Chương 168: Cordyceps Thirty-Three

It took a couple more days before I found time to visit the library again. I'd had some time here and there to dip in and look around, but a proper search took hours, and I was looking for something that I suspected was somewhat niche. First, I dug into some of the local history texts. I considered asking the history professor, but I didn't think he liked me much, so I was all on my own for this one. It wasn't too difficult to find books about the nobility of City Nineteen.

It was exceptionally hard to find anything that wasn't written to flatter someone's ego. I did find one book, A Compendium of Nineteen's Nobility, which was one part etiquette book, one part list of local nobility. Milo's family, the Milos, had an entire page dedicated to them. I supposed that they were merely barons, so they didn't deserve much more attention. It was surprising to learn that one or two of my less assuming classmates were the children of dukes and counts.

The page didn't divulge too much, except to say that the family dealt in exotic spices and rare plant life from other continents as well as luxury foodstuffs. That was all I could find after an evening's search. In the end, I decided to just... ask, but to do so in a way where Milo would have a hard time escaping the question. Which meant waiting until Thursday's Herbology class. The sun was out and shining, which was a rarity in this time of year where we mostly had lots of rain and gloomy days.

The professor seemed to want to get us outside for as much of the day as he could manage, so almost as soon as we arrived at the greenhouse, he led us out and to a large outdoor garden at the back.

"Today we'll be learning the horrifically boring but nonetheless necessary art of weeding," he said. Then he launched into a lesson about the different kinds of common non-magical weeds that grew in the area while walking around and plucking some samples out from the planters and the grass around them.

"With the fertilisers we use to encourage the growth of these plants, also comes fast-growing weeds. Weeds don't care how much you want your own specific plant to grow, they'll take any rich, nourishing soil as an invitation to plant some roots and choke out any competition, and the reason weeds are weeds to begin with is often because of how good they are at invading the space of other plants." ‎ I nodded along. Nothing new, but I didn't mind the refresher. We started to take care of the weeding.

Ripping out plants and filling in the holes with some loose dirt. Some of the students went around with a wheelbarrow, while others continued to work, and with so many hands and the professor watching over the lot of us like a rooster, it didn't take all that long for the work to get done. Once the last weed was ripped out of the soil and tossed into a composting bin, the professor nodded, looking satisfied.

"It's not glorious work, but if you one day keep your own garden, then you'll need to do it. Or hire someone to do it, but even then it's wise to know how to do something before you hire someone else." The others nodded, and it seemed like that was just common sense to them.

"Any questions before we move on? We'll be tackling something a bit more complex next. Magical weeds. You won't be touching these yourselves, not unless you want to visit the nurse's office for the evening." One of the Troll kids raised his hand.

"Some weeds are magical?" The professor nodded.

"Weeds are just what we call any plant that we don't want around. If there are magical plants, then there are magical weeds. Some of them are even useful, though let's hold off on that for a year or two. Any more questions?" I raised a hand and he nodded.

"Some of the weeds are poisonous?" I asked.

"Should we be worried? I think Milo has poison resistance, but what about the rest of us?" The professor stared at me for a long moment, then seemed ready to speak when Harbin cut in, voice low so it wouldn't carry.

"Scared?" he asked.

"Mister Harbin," the professor said.

"You will treat the plants, yourself, and your fellow students with respect, and that means no toying with toxicants and poisonous materials you know nothing about." His eyes never left me as he spoke.

"As for your question, Mister Killua, you will be safe because you will not touch the plants. None of you will. This is a demonstration. Only fifth years and up are permitted to cultivate and work with magical plants unsupervised." This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work. The professor eyed us all for a while, then nodded.

"Alright, follow along." The rest of the class was more subdued, the professor showing us some plants that looked pretty ordinary, but which he assured us were magical in nature. I had a slight advantage with my [Druid Sight] skill letting me pick up information from the weeds he was showing. Some of the weeds seemed... downright useful. [Witch's Fingers] Common A vine that thrives in places of dark magic. The long, finger-like stems are potent catalysts in the brewing of curses and hexes.

That was a weed currently grasped around the stem of a small tree-like bush. Just for fun, I examined the bush itself next. [Blood Thorn Bush] Common A spiky weed covered with small, blood-red thorns. The thorns can draw blood with a slight touch, and the blood is then absorbed by the plant. It's often used in blood magic rituals.

"What's that one used for?" I asked, pointing to the bush. The professor grinned.

"This is an example of a plant that's sometimes a weed and sometimes grown on purpose. Blood thorns have a small liquid in their thorns that acts as a powerful blood thinner and anticoagulant. That means that if a wild animal were to brush by, it would bleed profusely. It has medicinal uses as well, of course." There were more, from more common to less, but nothing insanely dangerous. I suspected that the actually {Rare} plants were kept elsewhere.

Or maybe there weren't any around for the students to mess with, not if they were actually valuable. Class ended soon after, with the professor insisting that we all clean off at a basin behind one of the green houses. Our uniforms were all stained with mud and dirt, and a bit of water wasn't going to wash that off. Then again, some soapy water might be exactly what we needed to avoid getting a rash from touching some of those weeds.

"Do you mind if I ask you a question?" I asked Milo. He blinked at me.

"Of course not, what is it?"

"You have some sort of poison resistance, right? You mentioned it last time." Milo nodded.

"It's a Milo-family gift," he said.

"That's so cool," I said.

"Do all the noble families have gifts like that?"

"Did yours?" he asked.

"Ah, I guess you aren't nobleborn. Don't worry. Most of the Trolls probably only have a basic blessing and maybe a blessing from whichever church did their naming."

"Yeah," I agreed. What did that mean? The only thing I had from birth was... [Child of Poverty]. I felt something cold and slimy run down my back. Had that been my blessing? Was it what every kid born in the slums got as a reward for being born impoverished, while children like Milo started off with an actual, proper blessing? I refocused. I needed to befriend Milo, not start ranting in his vicinity about the unfairness of the world.

"So, your whole family gets poison resistance?"

"Just for plants," he said.

"It's not the greatest blessing, but it's not bad. George's family has a famous blessing that lets them know how loyal someone is." George looked up and smiled.

"Oh? Ah, yeah. I guess that's handy." He was the fourth son of a count, so I imagined he probably found the skill somewhat lacking, but I could imagine a dozen scenarios where that kind of thing could be a lifesaver. In any case, I had my answer, somewhat. Milo was partially resistant to poisons. Plant-based poisons. That meant that other kinds would probably work just fine. Of course, all of my poisons weren't plant-based, but they were pretty damned close.

I'd need to figure out some other way to handle the Milos. I had... no idea how I was going to do that. Stabbing them to death was out. I didn't have help for this mission. I didn't have any potent non-poisonous weapons.

"Do you even get sick?" I asked him on a whim. Milo shrugged.

"I guess not? At least, not from bad plants? Do people get sick from that?"

"Yeah, all the time," I said.

"Why don't they use a ring or amulet?" George asked. He seemed a little less shy now that we'd included him.

"A what?" I asked.

"You know," he said before raising a hand to display a small ring around his index.

"A ring of poison resistance?" I filled the silence of my mind with ample swears.