Chapter 79: Child of the Sun
A mini plantation was behind the mural, and ten bizarre plants stood there. They were more than two feet tall, and their petals were purple and their leaves green. They radiated life and nature, and Roy noticed a lot of wilted plants on the land beside the plants.
Roy was overwhelmed by the urge to pluck the plants just by looking at them. He approached them and took a whiff, and then he felt refreshed, as if his whole body just went through a baptism session. Now I want them even more.
Alternate names: devil’s tail, feainnewedd, dwarf’s affine.
Legends say a great elven archer once pierced the sun with his arrow, and the land absorbed the crimson liquid that rained from the sky. When the sun’s blood came into contact with a dent on a rock, a magical plant came into existence. This is an extremely rare herb that possesses incredible effects.
Age: Fifty two years old
Habitat: Mahakams, Tir Tochair, Dragon Mountains, mine caves, or abandoned mines.
“Child of the Sun.” Roy mumbled its name in confusion. He might have read a lot of the Witcher world’s lore, but he wasn’t omniscient. The plant he was seeing right before his eyes was something he’d never encountered before. Observe didn’t provide him enough details, so he didn’t know anything about the positives and the negatives of the plant.
However, he had a guess that the plant might not have been native to the world he was in. The clue was in the blood that rained from the sun in the last mural. He postulated that the plant came from another world when the elves tore into their world with their ship.
“Have you seen this plant before?” Letho was surprised that Roy knew what the plant was called. “My notes don’t have this in it.”
Roy kept quiet, and Letho stopped asking. He knew Roy had a lot of secrets of his own, and then he hunkered down and brushed his hand against the leaf of the nearest plant. The leaf chirped in surprise and retracted itself, sticking against the stem, causing it to bend backward, as if scalded by Letho’s touch.
Roy said, “Whether by appearance, reaction to stimuli, or place of growth, they are exactly as told in the legends. Maybe this is Child of the Sun.”
“Be careful.” Letho pulled Roy’s hand away from the plant. “Don’t ruin this. It’s priceless.” Roy looked puzzled, so Letho hobbled around the plant and explained, “My mentor, Ivar Evil-Eye, told me that there are a few magical plants in this world that are sought after by royalty, sorcerers, and witchers, but most of them have only appeared in historical records or legends. Almost nobody has ever seen them in the flesh, and Child of the Sun is one of those plants.”
Letho turned around to observe the bizarre plant. “Child of the Sun is the main ingredient in Divine Beauty and Omnipotent Antidote, two of the top potions in the alchemy world, but the recipe is lost.” Letho’s interest was piqued. “No poison can go up against the Omnipotent Antidote — not even our school’s. It can also neutralize ancient curses. If someone had taken this to Temeria eight years ago, they could’ve probably lifted the curse on Princess Adda and married her before that Wolf School witcher.”
“Child of the Sun can even break a striga’s curse?” Roy finally understood the plant’s power.
“Anyone who has a Divine Beauty can regain their youth.” Letho looked astonished. “And they can retain it until the day they die. And Divine Beauty can extend their lifespan too.”
“So I take this is valuable?”
“Valuable? It’s priceless.” Letho was reminded of yet another bad memory. “An overwhelming majority of women are obsessed with youth. They’d kill if it meant they could regain it.”
Roy was disappointed though, since both of those products were useless to him, and the recipes had been lost in time. He held one of the plants in his right hand and squeezed it. The plant squirmed around in his palm, chirping in displeasure, not unlike a young lady who was being harassed.
Letho was disgruntled at how Roy was hurting the priceless plant. “What are you doing, boy?”
“Testing it out.” Roy licked his lips. “The pill and antidote are useless to me anyway, since I’m going to be a witcher soon, but we have ten Childs of the Sun here.” His eyes were gleaming with desire. “I don’t think having one is too much to ask, and I’ll bet you have the same desire, no?”
Roy was going for the change he would experience after ingesting five ounces of the plant. It’s a good change. The elf on the mural shot the sun and grew the plants with its essence, so Roy thought the plants must’ve had a strong, unknown power. His body was urging him to swallow it. Every cell was screaming out its desire for the plant, as if eating it was a feral instinct, not unlike how a lost traveler would act when coming across an oasis in the desert.
Roy wasn’t doing it recklessly either. If anything bad were to happen, he would level up at will and heal using Full Recovery. Thanks to that, Roy had the courage to ingest it without worry.
“You’re desiring it, boy? Are you sure you aren’t hallucinating?” Letho was perplexed, since he didn’t feel any desire to consume the plant. “I have to warn you that our school doesn’t know much about Child of the Sun, so nobody knows if you’ll get hurt if you eat it. You might die, or worse, get cursed. You’d better think this through. I suggest you clear out your pocket to keep these babies so we can take them with us,” Letho said.
“Trust me, Letho. This isn’t going to be a problem,” Roy promised. “And even if something goes wrong, I can deal with it.” Roy had made his decision, and he uprooted a whole Child of the Sun. The plant stopped chirping the moment it was taken out, and it lolled to the side, as if it had fainted.
When he looked at the remaining plants, they screeched and covered the petals with their leaves, as if trying not to look at the villain who was about to kill them. “I feel guilty for some reason.” Roy didn’t act according to that guilt, for he wiped the dirt from the feainnewedd he’d plucked, and popped it into his mouth.
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