Chapter 563: Bushes in the Sky |
As the dried out earth with partial patches of grass started to turn into full on greenery Joshua knew that they were finally reaching another area within the prairie. It had been a couple of hours since they had fought the dozen of coyotes and for the most part they had just been riding along with Momo as they avoided any other groups of beast. The coyotes couldn't keep up with them while the snakes just completely ignored them. They were lucky to not have run into groups of bobcats along the way since they could definitely cause some trouble. They weren't as fast as Momo, but they could chase them from the sky if it came down to it and it would be hard to lose them.
As the grass started to come back to life and grow in height once more Joshua also noticed the fact that hills were once again becoming a major part of the terrain. Signaling Lily to have Momo slow down Joshua decided they would have to proceed through the upcoming area more stealthily. It might slow down their progress, but they had no idea what types of creatures could be in this portion of the prairie. Once Momo slowed down they moved up to the top of the hill so they could get a look at what was ahead of them. The hill had a decent vantage point so they were going to be able to see a lot of what was going to come next once they reached it.
Momo moved up the hill at what was almost a crawl. Her footsteps were so light that Joshua couldn't even hear them, if it weren't for the subtle crunching of grass coming from below he wouldn't have even thought Momo was moving. When they reached the top of the hill the sight before them was completely different from the other areas of the prairie they had seen so far. The first thing Joshua noticed about the land that currently stretched out before him was the extremely tall grass in some areas that was tall enough for Momo to hide in if she crouched down. If Joshua or anyone else walked into it then they would disappear on the spot.
The odd thing about the area that stood out above anything else were these weird plants that seemed to be spread out everywhere you looked. The plants stretched high up into the air at all sorts of different heights. The shortest ones were so high up that Momo would have to stand up on her back feet to reach them if she wanted to and judging by the amount of large fruit that seemed to be all over the trees and the way Momo was waving her tail once she noticed them it was clear that they were a popular food source amongst the primarily herbivores of the prairie. These bushes had a weird design where there roots came up out of the ground several stories into the air before a bush would form. That's why instead of one trunk with several branches there were basically several trunks that went up into each bush.
At first Joshua was wondering why such a plant would exist in the prairie. Most of the beast that Joshua had seen up to this point had been fine with eating grass or were carnivores. This was the first time that Joshua had seen a unique new fruit while exploring and he wouldn't be surprised if the Hunter's Guild would love this type of place. They were always looking for something exotic and there were several exotic beast along with new types of food sources in the area. Although the bushes were still a distance away Joshua was able to see how big the fruit on the bush trees were and they were bigger than watermelons. It made sense considering they were designed in mind for large beast to eat them and spread their seeds all over the plains.
"I can't believe there are fruit trees that have fruits bigger than watermelon around. The strength of the branches inside of those bushes must be extraordinary." Henry said with a look of surprise.
"Well if all of the animals are getting this big it shouldn't be all that surprising that the plants are responding in kind." Vince said with a shrug. "Besides it just makes it easier for little guys like us to live off the land if we have to."
"Mom would definitely love to see something like this." Amy said as she poked Joshua in the shoulder. "I'm sure her and grace would love to have plants like these in the garden they've got set up." Joshua kept that thought in mind realizing that it might be possible to mass produce these fruits in the dungeon at a fast pace with its growth rate improvement. Soon enough the place could look as diverse and expansive as this prairie. Although all of the bushes looked somewhat similar in shape there were some with different colors, others that stretched far higher into the sky, and others that had different shape fruit in them. The place made Joshua think of some sort of fairy tale wonderland where the same types of trees could have dozens of different fruits on them.
"Joshua, can you sense anything with your aura in the area ahead?" Henry asked getting everyone to be a bit more serious. Joshua closed his eyes and pushed his aura sense to the max as he let it out over the nearby area. If that wasn't going to be able to reach anything then Joshua planned to use an aura pulse to widen the range even more. When his aura sense reached the trees he instantly noticed something that he wasn't expecting. The fruit was plumped filled with a mixture of aura and mana. All plants had a bit of aura mana in them, but these had it to the point where Joshua could sense it from such a distance and it was completely distinct from the rest of the bush.
"It's likely that the fruits are replenishment sources for the beast in the prairie." Isabella responded while having a more focused look when looking towards the bushes. "If they are edible as a food source for humans then they could be incredibly beneficial. There are a lot of meats from powerful beast that not only taste amazing but are known to help when it comes to development."
"If that's the case then we've wondered in to a jackpot here." Adrian said with a big grin. "Are you sure there aren't any beast around that could be dangerous to us?" Joshua quickly sent out an aura pulse to see further than his aura sense and he eventually found a couple of groups of different beast that were currently eating from some of the bushes. He could tell that one of the groups were the massive bison like beast that they had seen at the watering hole before, but the other group of beast were ones even larger in scale that Joshua hadn't seen before. It was hard to tell exactly what they were from a distance, but Joshua got a vaguely familiar feeling from them like he knew what they were. Even so he couldn't pinpoint what exactly they were, but it was on the tip of his tongue.
"There are some beast in the area, but the ones I've been able to spot out with my aura sense are herbivores and won't be aggressive as long as we don't approach them." Joshua said before frowning. "The issue is one of the groups is of bison that we've all seen before back at the watering hole, but the other is something that seems familiar but I can't quite put my finger on it."
"Well when you use your aura pulse you only get a vague outline of others, so the further away they are the harder it is for you to distinguish them." Henry said keeping that in mind for the future. "How about we go and check out these fruits since all of the threats are far enough away that we don't have to worry about them."
Everyone agreed with Henry so Lily had Momo carry them over to the closest group of the odd bush trees that had gathered everyone's attention. Getting up close to one of the bush trees made Joshua realize that even the shorter ones were around the same height as Titus in his full-size, although the big gorilla had probably grown after leveling up so much. Joshua went ahead and hopped off of Momo landing next to one of the giant trees. He pulled out his scale blade before leaping high into the air to grab hold of one the branches inside of the large bush.
Joshua climbed over to one of the large fruit and realized it was bigger than he expected. The thing was about as big as one of those giant beach balls let alone a watermelon. When Joshua cut one free he held it in one hand and could feel just how heavy it was. After getting the fruit he dropped down to the ground where most of the people in the group were after getting off of Momo. Joshua placed the fruit down before pulling out his short sword and coating it with a thin amount of aura to cut it open. He infused aura into his eyes so he could see just how much aura might poor out from it when cut open. He was surprised by the resulting wave of aura and mana that was only visible to him along with the sweet smell that caused his stomach to grumble in response.
"Well looks like we've got our lunch for the day. Why don't we cut down a few more from some of the other trees so we can compare them with each other?" Amy said happily getting Adrian, Victor, and Ivan to all go off and collect some more fruit. After a while they had an assortment of all types of fruit to choose from and it was good enough reason to take a brief break..
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