After being locked up, Rowan surprisingly became calmer. He even talked to Owen after meals, making an effort to learn the local language every day.
He could now understand some everyday phrases, and communicating with Owen was gradually becoming smoother.
Owen was very satisfied with the current intelligent and obedient Omegina; living like this wasn't bad at all, as long as Rowan was willing to listen.
Although locked up, Rowan wasn't dispirited. While Owen was out hunting, he intensified his training, strictly adhering to the army's training requirements.
The training intensity gradually increased; Rowan consumed more energy every day and ate more too.
His body was no longer as frail as before and started to gain muscle.
Owen was very happy about this. Initially, he was worried Rowan would cause a huge fuss or go on a hunger strike to threaten him into releasing him.
Was this a sign that Rowan had finally accepted reality and learned to live with him?
So, one day after a meal, when Rowan suggested going out to find leaves to eat, he happily agreed.
He still didn't understand why he wanted to go graze when there was delicious meat available. Clearly, Beastmen were carnivores; only his mother ate some cotton fruits in addition to meat.
Rowan hadn't studied diet; in the Empire, he drank nutrient solutions to maintain bodily functions, only eating normal food at troublesome banquets.
Here, he knew he couldn't keep eating meat like this forever. It might be a bit awkward to say, but the Marshal, whom everyone saw as otherworldly...
Was about to get constipated!
Rowan hadn't expected the dietary habits here to be so bad; eating meat every meal made him nauseous just looking at it.
Nutrient solution was truly a great invention.
He didn't understand healthy eating but knew well the benefits of eating vegetables that the Empire preached every day, causing the prices of hard-to-grow vegetables to skyrocket.
Previously, Rowan had tried asking Owen to bring back some edible green leaves, but now he didn't even want to recall it.
This time, probing the suggestion to go out with Owen, he wasn't very sure, unexpectedly getting approval so easily.
It seemed Owen's limits still needed further exploration.
Owen also didn't want Rowan to go out and take risks, but the leaves he brought back upon request several times didn't suit his taste.
Thinking of Rowan's face changing colors like a palette after trying several types of wild grass before, he was also helpless. Letting Rowan find it himself, he would surely find what he wanted to eat.
Owen only wanted to give him a better life; for Beastmen, eating their fill occupied a very important position.
After all, every day of hard work was for food to survive.
He absolutely couldn't let his Omegina go hungry. He liked the satisfied feeling of feeding Rowan; that was also the most relaxing moment of his day.
Today after eating, it was already sunset; they could only wait until tomorrow to go out and see.
Rowan didn't know how long he had been locked up, also looking forward to tomorrow.
...
As soon as dawn broke, a few rays of sunlight slipped through the cracks in the rocks to wake Rowan. He prepared a beast-skin bag, hoping to pick up some edible wild vegetables to bring back.
Unfortunately, Rowan really suffered from drinking nutrient solution every day; it was beyond not distinguishing grains anymore. He couldn't recognize poisonous and non-poisonous plants.
Because they had to find edible leaves, Owen deliberately flew out of the Lost Forest's range to a wilderness forest dense with trees.
At first, seeing Rowan choosing attentively, he thought he really could distinguish edible wild vegetables.
Who knew he would watch him throw Gelsemium elegans, a plant every Beastman knew from childhood, into the bag. Owen immediately felt something was wrong.
He took Rowan's bag to check; a pile of inedible poisonous grass, with several Gelsemium elegans thrown in by him alone.
Owen looked at him, wanted to speak but stopped, then quickly dumped everything out, silently kicking them twice to send them flying far away.
Rowan hurriedly stopped him: "What are you crazy about? It was hard for me to pick some things that looked pleasing to the eye."
"All poisonous, cannot be eaten." Owen shook his head decisively. Did the Omegina intend to use these things to poison him? No wonder he demanded to go out to find wild vegetables.
Rowan rarely showed embarrassment; this task should ultimately be left to the locals. Although Owen wasn't proficient in plants, at least he could distinguish whether they were poisonous or not.
Owen was also a bit troubled about this. He only knew which plants were not poisonous; as for whether they were edible or tasty, he really wasn't sure.
Rowan tried to recall the vegetable dishes he had eaten before, trying to visualize the original appearance from their cooked forms.
Rowan had never cared about eating, just living was enough. But here there was no nutrient solution, absolutely couldn't deal with it perfunctorily.
He walked slowly behind Owen, watching him pick some unknown plants. The plants here were very strange, mutant forms Rowan had never seen.
Some leaves were very large and heart-shaped, but the stems were very small, looking like they were about to collapse. Some had almost no leaves, but the flowers bloomed brilliantly in colorful clusters. generally, they were all unusually tall, perhaps related to the soil and water sources here.
In the Empire, if these plants were brought out, the Institute of Agricultural Science would probably go crazy. Here, if Rowan didn't have a need, no one would pay attention.
Soon, Owen had filled the beast-skin bag. Rowan thought there probably weren't many edible things; they didn't look like food at all.
This trip was probably in vain!
Preparing to return, Rowan suddenly remembered a wild vegetable dish he had eaten at the Prime Minister's youngest daughter's birthday party.
That day Rowan didn't want to socialize; it was General Orion who dragged him along life and death.
After all, it was an invitation sent personally by the Prime Minister; Orion knew the Marshal wasn't good at social interactions, so he had to intervene to smooth things over, giving the Prime Minister some face.
It was just the Prime Minister's ploy to use his youngest daughter to rope him in, using the birthday party as a pretext for a disguised blind date. Rowan didn't have a deep impression of that daughter; on the contrary, he had a good impression of a vegetable dish at the party.
Rarely encountering a dish that suited his taste, crisp and delicious, the shape was also a bit special. A branch with young shoots curled inward in a spiral shape, still retaining its shape after being cooked.
The waiter next to him introduced:
"This is the most ancient fern vegetable, the earliest edible vegetable discovered and passed down by the Empire. However, because the native soil is barren, it can only be painstakingly cultivated by the Institute of Agricultural Science; just this small plate costs a lot of effort."
Rowan immediately picked up a branch, drawing on the ground while recalling.
Owen looked curiously at Rowan's movements, seeing a familiar plant; it turned out he wanted to eat Dragon Claw Vegetable.
Then it was easy; Owen knew that deep in the forest, there were cliffs where many of these Dragon Claw Vegetables grew.
Hearing him say there was that kind of vegetable, Rowan hurriedly told Owen to go pick it. It seemed this place still had some similarities with the Empire; perhaps he could go out and explore more.
The prerequisite was to escape from Owen, but here, apart from him, he had never met anyone else.
Even wild beasts he rarely encountered, let alone people. Thinking of this, Rowan's eyes darkened for a moment.