Ye Chuqi suddenly remembered Xiaojiu mentioning that an important figure in Monte City had been afflicted with a strange poison. The Adventurers' Guild there had issued a high-level quest to find a Leaf Pearl that could cure him.
And that Leaf Pearl was still in her storage space.
So the old man was also heading to Monte City to save someone.
But the reason he needed someone to brew medicine on the road was not that he was developing an antidote as they traveled. Someone in the caravan had been poisoned by the Ghost Gold Grass Duwak had held earlier.
Ghost Gold Grass looked much like an ordinary weed. Only after tearing a leaf could one see the golden veins along its broken edges. Even then, the gold quickly faded in the air, leaving traces barely distinguishable from the surrounding leaf.
There was a simpler way to identify it: the edge of a torn leaf gave off an unusual metallic smell. Only the sap was poisonous, and it had to touch someone directly to poison them, so smelling it was actually the easiest method.
But the smell faded with time, too, making the plant hard to identify.
That was why Ye Chuqi's ability to recognize Ghost Gold Grass at a glance had convinced everyone, especially Duwak, that her skill at identifying herbs was anything but ordinary.
The poison was peculiar as well. Its victims gradually turned to metal, starting with the skin, then the muscles, and finally the organs and blood vessels. Once the heart could no longer beat and blood could no longer flow, death was certain.
Ghost Gold Grass poisoning could be cured. There was a well-established formula, and its ingredients were not especially rare, but preparing the medicine was troublesome. The cure was also long and painful,