I can see experience bars after being transported to another world.

On the outskirts of the town, you can see several medicinal herb gardens surrounded by low wooden fences. They are clearly visible in the sunlight, with rows of green shrubs standing neatly in rows. Some leaves have turned over in the wind, revealing the silvery-gray luster on their undersides.

The treeline is just beyond that.

The afternoon light couldn't penetrate the dense forest, drawing a clear boundary between the open space on the edge of the town and the ancient woods.

The town is where the sunlight reaches; the forest is where it doesn't.

The Night Watch's small base is at the north end of town.

A two-story stone and wood house stood with a bronze plaque hanging at the entrance, bearing the mark of the Night's Watch. The lights were on.

When the carriage stopped at the base gate, the gate was already open.

A man in his sixties walked out, his left leg was lame, and his body leaned to the right when he walked.

The wrinkles on his face were deep and hard, etched one by one. His hair was gray and cut very short. He didn't use a cane, and the way he walked indicated that his leg had been lame for many years.

Old Harold.

He stood at the doorway, looked Lu Yuan up and down, his gaze lingering on the Night's Watch badge for a moment before moving to his face and back to the badge.

"You're Lu Yuan?"

"Um."

"Younger than I expected."

Harold's way of judging people is very direct and blunt.

He didn't exchange many pleasantries, turned and walked inside. "Bring your things in first."

Boer and Lu Yuan carried the wooden crates one by one into the base's storage room. The crates were heavy, containing concentrated medicine, with glass bottles filled with sawdust; a slight clinking sound could be heard between the bottles as they were being moved.

Harold watched as they moved the goods, counted them, confirmed the quantity and the seals, and nodded.

"You've come at the right time. If this batch of herbs had been delayed by two days, the silverleaf grass patch upstream might have been ruined."

"Have you eaten?" Harold asked.

"I ate some dry rations on the way," Bol said.

Harold snorted and went downstairs. A while later, he brought up two bowls of soup and a few pieces of bread.

The soup was made with an unknown type of mushroom, and it was very generous with the ingredients, with a few drops of oil clinging to the rim of the bowl.

The flatbread was cold but still soft to the touch, with a slightly rough, grainy texture on the surface, made from locally ground wheat.

Lu Yuan took a sip of the soup. The mushrooms tasted very fresh, the soup base was thick, and occasionally you could chew on a small piece of mushroom flesh; the flavor was extremely delicious.

Meanwhile, Bohr, who was standing next to him, had already finished his bowl and was breaking off pieces of bread to stuff into his mouth. He was clearly very satisfied with the hot meal.

After finishing his meal, Bor wiped his mouth and pulled out a folded piece of paper from his bag.

"Let's hand over the medicine first. Is the mayor in?"

Harold collected the bowls. "Yes. They shouldn't have left yet at this hour."

The three of them left the base and walked along the stone path by the stream toward the town center. The afternoon sun shone on the stone roofs, giving them a warm gray glow.

On the way, they encountered two townspeople carrying bamboo baskets. Harold nodded to them, glanced at Lu Yuan and Boer, and didn't ask any further questions.

The mayor's house is next to the stone tablet, and the door is open.

A man in his fifties sat on a chair by the door, a short pipe in his hand. When he saw Harold approaching with two men, he stood up. He was not tall, but had broad shoulders, a dark face tanned from years of sun exposure, and short, thick fingers, clearly someone who had worked many years.

"You're here?" He nodded to Harold, his gaze lingering on Bor and Lu Yuan for a moment.

"It's for the branch to deliver the medicine," Harold explained simply.

Bor stepped forward and handed over the paper. "Delivery list, check it against your records."

The town mayor took it, unfolded it, looked at it, silently counted a few numbers, and checked the number of boxes and the types of goods again.

"It matches up." He folded the list neatly. "How do we calculate the cost of the medicine?"

"The Imperial Shield," Bor said. "As is customary, it's paid in the form of medicine."

The mayor nodded; it was clear this wasn't the first time he'd gone through this process.

Bohr did not rush to stop talking.

He then pulled out a second sheet of paper from his bag, which was thicker than the first one.

"There's something else," Bo said, handing over the paper. "This is the branch's separate procurement list. Recently, the consumption of medicinal herbs has been high, and the branch is preparing to increase its purchases. The varieties and quantities are listed here."

The town mayor took the document, glanced at it, and his brow twitched slightly. "Quite a lot."

"So I'd like to take a look at your inventory first." Bor smiled. "Could you take us to the warehouse?"

"Let's go." The mayor tucked his pipe into his waistband, got up, and led the way across the stream.

The warehouse is located at the southern end of the town, on the side closest to the medicinal herb garden.

A low stone house with thick doors, cool and dry inside.

Rows of neatly bundled dried medicinal herbs were stacked on the shelves, labeled with their names and dates.

Silverleaf grass, bitter root vine, and dew-petaled petals were neatly stacked on the wooden partition.

There were also some rare medicinal herbs that I had never seen before, which were obviously picked in the forest. The whole room was filled with a rich aroma of flowers and herbs.

Bor looked at the list item by item, occasionally picking up a bundle of herbs to weigh it, opening it, and smelling it. The mayor accompanied him, answering his questions.

Lu Yuan followed behind without interrupting. His gaze swept over the shelves, and he roughly understood the situation. The inventory here wasn't particularly abundant. Considering the current purchasing volume of headquarters, this was at most a small-scale operation. No wonder only Boer and he had come together.

