Secret Medicine of the Forest Guide for Echoes of Aincrad

Secret Medicine of the Forest is the seventh main quest in Echoes of Aincrad. After finishing Beaten to the Punch, you’ll learn that the Farmer’s Wife needs a special medicine for her daughter. Once you’re set for the job, head to the Main Terminal to accept the quest, then make your way out into the world. Use the walkthrough below to familiarize yourself with the new plant-like foes you’ll meet and to get ready for the Flowering Nepenthes boss fight.

Quest overview and where to go first

Your objective in Secret Medicine of the Forest is to obtain the Little Nepenthes Ovule for the Farmer’s Wife. Along the route, expect several fresh plant-themed enemies, plus a new wasp type you may not have seen before.

Travel route after leaving Horunka: take the road heading west after crossing the wooden bridge.
This path brings you to a stone bridge that connects into the Doltir Road area.

Continue along the route and you’ll reach a Safe Area inside the forest. Even though it’s listed as the Doltir Road Safe Area, the trip skips over one region on the way there, so don’t worry if it doesn’t feel like a straight line.

After resting in Doltir Road, keep going northwest toward the quest marker. When you cross another wooden bridge and enter the West Forest region, you’ll start encountering the new enemies mentioned earlier.

Walkthrough: enemies you’ll meet on the way to the boss

In West Forest, you’ll see early encounters with plant-like threats, including:

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Magestone

Not long after you’ve fought plenty of Little Nepenthes, you’ll likely run into a Wobbling Wasp. It isn’t as common as the Nepenthes-style enemies, but it’s a tougher wasp. Visually, it can resemble other wasps; however, its body is yellow-green with black spots around it.

As you move into the next area, you may find yourself fighting the Seeding Nepenthes variant. This one has a large brown fungus or mushroom protruding from its head. Like the standard Little Nepenthes, it also has a low health pool, meaning it should be easier to clear than bulkier foes.

Iron Chunk

Even though the Seeding Nepenthes is a low-health target, you won’t stay in “easy mode” for long. Before long, you may run into an elite plant: the Withering Nepenthes. This enemy is bigger and darker than the others, and flowers grow out of its back.

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Iron Chunk
Silver Ingot
Steel Knife
Big Bopper

Flowering Nepenthes boss: what to expect and how to win

Now that you’ve faced three new Echoes of Aincrad enemies, you should be more comfortable for what comes next. Keep moving through the forest until you reach the sealed yellow wall. As with other sealed-wall encounters, this triggers a boss fight—but you’ll need to bait it out by defeating a group of Little Nepenthes first.

Once enough plant creatures are cleared, the Flowering Nepenthes arrives. This encounter doesn’t rely on a cutscene, so the fight begins as soon as it shows up. Compared to the earlier enemies, it’s noticeably larger, and there’s a big flower growing out of its head. Its darker body also makes it feel similar in style to the Withering Nepenthes.

Tips for the Flowering Nepenthes fight:

The boss can inflict the Sleeping ailment using its pink breath. Try to avoid getting hit, but if you do take a blow, focus on stopping the Sleep meter from filling up. Thankfully, its other moves do not apply this ailment.
It has a long-range attack that knocks you back on impact. Like the Withering Nepenthes, it also sort of laughs before executing this move.
It can fire something that looks like pollen into the air, which then falls down onto the battlefield. Watch for the small yellow circles that indicate where it will land. You can take damage from the drops, but they don’t apply ailments.
As many Echoes of Aincrad bosses do, it can roar to summon additional adds.
If your partner can hold its attention, you can attack more safely from the sides and/or the back.

Rewards, cutscene events, and what to do next

After you defeat the Flowering Nepenthes, it will drop loot along with the item you came for. Run over to collect the Little Nepenthes Ovule and the rest of the items it may drop:

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Iron Ingot
Silver Ingot
Lustrous Carapace
Valkyrie’s Sabre
Iron Hatchet

Once you pick up the Little Nepenthes Ovule, the Secret Medicine of the Forest quest is finished. A short cutscene follows back in Horunka as you deliver the medicine to the Farmer’s Wife. Then Iori hands you the Annealed Blade, along with plans to upgrade it over the next couple of quests.

Before that cutscene wraps up, a new character introduces themselves to your group. They appear first as a Blue-haired Swordsman, and they quickly say their name is Diavel. Diavel is searching for other skilled players with the goal of beating Sword Art Online. This prompts everyone to add each other as friends, with the hope of meeting again later in Tolbana.

When the cutscene ends, go through your normal quest preparation—upgrading weapons, restocking your pouch, and handling anything else you might need. After that, return to the main terminal to begin the next quest, Cave Diving.