Zach had set a long-term goal for the Underworld Research and Extermination Club. But naturally, they couldn''t immediately aim for the depths of the forest. Not to mention the time it would take, which they wouldn''t get since they were busy with other lessons, there was also the increased level of danger in the forest.


    Zach hadn''t noticed it, thanks to the monsters avoiding his party. But the others had felt a heavy pressure from the monsters that hadn''t sumbed and died to or fled the underworld energy. The monsters that remained, that embraced the underworld energy were more powerful than their healthy counterparts.


    It came at the cost of intelligence and lifespan. In a sense, the current monsters inhabiting the Froltip Forest were simr to the tiger when it had decided to tap into the underworld energy in its leg. They were ferocious, powerful, and bloodthirsty.


    The club members and the entirety of the second-year ss had to be careful when dealing with this unknown threat and the strange kind-of-new inhabitants of the forest.


    So for now, Zach decided they would continue scouting the forest and make note of the changespared to before the underworld energy took over. He also asked all the club members to take a look at all the nts that had outlived the absence of underworld energy to some degree.


    Unfortunately, the only one in the club with any experience in the greener fields of life was Rierdan. But he wasn''t very knowledgeable in the details of every type of nt, especially not the types of nts in the Froltip Forest. It was also even more difficult to discern and assess the nts now that they had been contaminated by the underworld energy.


    He knew the moremon, harmless, edible nts. He knew how to track monsters and animals in the forest. He did not know what it meant when different nts could withstand the underworld to varying degrees.


    Still, if they remembered what the nts looked like, they could look for more samples in the forest andpare. Throughparison, they could find patterns. The patterns would determine the underworld energy''s nature, and the club members could start figuring out what weakened or, correspondingly, strengthened it.


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    It would be a menial and possibly bothersome task, but the second-years had an entire year to do something about the Underworld''s contamination of the forest. They weren''t in a rush.


    Liam was just in the club. He followed the club president''s lead. asionally, he would mention how great it was to be part of the Student Council. But he wasn''t in a rush.


    Just like that, the second year at the Academy for Summoners for Zach and his ssmates began.


    The lessons regarding the Underworld''s contamination of the forest were mostly practical and sometimes led by the Underworld Research and Extermination Club. Usually, though, the lessons were self-study, which meant the students were investigating the forest on their own.


    Zach and the other club members found it ridiculous that their ssmates still didn''t want to join the club when the club was already ahead in terms of knowledge and understanding of the forest''s current ecology.


    Some of the ssmates actually considered joining the club until they heard rumors that Zach was nning on making the entire club go into the deepest parts of the forest for his own sick and twisted entertainment.


    Although it wasn''t for those reasons, he was aiming for the depths of the forest with the club, so it was hard for the others to deny the rumors, which only meant they they grew in credibility.


    So, rather than take a chance for the sake of slightly better grades, their ssmates took it easy. They had an entire year left. They also weren''t in a rush.


    Also, if Zach and the others were working so hard, they would do most of the work already. As long as they contributed, they would get decent enough grades and pass the year.


    Instead of joining the club, they would rather join others or spend their free time leveling up and aiming for their second familiar.


    Zach couldn''t me them.


    He hadn''t had a choice. The principal assigned him the club president slot and didn''t let him leave the club.


    A couple of weeks passed as the club did their research. They went into the forest and looked for and gathered nts, mostly, to study. They had yet to discover anything concrete, but they had noticed some nts that were more stubborn and didn''t absorb as much underworld energy as the rest of the forest.


    They tested it by bringing the nts back and isting them, then looking at and measuring the underworld energy that leaked out. They recorded the results andpared them with other records until they found some kind of pattern.


    Eventually, they started approaching something determinate. They didn''t know exactly why, but a certain type of weed that even grew around the school was very resilient.


    It was a simple, wide, green, de of grass that could grow to just beyond the length of a hand.


    Bushwacker''s Companion. It was a weed that could be found anywhere, and it was technically edible. It was also almost useful for checking if a collection of still water was drinkable or not since it had properties that made it react with certain toxins. But it wasn''t perfect, and it reacted to toxins that could affect itself and other nts, not necessarily humans.


    Zach and the others scoured the library for all the information they could find on the Bushwacker''s Companion. They were a little surprised at what they discovered since none of them had known about such amon weed.


    But it was a step in the right direction, so they were happy.


    The Bushwacker''s Companion identified underworld energy as a toxin. That was why it resisted it as much as it could. But the underworld energy was too potent, too much, and too overwhelming for an ordinary weed to go against it more than that.


    However, Zach and the others just had to find a way to concentrate its properties or find other nts or things with the same properties.


    Just to make sure, the club ran several tests and confirmed that the Bushwacker''s Companion didn''t resist the underworld energy. It got rid of it. They couldn''t be sure.


    But the Bushwacker''s Companion absorbed as much of the underworld energy as the rest of the nts in the forest, rtive to size, of course. But it was less affected, and it released less when removed from the forest.


    If they flooded the forest with the weed, they might be able to fight back against the Underworld!