After a bout of wild joy, Lin Li reined in his excitement and climbed to his feet from the damp grass. He then hurried to the ordinary-looking small tree at the center of the Small Island.
"I never would've guessed. You look so ordinary, like you're suffering from malnutrition, yet you're actually a priceless treasure."
Lin Li carefully sized up the unremarkable Small Tree before him. It was only two meters tall, and he pondered inwardly.
"When I first came to this Mysterious Small Island, this Small Tree clearly wasn't bearing fruit. How did it grow such a miraculous little fruit after only one day?
"If it can grow one, does that mean it can grow a second? How can I make it grow more little fruits?"
As Lin Li stared at the Small Tree before him, his mind brimming with doubts, he reached out and touched its trunk.
The moment his fingers touched the Small Tree's trunk, information related to it appeared out of thin air in his mind.
"So that's how it is. For this Miracle Small Tree to continue growing vigorously and produce those miraculous little fruits, it needs a large amount of Exotic Beast flesh and blood!"
Having learned how to cultivate the Miracle Small Tree, Lin Li broke into a happy smile. He decided to buy some Exotic Beast Meat at the market tomorrow and test whether this method would work.
The fireball Lin Li had unleashed with his supernatural ability just now had nearly exhausted all the Spiritual Energy in his body.
After deciding to go to the market tomorrow morning to buy some Exotic Beast Meat, Lin Li's vision suddenly went black. Just like last time, he left the Mysterious Small Island.
After Lin Li vanished, the Mysterious Small Island returned to tranquility. The placid water rippled not at all, the white mist drifted slowly, and the malnourished Miracle Small Tree stood quietly. If not for the damp grass covering the island's edge, everything would have been no different from usual.
"Gah..."
"It hurts..."
Lin Li appeared out of thin air on the sofa. He raised his right hand and knocked on his head, only recovering after half a minute.
"Although this pain is still within what I can endure, there's no need to put myself through this. I'll have to take it easy with my Spiritual Energy from now on. I can't exhaust it completely again."
After the headache faded, Lin Li estimated how long it would take for his Spiritual Energy to fully recover. Suddenly, he froze.
"This... Why has my Spiritual Energy recovery speed become so much faster?
"Could that miraculous fruit also improve my cultivation aptitude?"
If exhausting his Spiritual Energy before had required an entire day to recover fully, that recovery time had now been shortened by a third.
Feeling the earth-shaking changes within his body, Lin Li once again revealed a wildly delighted smile. Tonight was destined to be a sleepless night.
Early the next morning, just as the first ray of sunlight appeared in the eastern sky, Lin Li, who had tossed and turned all night in bed, immediately threw off his covers and got up. After dressing, he ran to the bathroom to wash up.
He took less than three minutes to wash his face and brush his teeth. Once he was done, he didn't even eat breakfast before hurriedly leaving home and heading for the market.
The market vendors had started doing business before dawn. By the time Lin Li arrived, quite a few people shopping for vegetables were already browsing the various stalls.
Lin Li's goal was very clear. He walked straight past the ordinary vegetable stalls toward a luxuriously decorated shop deeper inside the market.
It was a shop specializing in Exotic Beast Meat. Although Exotic Beast Meat was considerably more expensive than ordinary meat, plenty of people still came here to buy it.
By the time Lin Li reached the shop selling Exotic Beast Meat, quite a few people were already lining up.
"So many people! I should've gotten up and left even earlier." Muttering to himself, Lin Li went to the end of the line.
"Boss, how fresh is this Exotic Beast Meat?"
"Old Zhang, don't worry! My Exotic Beast Meat is absolutely fresh. I just received this batch this morning.
"The wholesaler who supplies me told me these Exotic Beasts had been dead for no more than twenty-four hours."
After standing in line for more than ten minutes, it was finally Lin Li's turn.
"Young man, how much do you want?" The butcher, wearing an apron and holding a gleaming meat cleaver, was slightly surprised to see such a young fellow buying meat so early in the morning.
After all, it was practically impossible to run into young people who got up this early to shop at the market.
"Give me three jin!" Lin Li planned to conduct an initial test, so he didn't ask for much.
"Sure thing." The butcher nodded. With a swift slash of his knife, he neatly cut three jin of Exotic Beast Meat for Lin Li.
"Beep." Taking the three jin of Exotic Beast Meat from the butcher, Lin Li pulled out his phone, scanned the QR code, and paid him three hundred yuan.
Lin Li had bought Boar Beast meat. It cost one hundred yuan per jin, while ordinary domestically raised pork was currently around twenty-something yuan per jin—a difference of nearly five times.
After buying the Exotic Beast Meat, Lin Li hurried out of the market. He was now itching to find somewhere deserted and enter the Mysterious Small Island.
After leaving the market, Lin Li crossed the road and entered a park nearby.
Because the park was small and somewhat out of the way, very few people came there for morning exercise.
At first, after entering the park, Lin Li planned to find an empty grove to hide in and enter the Mysterious Small Island directly.
But after thinking it over, he decided it would be safer to take precautions. Thus, he entered the park's public restroom, found an empty stall, locked the door, and then focused his thoughts. A pale golden Spiritual Light flashed over his body, and he vanished from the restroom.
The barren island, the ordinary Small Tree, the tranquil water, and the white mist were all exactly the same as when Lin Li had left the night before.
After appearing on the Mysterious Small Island, Lin Li took the piece of Exotic Beast Meat he had just bought out of the plastic bag and placed it beneath the Miracle Small Tree.
One minute. Two minutes. Five minutes.
Lin Li stared at the piece of Exotic Beast Meat beneath the tree for a full five minutes, but the meat he had bought showed no change whatsoever.
"Why hasn't there been any change at all? Could the information that appeared in my mind yesterday have been wrong?"
Just as Lin Li was feeling deeply disappointed, a piece of information suddenly surfaced in his mind.
The Exotic Beast Meat before you is not fresh. The Exotic Beast must have been dead for no more than one hour.
"..."
After seeing this message suddenly appear in his mind, Lin Li froze. He never would have imagined that the Miracle Small Tree had requirements for the freshness of Exotic Beast Meat. This was completely beyond his expectations.
Before you continue