"Didn't we just eat?" Tong Xiaorou hesitated for a moment before asking.
"That was breakfast, but now..." Jiang Cheng glanced at the rising sun and said, "Oh, it's still technically breakfast." He added, "But you're severely malnourished. You need to eat more to nourish your body. Take your time and don't choke. We caught a huge catch today, so we can have an extra meal. However, we may need to ration our food in the future."
"Got it." Tong Xiaorou didn't say thank you again, but tears streamed down her face. Yaya was crying too.
The two girls could not help but cry as they ate. They couldn't believe they were eating two meals of meat in the morning.
Jiang Cheng smiled and dug in heartily. There were three hundred pounds of bison meat on him, so he could eat as much as he wanted to speed up his evolution.
He ate in big mouthfuls. By the time Yaya and Tong Xiaorou had eaten a few bites, he had already finished a whole piece. Then, he took out a second piece and started eating. After the roasted bison meat entered his stomach, it quickly digested and turned into a rich heat that flowed throughout his body, quickly absorbed by his cells.
'It feels more nutritious than the wolf meat from before. Could it be that this bison has evolved?' This thought flashed through Jiang Cheng's mind, but he didn't dwell on it and continued to eat.
After devouring three pieces in one go, a total of three pounds, he was finally full. 'This is the first time I've eaten my fill since I came to this world. I'm a little stuffed.' He thought to himself, 'The nutritional value of this bison meat is really high. Even though I'm an Evolver, I can only eat three pieces at the moment. Wait, the total should be four pieces including the previous one.'
As Jiang Cheng felt the food slowly digesting in his stomach, he couldn't help but feel a warm sensation throughout his entire body. It was as if his physique was slowly improving. He was thrilled. It had been three days since he arrived in this world, and he had only just eaten a proper meal. It hadn't been easy.
"Let's see if the bison bones I collected can improve the quality of the Tang Dynasty Sword," he thought as he took out the sword and the bison bones. He then used his fusing skill.
Meanwhile, on the Terrawheeler, the people of Shelter 17 were busy cooking the fresh ingredients they had hunted. They immediately added the pieces of meat that they had exchanged with Jiang Cheng into the pot.
Suddenly, an old man in a white coat's eyes lit up as he tasted the meat. "What meat is this? It's so delicious!" he exclaimed.
"What else could it be? It's bison meat, Dr. Yang. Are you stupid? We only have bison meat now," someone replied.
But Dr. Yang shook his head. "No, the piece I just ate doesn't look like bison meat."
He quickly searched through the plate and found another piece. After taking a bite, his eyes widened. "This is it! Why is this meat so delicious? Could it be the meat of some kind of evolved beast? That's not right. The meat of an evolved beast is usually tough and difficult to cook."
Dr. Yang stopped eating and immediately went to the small laboratory with the piece of meat.
The experiment results came out quickly, and Dr. Yang couldn't believe what he saw. "It's still bison meat, but it feels more like elemental synthesized meat. The structure of the tough fibers seems to have been reorganized, and the nutritional value is very high. But that's not right. This is not how synthetic meat works. It's completely different!"
The more he studied that piece of meat, the more shocked he became. "How could a small piece of meat like this contain all the nutrients of a bison? Has it been processed through some kind of advanced technology?"
The analysis results showed that that small piece of meat contained all the nutrients of a bison, and they were all easily digestible substances. Theoretically speaking, it could be completely digested without leaving any residue, and there was no need to go to the toilet.
Dr. Yong wondered, 'But how is this possible?' He said to himself, "Has technology advanced so much since I slept for hundreds of years?"
He found it unbelievable. Only professionals knew how terrifyingly advanced the technology was behind that small piece of meat. Even in the pre-catastrophic age, they had never heard of such food. Even if it was congee, there would be residue left behind and it couldn't be completely digested.
Beep Beep!
Suddenly, the machine next to him sounded. " Similar data found. Do you want to read it? "
"Similar data?" Dr. Yang was surprised. "Quick, pull it up!"
Soon, a string of data appeared on the screen. Ordinary people could not understand it. However, Dr. Yang could tell at a glance that this was an elemental arrangement of ingredients.
"It's about... thirty percent identical." Dr. Yang was a little surprised. "When was this data uploaded? What were the raw materials? How did you get it?"
The AI system quickly brought up information on the raw materials. Dr. Yang read through it and realized that the food was made by a chef who was an Evolver they had encountered when passing by a camp two years ago. They had bought some of the ingredients for research purposes, and the food was not only delicious but also easy to digest with high nutritional value.
However, compared to the ingredients he obtained this time, the food made by that chef seemed inferior. No, it was very different.
"Could it be something created by an Evolver again?" he wondered aloud.
Dr. Yang felt discouraged as he knew that replicating the items created by Evolvers using science and technology was a challenging task.
Evolution was a magical process. If that meat was simply a result of an evolved beast, scientists could still study the beast's evolution through its flesh, blood, bones, or organs.
However, human evolution was entirely different. The evolution of humans was the evolution of their spiritual will, which couldn't be pried into with current technology. Even the most cutting-edge technology, like connecting power armor to neurons, was still far from connecting the true spiritual will because it could only establish a superficial connection.
Scientists had developed Dimension Folding Bags by studying evolved beasts, but they were stumped when it came to an Evolver's abilities. This was because an Evolver's skills had nothing to do with physical attributes; rather, they were rooted in the Evolver's spiritual will.
...
Poof!
The bison bones shattered into pieces and dissipated on the ground.
"I failed again!"
In front of the campfire, Jiang Cheng looked at Tang Dynasty Sword in frustration. He had tried to fuse a bison bone to it eight times, but he had not succeeded even once.
"This success rate is too low!" Jiang Cheng lamented. He had only collected ten bison bones. Previously, the bison he had killed was likely an evolved beast, and its bones were so hard that even his Tang Dynasty Sword could not cut through them. In the end, Jiang Cheng had to activate his fusing skill to enable the sword to penetrate its bones. After that incident, the sword's quality improved a bit. Hence, he wanted to fuse bison bones into the sword again, but he failed multiple times.
Jiang Cheng took out another bison bone and tried to cut it with the Tang Dynasty Sword. Although he did not use his full strength, the sword was able to leave a mark on the bone.
"Could it be because I've already fused bison bones to the Tang Dynasty Sword once before," Jiang Cheng mused aloud, "And now that the sword's quality has improved, the grade of the same type of bone is too low for it?"
He pondered, 'Does that mean low-level materials are unable to be fused into a higher-level main body?' Then, a whimsical thought struck him. "I wonder if the quality of a material can be improved through fusing it with its own kind?"
Jiang Cheng took out the last bison bone. He used one of the two bones as the main body and the other as the material for fusing. The light of the fusing process lit up, and in just a few seconds, the bison bone used as the material slowly shattered. However, one used as the main body suddenly gained an increase in its density. It was a success.
[Bison Bone (White): Bone Density +1]
Jiang Cheng was not surprised. He then hurriedly tried to use the strengthened bison bone as a material to fuse with his Tang Dynasty Sword. Ten seconds later, the bone shattered, and the density of the sword increased by another point.
[Tang Dynasty Sword (White): Density +3, Tenacity +1]
Jiang Cheng stared blankly at Tang Dynasty Sword, which had become heavier and looked more exquisite on the surface. Slowly, the corners of his lips curled up, and he raised his head, laughing soundlessly with excitement.