With a grunt, a piece was missing from the Rock Ice Ruo Fire's petal.
Li Zheng chewed fiercely, his mouth full of juices.
"Although it's a flower, the taste is like fresh meat, soft and sticky, really hard to swallow."
Li Zheng chewed a mouthful of Rock Ice Ruo Fire for a long time before he swallowed it.
"Huh?"
As Rock Ice Ruo Fire traveled down the esophagus to the stomach, Li Zheng suddenly let out a surprised sound.
"Why does this thing have no satiety at all after eating?"
"Did I eat too little?"
Let's try another bite.
Grunt.
Another large piece of the petal was bitten off, Li Zheng hardly chewed this time and swallowed directly.
"It seems like as soon as it enters the stomach, this thing gets digested as if..."
Li Zheng looked at the head-sized red flower, momentarily speechless.
Earlier, to keep his stomach empty, he went without drinking water for four hours of Healing time, afraid he couldn't finish such a huge Rock Ice Ruo Fire in one sitting.
Now it turns out, the Rock Ice Ruo Fire digests rapidly, making him feel really short-changed.
"Originally, I wanted to save a meal, but now that's gone..."
Thinking this, Li Zheng didn't stop, chewing big bites and swallowing.
Something he thought would take at least half an hour to finish, he forced down cleanly in fifteen minutes.
Even the stem connecting to the flower was eaten completely.
"Burp~"
Clearly without any feeling of fullness, Li Zheng still symbolically burped.
Smacking his lips to taste, Li Zheng felt like he could eat some Luoshen Flower to pad his stomach.
Just when he was about to take out food from the capsule house, a pillar of flame mixed with ice-blue cold air erupted from below, wrapping around him instantly.
"Woah!"
The sudden flame startled Li Zheng, but once he calmed down, he felt no heat, instead just a warm sensation throughout his body.
[Genetic Ability Developing...]
[Progress 0.1%]
[0.2%]
System prompts appeared before Li Zheng's eyes, and he finally understood the flame pillar was produced because he ate Rock Ice Ruo Fire,
"..."
"Feels quite nice..."
Li Zheng squinted in enjoyment, nearly falling asleep.
"Ting, ting ting!"
Little Sakura watched with wide eyes as Li Zheng was swept by the flame pillar, the ground charred quickly due to the high temperature.
Above the charred ground, an ice-blue flash emerged, instantly covering it with a layer of ice.
Both hot and cold.
This peculiar contradictory phenomenon can only occur in The Matrix Survival Game.
The high temperature mixed with severe cold wouldn't harm Li Zheng, but Little Sakura couldn't bear this kind of torment, flapping its small wings as it flew to the corner of the room, urgently shouting at Li Zheng.
"Ting ting, ting ting!"
Little Sakura couldn't understand why things suddenly turned out this way, thinking Li Zheng was attacked by something again, trying to call him out quickly from the flame pillar.
Li Zheng recognized the concern and urgency with a hint of pain in Little Sakura's tone, and realized the flame pillar could harm Little Sakura.
Quickly, he took out the capsule, squeezed it, and threw it forcefully to the distance.
Bang!
The capsule house appeared and landed on the ground.
"Little Sakura, you go in and hide, I'm fine!"
Li Zheng threw the capsule house far away, with walls blocking it, the high temperature shouldn't seep in, Little Sakura would be safer inside than in the room.
Little Sakura immediately understood Li Zheng's meaning, having seen him open the capsule house door last night, activated the ability "Fast Flight," and flew to the capsule house entrance to go inside.
"Ting ting!"
Little Sakura called out to Li Zheng before closing the door, informing him it had hidden safely.
A wave of heat suddenly rushed in, scaring it into quickly shutting the door.
"Luckily, it seems that pets can also open the player's capsule house."
Li Zheng felt thoroughly relieved, patiently waiting for the genetic development progress to fill up.
...
[30.1%]
...
[31.2%]
...
"This... progress is a bit slow..."
Looking at the time, ten minutes had already passed, averaging only about 3% progress per minute.
