"Shit!"
Tang Lin cursed as he squeezed the dry, fibrous stalks of a withered Spirit-Gathering Fern until the pale leaves crumbled into brittle emerald dust between his calloused palms.
He sat cross-legged behind a jagged shelf of slate in the desolate foothills, his teeth gritted in bitter frustration.
The meager cluster of second-rate weeds he had scoured from the rocky crevices was a pathetic consolation prize compared to the sea of primordial, extinct flora filling the sprawling terraces below.
It was barely enough to even cause a reaction to the World Tree branch.
Inside the quiet expanse of his sea of consciousness, the desiccated, shriveled twig remained largely dormant and just let out a disappointed quiver, absorbing the meager trickle of herbal essence with a sluggish, unhurried pulse that felt like a starving beggar receiving a single grain of rice.
Its hunger was not satiated it merely simmered with unsatisfied irritation.
