Chapter 39 – Florida Man's "Cat" Feeds on National Treasures
"Spatial ring?"
Gao Yan picked up a spatial ring from the pile of assassin's ash. He cheerfully laughed and tried to access it.
PIKI
Unfortunately, as soon as Gao Yan inserted his Qi into the ring, it released a strong electric current, repelling Gao Yan's Qi and zapping him.
"Ouch!"
The deacon noticed that Gao Yan got his hands on the spatial ring. He warned the alchemist trainee.
"Be careful with the no-name spatial rings. A strong cultivator usually locks their rings with their element essence or Qi. Unless you're stronger than the ring's owner, its residual Qi will repel you and might kill you on the spot."
Gao Yan and the other disciples were surprised. The former looked at his spatial ring, which he had gotten as a gift from Wu Buyi. He wondered if he could lock it, too.
"Senior, how do you unlock or lock a spatial ring?"
The deacon coughed, "Simple. When your strength is at the golden core stage, you can start using complex Qi threads to form an array spell. There are a thousand lock techniques that you can learn from the sect's library. Only if you understand the techniques, you can unlock someone else's rings, granted that you manage to memorize ten thousand locking techniques on the mainland."
"… Wow," everybody was flabbergasted by the profound of the lock techniques. They wondered if they could learn all of them and unlock the no-name rings.
Teasing the disciples enough, the deacon revealed a hidden technique, "But that's a very troublesome method. Unless you want to preserve the rings and the content inside, you can do so. But if you're like me and other elders, we simply inject our Qi or essence into it and destroy the locking spell inside. Then, all items in there will be ejected from the ring. You just have to be stronger than the ring owner as I mentioned earlier."
"Oh!"
"Be warned though. If the ring has a large inventory space, you might find yourself buried in a mountain of items. In the past, a sick bastard store an entire mansion in his ring, and it was stolen. The thief overrode the locking spell and got himself buried under the mansion alive. It's a risky method. Be sure to unlock the ring in an open space while you're hovering in the sky. Let the items fall under you, not on top of you."
"…"
Gao Yan's hands trembled as he imagined himself being crushed under a mountain of heavy items in the ring. He put it in his pocket, waiting to ask Wu Buyi to unlock it for him later on.
The deacon silently collected the clothes of the assassin. He kept the clan token and urged, "Let's move. We need to return to the sect before nightfall. Oh, I almost forgot. The sect now forbids everybody from collecting the spirit grasses around here. Senior Florida Man might be growing them, and we don't want to provoke him."
"Y-Yes, sir."
Gao Yan and the disciples gulped as they looked at the grasses around them. They were all blue, and they emitted strong spiritual energy. Everybody wanted to pick them up, but the deacon glared at them.
Without permission, the group swallowed their greed and continued their journey home.
.
.
Meanwhile, Leo had fun.
CHING-CHING-CHING
After cleaning the mess in his store, Leo played with more rings, wondering if he could get more items. Blue stones and similar items gushed out from the rings, and they were destroyed in the process. Leo sorted all items and repeated until the last ring.
When everything was over, Leo looked at thirty 2000-liter bins, full of blue stones. He clicked his tongue and pushed the wheeled bins through the back door, bringing them to the storehouse in the first workshop. As for the regular grain pills that he got from other rings, he brought them to the second workshop and left them there for the time being.
.
The next day morning, Leo came out to check his mushroom farm in the second workshop building, and he was pleasantly surprised - The surface of the soil was all white. At this rate, they would grow up into fine mushrooms soon. Every pot was the same. The black soil turned white as the mushroom spores rapidly grew and consumed its nutrition.
Celebrating this occasion, Leo added more spit to every pot, hoping that his fluid contained enough nutrition for the unknown mushrooms. He wondered if it would taste like Truffles.
"Grow up quickly, okay? Even if you're zombie cordyceps, I can still eat you. Actually, I ate them a lot when my age was still 4 digits. I'm immune to your zombie fungi. Hehehehe."
Leo left the mushroom farm alone. He exited through the front door and collected two more batches of grain pills.
Carrying the grain pills to the store, Leo put them into the same Tupperware boxes on the shelves. He also separated the leftover inferior and lesser-grade ones into other boxes and placed them near the Bloodmelons.
As the newly made batches were better in quality, Leo decided to get rid of the old pills by selling them a bit cheaper than the other pills.
The new low-graded pills were all sold for 20 years of lifespan each. However, as for the old ones, Leo retained the old price, aka 10 years of lifespan.
After sorting the new products, Leo returned to the workshop. Instead of making more grain pills, he carried the iron pine lumber there and chopped them into 1-cubic-foot blocks. Then, he tossed one into each cauldron and refined them.
10 minutes later, two sacred wood blocks came out. The edges had been sharpened, and the size expanded to one cubic meter.
Leo hummed as he threw more lumber cubes into the cauldrons and let them run. Then, he carried the two blocks of sacred wood and lined them in front of his store, displaying his wealth, hoping to lure some thieves into attacking this store again.
