So What Are We Now?

So What Are We Now?

After discussing the terms of the deal with Shen Jinwen, Xu Zhi was in no hurry to leave.

Now that she had tested Shen Jinwen's attitude, there were some things she could discuss with her.

"Do you know Nanshan Villa District?" she asked.

Shen Jinwen nodded. "I do."

"How far is it from here?"

At Xu Zhi's question, Shen Jinwen's expression shifted subtly. "Do you want to go there?"

Xu Zhi shook her head. "No. I'm just asking."

Shen Jinwen said, "Oh, it's still pretty far. Normally, it takes around forty minutes by car. It's over by the South City Ecological District."

That was under normal circumstances. Now, they could not pass through the city and had to take a detour. It would take well over an hour to get there.

It seemed she would not be able to make contact with it for the time being, unless she randomly ended up nearby again.

Xu Zhi stopped asking about Nanshan Villa District. Seeing that it was about time, she prepared to say goodbye.

Before she left, Shen Jinwen stopped her with a question. "I'm planning to look for something we can use to contact our companions later, like walkie-talkies. Do you need one?"

There was actually a hint of implication in those words, something along the lines of: Do you want to become teammates with me?

Xu Zhi thought Shen Jinwen was rather reserved in the way she spoke, so she smiled and nodded. "Of course. We can't keep guessing whether the other person is home every time, can we?"

Shen Jinwen looked cool, like the sort of person who was aloof and difficult to approach. Yet when she heard Xu Zhi's answer, a faint smile appeared on her normally composed face, instantly making her seem far more approachable.

Xu Zhi knew it was because they had silently reached a Companion Agreement.

On the way home, Xu Zhi kept thinking that appearances really could be deceiving. After getting to know Shen Jinwen, her personality was not as difficult to approach as her looks suggested. Instead, beneath her silence, she even seemed somewhat obedient. Xu Zhi did not know whether she should describe a girl several years older than herself that way, but that was how it felt.

Before they knew each other, Shen Jinwen had been sufficiently vigilant and never relied on others. Even in a place like this, she could live independently. Yet after getting acquainted, she was unexpectedly easygoing. Once she considered someone trustworthy, she would even take the initiative to show goodwill. Her aggressiveness had only surfaced when they first met.

Xu Zhi liked teammates who were more obedient and did not have too many opinions, because she had always lived by following other people's words in the past. Now, she naturally did not want to listen to anyone's opinions anymore.

Not long after she returned home, the Game Console finished upgrading.

Xu Zhi watched the two-hour progress bar painstakingly crawl through its final stretch. Then the screen displayed the same scene she had seen when she first picked up the Game Console.

A gloomy sky made of pixels. A black sun hung high overhead, and pollution was born from it, turning into liquid and endlessly pouring down into the mortal world.

A familiar line from the Narrator appeared in the center of the screen.

[Game update complete.]

[Click to view update announcement.]

Xu Zhi clicked confirm, and the update announcement popped up.

[The contents of this game update are as follows:

1. Idle Mode settings have been optimized. After the update, Idle Mode will no longer have a time limit, and you may modify commands or recall Familiars at any time.

2. The improvements brought to you whenever a Familiar levels up have been increased.

3. A suggestion box function has been added. If you have any dissatisfaction with the game during future use, you may submit feedback through the suggestion box. The game will make adjustments accordingly.]

There were only three update notes, but they left Xu Zhi somewhat stunned.

Why did this game feel so obedient?

She remembered that she had complained about how rigid the Idle Mode feature was just a few days ago. It had immediately been optimized, and a suggestion box had even been added.

More importantly, the second point said that Familiar level-ups would provide her with greater improvements. That update struck Xu Zhi as rather strange.

She had always wondered where the energy behind the physical enhancements Familiars gave her after leveling up came from.

From the Familiars themselves? Or from the game?

Did that mean this update was the game squeezing either itself or the Familiars to provide her with more help?

Was this game treating her like an ancestor to be worshipped?

It gave her detailed prompts for everything, freely told her secrets ordinary people could never learn, provided both mental and physical support, and now immediately changed anything she had an opinion about.

And it had never asked anything of her, nor had it ever harmed her.

"What is going on?"

Xu Zhi even began wildly imagining some earth-shattering conspiracy. For example, perhaps she was livestock being raised by the Game Console, and once it had fattened her up, it would reveal its true purpose and slaughter her.

But... why raise her? She had been so weak at the start.

Wouldn't literally anyone else have been stronger than her?

She had not even awakened supernatural abilities on her own. She had only built herself up by eating cores!

At the thought of self-awakening, Xu Zhi paused.

The Game Console's overly "fawning" behavior, along with the "coincidence" that it began upgrading right after she ate the Black Fruit, gave her some bold ideas.

But Xu Zhi instinctively rejected the speculation in her mind. It was simply too strange. Although the Game Console had appeared very suddenly, she had not experienced any hallucinations at the time, nor had she dreamed like Shen Jinwen. Afterward, she had not sensed any supernatural ability either. She was still an ordinary person.

So the Game Console should not be her supernatural ability. Otherwise, why had she felt nothing at all?

After awakening [Eye of Secrets], she had clearly sensed the difference between being an ordinary person and advancing into a supernatural being.

But she had not felt that when she obtained the Game Console.

Thus, not long after the bold idea appeared, Xu Zhi rejected it again.

"What other reason could there be?"

Xu Zhi sighed, feeling that she truly could not figure out why the Game Console had "taken a liking" to her.

But no matter what, it was the only thing she could hold onto right now. So far, the Game Console had shown no signs of anything wrong. She would not give up this tool that could make her stronger.

For now, though, she would first experience just how much of an improvement Familiar level-ups could bring her after the update.

Xu Zhi took the remaining three Black Fruits from the inventory. She fed one to Doggie and one to Little One.

There was one left. She intended to see how much Little One could digest this time. If it could absorb enough Evolution Points, she would give it the last one.

After all, her current goal was to raise a level 20 Familiar as quickly as possible.

Besides, after feeding them two fruits, she would get two chances to draw Familiar traits. That would also be a major improvement for her personally.

Watching her two Familiars fall asleep after eating the fruits, Xu Zhi still could not let it go.

The Familiars clearly gained obvious improvements after eating the fruits, so why did she herself gain nothing?

She neither felt the supernatural energy inside her increase, nor sensed any upgrade to [Eye of Secrets], much less gained any new supernatural ability!

The only change was that the game had upgraded. It was hard not to overthink it!

"So what exactly is our relationship?"

Holding the Game Console, the girl muttered to herself in distress.

While thinking about this chapter's title, she looked at the ending and suddenly thought of that line. She could not hold it in and ended up amusing herself.

(So actually, this chapter's title has nothing to do with the main text.)