Serena placed her hands on her knees and looked at the secluded cave in front of her while catching her breath. The cave was at the bottom of a mountain with no life to be seen atleast within a mile radius. She had been running for more than an hour now, she looked at the darkening sky and then rushed inside only to stumble in the darkness.
' Hey, do you have any flashlight in the store?'
" No flashlight host, it's too outdated, but a glowing orb is available."
Serena looked at the mid glowing orb that costed 50 points and felt her heart ache. She saw the infinity sign in front of the life details and decided to buy it.
The cave was illuminated by the orb's light. Just as 004 had described it, it was completely shrouded in black, extremely lethal gases. She walked towards the interior of the cave and was startled to see a pond filled with crystal clear water.
"Host, this is the origin of this black poisonous gas, though this liquid looks like clean water, it's actually a regenerative poision potent enough to kill any living organism here within milliseconds. This place is ideal for your cultivation, the poision will keep the beasts away from this place and you can also refine this poision into powerful potions."
' Refining potions, so I can become a potion master.'
" Not only a potion master, you can learn and level up all the skills a cultivator can have. All these skills are available in the store."
Serena listened to the information 004 told her and felt happy, her future seemed brighter now. After exploring the cave some more, she chose a spot and then took out the dead rabbits from her inventory. She carefully removed the crystal cores from the rabbits' heads and then skinned them. 004 had offered to sell the meat on the system network in exchange for points.
After handing over the meat and skin to the system, Serena shifted her focus to the greyish brown crystals cores. They lacked luster and really looked like rocks, level 1 crystal cores held too little energy.
She placed the five pea sized rocks into her mouth and almost gagged as they melted. They tasted like soil mixed with grease, she wanted to spit it all out when she heard 004's concerned voice, "host, don't spit it out, it really helpful for your cultivation. After some days you'll be able to kill level 2 beasts. Their cores will taste better."
Serena thought about her empty stomach and cultivation and resisted the urge to puke. Had she known that cores tasted so bad, she would have saved some meat for herself. As swallowed she felt energy radiate from her lower abdomen. She sat in the lotus position, steadied her breathing and shifted her focus towards the heat rising from her lower abdomen and felt the pain that accompanied the opening of her mandarins hit her.
Her face scrunched as the pain and heat increased all over her body and then she saw it happen. She saw her dantian radiate a dazzling white light that travelled through extremely thin vein like structures to all parts of her body. These were her mandarins! As the light travelled to different parts of her body, she felt the pain increase drastically. Her body shook from the pain and she clenched her jaw to stop herself from screaming.
After an unknown period of time the dazzling light in her dantian softened followed by the decreasing pain and she fell unconscious on the ground.