SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100 Chapter 725: The Little Blue One

The woman at the first stall poured hot sand over a bundle of leaves.

Loriel stopped so suddenly that Leon nearly walked into her.

"Won’t that damage them?" she asked.

The seller lifted a corner of the bundle with wooden tongs. Beneath the outer leaves, the pale inner layer had begun separating from its veins.

"Cold sand takes too long. Fire spoils the lining." She shook the bundle once. "First time seeing it done?"

Loriel admitted it was. The woman moved her bowl far enough for her to watch, then continued serving the customer waiting on the other side.

Leon stepped out of the lane and let a boy with a tray of cups squeeze past. Asterbank’s trading day filled the street from the well to the drying sheds. People argued over lengths of cloth, held roots up to the light, and called across stalls to neighbors who clearly owed them something.

The place smelled of hot grain, damp plants, and the faint sharpness of fresh-cut wood.

He had been expecting interesting resources. He had not expected to be hungry again so soon.

They had left twenty-five Palace members at the spring and eighteen at the entrance base. Bai Heng knew their route and when to expect them back; Wen Shu had the arrangements for a missed return. Here, with only the four women beside him, Leon could stop without making a whole column stop too.

He bought a packet of warm flatbread after Vyra negotiated a small exchange of ordinary preserved provisions for local coin. The seller examined the unfamiliar food before accepting it, then insisted Leon taste her bread while it was still hot.

Ira took a piece from the packet he offered and burned her fingers on the filling.

"You could have warned me," she said.

"She did." Leon pointed with his own half-eaten piece.

Ira looked at him, then laughed and ate more carefully.

Seraphine lingered at a stall selling straps and fitted weapon covers. She tested a buckle, asked about its metal, and put it back when the answer did not justify the price. Vyra bought spare fastenings after finding the same workmanship on an unadorned set farther down the table.

Loriel caught up with them carrying a little parcel of the processed leaf lining. The seller had let her keep an imperfect piece for comparison.

"Useful?" Leon asked.

"Possibly. It keeps moisture around certain cuttings without touching their surface." She glanced back at the stall. "I would have tried cloth first."

He offered her the last bread. She accepted it absently, then stopped to appreciate the filling.

They found the books beneath a patched awning near the drying sheds. Most were thin stitched volumes with stained covers. The seller had weighted the open pages with smooth stones, and one illustrated sheet showed a cut stem that Leon recognized.

"Reedlace," he said.

Loriel leaned beside him. The drawing included the inner layers Edda had shown her, with small marks beside each stage of preparation. She followed the sequence with her finger, careful not to touch the page.

"This one describes drying?" she asked the seller.

"Growing, cutting, drying, storage. Different sections." He opened the book farther back. "Common stock from the western settlements. Some upland plants too."

The writing meant nothing to Leon. He could hear every word the man said, yet the labels might as well have been decorative scratches.

Vyra tested the problem directly. She pointed to a line and asked him to read it, then compared the sound with the marks. Understanding the spoken sentence did not make its written form any clearer.

"We’ll need somebody to read parts of it aloud," she told Leon.

The seller named a price for the volume and another for an hour of his time. Vyra asked which entries the hour would cover. That began a negotiation Leon was happy to leave to her.

While they talked, he found a frost-thread illustration near the middle. A small drawing showed the growth supported at its base, exactly as Nerin had packed it. Another showed it hanging upside down over a shallow pan.

He stopped trying to guess.

They bought the book. The seller agreed to read the sun cup and frost-thread entries first, including the warnings and measures, while Vyra wrote them in Palace script. Loriel remained to ask questions. Seraphine took a seat where she could watch the lane, and Leon went with Ira to inspect the living stock across from the awning.

Most plants were labeled with the same unreadable script. Ira pointed to a thorny shrub whose leaves gave off a little heat, asked its purpose, and lost interest when the owner explained that it kept a drying cupboard warm but spoiled if regularly scorched.

Leon was looking at a row of hanging baskets when Loriel joined them during a pause in the reading.

She went straight to a pot at the end of the table.

It held a low green plant with three small blue flowers. Their petals curled inward at the tips, leaving pale centers open to the light. When Loriel brushed a leaf, the nearest bloom turned slightly toward her fingers.

She smiled.

"What is it?" Leon asked.

"Bellshade," the owner said. "Likes a cool window. Don’t drown it."

"Does it need much room?" Loriel asked.

"A pot that size for another year."

She examined the soil and the underside of a leaf. Then she asked the price.

Leon waited for a question about its medicinal use. None came. Loriel chose a second pot with a better drainage hole and asked the owner to repack it for carrying.

"For your garden?" he asked.

"For wherever I sit." Loriel glanced at him. "I like the blue."

He looked at the flowers again. They were a good blue, clear and bright without glowing or emitting any remarkable pressure. He found himself smiling too.

When she reached for the wrapped pot, Leon took it first.

"You’ve got the sample parcel."

"I can carry both, Young Master."

"I know." He settled the pot against his arm. "Finish your questions about the book."

Loriel touched his sleeve before returning to the awning.

He carried the plant while they listened to the remaining instructions. From the corner of his eye, he saw her glance toward it twice, pleased in a way that had nothing to do with condensation or the value of a harvest.

By the end of the paid hour, Vyra had several pages of usable notes and a much longer list of passages still needing translation. The seller marked those with strips of cloth so they could find them again.

As he closed the volume, three workers passed carrying nested preparation pans. They set them outside the shop next door, where similar stacks already filled half the entrance.

Ira looked at the order. "Somebody’s planning to stay busy."

"Hollow Steps," the book seller said. "They’ll all want everything at once, then complain about the price."

Leon turned toward him. "What’s Hollow Steps?"

The man pointed next door.

"Ask Sella. She’s been supplying the teams for years. Old cultivation ground. The currents change while you’re sitting in them."

Leon looked down at the preparation manual, then at the stacked pans.

This time, he had several questions of his own.