Mom, can you please ask Luz if she knows about Sapphire Mushrooms and what they are good for? Ben asked, using telepathy enabled by one of the first items he had gotten out of a dungeon.

  Allison replied within seconds that Luz didn’t know this mushroom.

  “Given she’s a local animal, we shouldn’t kill her and her kits just for ingredients. But I think we should be able to take a small sample of the first patch without risking her attacking us. Agree?”

  Michael didn’t respond. Instead, he rushed the few meters out, grabbed two handfuls of mushrooms, and sprinted back.

  Ben hovered between amusement and exasperation. He signaled the fox to calm and backed slowly into the tunnel, covering Michael’s retreat. A few minutes later they rejoined the rest of the team and started their climb out of the tunnel.

  Over the next 30 minutes they got lucky twice and found plants that Luz thought would be quite beneficial to her craft. Together with the food and Sapphire Mushrooms, Ben was quite happy with the gains from the trip already, and they hadn’t even reached the grove.

  They had barely finished harvesting the second plant when they heard a commotion not too far away. The noise was loud enough that even without Michael’s perception they could hear shouting to the east.

  Of course, Michael immediately vanished into the forest to investigate, and the rest of the team moved swiftly to see what was happening.

  They quickly came upon a group of nine men, all looking to be in their late twenties or early thirties, dirty and haggard. They had backpacks, and most of them were armed—mostly with short knives and baseball bats. Only a few had longer knives; one had a sword that looked like something they might have gotten prior to Arrival Day as a display piece.

  A confrontation seemed to be going on between them, with three on one side and six on the other. As the shouting was focused on insults, it was impossible to understand what the confrontation had been about.

  However, the group quickly fell silent as Ben and the team made their way through the trees. Ben let his mother make first contact.

  “Hello, what brings you here?” she said with a wave and a smile.

  The confrontation forgotten, the men closed ranks again. One man—he had been the most vocal of the smaller group—stepped forward, looking cautiously at their weapons and armor.

  “Hello, we are out here foraging. What about you?”

  The answer was clipped and didn’t reveal a lot of information. It did not escape Ben that some of the men were looking at each other uncertainly at the answer provided by their leader.

  “We are foraging, too. Do you need any help?”

  The leader was about to shake his head when one of the others, who had been on the other side of the confrontation earlier, burst out, “Don’t be a fool, Carter! We are out of food and completely lost. We need any help we can get!” The man looked like one of the older members of the group; he was thin and in desperate need of food and shelter.

  “We left Simonston five days ago in hope of finding food, anything of value, and also to develop more survival perks,” the man continued. “My name is Jason, by the way. We have failed completely and have now less food than when we started. We managed to evade most of the monsters around here, but if we get attacked by more than a single wolf next time, we will die.”

  “We are doing fine! We just need more guts than you have, you wimp!” the original leader, Carter apparently, was furious. “If we had weapons like those,” he said, pointing at Ben’s team, “no monster could stand before us.”

  Ben stepped forward. “Either way, we can offer you shelter. If you like, we have a place not too far away where you can spend the night and then decide how you want to proceed. The only caveat is that we need to get to a place nearby first to harvest something; once we are done there we can accelerate our return and be back at home sometime late tonight.”

  Jason looked at him with hopeful eyes. “You have a place here, up in the mountains? That would be awesome.”

  Many of the other men were nodding vigorously and murmured their agreement. Carter and a few others clearly were skeptical.

  Ben looked at his teammates—at least those present; Michael had not made an appearance yet—and got their approval.

  “Okay, I think we should be close to where we wanted to go; you can wait here or follow us and then we'll bring you to a shelter.”

  The majority of the men quickly indicated that they wanted to join Ben’s group right away and not be alone in the forest any longer.

  About 30 minutes later—their speed had been reduced significantly by the larger, less cohesive group—they reached the peak of Old Man’s Hill, which stood on a plateau of the surrounding mountain range.

  The area had undergone significant changes since the last time that Ben had visited. What before had been a regular part of the forest now was a circle around the peak where the old trees lay uprooted and dead. In the middle of the circle were a handful of large trees—easily 40 to 50 meters tall. However, they could not be directly accessed, as thick, thorny vines formed an almost impenetrable barrier around the tree trunks.

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  Ben gestured for the group to stay in the forest, then stepped across the dead ring to approach the grove.

  Ironthorn Vines. Energy infused plant. Tier 1. Epic crafting ingredient.

  He drew a knife and tried to cut one of the vines. They were very dark green, almost black, and the thorns were deep red. He struggled to get through the tough material and felt his knife beginning to lose its edge. When he finally managed to cut off a piece, it immediately lost its consistency and dried up until it finally turned into dust.

  Ben walked slowly around the grove and tested whether he could pass through them. Finally, he made his way back to the team that waited for him at the forest edge.

  “Luz, have you heard of Ironthorn Vines?”

  The budding alchemist scratched her head and thought for a full minute before answering. “Yes, I think I have read of them. Their sap is a much-sought-after resource, I think.”

  “That’s good news. Do you know how to harvest it? When I cut off one of the vines it just turned to dust.”

