SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100 Chapter 723: A Place for Life

The first frost-thread snapped in Lu Pei’s fingers.

He stared at the broken stem. A bead of cloudy moisture formed at the break and slid down onto his glove.

Edda took it from him before he could put it with the good stock.

"Too high. Hold below the pale growth."

"I barely touched it," he said.

"That’s why I’m showing you." She laid the damaged stem on a separate cloth. "It won’t mend because you’re offended."

Leon turned away before Lu Pei caught him smiling. The collector had faced armed men with considerably less distress than one ruined plant.

Under Edda’s guidance, the next stem came free intact. Lu Pei laid it across a narrow support in the tray while Nerin slipped a soft loop over its base. Nothing pressed against the pale growth. Once secured, the delicate thing could be carried without rattling against its neighbors.

The work was slower than cutting sun cups, but the energy held in each stem made Leon willing to wait.

He crouched beside the first completed tray. Coolness reached his fingers before he touched the wood. It had the clean, persistent quality of the blue-white mineral samples Bai Heng had prepared, though Leon could also sense something living beneath it.

He left the stems alone. Admiring a resource did not qualify him to handle it.

The surge moved through the hollow unevenly. Sun cups above the eastern crescent remained closed while those near the runnel had already begun clouding. Beneath the trees, one strip of frost-thread brightened ahead of the rest, following a shallow depression that Edda had marked with her heel.

Loriel moved with her, comparing roots and soil before calling the collectors forward. They disagreed once over a patch near a fallen branch. Loriel thought the energy beneath it was strong enough to harvest; Edda pointed to the stiff tips and asked her to check lower down.

After examining a stem, Loriel nodded and marked it to leave.

Leon liked watching her learn. She did not pretend to know a plant because she understood ten thousand others. When something surprised her, she leaned closer.

The party settled into the work. One pair finished the usable cups while the others gathered frost-thread. Ira carried filled cases between the two patches, lifting them easily but walking with an exaggerated care that made Nerin watch her feet.

"I can carry one," he offered.

"You’re carrying the screens," Ira said. "I’d have to come back for those."

He considered that, then hurried ahead to clear a branch from her path.

Leon checked the approaches with Seraphine. There was no sign of Kesh returning. On the western side of the hollow, two local gathering parties had begun working beyond the trees. He recognized Tessa’s baskets among them. She raised a hand when she noticed him looking, then returned to her patch.

He had no objection to them using the ground his people could not reach. The open flowers already exceeded their cases, and Edda had warned that the later plants required different preparation. Claiming everything would only give him more to watch while it spoiled.

By late morning, the sun cups were finished. The collectors had begun bringing in trays from the shaded slope when Loriel called him over.

She knelt beside a cluster of low, rounded leaves. Between them stood a green stalk no longer than his hand, bent near the top as though somebody had folded it and changed their mind.

"Wellheart," Edda said. "Don’t stand on the roots."

Leon moved his foot.

Loriel had cleared a little soil from one side of the plant. Beneath the leaves, a pale root swelled into a tightly folded mass. Fine strands ran through its exposed surface, curving back on themselves without ending where he expected.

"What does it do?" he asked.

"Locals use prepared slices in restorative mixtures," Loriel said. "Edda says the root keeps growing denser after the leaves reach this size."

"Only during a good surge," Edda added. "Cut it too early and you’ve mostly bought water. Too late, and the inner folds turn hard."

Loriel guided his attention toward the living root. He sensed the vitality gathered within it, unusually concentrated for something so small. More curious was the way it continued moving. The outer tissue shifted gently as fresh energy passed inward.

"It hasn’t stopped circulating," Loriel said. "Even here." She indicated the tightest fold. "I want to see how it manages that."

Leon looked at her face. "For your Core?"

"Possibly." She sounded excited but careful. "Condensing vitality is one thing. Keeping it responsive afterward is another. I don’t want a Core that stores plenty and releases it poorly."

He remembered Seraphine sitting with her sword across her knees, refusing to accept a more stable arrangement that made her transitions sluggish. The women were approaching different problems, but none intended to settle for merely surviving a breakthrough.

"Can you take it?" Leon asked Edda.

"With the surrounding soil. If she wants to study it living, don’t peel it here."

Loriel had already reached for her tools.

They lifted the plant with its fine roots intact and placed it in a spare lined container. A second, smaller wellheart nearby had a damaged leaf and a thin root extending beneath a stone. Edda examined it, then showed Loriel where a small sample could be taken without ruining the main plant.

Leon stayed while they worked. He could have claimed another stretch of frost-thread during that time, but Loriel’s expression when the root came free made him glad he had not wandered off.

Edda showed her how to tuck damp soil around the fine roots without pressing against the swollen center. Loriel repeated the movement herself, then asked how much water it would need overnight. The questions had become very particular. She was already thinking past the return journey to where she would keep it beside her worktable.

She held the sample up to the light. "Look at the folds."

He looked. She turned it a little farther.

"I see them," Leon said.

"You don’t see why I’m pleased yet."

"Then show me."

She smiled at that, and he felt an entirely unreasonable satisfaction at having given the right answer.

They waited until the last frost-thread case was closed before testing it. Loriel chose a flat stone well clear of the packed harvest. She washed her hands, laid the sample in a shallow dish, and used two smooth pieces of her kit to steady it.

Edda watched from beside her. Nerin brought water and remained close enough to see, although Ira caught the back of his collar when he leaned over Loriel’s elbow.

"Give her room," Ira said.

Loriel introduced a thread of vitality into the cut surface. Leon followed its movement through the living tissue. The first portion passed easily. Where the folds grew tighter, it gathered more densely, then continued along a narrower path.

Loriel withdrew her hand and let the sample settle before trying again with gentle pressure from the smooth supports.

This time, the tissue compressed enough for Leon to see the change. The thread slowed, but when Loriel altered its flow, the vitality inside answered. It did not remain trapped in the densest part.

She stopped almost at once.

"Again?" Leon asked.

"Later. I want this piece alive for comparison." Loriel loosened the supports and examined the surface. "That was enough."

Edda peered into the dish. "Enough for what?"

"To know it’s worth studying." Loriel glanced up at Leon. "The tissue may be doing something I can’t preserve in an extract. Or it may react differently at the pressure a Core needs. I haven’t proved either."

Her caution did nothing to hide her pleasure. She packed the sample herself, then checked the larger plant as though it might have escaped while she was occupied.

Across the hollow, the late emberseed stalks had begun darkening. Edda studied them, looked at the sun, and shook her head. They would have to be left for another gathering party.

Leon found he did not mind very much.

Loriel picked up the wellheart’s container and held it close while he fastened the strap for her. Through the open top, he could still sense the dense vitality moving within its folds.

She looked down at it with a smile he wanted to see again.

"If I can learn how it keeps that passage open," she said quietly, "I may know what to change in mine."