Herb Garden
<< Welcome to the Herb Garden
According to rumors this Herb Garden was once the herb garden of a supreme being which created this realm in order to grow rare plants for his experiments.
During the long years of abandonment these plants have gained spirituality and morphed into monsters. They now make up the majority of the inhabitants of this Herb Garden. Besides these plant monsters adventures have met many other monsters which are based on other creatures found in a garden.
Because these monsters see human adventures as a great source of fertilizer they spare no effort to kill them, so thread careful.
>>
This time, when Ivan entered the dungeon, he got a much longer description then before.
After he had finished his business at the herb store he had directly went over to the Herbalist Guild. With the token the salesman had given him it was easy to enter this dungeon.
After he closed the short description of the dungeon the next prompt appeared.
<< You have entered the dungeon: Herb Garden Level 1
Maximum group size: 1
Difficulty: F
Average Level: 50
>>
<< Congratulation Son of Chaos triggered! >>
<< Because of the effect of Son of Chaos all mana fountains contain only half the usual amount of elixir. >>
" What the?? "
When Ivan first saw that his title had triggered he felt happy since it only had a positive effect until now. Sadly this time the effect was negativ and he couldn't help put feel rage bubbling up inside his heart.
Sadly there was nothing he could do but bury the rage. He had no way to change it and could only hope that it wasn't permanent. Maybe the next time he entered he would get the normal amount of elixir.
After thinking so far his rage simmered down and he took a deep breath. He then checked out the next prompt and this time he got a pleasant surprise.
<< New Quest: Clearing the Herb Garden, Rank F
The first floor of the Herb Garden is dominated by a treant which terrorizes all other inhabitants of this level. The more intelligent of them have asked the system to help them find someone to help kill it.
In exchange they are willing to provide support to helper during his time in the dungeon.
Task: Kill the Murderous Treant
Reward: A random helper while inside the Herb Garden
>>
"Wow. This reward may be really useful. But how come I haven't heard about this quest before?", he mused. Before entering the dungeon he had collected all the information he could get on it and this quest wasn't mentioned anywhere.
After that there weren't any other prompts so he took a good look around.
He was currently standing on a small platform made from a dark wood, which he hadn't seen before. On the end of the platform were he had come from there was a blue vortex which was the portal he had entered through. Besides that there was a milky white barrier which was the border of this small realm. On the other three sides of the platform there were stone paths which lead into the distance. They weren't strait but instead curved around, creating a carefree atmosphere.
According to the information he had collected it didn't matter which path he took since all of them would eventually lead to the boss. Nobody was quite sure that any path was better than the others, but many explorations had shown that the harvest was very different between runs. So the current theory was that each path had a different grade which determined the encounters one would have while traversing them. Leaving the path on the other hand would strongly increase the danger. Most of the adventures that had dared to leave them reported strong monsters lurking a distance away from the path.
Once even a level 900 adventurer had nearly lost his life to one of these. After that the general consensus was that one should always stay on the paths. Leaving them only while fighting monsters and even than stay in a one kilometer range of them.
Ivan randomly choose the middle path and without any hesitation departed the platform.
Most of the danger in the first level came from being unable to differentiate the monsters from the normal plants. Of course this was only valid for the inexperienced.
The basic rule he had found was to always assume that any plant he saw was a monster. This of course would stress his mental energy, but for the start it would be much safer.
As such he proceeded slowly, while using all his senses to check the surrounding plants. Even though dying wouldn't be permanent for him, it would strongly hinder his plans. To reach level 200 in just a week he couldn't risk loosing his stat points.
Above him Vlada flew in her small form, serving as a sentinel. She suddenly dived down while enlarging. Startled by her sudden move, Ivan hurriedly checked out the target location but he only saw a harmless looking mushroom.
Just when he wondered why Vlada would attack this mushroom, it split up and released spores into the air.
When these spores left the mushroom they speed up and shot towards Vlada as well as himself.
Even though he hadn't expected the mushroom to attack he still managed to create a flame shield in front of him. This flame shield was a thin sheet of his mana flame and something he had created while manipulating his flame during his pill refining trials.
It was way to weak to stop a real attack, but for something like the spore attack it was perfect. After all it was easy to burn them.
It was as he had expected. As soon as the spores hit his flame shield they instantly burst into flames, not being able to penetrate the shield.
Vlada on the other hand simply ignored them, since they were to weak to penetrate her skin. She soon arrived before the mushroom and easily slashed it into half.