Sheila's thin eyebrows furrowed at the woman's unrepenting look. Was she smiling? After being reprimanded?
"Look here, Althea, I know I am overreaching but—"
"I learned new skills." Althea said, cutting off her imminent soliloquy.
The other two stared at her. "I can now look at an object and, if they are not too high a level, I can know their names and their known uses."
Sheila could still remember how Althea could mix antidotes from plants she had obviously just encountered.
With this skill, she didn't have to touch and smell those plants just to check them.
This was what relieved her the most.
"I reckon learning and doing things well here will let us permanently learn new skills."
Sheila couldn't help but cross her arms. "Should I eat that?" She pointed at the hallucinogenic flower, and made a rare joke, implying getting poisoned would gain her skills.
Althea rolled her eyes. "You can try."
Anyway, Althea was very, very, excited to use her abilities. Sadly, she could only use the appraisal skill not too many times due to the mana consumption.
She wondered if it recovered as quickly as the Spirit. Thinking of this, she checked how many times she could use a skill.
Spirit: 400/500 (-5%)
Physical Potential: B
Mental potential: SS+
Active: Elementary Appraisal (D)
Elemental Affinity: Wood, Water, Earth
Gestating: two life forms, weakened state ]
Looking at her now-useful Mana stat, she couldn't help but feel it was really lacking.
This meant that she could only use it 30 times at a time.
Next, she would need to figure out the speed of recovery, but it probably wouldn't be as fast as she would like, considering her usual pace of study.
She went to a different area from yesterday and used the skill, determined to use it at least five times.
Squatting down, she looked at a seed-like plant that had succulent leaves that reminded her of aloe vera.
It was similarly chubby and glossy, only the shape and color was a bit different.
She wanted to slice it to check if it also had that gel inside, but she didn't dare touch anything anymore, even if she had gloves.
She immediately spent 10 Mana to use her new skill.
There was nothing special, no special effects or anything. A text simply appeared above the plant.
There was not even a ding! sound. Although, in the long run, if people had more skills, continuous dings in their head would've been distracting.
Returning to the item at hand, Althea proceeded on reading the texts, which was written in Terran lingua franca.
[Guigorgon (Lv2): Main ingredient for hemostatic potions, partial ingredient for insect repellent.]
She quickly tested it with Tori and confirmed that it had bioactive compounds like tannins.
As for its other known function, judging by the results from Tori, it didn't seem to have insect repellent quality on its own, so it was probably used as a binder or something.
And finally, as something with bioactive compounds, this should also be very good with food.
As for the taste…, she couldn't tell yet. She took note to experiment on this.
Speaking of which, she decided to study more about cooking so she can have a more intuitive understanding of the everyday use of these plants.
More importantly, she had vowed to make food for her husband when they reunite. Oh, and also for her brother.
She turned to her next plant: a tall coniferous tree with fruit similar to pine, only it was round and colorful.
[Waul Tree (Lv3): Fruits used as toys by children.]
It was a bit boring, but she believed every plant was good. First, she tested the fruit with Tori.
It was hard and could indeed be used as ball toys by children. She scraped a bit of its shell and saw the chemical composition, with some unfamiliar combinations appearing. As such, she took out her tablet and made a short search in her knowledge database.
This fruit, although very different in appearance, apparently had a 60% likeness to pine cones.
From what she knew, pine could be used as oil, albeit only essential oils. Other uses of pine cone had to do with byproducts of advanced processing that couldn't be done with her current conditions.
However her search let her find something important: Pine cones could make resin acids.
Resin acids = Rosins! Probably!
After checking that this Waul fruit could indeed make rosins, albeit with a higher concentration requirement, she almost jumped up in joy.
Rosins could be used for soap! It also had other uses, obviously, but she didn't care for those at the moment, just taking note that this can be used to obtain rosin.
Only the universe knew how sticky she was feeling right now. Not to mention the damned pregnancy fluids making everything worse!
Next, she put her attention to the wood. She used a knife to take a bit of skin and viscous liquid seeped through. She made sure to wear gloves this time, took a sniff, and studied its consistency.
"This tree sap is very familiar." She mumbled as she placed a sample in her lab. It took a few seconds more than usual, and her beautiful emerald eyes stayed on the results.
Specifically, a polymer that could make rubber. This thing had elastomeric polymers, a high concentration of it.
She took out a bottle with little water left and drank all its remaining content. She wounded the tree and used one of its hard leaves to funnel the sap to the bottle.
Her eyes shone as she watched the viscous fluid enter the bottle, drop by drop.
All her cells were excited at the discoveries. How long had it been and she already got a rubber-like substance in this strange new world?