She widened her eyes. "What do you mean, looking for you?" The conversation between those men flashed in her mind again. There was no indication that they were looking for him! Instead, it seemed they had been here for some time judging from their familiarity with the forest, like the tiger’s trace. "No one of them talked about you," She muttered. Of course, she hadn’t told him she had been hanging out with a tiger when she saw them. She just happened to catch them before she went back to the cave. That was what she had told him. He had a thoughtful look on his face. "Then... they might use me as an excuse to come here. Especially after the earthquake happened." He added after a while, his eyebrows knitted together. "It was only me who had come here when I submitted the report..." he trailed off. Since he mentioned the report, then, it should be people from the Research Institute. "Is it okay for you to accuse your fellow researchers ?" She tilted her head. Derek sent her a wry smile, and he let out a sigh. "You don’t know that people at the Research Institute are more complex." He was referring to the power there. It wasn’t like ordinary human bases, where the powerful easily gain an advantage. They relied more on knowledge and research to be influential people. So, the head of a certain research topic might not necessarily be powerful or wasn’t necessarily an ability user. It all depended on one’s brain. On top of that, some of them held extreme beliefs. "If they are committing atrocities under my name, I will surely teach them a lesson." Derek’s eyes looked like they were about to spit fire. His forehead was marred with a deep frown. Zerra actually still didn’t know what kind of influence or title Derek had in the Research Institute. She had thought that he might be one of the senior researchers because of his knowledge and obsession with plants. If people were using his name, most likely he had quite some influence there. "I am the Deputy Chief of Botanical Research," Derek said after he saw Zerra’s scrutinizing face. She was a little taken aback. He had such a title at such a young age. Well, it made a lot of sense considering how he would go to such great lengths just to get his hands on mutated plants. However, she still didn’t understand his motive for doing so. A ridiculous yet feasible idea popped into her mind. Could it be that this man was trying to control the mutated plants? "It’s more believable now, right?" Derek lifted his eyebrows, a little smug. Her mouth twitched, and she rolled her eyes. His reputation was at stake. What was he being smug about? "So, you do realize some people are conducting immoral experiments?" She pursed her lips. "Of course, they exist. We just don’t know who they are. But honestly, we are still inclined to keep our reputation as a clean organization." He told her. "The Director will punish them." "Those who are looking for you seem to have a high level of power." She began. "They might be ability users... not an ounce of scholarly aura within them." Derek’s temples twitched when he heard it. "The Research Institute also recruited ability users, not just the human base that does such a thing." She nodded in understanding. "You are not trying to dig about the Research Institute through me, are you?" Derek suddenly narrowed his eyes. "Where is the trust between us humans, Derek?" She shook her head and snorted. "Don’t overthink it. I am just trying to understand something." She took the cloth from her space and threw it to him. "Here, the mutated plants that I have successfully secured for you. Go heal your poison." Derek grabbed the cloth, nearly pierced by the needle-like leaf hairs on the surface of the leaves again. "Why did you bring so many?" He was stunned when he saw various leaves of mutated plants on cloth. Originally, there was one type of plant she had put in the cloth, exactly the one which had poisoned him, but changed her mind at the last second. She remembered she shouldn’t reveal her ability in front of him. If she recognized a poisonous mutated plant in one try, wouldn’t it be suspicious? So she had taken random leaves from the plants in her inner space and mixed them together. Now, all the waste from the plants she had grown finally came in handy. "You picked so many," he commented as he sorted out the mutated plant leaves. She shrugged. "I don’t know which one you will need." Derek stared at the leaves he had sorted, staring at them one by one while inspecting their properties. He sniffed some leaves. "You even brought the ones with medical properties." Eh? She was really surprised. "What do you mean by the ones with medical properties?" He held up some leaves she had taken from her inner space, the ones she regarded as waste. "These have medical properties. You don’t have a wood ability, so it’s normal that you don’t know." "You are so lucky. The few leaves you grabbed randomly turned out to be so useful," he muttered. After that, he asked for a medicine bowl. She was amazed when she saw him grinding the leaves with the medicine bowl, intending to make a medicinal paste. Gradually, she fell into silence. Derek could detect medicinal properties in plants, but she couldn’t. The disparity between wood ability users was so high, eh? She actually didn’t know her current wood ability level. Judging from the number of her tails, she suspected she was still at level two. However, the amount of vitality she could unleash sometimes made her doubt her current level. It was similar to Isryn. The difference was in terms of control. "You don’t just take random leaves and grind them together, right?" She asked curiously. "Why are you so suspicious? Where is the trust between us humans?" He used back the words she had said to him previously. She rolled her eyes. "Then, let’s see if you are really going to recover with that. I hope I won’t get charged with murder if those people find us later!" Among the people who were looking for him, she guessed some of them might be searching for him for real and not because of an ulterior motive. After all, he had such status at the Research Institute. Moreover, he was a young man with a lot of potential. And she just happened to meet the bad ones! Derek didn’t forget to take some leaves from his own bag, grinding them along with the ones she had brought out. When she witnessed Derek’s ability, Zerra almost couldn’t help asking him to teach her! She held herself back in time. He effectively inserted the power of vitality into the medicinal paste he was making. After he was done, he put the medicine on his arm, where there were many dark spots. It should be where he had gotten the poison, from the needle-like leaf hairs of the purple plant. Official source is Nove1Fire.net The power of his wood ability was really monstrous, even higher than Isryn’s. Zerra could see the moss around the inside of the cave growing faintly. Even the vines covering the entrance of the cave. He was like an anomaly. She snapped back to her senses, inwardly shaking her head. He looked like some studious guy who was obsessed with mutated plants with one glance. Especially when he was wearing his glasses. Unexpectedly, he could act so arrogant. She turned her head away, not answering him. Indeed, she was a little impressed and envious of his ability. But she believed she should be able to reach such level someday. "Are there any cases of missing people at the people residence you are talking about before?" He changed the subject upon seeing her so silent. His face grew serious. "Missing people?" She tapped her chin. "An elderly from that place noticed some people missing, without turning into zombies nor any corpses found. Do you think...?" She trailed off. Derek’s face darkened. "Once I recover, we will go find those people." She was silent before cautiously reminding him, "Recover first..." Let’s see whether the so-called herbs were really herbs instead of poisonous plants. Her plants were fine. She had found no poisonous ones so far, but the ones he had brought... She couldn’t help but worry. The next morning, Zerra heaved a sigh of relief when she saw Derek still alive and kicking. "From your expression, I can guess what you are thinking." Derek’s mouth twitched. "I have recovered now. I am still alive." She visibly heaved a sigh of relief. After they had breakfast, they went out. "The dark spots are really gone." Zerra was a little amazed. With the poison gone from Derek’s body, his regeneration ability was quite astonishing. His wounds healed in one night. "They should have healed faster. The poison delayed it..." he muttered as they went out of the cave. He was too busy telling Zerra enthusiastically about the medicinal properties of the plants she had brought when they suddenly heard a tiger’s roar. A tiger jumped out of the bushes. "When you combine–" Derek was petrified in an instant, his words stuck in his throat.