When Su Jin went out today, she purposely brought a backpack with her. There was no way she would do something as blatant as putting something directly into her dimension from outside. With this, she could pretend to put her things into her backpack but slip them into the dimension instead.
She returned to the food street again, buying more deep-fried skewers. She watched intently as the hawker shook chili flakes and cumin powder all over the glistening skewers, fresh out of the oil. When he put the skewers into an equally-crispy fried bread, Su Jin barely stopped herself from drooling.
She was obsessed with these light snacks, and she preferred bold flavors too. In the past, she used to worry that her skin would break out or turn sallow if she ate anything too oily or spicy. Now that she had the immortal pills from the dimension, though, she could throw those concerns away.
The stall owner handed Su Jin the flatbread, stuffed to the brim with other ingredients. As she paid him, he could not help but give her another glance or two. The girl was way too pretty! Her skin was all soft and supple, even fairer than tofu. Tsk-tsk.
Su Jin had no idea what he was thinking, though. Throwing all appearances aside, she stuffed her face with the bread and fried skewer snacks. It was just spicy enough and sooo tasty!
The beef noodles she had last time were pretty good too, so Su Jin returned for seconds. Just as before, she ordered two extra slices of beef with her noodles, and she was quite satisfied with the whole experience.
Next, she followed her navigation app to the nearest supermarket. Su Jin did not hold back, filling up her cart as she browsed the aisles. She made especially sure to take more preserved foods like vacuum-packed biscuits, ham, sausages, and canned foods. Finally, she reached the cold section and stared at the ice cream in the freezers. Cravings aside, a plan was gradually coming to her, so she decisively two large tubs of ice cream as well.
At the cashier, Su Jin looked at her piled-up cart and asked for two plastic bags for camouflaging purposes. After all, it was impossible for her to fit all that into her backpack.
Su Jin paid with her e-wallet. She had borrowed money from Lu Hao, yes, but she was by no means poor. In fact, she had quite a sizable nest egg of her own. She had been working and saving up for a few years, plus she had received tons of monetary gifts from her relatives before her wedding. Even the dowry her mother had prepared for her was still firmly within her grasp.
The cashier wondered for a second how such a petite lady could carry all those things by herself. The cans were not light, after all. Nevertheless, when she saw how easily Su Jin picked up the two bags, she could not help but admire her. This lady was both pretty and strong, what a rare sight! She was much better than those pretend princesses.
Su Jin did not know that strangers were already labeling her a 'strong independent woman'. She simply went to a corner of the lounge, which happened to be part of the surveillance cameras' blind spot, and pretended to transfer the ice cream from the plastic bags into her backpack.
She wanted to see if food deteriorated slower in the dimension.
It was nine o'clock at night by the time she finished eating and strolling around. Su Jin eventually decided to head back to the hotel.
Since it was in the middle of May, G Province was getting hotter and stuffier by the day. When Su Jin opened the remaining box of ice cream in her room, she was a little miffed to see that it had almost melted away completely. Only a tiny part at the very center was still solid. The mini-fridge in the hotel room could refrigerate but not freeze anything.
Still, though most of it was now ice-cream soup, Su Jin ate the whole thing anyway. She understood the importance of zero wastage more than anyone.
Once she was done, Su Jin remembered the rest of the supplies she had bought that day, and she whisked them all into the Wood Spirit Dimension with a wave of her hand. After that, she entered the dimension herself and found that everything she had put away was standing properly on the stone platform she had first landed on.
Did that mean she would have to manually rearrange everything she kept into the dimension? Su Jin remembered reading on the jade tablet that the owner of the dimension could categorize the items inside with nothing more than a thought, though.
Su Jin looked at the small pile of supplies on the stone platform and thought of the stone table in the mansion's courtyard. The next instant, the supplies vanished. Su Jin hastily ran into Lu Mansion and, as expected, all the supplies were on the stone table. Phew, thank goodness, that meant she did not have to carry everything herself. If she brought in a large machine or a car or anything like that, it would be a real pain if she had to move it manually.
This time, Su Jin's main objective in coming here was to survey the land in this dimension and figure out just how big it really was.
The land was neatly tilled in squares. Su Jin used her mind to teleport to the bank of the small stream running through the dimension. The water was crystal clear, and there were many shiny round pebbles at the bottom of the stream. Seriously, the stream looked like it came right out of a fairy tale. Also, the water never stopped flowing, but where exactly was the source?
Su Jin did not know where the source was, so she could not just teleport there on a whim. When she looked upstream, all she saw in the distance was a thick fog. It looked like the fog she saw in Lin Xiuyuan's Red Alert game, indicating that the area up ahead had yet to be unlocked.
In that case, it seemed like the areas within this dimension had to be slowly explored and unlocked too. The jade tablet had not stated how to unlock the dimension, though, so she had to take it one step at a time.
Su Jin teleported herself back to the pill refinery. She had not paid attention to the lower shelves beneath the square pill drawers before, and now she found that there were old books inside the shelves explaining how to make and use every type of pill.
