Chapter 23
◎ So many, so many ◎
The forest at night was always filled with an unsettling atmosphere.
Yu Chi reached out and punched the tree next to her. It didn’t move an inch.
“…Oh.” So, a strength value of eight couldn’t even move a tree. She had thought she had already become a strong lady.
Yu Chi blinked, directly transformed into her elf form, and used vines to pull down the large tree, then collected the materials into her backpack.
The wood planks she had collected at sea before were all ungraded materials without any other attributes, but she found that this large tree was of the common grade.
【Species: Red Star Tree
Grade: Common
Description: Plants growing near Red Star Wood will have their effects increased by 20%. The wood can be used as a building material and is very sturdy.】
It was really good stuff. Yu Chi became more and more adept at using the vines. She took down a dozen trees at once and collected them all into her backpack.
She also obtained quite a few Red Star Tree seeds along the way.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had so much fun,” she sighed. Was this the joy of constantly collecting materials?
The seeds were in hand. Yu Chi didn’t plan to spend the whole night dealing with trees here, so she wandered around with her flashlight.
Since plants growing near Red Star Trees had their effects increased by 20%, it followed that this Red Star Tree forest should have many plants, and perhaps even high-level ones.
But the air was getting colder and colder. After walking deeper for a while, Yu Chi rubbed her numb fingertips and swept the flashlight beam across the dense forest ahead.
Special plants seemed to have a somewhat unusual appearance, like the blue mushrooms from before, and like the scene before her now.
It was a rather cold halo—frost flowers condensed on the leaves of the bushes, and a few pure silver plants were swaying in the bushes. Fine ice fell from the pistils, looking beautiful and ethereal under the moonlight.
Yu Chi walked over and touched them.
【Species: Moonlight Grass
Grade: Excellent
Description: Crushing it and applying it to a wound can accelerate healing. Soaking the leaves in water and drinking it can relieve frostbite.】
“Medicinal herbs?” She squatted down. Just as she was about to pick the Moonlight Grass, a bone-chilling cold drilled into her blood vessels from her fingertips. Yu Chi hissed and instantly let go.
She was clearly still in the forest. Logically, the cold shouldn’t be so intense.
Could this island have a snow mountain?
Yu Chi frowned, looking down at the Moonlight Grass in thought. She was definitely going to take this grass with her. In that case…
She directly transformed into her elf form. The cold around her instantly lessened a lot. But since time was limited, she controlled the vines to wrap around the roots of the Moonlight Grass and dug it out completely, along with the frozen soil.
This made it difficult to stuff into her backpack. Yu Chi simply put the entire bush into the [Two-Sided Mirror], planning to deal with it slowly later.
If only I could directly control the things inside the Two-Sided Mirror from the outside. She felt she was becoming more and more insatiable.
Yu Chi shook her head and continued to walk deeper.
She was somewhat glad that she hadn’t encountered any other dangerous creatures. But then again, it was much colder at night than during the day. Perhaps those creatures were all hiding.
That’s right, everyone is hiding in their warm homes. Only I am still here, working myself to death digging for materials.
Yu Chi (smiling): How wonderful.
The deeper she went, the heavier the cold in the air became. Yu Chi wrapped her sweater tightly, feeling that she couldn’t stand it anymore. She went to the player trade section to look around, but couldn’t find any thick clothes for a while. The system mall had very limited items, and she didn’t see any clothes at all.
What a crappy island! She stomped her foot angrily, trying to get some feeling back into her stiff feet.
The air she exhaled was like white smoke. She shrank her neck, and her nose suddenly caught a hint of sweet fragrance. Yu Chi’s eyes lit up. She knew there was something good again.
She followed the scent and pushed aside the vines. On a tall tree, three fist-sized, ice-blue fruits appeared before her. The translucent skin seemed to reveal the pulp inside.
【Ice Crystal Fruit
Grade: Rare
Description: Grows on Cold Moon Island, delicious and extremely rare. Consumption can instantly restore Spirit consumption and provide a 10-minute temporary buff.
