Chapter 32: Why Not Give It a Try
At night, when Zhen returned, Xu Zhi opened the window, and a streak of white lightning shot through the opening into the room. Flapping its wings to control its body and force, the bird landed lightly on Xu Zhi’s outstretched arm.
Xu Zhi wasn’t wearing any protective gear—this was a sign of trust in her familiars. Gouzi and Yi had proven time and again that her bonded beasts were extraordinarily affectionate and obedient toward her. She figured Zhen would be no different.
Even though the gyrfalcon had restrained its strength, Xu Zhi still felt a slight stinging pain where it perched. But it likely didn’t break the skin and was within her tolerance.
This little bit of pain was nothing compared to the suffering she’d endured in the past.
Besides… this was just so cool!
The girl stared at the obedient falcon perched on her arm, her eyes sparkling with excitement. But before long, her arm started to feel sore. She had to lift it slightly, and as if understanding her fatigue, the bird fluttered off and found another spot to perch.
Meanwhile, Gouzi exuded a powerful aura of discontent. It couldn’t understand why Xu Zhi hadn’t snuggled with it when they first met, yet she was now cozying up with a bird!
Yi was different. It had already quietly coiled into a bracelet around Xu Zhi’s wrist.
The little black snake felt cool to the touch, but Xu Zhi didn’t mind. Every time Yi played dead and turned into jewelry, it wouldn’t move anyway, so it didn’t matter.
Only Gouzi was left pitifully lying at the bedside, wagging its tail and begging for affection. Xu Zhi blinked, then, as if struck by a guilty conscience, reached out to pat its head. The goofy dog instantly perked up, as if revived.
After comforting her three familiars, Xu Zhi felt her own mood improve. She returned to bed, picked up her game console, and checked the day’s harvest.
Aside from the evolution points each familiar had earned, there were the attribute cores.
From around noon to evening, the three familiars had brought back a total of eleven cores.
Six were [Blade], four were [Moth], and one was [Winter].
“Eleven?”
That was unexpectedly high. But it made sense—Yi had gotten a major power-up, Gouzi had leveled up, and there was now a new hunter on the team. If the gains didn’t multiply, that would be odd.
“If I can maintain this yield, maybe I really should give it a try.”
Cores were incredibly versatile. So far, they had three known uses:
- Consuming them directly to increase affinity with supernatural forces and level up.
- Feeding them to the spirit vessel.
- Forging extraordinary items.
Eleven cores a day sounded good, but thinking deeper—it still wasn’t enough.
Because it wasn’t just for herself; she had to feed her familiars too. The game had even warned her—meat from mutant animals wouldn’t be enough to sustain their growth.
Xu Zhi felt a little greedy, but thinking about how hard it must be for people without familiars to find even one core a day, she figured she was actually doing pretty well.
Now she finally understood what it meant when people said “happiness is relative.” In the past, she was always the one on the losing side, with no one to compare herself to.
She didn’t rush to use all the cores. The next morning, after sending her three familiars out, she ate three [Moth] attribute cores, deliberately saving one to offer to the spirit vessel.
After swallowing the cores, she didn’t experience the same vivid hallucinations as before. Instead, moths began fluttering around the room, their grey scales falling like snow. Xu Zhi thought she might choke, but it was all just an illusion.
The moths vanished quickly, replaced by a sense of swelling supernatural power inside her.
“If only affinity progress came with a progress bar.”
Right now, she had no way to tell how much affinity was increasing with each core.
She checked on Zhen’s screen. It was flying rapidly in search of black fruit, though not too high—thanks to the interfering fog, it wasn’t as simple as spotting prey from above like in the normal world.
Even so, after cruising for a while, it had only found one black fruit.
“Seems like these things really are rare.”
Which meant the previous finds had been sheer luck—the narrator hadn’t exaggerated.
Xu Zhi didn’t monitor the game all day. She left the console nearby and started reading a book.
Her days now followed a simple routine: in the morning, she sent Zhen out to search for black fruit, then spent most of her time at home reading. Occasionally, her familiars would bring back some household goods. Anything she didn’t need, she would toss upstairs to Shen Jinwen as a goodwill gesture.
Most of the [Moth] cores she kept for herself. She could feel the supernatural energy in her body growing stronger every day. Her ability to maintain the [Eye of Secrets] kept increasing, though she hadn’t noticed that as her [Moth] affinity grew, her pupils were subtly changing color—becoming increasingly pale.
The change was gradual, and to others, it simply looked like her eye color was naturally light.
She also deliberately saved 2 [Moth] cores, 2 [Blade] cores, 7 leftover [Cup] cores, 3 newly acquired [Cup] cores—making a total of 10—plus 1 [Winter] core and 3 [Heart] cores.
In all, she now had 18 attribute cores in her storage.
She wasn’t hoarding them for no reason. Partly it was for emergencies, but also in case the spirit vessel needed specific attributes.
As for whether to try using the vessel to teleport to the outside world—that was still up in the air.
Her familiars had brought in a lot of cores lately, but they’d also consumed a lot. Between her and them, most were nearly used up.
She wasn’t yet in a position to burn through cores recklessly—unless she found a way to acquire them in large quantities, or discovered a more stable and generous source.
What bothered her the most now was that she wasn’t getting new attributes anymore.
It was always just these five, over and over again—as if fate was messing with her.
Five out of eight total isn’t bad, she reminded herself—the narrator had said there were only eight attributes total, and she already had five. But not knowing all of them still gnawed at her.
“Eighteen… should be enough for one test.”
She decided to use the ones that weren’t useful to her right now: [Heart] and [Cup] as the base, and throw in a [Moth] to round out the three attributes.
“…Feels like a weird combo.”
If she thought about it like Dungeons & Dragons alignment: [Heart] felt like good, [Cup] was undoubtedly evil, and [Moth] was definitely chaotic.
Good and evil clashing, with chaos thrown in…
What kind of result would that produce?
“Actually sounds kinda fun.”
Xu Zhi decided to give it a shot.
Why not use the suggestion box and ask for a progress bar?