"We don't know," Lucius replied reluctantly. At this point, it would just be insulting for him to deny it.
"How do we check?" the shroom asked, walking away from Pagan towards Lucius.
"You aren't part of my commune yet, so I have no reason to even attempt it," Lucius explained, walking to retrieve his knife from the arachnid corpse.
"We should get moving, we're burning sunlight," he said after, as he cleaned his knife on a nearby leaf.
"If you attempt it now, I'll join your commune right here," the shroom insisted.
"What happened to getting the Shri'kilian?" Lucius asked, turning to look at the shroom.
"It's a requirement for gaining the trust of the others. I doubt you'd want to advertise your commune as being free tickets to gaining stronger bodies," the shroom replied.
"Right, but I'm still not going to do it," Lucius said after some thought.
"What? Why?"
"It's the wrong timing. There is nothing keeping you from evolving and running away, and even if you do stay, you share no bond with me or my commune. Helping you evolve wouldn't make sense. However..." Lucius replied carefully.
~But I do wonder whether or not this will work,~ he thought as he stared at the shroom. After some consideration, he decided to check whether it would actually work on non-leafling creatures but decided against going any further.
"Close your eyes," he whispered, before putting a hand on the shroom's head cap.
~Shared Photosynthesis.~
[âš Target lacks certain requirements.]
[Continue Shared Photosynthesis at 50% efficiency?]
~Continue,~ Lucius responded after reading the notifications.
[Absorbing 100 Helios per second.]
After confirming that the shroom could indeed go through photosynthesis, he immediately stopped it.
"I-I felt it," the shroom whispered in disbelief, before staring at Lucius in awe.
"Hmm, so it does work. Interesting..." Lucius whispered.
~Though the 50% penalty is a bother,~ he thought to himself.
"Think about it this way. If you somehow gain my trust, I'll start your evolution process. However, before then, I won't waste a single second on you," he said after some thought.
"Lighted One, won't that just encourage this... thing, to fall victim to its own deceptive nature?" Pagan interjected. "You won't only have to gain his trust, but the trust of the whole commune as well. We won't let you take advantage of the Lighted One's kindness," he continued.
"Right, Ghost?" he added, turning to look at Ghost.
"Y-Yeah," Ghost replied, apparently having paid no attention to what was happening.
"Ahh, thank you?" Lucius whispered awkwardly.
"What if I give you something of equal value? Like a trade," the shroom asked.
"I highly doubt anything you can give me will be worth it, but be my guest. Now let's get moving. Take us to where the herbs are."
After securing the spider corpse and skin on top of a tree, the four of them set off on their journey.
The shroom led them west of the camp, all the while explaining to Lucius how shroom clans worked.
"Usually the elder, and senior hunters would travel to secure the herbs for purification. Those that were not born with the gift of poison would prepare it and only eat after everyone else had finished," the shroom explained.
"And why are you telling the Lighted One of your barbaric customs?" Pagan asked as they walked past a brush of flowers.
"If he wants to rule over my people, he should know our customs," the shroom responded, before immediately halting.
"What's wrong?" Lucius asked, his tail whipping from side to side as if to express his sudden alertness.
"These tracks, an owner of the forest passed by here recently," the shroom said, pointing to the weird curvilinear-triangle footprints on the ground.
~Hmm, these are exactly the same as the ones I saw the other day,~ Lucius thought to himself, remembering the tracks he had seen when he was hunting for stones.
"These owners, are they dangerous?" Pagan asked, his crux already floating above his head.
"Pagan, please put that away," Lucius whispered. Using magic would just make them even more interested than they otherwise would be.
"Let's just move on. It looks like the tracks lead in that direction, so let's not stay around to see if they come back this way," he said after.
Though he was curious to see how these 'owners' looked, he knew that he wasn't at a level where he could protect the others with complete certainty.
The group carried on walking for another hour, at this point the forest had become even denser than before, with different colored rose bushes replacing the shrubs and thorn bushes that had once been prominent.
Even the trees that stood like pillars around them began to change in texture and appearance. The trees were somewhat shorter, but had a more lively brown bark, with bundles of colorful flowers growing on their branches.
The vines in this section of the forest dangled from the highest branches of the trees, all the way down to the ground, forming a sort of curtain on the forest floor. Lucius could feel the ground tugging at him, in a sort of comforting way, as the sound of unknown creatures played a melodious tune that seemed to echo to and fro.
"Why are there so many creatures here?" Lucius asked as he noticed what seemed like a squirrel run up a tree a bit in front of them.
"That's just the way things are. The further away we are to the Dark Forest, the more creatures there are," the shroom explained, before marching on.
As they continued, the ground became even more and more populated with grass, till they couldn't see even a spot of dirt. Eventually, they reached the area that the shroom had spoken about. It was a meadow-like area, with thousands of different colored flowers leading off into the unseen distance.
Lucius could spot multiple creatures frolicking amongst the flowerbed, forming what looked like waves on a rainbow.
"This place is... beautiful," Pagan whispered as the shroom began pointing out which ones they had to collect.
"Let's not take too long. Some hunters come here searching for prey. And though the flowers can mask our scent, it won't stop the flyers from seeing us," the shroom warned.
"So these flowers will help with the purification?" Lucius asked as he began plucking a few flowers off ground.
"The orange and purple ones will help cleanse the meat. The green herbs over there will help strengthen the poison, that's the one we will use for the poison resistance concoction," the shroom explained, before ripping a bundle of green herbs himself.