After making 20 blocks of sacred wood, Leo was bored. He switched the products to rejuvenate juice so that he could get something delicious to drink. He also thought of the corianders, which he had been using to make coffee.
Leo finally remembered that he had forgotten to research them.
"Ah, silly me. I should have done that several days ago. I'm getting old."
Leo waited for ten minutes. After collecting his favorite root beer, he tossed a stalk of coriander to check its usefulness.
.
[Aroma Coriander]
Aroma Corianders are a common weed, commonly found in Unicorn-infested areas. As the corianders constantly gain nutrition from the unicorn's stool, they produce a similar scent to the stool. Although they feed on dubious resources, many humans may find them flagrant and use them as garnish to dress their food. Can be used as an Earth Element catalyst in alchemy.
[Traits]
Contain strong caffeine. Might rupture some blood veins if it's consumed directly.
.
It was just another catalyst. Still, as Leo didn't plan to sleep tonight, he picked one and put it in his mouth, checking how much he could get from eating this plant.
DING
Leo was disappointed.
'Not suitable in cooking. I guess I'll keep using them as coffee beans.'
He resumed making rejuvenate root beer and walked toward the field, east of the store building.
.
.
"Nom-Nom Meow?"
While Leo was busy at the workshop, Cat played with a sacred wood block in front of the store as it found the cubes interesting. It tried sitting on it and hitting it with its whips.
BOOM
As clumsy as a cat, Cat made an accident - One of the sacred wood blocks was broken in half.
"Myaaa?!"
Cat panicked, afraid that Leo might scold it. It grabbed the broken pieces and tried to patch them together. However, it kept failing.
As all hope was lost, Cat used a drastic measure - It copied Leo's actions by spitting on the wooden block and attaching the pieces like jigsaw puzzles.
As Cat clumsily tried to repair things without knowledge, its roots got stuck in the middle of the broken sacred wood block.
"MYAAA?!"
Shocked and confused, Cat ran around with the sacred wood block in tow like a panicking cat with a plastic bag getting stuck on its hind leg. It ran into the forest and hit many things on its path.
By the time that Cat came back to its sense, the wooden block was gone. However, Cat sensed something odd about its roots. It looked down to see the weird roots that had been itchy.
The root merged with the broken sacred wood cube, turning it white.
"Meow?"
Cat tilted its head and swung the root around. It pierced an iron pine tree nearby. A few seconds later, the tree withered and dissipated into dust. On the other hand, Cat sensed that it had absorbed the tree's Qi, making it stronger.
"Meow <3"
Addicted to the feeling, Cat ran back to the store. It grabbed the sacred wood blocks that Leo had previously arranged. Then, it broke them and tried to attach the wood blocks with the remaining roots.
"Nom-Nom Meow <3"
.
.
RUMBLE
Ouyang Long and Wu Buyi left Cauliflower City. They both boarded the former's airship and flew to Magpie City.
The airship arrived at noon. However, it didn't stop there. It changed course and flew east, heading toward a certain place first.
Wu Buyi was delighted when Ouyang Long was enthusiastic about visiting Leo. He never stopped talking.
"Daoist Florida Man's techniques are profound and mysterious. He doesn't need to move, but he can let us see our lifespan. Actually, he can see through our true names with just a thought! Anyone that introduces themselves using false names is easily exposed. It's better if you be honest in front of him."
Ouyang Long was patient. He kept listening, learning more about the so-called Florida Man. However, as Ouyang Long learned more, his anxiety rose.
Somehow, this Florida Man's strength seemed illogical. From the last vision of Ouyang Ting, the Florida Man was overwhelmingly strong to the point that he could destroy the Situ Clan's Qi Sealing Array with one punch. However, Wu Buyi expressed that the Florida Man's aura was a soul-formation cultivator, which was unusual. Even Ouyang Long couldn't destroy Situ's Qi Sealing Array in one or two strikes.
Ouyang Long was concerned - If Florida Man's strength was not the soul formation stage, then how strong was he?
"Damn Buyi, stop talking for a moment," Ouyang Long coughed and asked. "Is Daoist Florida Man really a soul formation cultivator?"
Wu Buyi snickered, "Yes, he is. I saw him myself. His aura is definitely the soul formation stage."
"I've been thinking. You said that he came from a higher realm, right? What if he has been suppressing his aura to the soul formation stage? What if he's actually stronger than that?"
Hearing the theory, Wu Buyi burst into laughter.
"That's possible, but it's very unlikely. You see. If he's really stronger than the soul formation stage... Let's say he's a soul transformation stage cultivator. He would have had a presence of a quasi-immortal, and his body would have produced thick element essence around him. If he was an immortal, everything living beings around him would have been mutated because of his aura. Regular plants and weeds would have evolved into spirit grasses or spirit plants. Everything he touched would also transform like the plants in the mystic… realm?"
Wu Buyi paused mid-sentence. He slightly opened his mouth as he remembered something. He thought of Leo's past requests and the items in his store.
"Immortal grass? Fruits and vegetables… Wait a minute?!"
Wu Buyi sweated profusely. He realized something scary.