The little girl stared at the three weapons on Song Jian's body, and after a moment, she pouted and said, "Though you have many weapons, they are ugly as sin, not as pretty as my hand crossbow!"
Speaking, the little girl ostentatiously raised her hand crossbow and shook it twice. The silver light shimmered with her movements, scattering countless fine silver particles, which were quite a sight to behold.
In the game, the higher the quality of the items, the more elaborate the design. Even without the glowing surface, one could guess the quality by its appearance.
The silver-quality hand crossbow, engraved with complex patterns, looked upscale just by its design, much prettier than Song Jian's baseball bat or handgun, not to mention the additional embellishments from the layer of silver light, which made Song Jian feel somewhat ashamed.
Song Jian bent down to start picking up the items dropped by zombies. First were ten zombie cores. For this, Song Jian took out a gold bracelet, wore it on his wrist, and freed up a slot in his bag for the zombie cores.
As for materials like "Zombie Bones," "Zombie Fangs," and "Zombie Meat," those could be stacked with previous items in the bag.
Zombie bones were small sections of bone, crystal clear like jade, seemingly carved from white jade, heavy in hands as if metallic; zombie fangs were as long as a finger, resembling the canines of large beasts, also white and beautiful; while zombie meat was a thick piece of flesh the size of a palm, without any trace of filth, rather springy in hand, even emitting a faint grassy aroma.
"Is that piece of meat you're holding tasty?" The little girl, who had been following Song Jian, suddenly swallowed her saliva and asked quietly, her eyes fixed on the "Zombie Meat" in Song Jian's hand.
The look in the girl's eyes terrified Song Jian, who quickly handed her a piece of compressed rations.
"Here, eat this. What I'm holding is zombie meat, and it's definitely not edible!" Song Jian hurriedly said.
Thinking of the foul stench that zombies emitted, could the meat that fell from their bodies be edible?
The girl received the compressed rations, began nibbling slowly, yet with a hint of reluctance she said, "It smells quite nice, I bet it tastes good too... Can I just have one bite?"
"Really, it's not edible..." Song Jian felt a pang of pain seeing her expression. Such a young age, and already caught up in this damn game, he wondered what those promoting the game were thinking, pulling such a young child into the game, heartless!
"Oh, okay." The little girl's face fell as she lowered her head and slowly gnawed the compressed rations, her eyes occasionally glancing at the "Zombie Meat" in Song Jian's hand, clearly still reluctant to let it go.
As Song Jian was about to put this last item into his bag, it suddenly occurred to him that the attribute of the "Zombie Meat" listed it as a cooking ingredient, indicating that this piece of "Zombie Meat" could actually be used as food.
With this realization, Song Jian's eyes lit up, and he said to the girl, "Let's go find a place, I'll cook this piece of meat... I'll cook this meat and you can eat it!"
Hearing Song Jian's words, the girl's eyes lit up, she hurriedly stuffed all the compressed rations into her mouth, almost choking, nodding eagerly at Song Jian with a sweet smile.
...
This city had been abandoned for who knows how long, and Song Jian had searched seven or eight rooms without finding a kitchen that was usable.
Song Jian led the way, with the little girl closely following him. Along the way, they encountered quite a few zombies, but with their teamwork, they managed to kill all of them without any harm.
Song Jian found that if both of them dealt damage to the same zombie, the experience earned was proportional to the amount of damage dealt, and together they gained twenty percent more experience than one would gain alone, clearly advocating cooperative gameplay in this game.
Finally, Song Jian found half a can of liquefied gas in the back kitchen of a restaurant, along with some cooking oil that didn't smell off. He began to simply process the zombie meat;
Zombie meat required cooking skills to use, and while Song Jian didn't know how to cook, frying a piece of meat was still manageable;
Before long, the first piece of fried meat was ready. Song Jian didn't know whether it would be delicious or not, but perhaps due to the ingredients, this piece of fried meat smelled fragrant and appetizing.
Just as Song Jian was serving the fried meat on a plate, its surface began to emit a faint milky white glow.
"Fried meat (white): Food, effect, increases hunger by 60 points and vitality recovery speed by 10% after consuming for 30 seconds in non-combat states, lasts for 1 hour;"
"Wow, I didn't expect it to be a piece of attribute-laden food!" Song Jian was ecstatic. Thinking about the zombie skeletons and zombie fangs in his inventory, he began to yearn for the skills of leather crafting and potion making.
At that moment, a small red dot appeared on the upper right corner of Song Jian's view, blinking. When Song Jian focused on it, a semi-transparent message interface appeared in front of him.
"System: Congratulations to the player for independently completing a cooking task and obtaining food of white quality or above, and for grasping the art of cooking!"
"System: Congratulations to the player for self-learning the 'fried meat' recipe. Cooking proficiency increased by 30 points. Future preparation of this food may enhance its quality."
"Is this for me to eat?" The little girl revealed a joyful expression, staring intently at the plate, her little nose continuously sniffing the aroma wafting through the air.
"For you." Song Jian handed the plate to the little girl, and watching her eagerly grab pieces of the hot meat and put them into her mouth, he felt an inexplicable happiness.
Seeing the joy of the little girl as she ate, an idea struck Song Jian in his mind. He opened his inventory and saw six more pieces of "zombie meat." Re-lighting the fire and pouring oil, Song Jian began to continue cooking.
System: You have created white quality food "fried meat," increasing cooking skill proficiency by 1 point;
System: You have created white quality food "fried meat," increasing cooking skill proficiency by 1 point;
...
After spending more than twenty minutes, all six pieces of fried meat were prepared, and Song Jian stacked and stored them all in his inventory slot. Without any healing potions available, these "fried meats" could act as potions, albeit with weaker effects, which was better than nothing.
At this time, the little girl had finished eating an entire plate of fried meat. She rubbed her stomach, looked satisfied, and burped, "Burp, I'm so full, it was delicious!"
Song Jian smiled slightly, just about to speak, when suddenly a system notification sound came next to his ear: "Congratulations to the player for successfully surviving twelve hours, earning the 'Survivor' achievement!"
"System: The player may exit the game within thirty seconds, after which the next opportunity to exit will be twelve hours later;"
"System: Please choose a safe area to exit the game, or face the consequences!"
Now that he could exit the game, Song Jian breathed a sigh of relief, but after glancing at the little girl beside him, he began to hesitate.