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[Is this going to work?] A concerned Luna asked, [I don’t recall reading anything about this…]

On the outside, it looked like a young girl having fun playing in the dirt but in reality, the situation was quite a bit different.

[It’s not about knowing whether it’s going to work or not, it’s about finding out if it will work. Then even if it succeeds or not, we need to examine what changes. Also, a result where nothing changed is still an important discovery.] (Eva)

There were six small mounds of dirt moulded into six small bowls.

“Okay done,” Lilly quietly muttered as she slapped the final bowl into shape after spending ten minutes ensuring the mounds of dirt were stable.

With the first set of preparations completed, Lilly moved on to the second. She pulled two small sacks out from under her brown jumper.

Each contained a small number of zeki. Zeki was normally a long green vegetable that grew underground. They were one of the many foods they were growing here.

She placed four deformed zeki into four bowls and placed two normal ones in the last two.

Syrus had mentioned before that they looked similar to the cucumber from her past life’s homeland. Eva replied they could be related or it could just be a coincidence.

[Time to begin!] Lilly hummed excitedly. It had been a long time since she did something like this. Some negative memories did surface in her mind, but because she didn’t have to do anything mana-related she was able to focus on the positive.

Lilly took a small branch and began smashing half of the vegetables. After a solid two minutes of smashing, there were piles of goop for the remains.

[Syrus can you burn the two on the far right?] (Lilly)

[Got it.] (Syrus)

Syrus blew some fire on the two ripe zeki.

As the smoke began to rise, Luna asked, [...Did we need to burn two ripe vegetables?]

None of the parents would’ve cared about Anna burning some of the rotten vegetables, but they would have something to say about using the good food.

[It's just a measuring point to see how they are supposed to burn.] Lilly began to fiddle with her fingers, [...I shouldn’t have taken them… but that would mean an improper procedure…. Yeah, taking two was definitely too much…. Ah.. I’m an idiot…. I only needed one… No, I could’ve just half of one… such a waste… arrgh…]

As Lilly was about to spiral.

[Eva, what do you want me to do next?] Syrus asked after the vegetables stopped burning. The normal whole and goop zeki burned as expected.

[...Nothing at the immediate moment, Luna can you use a sickness and poison healing spell on the two middle zeki?]

[I can…] Luna replied, quickly turning their head around to ensure no one was around.

They were doing this experiment near the forest during the morning of the day as that was when most of the parents weren’t around.

[Moonlite Recovery.] (Luna)

Luna learned many healing applications of Moonlight. Well, there were originally mostly light spells, but they shared enough similarities that it was possible to copy-paste the spells.

Healing wounds and injuries wasn’t hard, but disease and sickness were substantially harder. Not just on the effort required to use light in such a manner but the result also tended to be not as expected. Sometimes something was only cured for a month before it reared its head again a month later. Only someone with a proper healing attribute could fix those issues with ease.

[I wouldn’t expect much, compared to my peers I never could heal as many people.] (Luna)

[Sure.] Syrus giggled, she and Luna worked together for their training and so knew how effective Luna’s healing was.

After ten seconds Luna finishes, [Done].

There was no visible difference between the two sets of rotten vegetables that were healed by Luna and the ones that weren’t.

[No difference, that’s fine. Syrus, burn them all.] (Eva)

[Understood.] (Syrus)

The fire blew onto the vegetables and goop and they began to burn. A nauseous black thick smoke rose into the air.

“Cough”

Anna coughed but didn’t blow the smoke away. Lilly was in control of the body and she didn’t want to move back.

The smell of the fumes was awful to the extent Luna wanted to get away, Syrus was dealing with it, but it was unpleasant that Lilly was sniffing the smoke and making the smell stronger.

Lilly spoke, [The batches that were ‘healed’ by moonlight smell quite a bit different. Less strong in the spicy pain smell and the rest are even weaker than that. Sickness or poison… I’m leaning towards the latter because of the smell difference.]

Lilly paused for a long moment, scratched her head and debated something.

[I.. have an idea. Either of you stop me if this is stupid, but if we eat some of the bad vegetables could we heal ourselves? And use that to determine what the issues were?]

Syrus was shocked, [Now that is very dumb, but I can keep the body energised even if we become unwell.]

[I mean, possible? Just expected to be sick either way.] Luna had made herself sick before when she learnt her healing, so she knew her way around the process and the danger it brought.]

Before they could discuss potentially poisoning themselves in the future. They heard some footsteps headed towards them.

Syrus spoke, [Guys, Mum is heading our way.]

Jen called out, “Anna, what’s happening here?”

Lilly half turned around, “Nothing?”

“Really?” Jen leaned over to see six bowls of ashes, the burned dirt and vague remains of vegetable juice on the edge of some of the bowls.

“Yeah, nothing bad is happening here, I just want to see how the bad fruits would burn.”

Jen asked, “You didn’t burn any good fruits?”

Syrus answered instead, “Of course not.”

“Okay good.” Jen nodded and kept standing in her spot behind Anna.

“So… what are you doing?” Anna had now completely turned around to face their mum.

“Looking for you.”

Luna asked, “Why?”

Jen proudly smiled, “Secret.”

Anna calmly stated, “We are going to tell Dad.” Syrus stood up and ran to find their dad.

Jen reached out, “Wait, don't!”

With that, their first experiment ending successfully, no one got in trouble.... Besides Jen, who got an earful and a hug.