While Xiao Mu brought back his prey, Monica also caught a few palm-sized stream fish from the stream.

Mark had also skinned, deboned, and gutted the razorback lizard, throwing all its entrails into the stream to feed the fish.

He marinated the blade-backed lizard with the seasoning and chives purchased from Osborne Town, and then took the six water slimes handed to him by Xiao Mu.

For Mark, who had dealt with dozens of fire slimes, dealing with just six water slimes was a piece of cake.

Collect the processed slime first.

Then wash the water slime skin briefly in the stream water, cut it into transparent strips the size of your little finger, and soak them in clear stream water first.

By the time the water slime skin was ready, Monica had already set up the bonfire and asked the hardworking Xiao Mu to light it.

Mark found a few pine branches from the shore, sharpened them, pierced the marinated lizards and small fish, brushed them with oil and started grilling.

A small pot of boiling water was hung above the campfire, with ginger, tomatoes, mushrooms, and a few bird eggs picked up on the road added to the water.

A pot of sweet tomato and egg soup is ready. When the soup boils again, take the pot off the fire, sprinkle in a pinch of fine salt, and wait for it to cool down.

Stir-fried and stewed dishes are good, but after all, they are here to carry out a mission today, so it is better to keep lunch simple.

Plus, they had never eaten a razorback lizard before, so Mark didn't know if its meat needed any special processing.

So using barbecue is good for two reasons: firstly, you can use the smoke from barbecue to cover up the odor of the ingredients; secondly, you can save time preparing lunch.

While preparing lunch on the campfire, only Xiao Mu was arranged to watch over it to prevent the meat from burning.

The three of them took advantage of this opportunity to search upwards along the rock walls on both sides of the stream.

Although the moonflowers only bloom at night when the moon is shining, they can find the plants that have not yet bloomed and mark their locations in advance.

Then clear away any poison ivy near the plant in advance.

The poison vines growing on the rock walls of the creek are symbiotic plants of the Moon Shadow Flower, which is also a magical plant that is active at night.

Once someone or an animal collects the Moon Shadow Flower, the poisonous vines around it will immediately curl up and strangle any nearby creatures, turning them into nutrients for their growth.

During the day when the sun is strong, the activity of these two magical plants is extremely low.

Taking advantage of this period of time to clear away the poison ivy can greatly avoid casualties among the adventure team.

Mark learned all this knowledge from Beta.

Almost all the veteran adventurers in Osborne Town know what's happening in Moonlight Valley.

The Adventurer's Guild often releases this quest many times during the summer.

Therefore, in previous years, whenever summer came, many experienced adventurers would take on the task of collecting moon shadow flowers in Moonlight Valley in order to safely earn a mission bounty.

However, perhaps because more and more adventurers know how to collect the flowers, every summer only the first group of people who enter the Moonlight Valley can complete the task of collecting Moon Shadow Flowers quickly.

It becomes increasingly difficult for subsequent people to collect Moon Shadow Flowers.

At least at the time when Mark's team arrived at Moonlight Valley, they had no chance of picking even a single moon shadow flower growing in a conspicuous place.

The rock walls on both sides of the valley were steaming with blue-gray mist in the midday sun, and the backs of the overlapping leaves of the poison ivy often hid emerald green thorns.

When you lift up the vines to look for moonflowers, you must be extra careful not to get pricked by the poisonous thorns.

Although Mark and his team had prepared antidotes specifically for the mission, excessive use of low-level antidotes would lead to drug resistance. It was best to complete the mission without getting hurt.

Mark used a cross to push aside a vine curtain and saw a two-inch-long plant with slender petioles in a crevice. The side of the plant showed that an adventurer had marked the location with fluorescent powder.

This is a moonflower, but now all that remains is an empty stem that has been re-wrapped by poison ivy, with pale white latex remaining at the cut.

It looks like this moon shadow flower was just picked last night.

On the other side, Anna's fingertips brushed across the thick layers of vines and leaves, using the elf's natural magic to sense the fluctuations of other plants covered by the vines.

When she lifted the layer of moss that disguised the crevices of the vines, she saw only the silver-spotted calyx of the moonflower underneath with unnatural jagged cracks, which showed that it had not been picked by adventurers.

The main vein of the flower stem must have been gnawed by some kind of rodent monster.

After all, as a special magical spice, it is not only humans who collect it, many magical beasts also like the taste of moon shadow flowers very much.

As for Monica, who has the ability to identify, she has it much easier than Mark and Anna.

Every time she arrived at an area, she only needed to activate the identification technique and take a quick look.

The vine-covered rock wall in front of them would only show the location of the corresponding vine main root, instead of seeing the [Poison Ivy] status bar like Mark and Anna.

As a companion plant of the moonflower, the main root of poison ivy often grows near the moonflower.

Moreover, there is often more than one moonflower growing around a poison ivy.

Monica only needed to follow the main root of the poison ivy and she would soon find the location of the moonflower. Although most of the moonflowers had been picked, her efficiency was much higher than that of Mark and Anna who had to search inch by inch.

In this way, the three of them followed the stream for a mile, and only Monica found two unopened moon shadow flower buds in the gap between two rock crevices.

The three of them worked together to cut off all the poisonous vines within a five-meter radius around the two moon shadow flowers. At this point, their first mission was one-fifth completed.

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