National University Library, Special Section, Fifteen Years Ago
The young Althea looked at the vast array of books in fascination. Because of the advent of technology, there weren't many of these things anymore, but she liked them very much.
Learning while touching physical paper had always felt a bit sublime to her.
Althea continued to peruse the selection of books, staying in a section for a longer amount of time. In this section, there were plenty of books about flora and fauna. There were tons of illustrations of plants, their parts, and uses.
The young Althea had always loved plants and had her own notebook studying their uses. It was her first time seeing things so detailed.
She learned that even the unassuming useless-looking parts of the plants could be used for the most unexpected thing.
"Amazziinggg…" Little Althea mumbled, big emerald eyes looking at the book, filled with admiration.
"Amazing, right?" The old man smugly said, eating his walnuts.
Althea wasn't stingy with her compliments. "It's the most amazing thing I've seen so far."
"It's still more than that. For example," he showed her the leftover case of the walnut he had been eating."
"After processing this…" he then took a bottle of the ink to his table. "Could become this."
"Amazing!"
"Indeed."
The old man laughed and patted her head, leaving some crumbs on her ponytailed head. His old wise eyes looked at his collection. "Plants are amazing things, and you'll learn whole new worlds from studying them."
____
Xeno Continent, Present
Althea and the rest studied their surroundings, just to be sure.
They decided to check a hundred meters radius, and what she had seen just made Althea itchy to explore.
Upon double checking that there were no more creatures around waiting to maim them, Althea was finally able to leave the two in place.
This surprised Sheila a bit, not because she was scared of being alone (well, a little), but she was mostly taken aback by the fact a pregnant woman's out adventuring.
"I'm fine, at level 3 I don't feel pregnant at all." She said, shrugging. "I won't be ten meters away from you guys."
Anyway, all the plants around were basically unfamiliar, she really didn't need to go far.
Althea walked by several meters before leaning down, careful with her stomach, and sat on an overgrown root.
Althea, who seemed to have forgotten the dangers, took out her portable laboratory a.k.a. Tori , and focused on the nearest plant.
An interesting thing about space was that although time wasn't static, the 'space' was.
That was to say, even if she pulled out the lab underneath so many things, the other things just stayed there, floating.
It was quite fun.
In any case, she watched excitedly as she pulled out plants and their different parts to place on the testing component.
Her beautiful emerald eyes watched in anticipation as the various formulas and elements appeared on the small screen.
Although this was a different world, the building blocks were still the same.
She took something that was probably a type of fruit. In terms of appearance, it looked like a yellow cherry tomato.
Ping! She stared at the screen and, as expected, saw that it had Flavonoids which gave the fruit its color and has antioxidant properties.
She also stared at its chemical composition and concluded that this thing was edible and quite healthy. The amount of ethylene was also high, so it was probably already ripe.
Wiping it with a clean handkerchief she placed it in her mouth and her face scrunched.
Sour!
She decisively ignored this fruit.
Of course, she still took out her notebook, drew and described the plant and made a basic drawing.
At the bottom of the page there was a note: Sucks to eat.
It made even her, a pregnant woman who didn't mind sour food at the moment, cringe.
She turned her head to an upright plant with a thickened rhizome. Using a stick, she dug around it and found a tuber. It was a weird pinkish color and only the size of a palm.
Seeing the test results, the plant, like the Tuber that she knew, was filled with dioscorin. Although different in appearance from yam, the composition was just about the same.
She wrote down the possible uses, marking those that specially need more testing.
She took a few bunches to the space both for experiment and food.
She took note of four or five more plants, none of which were edible, or were particularly interesting, before her sights ended up on a vine crawling on another tree.
It was a very thick vine the size of a baby's arm, with purple flowers growing long and swaying with the wind as if seducing her to come to it.
Unable to help herself, Althea took out several leaves and flowers from the plant to check. She smelled and she was reminded of grapes, her favorite fruit.