If she had noticed these books earlier, she may not have had to suffer through all that pain. Thankfully, things turned out alright in the end. The books introduced the elemental pills and how to use them as well. Once a cultivator took the Marrow Cleansing Pill and cleaned out the impurities in her body, they could start using these pills to draw out their internal energy. Someone who wanted to cultivate fire-type abilities, for instance, should take the Fire Regeneration Pill. At the same time, each method and cultivator's chances of success differed. If someone failed after taking the Fire Regeneration Pill, they could take another elemental pill that was not fire-based seven days later. It was crucial that they did not take the same type of pill twice, because it would damage their nerves and render them unable to keep cultivating.
These elemental pills were somewhat similar to the special abilities some people awakened to after the apocalypse. If her family members did not gain any abilities, they might be able to train themselves anyway using these pills. It was truly a real-life cheat code!
Su Jin already had her wood-type special ability. If she ate another pill now, could she perhaps awaken another cultivation method? Then again, there were benefits to specializing in one element. Su Jin was more than happy with her wood-type, so she decided not to try anything else. Her wood-type ability was good for both offense and defense, and now she had a trump card in the Wood Spirit Dimension too. There was no need for her to risk trying anything else.
She practiced her wood-type special ability for a while in the dimension and realized that she had reached Level 4. The vines she whipped out were not quite the same as the ones in her past life, though.
In the past life, her wood-type ability was stronger than everyone else's, but she could only produce one type of vine. Now, she had two types of vines, a thick one and a thin one. Su Jin poked at them and was surprised to find that the thicker one had a surface as hard as concrete. No matter how hard she tried, she could not break it. As for the thin vines, when Su Jin gripped them, she could feel something like an endless stream flowing into her body. She had had the fortune of experiencing this once before in the past life– it was the power of healing-type ability users.
Could her vines heal now? Su Jin was not afraid of pain, so she ran her finger down a leaf from the thicker vine. She realized that the leaves had barely noticeable ragged edges, and the leaves themselves were as solid as blades.
With just a bit of force, Su Jin cut her skin on the leaf's edge. Just then, Su Jin wrapped the thin vines around her finger and felt a soothing energy flow over her. To her pleasant surprise, it was just as she hypothesized. Her wood-type ability could heal now!
Perhaps it was because wood represented life to begin with. Nevertheless, there were so many wood-type ability users in her past life too, but no one discovered anything like this.
Su Jin was quite happy with the fruits of her training today. No matter how strong the dimension was, nothing beat the feeling of satisfaction that came with making herself stronger. Although she was the owner of this dimension for now, anything could happen in the future. The best and only way was to keep strengthening herself.
Su Jin stepped out of the dimension and saw that it was not even ten o'clock at night yet. As a bonafide night owl, Su Jin turned on her laptop and went online to buy more supplies.
Things were so much cheaper online, and if she bought a lot at once, she could score bulk prices and extra coupons. It felt so good to just buy more and more things with pure abandon like this.
The first thing Su Jin did was to choose some rice and flour from the basic groceries section. Her grandparents liked noodles, so she added a few more bags of flour. Next, she got several dozen barrels of peanut oil. She did not dare to buy too much at once, though, because she might end up giving her family a heart attack when the supplies arrived. For now, Su Jin just wanted to scratch her online shopping itch.
Lu Hao was busy and away from home these days, so Su Jin entered her grandparents' address for the delivery. Her parents went there for free food almost every day, anyway.
After that, she went to the outdoor section and chose a few hardy truck tents, followed by some portable stoves and gas canisters. She had used these before when she went camping, and they were both cheap and convenient to carry around. She could use them when she was with outsiders and could not enter the dimension. Oh, and she got some heavy-duty windbreakers too. They were great as a shield against the zombie virus.
Su Jin counted her family members on her hands and decided to go for 500 sets first. To be honest, she could have easily bought 2000 and that would not have been enough, but the seller said that they only had 500 in their warehouse right now, so Su Jin could buy them again later if she was in no hurry. If she bought in bulk again, they offered her a great price too. Su Jin agreed, telling them that she wanted to open a camping supplies store and asking the boss to give her a wholesale discount.
The bald boss on the other end of the transaction grabbed his customer service guy's hand excitedly. This customer was not starting a store here, a warehouse was more like it. The bald boss emphasized again and again that they had to score this huge fish. This customer was quite a big deal, and the customer service guy was equally excited. If this deal went through, he would fill his monthly quota all at once. What a wonderful day! He could afford to add another chicken drumstick to his supper that night.
Age and body type did not matter when it came to buying windbreakers. Even the size could be estimated, and the jackets were practically unisex. They were great for keeping the cold out and the heat in, so Su Jin could not get enough of them.
As with before, Su Jin entered her grandparents' address. She had to remember to warn her family tomorrow, or they might think she had gone bad when they started receiving all these goods.
Having finally satiated her thirst for online shopping, Su Jin began to feel sleepy. As she continued to list out which supplies she had to hoard, she inadvertently fell asleep.