Chapter 130: Herb Gathering At Cloud Dream Swamp (2)

All Life Skills required specific tools to perform them. For example, concocting medicine required a medicinal cauldron. However till now, she had yet to possess even the lowest grade medicinal cauldron. As such, her top priority was to get a medicinal cauldron, some medicinal elixir recipes, and herbs for concocting.

Medicinal Cauldrons could be found in Life Skill shops. After arriving at Jiang City’s Life Skill shop, Shen Jingbin asked the shop owner about it and also purchased recipes for some low grade medicinal elixirs. She then went to the teleportation point and transported herself to Thunder Marsh.

Within Thunder Marsh was a swamp forest called Cloud Dream Swamp, which was covered by a thick layer of mist all year round. On top of that, there were numerous venomous mosquitoes and snakes. In spite of that, this map had more medicinal herbs compared to other maps. For low grade medicinal herbs; there was dream grass and fuchsias, while high grade medicinal herbs consisted of rebirth fruits and reincarnation grass.

However, finding high grade medicinal herbs would be slightly more difficult.

Truth be told, Shen Jingbin really hated damp places. In spite of that, for the sake of gathering medicinal herbs, she had no choice but to put up with her feelings of disgust.

Cloud Dream Swamp was like a primordial forest where opportunity and danger came hand in hand. To prevent poisonous snakes and wild beasts from jumping out of hiding and attacking her, Shen Jingbin summoned Mascot to her side for protection.

Apart from revealing a monster’s Level, the Appraisal skill that players normally used could also identify different kinds of medicinal herbs. Shen Jingbin led Mascot and wandered about the mist filled swamp forest as she appraised the various fauna by her feet, immediately squatting down and harvesting any herbs that were identified.

After casting Appraisal, multiple dings rang out from the system notification by her ears.

“Congratulations on discovering Starry Grass.”

“Congratulations on obtaining Starry Grass.”

“Congratulations on discovering Heart Decaying Mushroom.”

“Congratulations on obtaining Heart Decaying Mushroom.”

“Congratulations on discovering Thousand Illusory Indigo Plant.”

“Congratulations on obtaining Thousand Illusory Indigo Plant.”

...

A short while later, Shen Jingbin’s backpack was practically bursting at the seams and she’d unknowingly walked into the depths of Cloud Dream Swamp.

There was a high chance of obtaining precious medicinal herbs in the depth of Cloud Dream Swamp, but it was proportionately dangerous as well. After sorting out her backpack, Shen Jingbin realized that there wasn’t a single slot of space left in it, so she decided to return by retracing her steps.

However, she was utterly dumbstruck when she turned around.

What kind of place was a primordial forest? It was the kind of place that looked the same no matter where you turned!

Shen Jingbin felt faint. My god, which way did I come in from?

She glanced at Mascot who was by her side. Cats were supposed to have a very sharp sense of smell, so why not try letting Mascot lead the way?

But…were cats the ones with a sharp sense of smell, or was it dogs? Or, were both of them pretty good at it?

Forget it, she wasn’t going to bother about it anymore. Either way, either one was a better alternative to herself.

Shen Jingbin crouched down and rubbed Mascot’s head. “Quickly, can you figure out which way we came from?”

Mascot blinked at her cutely.

Maybe it doesn’t understand? Alright, she’ll try a different method of speaking.

“Look around and bring me to the place with the most people.”

There were probably lots of people near Cloud Dream Swamp’s teleportation point. Going by that logic, going towards the place with the most people should allow her to leave this sunless area.

Almost as if it’d understand what she said this time around, Mascot gave a soft cry before it swished its tail and started moving towards a certain direction. Shen Jingbin followed behind it, splitting her attention between assessing the area and being on the lookout for anything of note.

After walking along with Mascot for a bit, Shen Jingbin realised something felt a little off.

Why did she feel that the light was becoming increasingly dimmer the further she walked? She wasn’t going deeper in, was she?

Shen Jingbin stopped in her tracks. After taking a few more steps, Mascot looked back at her when it realised its Master wasn’t following it.

“Mascot, are you sure you know where you’re going?”

“Roar~”

“... Forget it, I wouldn’t understand you even if you did reply.”

Suddenly, Shen Jingbin thought of her relatively useless map and hurriedly pulled it out of her backpack.

Sure enough, she was going further in!

Dream Cloud Swamp was vast. Looking at the map, she found herself at the furthest edge of the map.

“Help!”

Shen Jingbin suddenly heard someone crying out for help when she was busy examining the map, so storing her map away, she listened intently for the voice. It was coming from the direction she was facing, and she could even hear the sound of blades clashing against one another if she strained her ears.

“Mascot, go over and take a look.”

She figured she might as well go over and take a look since she couldn’t find a way out. Who knows, this person might even be able to lead her out.

“Roar!” With a mighty roar from Mascot, both Master and pet sped towards the source of the sound.

A short distance away, Shen Jingbin spotted numerous figures leaping about from the gap between the trees.

It turned out there was actually a large group of players here!

“Mascot, shrink yourself down a bit,” As she was unclear of the situation, Shen Jingbin didn’t want to just rush in. After Mascot shrunk down, she grabbed it and carefully inched forward, before she then hid behind a tree trunk that was wide enough to fit two people and stretched to the heavens.

In front of her were nearly thirty people and a towering dark red figure that was trembling.

On closer inspection, the towering figure turned out to be a monster with the upper body of a human and the lower body of a fish. This monster had basically the same structure as a mermaid, but it’s actual appearance was completely different.

Although this monster had the upper body of a human, it looked extremely ferocious and had blue veins protruding out of its body. Its lower body didn’t have the beautiful fish tail of a mermaid either. Instead, it had a burly tail akin to that of an alligator.

At this moment, it was using its tail to prop itself up and brandishing the spiked mace in its hand, throwing players that got close to it to the ground. It wasn’t satisfied with just flooring them either. It even lashed out with its burly tail and viciously pounded the players, causing its victims to let out blood-curdling shrieks.

The number of players who could still stand continuously shrunk.

“Help! Help!” Suddenly, a player wearing dark coloured clothes; dark enough to almost blend in with the surrounding trees, started running towards Shen Jingbin whilst shouting for help at the top of their lungs.

This was the same voice she’d heard just moments before.

“Marco Polo Bun?” The distance, coupled with the fact that this player practically blended in with the surrounding trees, meant that Shen Jingbin could only hear his voice but found herself unable to spot him. Now that she’d caught sight of him, she immediately recognized that this was the very same Marco Polo Bun that she’d met in Hell.

Hearing someone call out his name, Marco Polo Bun skidded to a halt and looked towards Shen Jingbin. “Who called me?!”

After taking a closer look at her, Marco Polo Bun immediately cried out in astonishment, “What the f*ck, why’re you here?!”