forgive them if this was all a habitat for a Rank 3 plant... but it’s not," growled Appoline.

"Alright... two things. The first, is what makes a plant Rank 3? It’s a plant right? The second is... why couldn’t this just be the low security greenhouse? There are plenty of places I never checked, and neither has Lily," countered Kat.

"Hmmm... that’s a fair point. I may need to look elsewhere but I technically only have permission for this one greenhouse at the moment. I’ll see if there’s anything hidden before moving on. It just feels right. As for what plants Ranks mean? Well there are ’True Rank’ plants that are just monsters that are also plants and that’s pretty self explanatory.

"The ’equivalent Rank’ is instead based on the amount of mana flowing through a plant. Though once you get to upper Rank 2 and into Rank 3 they tend to have more exotic effects even if they aren’t technically monsters. Like the Static Bloom that zaps anyone who gets close. It’s only Rank 2 so the zaps are rather week, but some other plants just... exist at that Rank for one reason or another. Though some argue they aren’t ’truly’ Rank 2 or 3 or whatever because they can’t defend themselves and Rank is also sort of a measure of combat ability, mostly in the case of Monsters and martial combatants," explained Appoline.

"Alright... so any idea where the ’secret greenhouse’ you’re looking for is?" asked Kat.

"Sort of... one of the reasons I suspect something is here is that there is a faint scent I can detect that’s not related to any of the plants I’ve examined so far..." explained Appoline.

"Ooh, I can try..." Kat pushed some demonic energy into her nose and then breathed in deeply. Immediately, Kat felt like she was smacked in the face. Not useful alchemically did not in any way mean ’lacking in scent’. Kat felt like she was punched in the face as she desperately tried to parse the vast mix of scents that surrounded her... and Kat found she couldn’t really do it.

There was just so much of it all at once and if Kat tried to identify individual scents she had no idea if they were singular scent notes out of a bundle from one particular flower, or if she was just smelling the one flower itself, or perhaps the entire bush, or just anything adjacent to it. Kat couldn’t determine... anything at all. "This was a terrible mistake..." grumbled Kat as she rubbed at her nose. It felt like she needed to sneeze or something but also that she couldn’t.

"Hahaha, haven’t trained your nose have you?" asked Appoline.

"No... not at all. That was horrible," grumbled Kat.

Appoline shrugged. "My nose is rather good at picking out individual oddities but it’s not so good at larger distances. I’ve finely tuned my senses for picking up the subtle differences in the ingredients in front of my face... not finding the right one in a large room like this. I have a sorting system for that. You... were trying to do both and clearly lack practice."

"I know... I was sort of imagining it’d be like high speed combat where I can use my increased perception to just sort of... deal with it all... but apparently not," grumbled Kat.

"Apparently not indeed," smiled Appoline. "Come, there are a few places I want to investigate still and they require uprooting a few less important plants. Granted most of these are less important, but I assure you we can replant them if necessary,"

"Alright, lead the way," agreed Kat even as she continued rubbing her nose. Despite no longer channelling energy, Kat would almost swear she could still smell EVERYTHING.