The most notably rare plant was, unsurprisingly, a kind of miracle herb. It was a smallish fern plant with red leaves and gave off a similar glow as the other one. It was taken out of a nine-star quality Amber (Miracle Herb). Sakura was the one who did all the hard work for it.
Name: Strength-Boosting Miracle Herb
Rarity: 6 / Quality: 1★
Effect: Ingredient.
While I still didn’t know exactly what it could do, I was sure this was a great item. I mean, it said it was “strength-boosting.” That had to mean it would raise attack power, and I bet it would affect endurance and agility too. And if it did, then speed, HP, and defense would also be impacted. It would be a great asset in battle.
Man, I couldn’t wait to try it out. Though I only had one, so I couldn’t experiment with it until I could grow more of it.
“And there’s one other miracle herb. A strength-reducing one.”
“...!”
Name: Strength-Reduction Miracle Herb
Rarity: 6 / Quality: 1★
Effect: Ingredient.
This must be a type of material that would apply a debuff on whoever it was used on. Apparently miracle herbs could do more than grant buffs. Its “effect” descriptions only stated that it was an ingredient, so it probably couldn’t be used in this state, and was instead meant to be used as an ingredient to make a debuff item.
The surprising thing was that this item hadn’t come from the Amber (Miracle Herb), but a six-star quality Amber (Plant). I’d only had one Amber (Miracle Herb). There was also one Purified Grass. It had come from an amber, granting me one more along with the one that I had picked from my farm. It seemed there was a minor chance to obtain a rare plant from the ambers—kind of like an amber gacha game.
“Hmm. Maybe I should buy a bunch of amber to cut open?”
I had the cash to burn! If it was necessary, I had no problem flaunting my newly found wealth.
No, wait. Wasn’t it possible someone else had tried out this very same thing? After all, anyone could see that there were plants inside the amber. There should have been a lot of people who had obtained amber at the end of the event, and many who had brought all that back with them. Should I try poking Alyssa for information? She might have more to tell me about miracle herbs in general too.
Actually, before that, I figured I should ask my neighbor.
I entrusted the miracle herbs with Olto, then headed out to the farm right next to mine. I was on the way to see Tagosack, a top Farmer. I had said hello to her earlier, so I knew she’d be there. When I called her name, a beautiful woman appeared in her usual jumpsuit getup.
“Heeey! Tagosack!”
“Hm? What’s up, Yuto? Need somethin’?”
“I wanted to ask you something. Have you heard of a mir—”
“Hold it!”
Right as I tried to ask her about miracle herbs, Tagosack abruptly held up her hands and stopped me from saying anything else. Huh? Is she in a hurry or something? And her eyes keep darting around...
“I’ll hear ya out, okay? Just come into my farm.”
Oh, she wasn’t in a hurry, she just wanted to give me her full attention. Nice!
“We can’t have any crazy info gettin’ leaked.”
“Huh? What?”
I didn’t quite catch what she muttered at the end there...
“Oh, nothin’. I’ve just gotten more confident in my herbal tea-making skills. I thought you might like to try it.”
“Really? I’d love to try some!”
The herbal tea Tagosack served me was really good. She must have been trying out a bunch of new blends. The flavor was so tasty that I almost forgot the reason that I had come here.
“So, what’s up?” Tagosack asked.
“Oops, nearly slipped my mind. I actually wanted to ask you about a crop. Have you heard of a miracle herb? This is what it looks like.”
I showed Tagosack a screenshot of the plant and its data as she asked me questions about it. Then, as she peered at the screenshot, she suddenly froze.
“Hold on a second here...”
“It was chiseled out of an amber.”
“Hey! You can’t just drop a bomb on me like that! And now I’ve gone and heard some super valuable info! H-How am I s’posed to pay ya back?! God, am I glad I made ya come into my farm!”
According to Tagosack, a lot of people had cut through the amber, but there was no word of anyone obtaining a miracle herb from a lower quality amber. And, although she knew of someone who had obtained a miracle herb from a high-quality amber, she hadn’t heard of them being able to cultivate it.
“Huh? Really?”
“Yeah. Lots of people are interested in those amber-encased plants. Even the Verification Clan has been experimenting and has successfully extracted them.”
Tagosack explained that the clan had been largely successful in chiseling out plants from six-star Amber (Plant) items. However, the plants that came out all had a low rarity, and none of them seemed particularly useful.
“If anyone had gotten an unknown plant like a miracle herb or purified grass, don’tcha think it’d be a little more of a hot topic?”
“Hmm. So in other words, the chances of getting a rare plant is a miracle?”
“Or, you’re the only one who’s fulfilled some special condition to make that happen.”
A special condition that only I fulfilled? But Sakura was the one who did the chiseling... If the requirement was that a monster had to chisel out the plant, then that gave way too much of an advantage to Tamers. But it couldn’t be her advanced Woodworking skill. I was sure there were plenty of players who had that skill.
“Beats me.”
“That purified grass is a problem too, but the miracle herb? Hoo boy. One of my Farmer friends has tried growing miracle herbs, but with no luck.”
“Hmm. I mean, I haven’t succeeded yet either... But Olto did say he could grow it.”
Considering how confident he looked, I doubted he would fail. Or had a crop appeared that even Olto couldn’t grow?