There were two distinct new additions to the grove. Although the art style was rich in detail, Euri had to squint to decipher what creatures he was looking at—a black dog and a red squirrel, both lying upside down near the mouth of the well, tied up under a layer of...tentacles?
Euri clicked on the dog's image, and a tiny window popped up over it, displaying:
[ Scout Dog ]
[ Rank- 0 lifeform ]
[ Physique: 0.7 ]
[ Special Attribute: Speed ]
[ Cultivate/Extract ]
The choice at the bottom of the panel left little to imagination. Feeling like he was slowly getting the hang of the game mechanics, Euri examined the red squirrel's data.
[ Thief Squirrel ]
[ Rank- 0 Lifeform ]
[ Physique: 0.2 ]
[ Special attribute: Camouflage ]
[ Cultivate/Extract ]
"What's with the strange affixes? Scout, thief... What's next, drug dealer?"
Since there were only two available choices, Euri inevitably chose both. For the dog, which seemed to have a higher evaluation in terms of Physique, he chose the option to cultivate. The squirrel let out a tragic squeal when he clicked on the Extraction option on its window.
[ Congratulations on choosing your first familiar, Administrator! ]
Sol-wa's head peeked out from a corner of the screen, wearing a bright smile. At the same time, the tentacles wrapped around the squirrel started moving like a python squeezing its prey.
The squirrel's body visibly dried up and transformed into a skeleton, as if all of its vitality was being sucked out.
[ Extraction Complete ]
[ 1 Rank- 0 beast core available ]
[ Sacrifice/Consume ]
"Consume? How?" Euri had not expected an extra choice like that. He was planning to sacrifice this beast core to upgrade the well, curious to see where that led to. But now he couldn't hold back his curiosity and clicked on the second option.
[ Administrator! You're so selfish! ]
Sol-wa's eyes turned tearful for some reason. Before he could figure out what went wrong, a scorching heat welled up inside his stomach, as if he had just eaten the spiciest dish from Uncle Shang's restaurant.
Euri jumped down from the bed and rushed into the toilet. His whole digestive system felt like it was on fire, not to mention the cramps in his guts that signaled an oncoming disaster!
Half an hour later, the mini diarrhea subsided enough for Euri to feel that it was safe to come out. His psychological barrier had received a great dent in this period.
What he had excreted for so long was not usual. At first, he had mistaken it for blood. But after seeing several liters of it come out of his guts, he was now sure that it was something else.
In the back of his mind, he couldn't help but consider a wild possibility. Did the beast core in the game manifest in reality inside his stomach?
It was indeed an outlandish possibility, but the fact he based it off was that the actual effect of consuming a beast core was similar to this, or so he had learned from the internet.
When ordinary humans ate a beast core for the first time, all of them had to deal with a quick, but explosive digestion disaster. The human body couldn't easily adjust to the intake of such material.
But judging by how much fluid he had passed outside, it didn't seem like his body had been able to get any benefit from consuming the beast core.
Euri stared at the miniscreen in his grasp and muttered in a daze, "If I take an attribute evaluation test and find any difference compared to my past reports, it'll confirm the theory, won't it? This game really can-"
Stopping himself from voicing his suspicion out loud, Euri returned to his bed and started tapping on the screen excitedly.
Practically speaking, Euri had never been particularly interested in the career of dimension divers, mostly because it was very costly to maintain, with no short-term monetary returns.
A stable career in an ordinary corporate ladder paid more, and ordinary people didn't have to deal with the horrific dangers the dimension divers braved.
But if a mere game could facilitate the journey for him without involving him in any dangerous adventures inside broken spatial intersections, who wouldn't take the opportunity with tears of happiness?
"This must be a piece of alien technology. The cosmic notice said that from now on, our civilization is allowed to come into contact with such techs. Did I accidentally end up landing one so quickly? Who was the original owner? This girl?!"
The dots began to connect in Euri's mind one after another. The police officers had claimed that her identity was untraceable. If she was a traveler from an alien civilization...
Euri stared wide-eyed at the miniscreen, where Priestess Sol-wa was dancing in a fixed, animated routine. She was no different from an assistant NPC in simulation games. What kind of mystery had he stumbled upon?
Nevertheless, this seemed to be a massive stroke of fortune. He had to utilize it as long as he could, as much as he could!
Deep in thought, he reexamined the state of the sacred ground. Even the squirrel's corpse had disappeared by now. The tree he had displaced earlier was now back in its original position, supposedly maintaining a protective formation around the well. All the trees that had turned bright red were now back to their original brown and green palette.
Next to the well, the dog was lying peacefully, taking deep sniffs of the outgoing green gas. No tentacles were tying it up at the moment.
When Euri clicked on it, the previous data window didn't appear. There was only a loading circle beside a notification:
[ Cultivating: Speed ]
There was no sign as to when this cultivation would end.
"Ah, so only the special attribute is cultivable. Will the physique stat remain the same?" Euri couldn't help but lament. If he knew this, he'd have chosen to cultivate the squirrel instead. Its camouflage ability was a lot more interesting than speed. And that affix [ Thief ] had to mean something, right?
Shifting his focus, he clicked on the well again, eager to reread its data seriously. Until now, he had treated the whole thing like a game he was being forced to play. But that diarrhea had changed his whole outlook on life!
Surprisingly, there was extra information accompanying the original data.
[ Sacred Ground Core: Vitality Gas Well ]
[ Property: Emits a gas that improves the constitution of beasts chosen for nurturing ]
[ Level 1 ]
[ Core Depleted State: Effects of the vitality gas will be greatly weakened for the next twelve hours ]