-
Increases cold resistance by 20%
-
Increases movement speed by 10%】
“Wow, this is really…”
An item that restores Spirit! This was the first time she had seen one! Yu Chi couldn’t imagine how precious it could be.
Having learned her lesson from the Moonlight Grass, she didn’t pick it herself this time, but directly transformed into her elf form and controlled the vines. However, it wasn’t as smooth as before. The moment the vines touched the fruit stalk, white frost formed on it, and the freezing started from the vines and even continued to spread downwards!
Hot damn. Yu Chi immediately stopped the operation to avoid being affected herself.
She shone her flashlight around and found that there were not just these three Ice Crystal Fruits nearby. She saw a total of three Ice Crystal Trees, and each tree had three Ice Crystal Fruits.
Why not just dig up the trees and move them into the [Two-Sided Mirror] like with the Moonlight Grass before?
The fruit was cold and even aggressive, but the tree roots might be fine.
Yu Chi’s speculation was purely because the land she was standing on, although quite cold, was far from being able to freeze plants.
She tried to control the Ice Crystal Tree in her elf form, but the next second, her head throbbed, and her Spirit was rapidly consumed.
Yu Chi opened her eyes, her forehead covered in cold sweat.
Her Spirit was too low, and her level was too weak, so her elf form could only control common or ungraded plants.
This wasn’t really a surprise. Otherwise, Yu Chi’s first reaction just now would have been to directly control the Ice Crystal Tree instead of the vines.
She had just been trying her luck.
Her Spirit was damaged. Yu Chi didn’t stay where she was, but walked outwards until the cold was not so intense. Then she took out a mat and sat down to rest for a while.
It took about an hour to fully recover.
This time, she didn’t activate her elf form, but directly transformed into a Cinnabar Finch.
Water counters fire, but fire also has a certain counter-effect on ice. She had discovered this when she first entered the island and fought with those large birds.
The cold in the forest couldn’t hurt her at all. Yu Chi flew over at top speed, her beak grabbing the branch and yanking it hard, pulling down the entire branch with the fruit.
She stuffed it all into her backpack, then repeated the process, pulling down the fruit from the other two Ice Crystal Trees.
After doing all this, there were still a few dozen seconds left. She used her wide field of view in the air to look around. There were no more special plants with halos nearby.
Yu Chi jumped down from the sky and began to consider whether to continue walking deeper. It was certain that there were good things inside, but her body might not be able to hold up.
She currently had 24 Spirit points, enough for her to use her morph ability 12 times. Plus the effect of the Ice Crystal Fruit… huh? It seemed possible.
Yu Chi raised an eyebrow. Opportunity and danger coexist. To get good things, she could accept this level of danger.
But she wouldn’t use the Ice Crystal Fruit unless she had to. After all, this thing could instantly restore her Spirit. Just imagine, in the future, when her Spirit was in the hundreds, after it was depleted in a fight, it would be instantly restored… so awesome.
Yu Chi patted her forehead. How could a life-skill player fight?
There seemed to be some more common plants nearby. She turned her head.
Her wool-gathering hands were itching to move.
Ten minutes later, Yu Chi squatted in front of a pit and counted her spoils: nine Ice Crystal Fruits, some plantain, some perilla, some mint, some aloe vera…
In Sea Survival, cold and anti-inflammatory medicine was very rare. She only had a few pills, but these herbs should be able to do the job.
Yu Chi thought that after being cold for a while and then hot for a while, she would probably get a fever when she returned to the boat.
—After all, her body had not yet broken through the limits of a human.
The sky was slowly darkening. Yu Chi finally reached the edge of the forest.
The towering ancient trees came to an abrupt end here, replaced by a sudden rise of an ice slope. Snowflakes mixed with hail smashed onto the ground. The outline of the snow mountain in the distance carried a chilling air under the moonlight.
Is this geographical formation normal?
