Chapter 58: Hungry Hungry, Food Food
By the time she returned to her body, it was already close to midnight. Xu Zhi could only rest for now and wait until the next morning to sort things out.
The next day, early in the morning, she sent Zhen out to search for the black fruit. Meanwhile, she kept Gouzi, Yi, and the brainless idiot of a mutant creature who refused to leave her pocket.
Her warehouse now contained close to 3,000 cores, with the majority being of the [Blade] attribute. Xu Zhi, being generous, asked the game console, “What happens if I feed all of them to my familiars at once?”
[They currently can’t digest that many cores at once.]
Fair enough.
“Then we’ll take it slow.”
“Oh right, I submitted a suggestion. Any updates?”
[Received. From now on, while using spirit body, you may retrieve items from the warehouse by paying a certain amount of cores.]
“Heh, I knew it.”
Xu Zhi wasn’t surprised at all by this result.
“So how many can they eat now?”
[Uncertain. Why don’t you try feeding them and see?]
Xu Zhi: ?
“If I only feed them cores to level up, won’t that make them weaker than if they hunted on their own?”
After all, they’d be like greenhouse flowers.
[No. Familiars are born hunters.]
That’s reassuring.
Xu Zhi confidently piled cores in front of Yi and Gouzi. “Pace yourselves. Eat as much as you can, but don’t overeat.”
Yi calmly flicked its tongue, while Gouzi enthusiastically licked her hand.
Gouzi was level 18, and Yi was 22. Yi obviously had higher demands, especially for high-grade cores. As for Gouzi, it was on the verge of advancing to level 20—but after that, it would become another gold-devouring beast.
At this moment, the dried wood mutant in her pocket, not to be left out, popped out what could barely be called a “head” and began furiously broadcasting a message to Xu Zhi:
“What about me, what about me, what about me?”
“Mama, food, hungry.”
Ever since it reached level 10, it had gotten a tiny bit smarter.
Xu Zhi twitched at the corner of her eye and asked dangerously, “What did you just call me?!”
She was still a minor, for crying out loud!
The dried wood mutant remained blissfully unaware of the danger and kept chanting: “Mama, food, hungry!”
Xu Zhi laughed angrily, yanked it out of her pocket, and threw it on the ground. Then she ordered Yi, “Pin it down. Crush it. Shut it up!”
Yi’s tail flicked once, completely burying the poor little mutant, leaving only faint psychic signals in Xu Zhi’s mind:
“Mama, food, hungry, pain…”
It was so pitiful that Xu Zhi actually started to feel a little guilty. What had it really done wrong? It was just a dumb piece of wood that knew nothing!
“Fine, let it out.”
Yi obediently moved its tail. Freed from its bindings, the mutant scuttled up to Xu Zhi with its twig-like claws: “Mama, hungry!”
Xu Zhi: “Don’t call me Mama!”
That was way too weird!
“You can call me ‘Sister.’”
“Sister” sounded much more normal.
Mutant: “Mama!”
Xu Zhi: “Sister!”
The two went back and forth for a while, and in the end, Xu Zhi gave in. She realized she was trying to reason with a single-celled organism. It was hopeless!
“Whatever, do what you want.”
Exhausted, the girl gave up.
Still, she secretly hoped that maybe once it leveled up more and gained some actual intelligence, it would finally understand and change how it addressed her.
She optimistically pulled out a [Lamp]-attribute high-grade core. “Here, be good. Eat this.”
When it came to eating, the little mutant was particularly enthusiastic. It didn’t care at all that the core’s attribute didn’t match its own—it eagerly absorbed the [Lamp] core.
Afterward, Xu Zhi noticed the mutant wobbling unsteadily like a drunk, sometimes broadcasting thoughts like “dizzy” and “pain.”
“Is this going to be a problem?”
[Just basic attribute conflict. Nothing serious. It shouldn’t die.]
The narrator sounded completely nonchalant, but Xu Zhi was starting to lose her cool.
“Nothing serious? Shouldn’t die?”
[Mutants are incredibly resilient. Even if they’re barely alive, with enough time and energy, they’ll recover. Plus, to suppress agitation, you have to use [Lamp] for rationality. But those two attributes are highly incompatible, so a little suffering is inevitable.]
Then it added suddenly:
[You feel bad for it?]
Xu Zhi found the tone oddly sarcastic—but maybe she was overthinking it. She responded, “Of course I feel bad! I only have a few familiars right now—if I lost one, I’d be heartbroken! I’d die from grief!”
[Liar.]
“None of your business!”
She looked at the mutant still writhing in pain. “Are we just gonna let it suffer like this?”
[When its agitation level increases later, feed it more [Lamp] attribute cores to suppress it. As for the pain caused by the conflict—get used to it. If it pulls through, it’ll benefit in the long run.]
Xu Zhi pouted. “You’re so cold.”
After a moment, she added, “Though you used to be even colder. More robotic. Now you’re… different.”
When did this change begin?
Maybe it was when she awakened Eye of Secrets]—no, it was earlier, when she first became an ability-user. The narrator had gradually stopped sounding so mechanical. Lately, she could even feel it developing a kind of “personality.”
Was that the reason?
Or was she just overthinking it?
She buried the thought deep inside and gave a small test—but the narrator didn’t respond at all.
Meanwhile, Yi and Gouzi had already eaten their fill and entered a sleep state to digest the energy. The mutant was still writhing in pain from the [Lamp] core’s effects. Zhen was out hunting. Xu Zhi turned her attention to the game screen to monitor Zhen’s progress.
She really needed those black fruits. Not only for trading, but also for herself. Whether used for her familiars or for personal consumption, they provided huge benefits.
Perhaps the heavens heard her desperate plea—today, Zhen finally found a black fruit again after a long dry spell. Only one, but it was still a rare treasure.
When Zhen returned, Xu Zhi didn’t rush to use the fruit. Instead, she pulled out a pile of [Winter]-attribute high-grade cores and placed them in front of Zhen.
Under her favoritism, Zhen’s level was now close to Yi’s, and these high-level cores were all meant for it.
But as familiars grew—especially after reaching level 20—each level required more time. Seeing that the next upgrade would take three hours, Xu Zhi picked up the mutant from the floor and planned to go find Shen Jinwen for blade training.
To her surprise, as soon as she picked it up, the usually squirmy mutant suddenly stopped moving.
Xu Zhi: ?
“You’re not in pain anymore?”
The mutant’s dumb little brain failed to produce any coherent thought, but Xu Zhi got the sense that its head was bubbling with something.
Mutant’s thought: Love numbs pain (referring to motherly love—even if it doesn’t exist)
…This kid might really turn out to be a mama’s boy.