However, the quality of the medicinal herbs here is indeed much better than that of the medicinal herb shops in the city.

Boer was halfway through reading when he suddenly turned around and smiled at Lu Yuan.

"I'll oversee this purchase." He patted the list. "The rest is your responsibility."

Lu Yuan nodded without saying anything more.

When I came out of the warehouse, the sun was already beginning to set.

The light in the town gradually changed from golden to warm orange, and the reflection on the stream became much softer.

Bohr and the mayor walked ahead, still discussing the details of the procurement. Lu Yuan and Harold lagged behind a few steps.

When they returned to the base entrance, the town mayor stopped and glanced at Lu Yuan.

"Harold mentioned it to me." His voice wasn't loud, but it was direct. "About those two children."

Lu Yuan didn't respond, waiting for him to finish speaking.

"They usually work in the herb garden; you'll see them when you go tomorrow morning." The mayor took a puff of his pipe and exhaled a wisp of smoke. "I didn't make that decision for them, nor did I tell them about joining the Night Watch. Your trip is ostensibly to deliver medicine and make purchases; you decide how to arrange it."

After he finished speaking, he nodded to Harold, turned around, and left.

Lu Yuan watched his figure disappear over the stone bridge and understood. It seemed that quite a few people knew about this recruitment mission.

That makes sense, as long as the person involved doesn't know.

Harold led the two upstairs. The empty room wasn't big, but it was very clean.

The bed was covered with a cotton mattress, which, although somewhat old, had no unpleasant odor. The window faced the direction of the town, and one could see the oil lamps lit by the row of wooden houses along the stream, with patches of darkness between them.

The distant treeline was dark, separated from the warm light coming through the window by only a patch of medicinal herbs.

Occasionally, a breeze would blow by, carrying a faint scent of flowers and herbs from the direction of the herb garden.

The sound of the stream was soft, complementing the tranquility of the entire town.

The bed was firmer than the others, but it felt reassuring. There was no electric light outside the window, only the warm yellow glow of one or two oil lamps in the distance.

Lu Yuan closed his eyes and quickly fell asleep.

the next morning,

[Sanity: +12...106/120]

After a simple breakfast, Lu Yuan and Boer followed Harold to the herb field.

The medicinal herb fields are located upstream of a stream on the outskirts of the town. It takes less than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea to walk there. Several neat herb gardens are surrounded by low wooden fences, and the stream flows down from above, providing irrigation.

When we arrived, the medicinal herb field was already bustling with activity.

People from more than a dozen towns were busy in the fields, including men, women, and children.

Some were carrying buckets, others were turning the soil, and several women were squatting at the edge of the field pulling weeds with swift movements, tossing handfuls of grass behind them. A seven or eight-year-old child was running around following the adults, and after being scolded and quiet for a moment, he started running again soon after.

As Harold led the two into the herb field, the workers looked up a few times. Harold gestured with his chin towards the closest few. "From the branch office, delivering herbs."

In short, that's enough.

The group nodded and went back to their work. The townspeople were no strangers to the Night Watchmen. Harold had been there for over twenty years, and it was not uncommon for people from the base to occasionally travel between the town and the herb fields.

Lu Yuan surveyed the medicinal herb fields.

The most commonly planted plant is silverleaf grass. I saw the dried product in the warehouse yesterday, and today I saw the live one. The difference is even more obvious. The leaves are thick and plump, and the silvery-gray luster on the back looks very bright in the morning light.

Climbing along the fence are bitter vines. The vines are dark brown with small, dense leaves. The valuable part is the root, which, when cut open, has a deep yellow cross-section and an extremely bitter taste; it is the core ingredient in antidotes.

Margaret mentioned this when she prepared the medicine last time: the raw material for bitter root vine is becoming increasingly difficult to buy.

In the innermost part of the herb garden, near the stream, there are also a few Dew-heart Flowers planted, with white flowers the size of a fingernail blooming at the top of their slender stems.

Harold said the flowering period is very short, and it can only be harvested twice a year. The petals are used as a material for sedative medicines.

The pests are mainly concentrated on several patches of silverleaf grass.

The leaves are covered with bite marks the size of a fingernail, the edges are yellowed and curled, and some have been eaten away, leaving only bare stems.

The gray woodworm is about the length of a thumb, with a flat, grayish-green body covered with a layer of fine hairs. At first glance, it looks no different from a piece of moldy, withered twig.

Sometimes you'll find three or four of them crawling under a leaf, densely packed together. These things don't bite, but they gnaw on herbs extremely fast. Two or three of them can bite seven or eight holes in a perfectly good silverleaf grass leaf overnight.

They crawl out from the humus layer at the edge of the forest and head into the medicinal herb garden every year at this time.

Judging from the number, there were quite a few. Lu Yuan walked around the silver leaf grass patch and estimated that there were at least a hundred scattered under the leaves, and some hidden on the surface of the soil.

Harold arranged for people to mix and apply the medicine, with a dozen people divided into several groups, each responsible for a plot of medicinal garden.

When the gray borer comes into contact with the pesticide, it will roll up its body, fall off the leaves, and curl up into a small gray-green ball in the soil.

The townspeople swept the dead insects into a pile and burned them. Harold, standing nearby, warned them that if they weren't burned properly, they would cause trouble if they got into the ground.

Lu Yuan and Bo'er stood to the side, occasionally lending a hand by moving a bucket. There was nothing they needed to do.

He stood by the herb garden for a while, his gaze slowly settling on two figures in the crowd.