Willow mushroom

Royal capital, Kingdom of Britanica

The king Bargass was enjoying some quality time with his family in the royal garden. The garden had been built on a large scale and had a large number of trees of every kind. The king rarely gets free time so he cherishes moments like these. He had a number of offsprings and he was currently playing with his youngest daughter Isabel. She was the apple of his eye , she was currently 7 years old and had been discovered with heaven defying talent for a mage. He was currently searching for a suitable teacher for her.

Isabel came running to her father and said " Lord father look a pretty birdy."

Bargess laughed and shifted his gaze towards the sky, it was a carrier falcon used to deliver urgent messages. The bird landed on his arm. It was holding a parchment in its mouth, it was not folded and sealed as it should be. But Bargess recognized the falcon, it belonged to Abraham, his chief magical advisor, a knowledgeable old man whom he respected , who has served him for a long time.

A sense of uneasiness grew in his heart as he received the parchment from the bird. He read the message " beware of the dragon.....".

He was shocked as the message was not clear, but he knew of the task he had given to old Abe. So he called for his guards and sent the little princess back to her mother and informed the royal court to convene. He sent some guards to the stone tower that Abe resided. It had only Abe, he had no servants as he liked to be reclusive.

After giving out the orders he hurriedly went towards the royal court.

Meanwhile back in the kingdom of Saurd , in a peripheral village woods a young boy was walking leisurely.

This was none other than Edward. Ever since he cultivated the DD formula to the 1st layer his confidence sour and he wanted to challenge himself. He was currently looking for the herbs location that he last time saw. He also wanted to challenge a wild boar if he could , he wanted to know his current strength.

After reaching the fruit tree from his last encounter he could see the rotting corpse of the wild boar , some of its body parts were missing which clearly showed the presence of scavenger animals. But he was not afraid .He once again climbed the tree to verify the exact location of the dense Mana cloud. Fortunately he could still feel the Mana cloud indicating it had yet to be eaten. However it was odd , why was it not eaten. Ed could only guess as he slowly made his way towards the direction of the cloud. After walking a long distance he reached a willow tree. He looked around to find the herb. His eyes finally rested on a violet colored mushroom stalk. By looking at it color one can tell that it was extremely poisonous and hence he understood why it was still not eaten. The local population know it as a willow mushroom as it grows only on a willow tree. It had high concentration of Mana but since it cannot be consumed no one touched it.

Ed however had a way to detoxify the poison but still it was poisonous if it was directly consumed as the time taken to detoxify was long. So he came up with a plan to use the mushroom in a indirect manner to supplement his body refining technique "Titan's might".

He needed a few commonly available herbs that are used to detoxify snake poison and he has to ground it together with the dried up mushroom. The resulting powder can then be used to prepare a medicinal bath. Even though the toxicity is still present since the contact his only through skin which gave him ample time to detoxify using internal qi.

There was still a problem , he had no money to buy the detoxifying herbs.He couldn't overburden his mother so he had to decide on other ways of earning cash. Currently he had 11 and a half months to prepare before the exam. This time may be short for others but it was more than enough for Ed. He was a business man in his previous life so he started thinking of ways to earn money. He needed money to buy resources , help his mother repay her debts and to buy back her ring.

It was already late and his mother would return from work so he hurried home.

He pretended to be resting in his bed when he heard his mother enter their hut. When he say his mother he was shocked, he could see the redness around her eyes indicating that she had been crying.