THE next moment Luo Yan opened his eyes, he was already back at the bedroom of his small cottage.  He stared blankly at the wooden ceiling.  Then realization came.  He really died.  He died at a beginner level hidden event task!  He suddenly became silly for a moment.  He covered his face in shame and rolled around the wooden bed.  

He’d been so proud of his experience as an old player and yet some plant just easily killed him.  If everyone knew of his situation of being reborn and playing this game, then he would surely be the laughingstock of everyone.  A player who once topped the PK rankings was killed by a plant without him even knowing it.  If that’s not laughable, then he didn’t know what else was.  

When Luo Yan finally calmed down from his shame,  he sat up and reviewed all the things that just happened.  

When he touched one of those glowing silver things, a gray smoke came out of it and enveloped him.  Which in turn made him unable to move.  No, it’s not that he was unable to move.  It’s more accurate to say that his time was suspended.  When he woke up after a long coma, the feeling of being unable to move had been engraved in him.  It was not the same feeling he got after that gray smoke enveloped his body.  

With that, he could tell that those silver lights had the ability to suspend the time of the things or objects they came in contact with.  No, since those silver lights came from the silver lotus, it’s more right to say that it was the silver lotus which had that ability.  

Going by that conjecture and considering the state of the Silent Marsh, it’s probably safe to say that the reason behind its ‘quietness’ was the Silver Lotus.  He knew it couldn’t just be because of the presence of the dragon.  If it was, then he should have been able to at least hear his footsteps.  But he couldn’t.  A big enough proof that the Silent Marsh, or at least some parts of it, was in a suspended state.  

Filli probably also fell victim to those silver lights coming out of the silver lotus.  He either fell on the lake or was dragged by the roots of the silver lotus.   Seeing as Luo Yan died just a few moments later after those roots entangled him, it probably had the ability to absorb the vitality of any living things.  

Then how about Filli?  If Luo Yan died that fast, then Filli should also be dead.  He was missing for a month, which meant that he had been entangled by those roots for that long.  How could he be alive?  

Luo Yan shook his head.  No, if he’s really dead then there’s no point for this hidden event task to exist.  He could only assume that Filli was still alive.  The only explanation he could give why he died so fast while Filli didn’t was because he’s a player and Filli was an NPC.    

So how should he go and save Filli from that silver lotus?

An idea immediately appeared in his head.  Now that he knew what he’s facing, the chace of his success just increased.  This time he’d make sure that he wouldn’t be careless.

But first, he should probably ask the Elder if he knew anything about that silver lotus.

Thinking of the Elder, he remembered all that talk about the dragon sleeping at the Silent Marsh.  Now that he thought about it, the reason why he didn’t think of that lotus as something dangerous was because of the conversation he had with the Elder.  He thought that the only enemy he would face would be the dragon and subconciously didn’t take the other things in the marsh seriously.  Which resulted to him unexpectedly dying.

If he went with this logic, then wouldn’t this mean that the Elder just pitted him?  He talked about that dragon so enthusiastically, Luo Yan really expected that it had something to do with the hidden event task.  Unknowingly, the Elder just became a big pig teammate.

But even if the Elder was a pig teammate, he was still the biggest source of information here.  So Luo Yan stood up and walked out of his small cottage.  

He went straight to the Elder’s yurt.  

“Noctis, have you decided the date of your coming-of-age ceremony?” the Elder asked as usual when he saw him. 

“No, Elder, I’m here to ask you about a certain plant,” he answered.

“What plant?”

“A silver lotus that gives off small silver lights and somehow has the ability to suspend time.  Elder, do you know what it’s called?”

The Elder’s expression immediately turned serious.  And Luo Yan was again reminded of that talk they had about the Silent Marsh.  The Elder had the same expression then.  Seriously, if this guy was not an NPC, he would definitely complain of how big of a pig teammate he was.

“What you just described, I think I read about it in one of the records left by one of the former Elders.  It’s called the Eternal Lotus, and just like you said, it has the ability to suspend time.”

Eternal Lotus?  “Does it have the ability to suspend the time of a small area?” he asked thinking of the state of the Silent Marsh.

“As long as the area touched the silver lights it produced, then it’s possible.”

If the Eternal Lotus had been in that lake the same time period that the dragon appeared, then it had been there for quite a very long time.  Long enough that it could suspend the time of the whole if not most of the Silent Marsh.  “If it’s destroyed, will the area it affected return to normal?”

“Immediately.”

Luo Yan’s thought of destroying the lotus vanished.  If its effect on the Silent Marsh vanished, it might really wake up the dragon.  “If someone tries to cut some of its roots, will it wither and die?”

“No.  The Eternal Lotus would only die if its core was removed.”

Okay.  So that meant he could freely cut the roots that were entangling Filli without the worry that he would accidentaly destroy the lotus.  “Elder, is there any other important information you know about the Eternal Lotus?”

“Its core is a high level material that could be refined and be integrated into a weapon or an accesory.”

That’s really an important piece of information.  But sadly, Luo Yan couldn’t just take that core from the lotus.  At least not right now.  Maybe he would, once his level was high enough to defeat that dragon.

“Thank you, Elder.”

Luo Yan bid farewell to the Elder and walked out of the yurt.  He started walking towards the gate of the village.  He planned to go back to the Silent Marsh.  

And this time, he would definitely bring Filli back.