Hanging Creek Valley: Ingredients All the Way

At Gang's first light, the team broke camp and set out.

The fog of the Misty Swamp gradually faded behind them, and the soft, rotten mud beneath their feet slowly gave way to gravelly slopes.

The higher they climbed, the crisper the air became.

Then everyone noticed something—

Everywhere along the path through this Dark Continent lay one-of-a-kind natural ingredients.

Gon was the first to find one.

Walking at the front, he kicked something white and plump sticking out of the mud by the roadside. Squatting down and brushing away the sludge, he found a lotus root as thick as his forearm.

Its skin was a pale ivory, smeared with mud but carrying a faintly sweet fragrance.

"Genos! Can we eat this?"

A blue scanning light flashed from Genos.

"[Swamp-Crisp Lotus Root], a native swamp plant of the Dark Continent. Edible. It grows in deep mud along swamp edges. Its starch content is low, its crispness is eighty times that of ordinary lotus root, and it is sweet and free of fiber."

Gon's eyes lit up. He rinsed it in the stream, then took a crunchy bite.

The crack was as crisp as biting through ice.

Juice ran down the corner of his mouth.

"So sweet! So crunchy! It's even better than fruit!"

He immediately dug up several more sections and handed them out to the others behind him.

Killua took a piece of lotus root and raised an eyebrow before biting into it.

It was so crisp that his eyes widened slightly.

It had the texture of an icy pear, yet carried lotus root's distinctive fresh aroma. Every bite was full of sweet juice, without the slightest trace of fiber.

"...It's all right." He turned his face away and silently wolfed down the remaining large chunk.

Leorio crunched away