Yu Chi’s mouth fell open. She hadn’t been wrong. There really was a snow mountain next to this forest.
【Warning! The ambient temperature has dropped sharply. Continued exposure will lead to severe frostbite!】
Even the system had popped up a reminder. One could imagine how harsh the environment was now.
Yu Chi took out the few Ice Crystal Tree branches from her backpack. She had accidentally discovered that these branches could actually resist some of the cold. However, only the branches with the Ice Crystal Fruits had this effect. The others… even if she plucked all the branches from that Ice Crystal Tree, they wouldn’t have this effect.
Don’t ask how she knew.
Yu Chi: Hee hee.
She quickened her pace and found a cluster of small plants at the junction of the snow slope and the forest—each leaf was like a solidified flame, yet its surface was covered with a layer of ice.
【Species: Frostflame Flower
Grade: Excellent
Trait: Increases Spirit recovery speed by 20%.】
“Another Spirit item…” Yu Chi picked up a petal. The ice shell melted at her fingertips, and a cluster of faint blue flames suddenly jumped out from inside. She was so scared that she threw the petal away. The flame didn’t go out when it landed, but instead burned a small pit in the snow.
Yu Chi felt wronged. Okay, she wouldn’t play around recklessly next time.
I almost burned my clothes, she thought.
Yu Chi suspected that most of the plants on this island were related to Spirit buffs. In that case, she was really lucky.
However, her Strength and Agility attributes also needed to be slowly improved in the future. Although her Strength and Agility would skyrocket after transforming into another form, they were in fact still only 8 and 11.
If her own body’s Strength and Agility increased, then her Strength and Agility after transformation would become even more exaggerated.
After working for 3 hours, a Frostflame Flower field and an Ice Crystal Grape vine trellis were added to the [Two-Sided Mirror].
You ask where the land for planting potatoes, rice, and watermelons went?
Ahem, haven’t planted them yet, right? We’ll talk about it later!
Yu Chi sat on the mountain of supplies in the center of the space and counted her stock: 121 Beautiful Mushrooms, 237 Moonlight Grass plants, 89 Frostflame Flowers, 9 Ice Crystal Fruits, 23 various Frost Crystals, six Ice Crystal Grape vines, a small Red Star Tree forest (future version), plus three cubic meters of special wood dried by the Cinnabar Finch’s flames.
She had seen these Ice Crystal Grape vines near the Frostflame Flowers. Each vine had about a thousand grapes. She had simply transplanted them all into the [Two-Sided Mirror].
Originally, it should have been impossible to transplant them successfully, but she didn’t know what the attribute of this [Two-Sided Mirror] was. The plants transplanted from Cold Moon Island formed a world of their own. Just by getting close, she could feel the cold.
And on the other side, it was full of life and incomparably ordinary.
And was it an illusion? Since moving these plants into the [Two-Sided Mirror], she seemed to feel that the space had become a little wider.
She could take a closer look after returning to the boat.
These Ice Crystal Grapes were particularly delicious. Yu Chi took a bite and felt that the juice was abundant and the pulp was delicate. Even someone like her, who didn’t particularly like grapes, felt that she couldn’t stop and wished she could eat eight or ten at a time.
But she managed to hold back with difficulty.
Ordinary fruits were ungraded. These grapes were of the common grade. Although it was only one grade higher, not only was the taste worlds apart, but long-term consumption was also good for the body.
【Species: Ice Crystal Grape
Grade: Common
Description: Incomparably delicious, sweet and sour. Long-term consumption can have a subtle effect on the body (beneficial). Please explore the specifics yourself.】
Yu Chi didn’t dwell on it. In any case, the fruit was already in her hands. She would find out its effects sooner or later.
She was about to continue exploring when a scalp-numbing danger warning exploded in her mind, and her heart began to pound violently.
What is it?
Yu Chi tightened her grip on the Shark Dagger and bit her lip hard until she tasted blood.
The surroundings were completely silent, and there seemed to be nothing unusual.