"This is tough, I still have eight more rooms to explore today…"
[32.3%]
"..."
"Even snails are faster than you, damn it!"
[32.9%]
"...This stamina though, I'm kinda jealous, damn it."
[33.4%]
"I can't keep staring at the progress bar, it makes me wanna pee like I'm watching Bi Dao's 'Dream Chasing in the Entertainment Circle'. "
After pondering for a moment out of boredom, Li Zheng opened a private chat and took Phoenix Mountain off the blacklist to send a message.
"How long did it take you to awaken your gene yesterday?"
Phoenix Mountain seemed to be busy with something and didn't respond for a long time.
Feeling weird, Li Zheng checked the regional channel and clearly saw Phoenix Mountain chatting with others just before he sent his private message.
"Are you there?"
"Are you there?"
"Are you there?"
After three consecutive private messages, Phoenix Mountain finally responded.
"Fifty Snake Grass Needles for that information."
"Wait a minute!"
"You damn well started awakening?"
"You have Flame Flower?"
"Wait, Flame Flower's effectiveness only lasts half an hour..."
"Oh crap, you... you got a gene development item again?"
"Damn it!"
"You got the face of a dog, huh?"
"No way! The price is now updated, one hundred Snake Grass Needles for that info!"
Phoenix Mountain, as usual, acted all cool on the regional channel when people were praising him.
In private chats with Li Zheng, he was like any regular netizen, sending his messages one line at a time.
"Are you frickin' stupid?"
"I've already started developing my genetic ability,"
"That's why I asked you this question,"
"Even if you don't tell me,"
"Once my development progress is done,"
"I would know myself, wouldn't I?"
Li Zheng mimicked Phoenix Mountain's style, intentionally breaking his sentences and slowly sending them out one by one.
"Damn it!"
"You're right!"
"So this information is worthless to you now?"
"To hell with you, I wish you fail your awakening and max out your side effects probability!"
Phoenix Mountain saw his plan to scam Li Zheng fall apart and was filled with resentment.
The next instant, he suddenly sensed something was off.
"This jerk must be bored because the awakening takes too long, and that's why he took me off the blacklist for a chat."
No way!
I can't let him succeed!
I need to retaliate!
Once Phoenix Mountain made up his mind, he felt elated, eagerly editing his message.
To prevent Li Zheng from seeing through his intention, he changed his usual style, edited a long message in one go, and then sent it out.
"Haha, Li dude, you never thought I'd figure out your intention! You're definitely just starting to awaken your genetic ability, and it's taking too long that you're bored and seeking a chat to pass the time. I'm gonna blacklist you too and let you taste this feeling! Enjoy the next fifteen minutes, goodbye!"
He sent it, tapped on Li Zheng's avatar, blacklisted him for twelve hours, and confirmed!
After executing all these combos, Phoenix Mountain felt refreshed and very pleased.
"Hahaha... Li dude, you finally got your... eh..."
"???"
"Pla... platinum level!???"
Phoenix Mountain's eyes widened instantly, looking at the two messages Li Zheng quickly sent while he was operating the blacklist, his mood plummeted.
"Oh, so you took fifteen minutes to awaken..."
"Well, my platinum-level item awakening,"
"Is definitely different from yours."
[The other party has added you to the blacklist...]
Li Zheng looked at the system prompt, his mouth curling up wildly.
The last sentence didn't get sent, but the most crucial information was received by the other party.
He opened Phoenix Mountain's avatar, added him to the blacklist, this time without a timer, confirmed!
On the other side,
Phoenix Mountain, quicker than setting a blacklist, unblocked Li Zheng, eager to ask about the platinum-level item situation.
"Bro! Dear bro! I was wrong!"
[The other party has added you to the blacklist...]
"Li dude, I f---ing curse you!"
Phoenix Mountain went berserk, punching the wall of his capsule residence.
Bang!
[Unauthorized modification, capsule residence damaged, please repair promptly.]
Phoenix Mountain: "..."