She almost swallowed it. Almost. Fortunately, she still had the wits not to directly ingest the unknown plant. She stopped herself in time and simply placed it on Tori.
She watched with excitement as she waited for the analysis to come out.
However… as she stared at the screen and waited, her vision started to blur...
She felt weak on her knees and tried to lift herself up, only to realize that her hands couldn't even form a grip, and her whole body fell on the ground.
She struggled to turn her head to the screen and stared, finding out that the flower contained heavy amounts of phytotoxins.
Poisoned.
She was poisoned.
There were also three types of hallucinogens in there…
"My love, I told you not to eat weird things…" the familiar heartbroken voice of her husband rang in her ears.
She blinked and tears lined up her eyes as soon as she recognized the voice. She struggled to turn her head to his image.
It was definitely a hallucination, but she still wanted to see.
He was as handsome as always, with his dark hair like the night sky and striking features.
His eyes were deep as the ocean, looking at her with eyes filled with extreme warmth and love, like he always had.
Of course at the moment, there were heavy traces of worry and a tinge of reprimand.
Althea gasped as struggled to turn her body to the sky for air, but she was unable to do anything else.
Ah, how long has it been?
As someone who had been poisoned by her own carelessness for a few…dozen…times, she already had an idea what to do.
Her eyes not leaving the image of her husband, she remembered the many things he taught her.
Unfortunately, she could barely even move, how could she do those signals for help?
"Hey! Someone?" She said–well, croaked—as loudly as her weakened throat allowed.
However, she quickly lost energy. So she couldn't call anymore after that nor could do anything else but wait for rescue, so she just closed her eyes to rest a bit.
A minute later, rustles of leaves approached her direction. When she opened her eyes, what met her eyes was the worried face of Sheila, with Fufi running around her corpse—er… weak body, in distress.
"Oh my goodness! Althea!!"
"I'm fine…" She said, stopping the useless chatter.
Sheila, a nurse, managed to do some first aid on her. At the very least, she could now move a hand, albeit with a lot of struggle.
She weakly pointed in a direction near the grape-like vine with her hand. "Take .. sap… from that plant… no… the other one… not that… there." The voice was a little apathetic, but every movement she made was shaky.
Sheila ran to her and held the plants near her, waiting for further instructions.
"Take 2mg of this, weigh it here." She said pointing at an elevated surface on Tori.
"Mix it with this Lola." She took out a petal of one of the previous uninteresting flowers from the space.
Sheila quickly mixed the two and put it in Althea's mouth. It took several minutes before Althea's pale face returned to its rosy complexion.
Fufi let out a little woof, while Sheila stared at her with deep concern. "How are you?"
"Don't worry I'm used to it." She shrugged, "Just accidentally touched a bit of poison."
Her tone was indifferent, but this seemed to have triggered a nearly non-existent button in Sheila.
Just like that, out of nowhere, the little rabbit turned into a dragon.
"ARE YOU AN IDIOT??!" The nurse shrieked, making Althea flinch away and rub her ears.
Althea gaped at her, not knowing that she had it in her. "Have you forgotten you're PREGNANT?!!"
Althea paused at this, frowned, and turned her head down to her very heavy stomach. She pursed her lips, feeling very guilty.
Her obsession with plants could indeed get a bit pathological. Her best friend once said she'd die of plants someday.
She gently patted her stomach, a bit of a coaxing tone in her voice. "I'm sorry my babies, I was not careful enough."
She took note of this damned plant, as well as the antidote.
[Successfully gained New Skill: Elementary Appraisal (D)]
[Elementary Appraisal (D): Ability to determine all known uses of all things below level 5.
Ability to determine nomenclature of all things Level 6-10. Cost: 10 Mana]
New skill…?
Appraisal?
She didn't have to touch a plant and she would immediately have an idea on what it was for?!
There could be such a good thing?!
If eyes could glow, Althea's eyes would've become the sun.