  “Mhh, yes, that makes sense. I think all the vines have their origin in a central body; the sap can only be harvested from it.”

  Ben turned back to the grove, thinking about his options.

  Having made his decision, he turned back. “I think there are two options: destroy the grove to reach the sap, or I’ll wiggle through the vines to the center.”

  “I have tested it: my Constitution lets me get through without too much pain. I’m fairly sure anyone else would be severely wounded if they tried to follow.”

  Allison spoke up, “Let me send my crow to the grove. It can’t harvest for us, but it should sense any danger. If there is nothing inside, then I am fine with you going in alone; it would be a shame to potentially hurt the grove irrevocably.”

  “That’s an excellent idea. Please go ahead!”

  A few seconds later, Allison summoned her [Sprout Companion] and sent it to fly over the grove a couple of times. She shrugged at her son, “It does not look like there is any specific danger inside.”

  “Good, I’ll try to be quick so that we can get our new guests home before it is too late tonight.” He pointed to the group of men huddled a few meters to the side.

  The others nodded and he moved towards the grove. He had scouted out a place where he could start to squeeze through the thorny vines.

  It was painful. Very painful.

  Despite his Constitution, thorns found gaps in his armor and pierced his skin. He quickly started to bleed from his arms, neck, and face—but there was nothing to do about it.

  He pushed forward.

  He thought that the vines were moving and making his life harder with every minute, but he admitted to himself that that was probably just his imagination.

  It took twenty minutes of slow and careful movement until he broke through the final vines to step into the inner grove.

  He looked at his arms and wiped away the blood to see how bad the damage was and was amazed to see that, while the damage had been real—as evidenced by the copious amount of blood—a lot of it had already been healed and he could almost see the remaining wounds close in real time.

  He was baffled, but he remembered the message that [Resilient Body] and his Constitution synergize outside combat. His rapid healing seemed to be the result. He had accepted that his body—he—was no longer fully human. As long as it helped him keep his people safe, he was more than fine with it.

  He shook himself and looked around the grove. As he did, he felt a deep sense of calmness and isolation. The stillness was almost oppressive. He wasn’t sure that he liked it, but it would certainly allow for deep concentration and introspection.

  In the middle of the grove stood a plant more than a meter tall and roughly as wide—like a top-down onion. A couple of dozen vines originated from it and twisted themselves around the large trees that lined the grove.

  It was the Ironthorn Vines.

  At the top of the plant sat a shallow hollow, a finger-width deep. Within glistened a few drops of a bright red fluid. He assumed this to be the sap that was the crafting ingredient. Hopefully Luz could distill a potion to advance his Body attribute and Constitution.

  Ben decided that he should attempt to meditate, even if just for a few minutes, to understand the effect the grove would have on him.

  He assumed the lotus position, closed his eyes, and entered [Meditation] after a couple of deep breaths.

  When he opened his eyes, his mind was no longer in the grove but in a state of nothingness. It reminded him of the place where he had formed his Path of the Unyielding Protector. He felt that, with more time, he could replicate that environment and work on his perks far more easily.

  This felt like a game changer to Ben. He didn’t have the time to follow through now, not with more than a dozen people waiting for him, but he would definitely return to benefit from the grove.

  With a concerted effort he terminated his [Meditation] and returned to the real world.

  Before attempting to harvest the Ironthorn Vines sap, he looked around at the trees that lined the grove. They were huge, each was way too broad for him to circle with his arms, and had red leaves that harmonized with the thorns of the vines. As he got closer, he used [Analyze] on them as well.

  Silent Sentinel Maple. Energy infused plant. Tier 1. Epic crafting ingredient.

  He patted the tree, certain it was key to the grove’s peacefulness, and was glad they hadn’t tried to destroy it. The ensemble seemed like something that they and others could use in the future.

  That didn’t mean he wouldn’t harvest what the grove offered.

  First, he stepped toward the Ironthorn Vines and used the vial they’d brought to scoop up the sap. They saved the vials from the healing potions and repurposed them for alchemy and foraging.

  The sap moved slowly down the glass, glistening whenever a sunbeam pierced the heavy canopy.

  After carefully sealing the vial, he turned his attention back to the trees. It was out of the question to take one down, and Ben didn’t think that was necessary. To create a chest, some of the smaller branches should be sufficient. They would be feasible to carry back while still remaining mobile enough to defend themselves.

  Ben quickly identified a couple of branches, braced himself for the incoming pain, and scaled the first tree through the thorny vines.

  Forty-five minutes later he’d cut several branches, spread across the trees so none would suffer lethal damage. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t much, and any energetic storm would probably lead to significantly more broken branches than his work.

  To make his life easier, he had thrown the branches outside of the grove as he cut them down, so the only thing left to do was to make his way to the other side.

  As he threw the last branch down, he thought about his body and looked down the tree. He had two options: go through the painful vines again, or jump down, trusting that his high attribute would allow him to land without hurting himself.

  It wasn’t close. Without a second thought, Ben jumped down and landed safely, turning some of his momentum into a roll. He dusted himself off, collected the tree branches, and turned to return to his team. He had been gone for little more than an hour; not much could have happened to them.