Chapter 479 - 469: Gathering Mission

And that was to say nothing of the Red Rock Crystals.

At least there were pictures of Fire Burning Grass for reference, but there were absolutely none for Red Rock Crystal.

While fragments of Red Rock Crystal were available online, they had all been processed and polished.

In their unprocessed state, Red Rock Crystals looked similar to the other irregular rocks scattered on the ground.

Even so, it wasn’t impossible to find them using spiritual power.

Moira Lynch’s spiritual power was now as fine as a strand of silk. If she wanted to find something and it was within her range, there was nothing she couldn’t locate.

The only condition was that she first needed to find one Red Rock Crystal and one stalk of Fire Burning Grass to learn their auras. Only then could she lock onto her targets.

After a full night’s rest, everyone woke up the next day feeling refreshed and energetic.

Since their tasks had been assigned beforehand, Moira Lynch was responsible for gathering. Thus, Eri, Kent, and Ryan Hayes logically remained in the vehicle to rest, showing no intention of moving a muscle.

Seeing this, Moira Lynch paid them no mind. She actually felt more at ease with them staying put.

After all, anyone who could become a B-rank adventurer, let alone an A-rank one, was no pushover.

They had extensive experience in both wilderness survival and combat, so there was no telling what they might notice if they were watching too closely.

Her most important task right now was to find a single stalk of Fire Burning Grass and one Red Rock Crystal.

Fortunately, Moira Lynch’s luck was decent, and she soon found a piece of Red Rock Crystal.

However, it was only the size of a fingernail. And only after she cleaned off the dirt did she realize the Red Rock Crystal was pink.

It was common knowledge that the higher a Red Rock Crystal’s quality, the deeper its color. A pink one like this could hardly be called red, and being so small, it didn’t even qualify for a grade.

Nevertheless, Moira Lynch was delighted to have it. Its quality might be poor, but with this Red Rock Crystal, she could now lock onto all the others nearby.

She got right to it. Moira Lynch had already scanned the entire Redrock Canyon the previous night. Now, using the aura she’d just sensed from the crystal, she successfully locked onto the locations of all the Red Rock Crystals in the canyon.

To Moira Lynch’s surprise, there was a considerable number of Red Rock Crystals here.

However, they needed B-grade or higher Red Rock Crystals. That single requirement filtered out nine-tenths of them.

This just went to show that while Red Rock Crystals were numerous, high-quality ones were few and far between.

Moira Lynch quickly shared the map marking the locations of the Red Rock Crystals directly with Hugh Finch via a spiritual link.

A map suddenly materialized in the mind of Hugh Finch, who was busy digging through rocks, giving him a huge shock.

Fortunately, his mental fortitude was strong enough that he didn’t cry out, but he was still badly startled.

"Next time you do something like that, could you give me a heads-up? What good would it do you if I died of a heart attack?"

Moira Lynch gave a slightly guilty laugh. "I forgot. I’ll be more careful next time, I promise."

With the map from Moira Lynch, Hugh Finch’s search for Red Rock Crystals became like he had a cheat. He dug one after another out of the ground.

Moreover, every single Red Rock Crystal was B-grade or higher.

The spots Moira Lynch had marked were all in easy-to-dig locations. The ones of even higher quality were buried deeper or encased within rocks, their true nature only visible after cutting the stone open.

’This feels just like stone gambling.’

But with her spiritual power, Moira Lynch didn’t need to cut the stones open. She could extract the Red Rock Crystals directly, which made things much more convenient.

When the others saw how unerringly Hugh Finch found one Red Rock Crystal after another, they were briefly stunned. Then, they decisively gave up their own search for the crystals and started looking for Fire Burning Grass instead.

Time passed, and it was soon noon.

Moira Lynch wiped the fine beads of sweat from her forehead.

She looked up at the sky. ’The sun’s already right overhead. No wonder it’s so hot.’

She was wearing a Water-cooling Stone, but even that wasn’t enough to completely ward off the heat.

’The name Pyralia is no joke.’

She took a bottle of ice-cold, frosty cola from her storage space and took a sip.

As the ice-cold cola slid down her throat, Moira Lynch couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief.

’Drinking ice-cold cola in this weather is the best.’

Everyone else was searching diligently, while Moira Lynch was the only one slacking off.

But because Hugh Finch was being so productive, the others turned a blind eye.

After finishing her own bottle of ice-cold cola, Moira Lynch casually got one for Hugh Finch as well.

Hugh Finch’s hands were filthy from all the digging, but he didn’t seem to care as he took the cola and started drinking immediately.

"This heat reminds me of the extreme heat wave we had before," Hugh Finch said.

Moira Lynch nodded. "It does feel a bit like it, but it’s not quite that hot."

Moira Lynch had rarely gone outside during that heat wave, but she knew the temperature on Pyralia now was lower than it had been then, though not by much.

Just then, Moira Lynch glanced at the sun overhead, and a question suddenly popped into her head. ’Is the sun I see here the same one I saw on Caelus?’

The answer was no.

After a short break, Hugh Finch went back to digging up Red Rock Crystals. Even though he knew their exact locations, he still had to excavate them one by one, which took a considerable amount of time.

Moira Lynch, on the other hand, was just wandering around aimlessly.

As high noon approached, small clusters of red flames suddenly flickered into existence in various spots.

Seeing this, the others immediately rushed toward them.

It was only then that Moira Lynch realized, ’This must be the Fire Burning Grass.’

Fire Burning Grass only burns for one minute each day. This is the best time to find it, but also the most dangerous, as the temperature around the plant can reach as high as two thousand degrees.

Such a plant could only be harvested using special methods.

Watching the small flames pop up here and there in the canyon, Moira Lynch knew she had limited time. She memorized their locations, marking them on her mental map. It would be safer to go harvest them after the minute was up.

A minute passed in the blink of an eye, and the flames vanished as quickly as they had appeared.

In that short time, the group working together only managed to harvest a dozen or so stalks. Fortunately, they had memorized the locations of a few more, but this was still far from enough.

They were still a long way from their goal of five hundred stalks.

Just then, Moira Lynch came up behind one of the adventurers and said, "There’s a stalk of Fire Burning Grass behind that rock to your left."

The man was startled by the sudden voice, but then he tentatively lifted the rock to his left.

He had assumed she was just guessing, but to his surprise, there really was a stalk of Fire Burning Grass growing underneath.