Why Not Give It a Try?

Why Not Give It a Try?

That night, when Xiao Zhen returned, Xu Zhi opened the window. A streak of white lightning flew into the room through the opening, then beat its wings to control its body and strength before lightly landing on Xu Zhi's raised arm.

Xu Zhi wore no protective gear. This was actually out of trust in her Familiars. Doggie and Little One's behavior had proven that her Familiars held an extraordinary degree of affection and obedience toward her, so Xiao Zhen was presumably the same.

Though the Gyrfalcon had restrained its strength, Xu Zhi still felt a slight sting where it perched on her arm. It probably had not broken the skin, though, and was within her tolerance.

This little sting was far easier than the torment she had endured in the past.

Besides, this was just too cool!

The girl stared at the falcon obediently standing on her arm, her eyes sparkling. But before long, her arm began to ache. She could only helplessly lift it slightly, and the falcon seemed to share her thoughts as it flew off to perch elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Doggie radiated dissatisfaction from head to toe. It seemed unable to understand why Xu Zhi had not cuddled with it when they first met, yet was now so happily snuggling up to a bird!

Little One was different. It had already silently shrunk down and coiled around Xu Zhi's wrist.

The little black snake felt somewhat cool against her skin, but Xu Zhi did not mind much. Whenever Little One played dead and turned into a bracelet, it never moved anyway, so it did not matter.

Only Doggie lay pitifully beside the bed, wagging its tail and looking at Xu Zhi as if begging for affection. Xu Zhi blinked, then, as though her conscience had finally kicked in, reached out and stroked its head. The silly dog was instantly revived at full health.

After soothing her three Familiars, Xu Zhi's mood improved as well. She returned to the bed, picked up the Game Console, and took stock of today's gains.

Aside from the Evolution Points they had each earned, there were only Attribute Cores.

The three Familiars had hunted from around noon until nightfall, gathering a total of eleven cores.

Six were [Blade] Attribute Cores, four were [Moth], and one was [Winter].

"Eleven?"

That was unexpectedly many. But thinking about it, it made sense. Little One had received a huge boost, Doggie had leveled up, and there was now another Familiar out hunting. It would have been strange if their gains had not multiplied.

"If we can keep this up, maybe I can give it a try."

After all, cores had an incredibly wide range of uses. As far as she knew, they could be swallowed directly to improve one's extraordinary affinity and level, fed to a Spirit Vessel, or used to forge extraordinary items.

Eleven a day looked decent, but upon closer thought, it was nowhere near enough.

Besides herself, she also had to feed cores to her Familiars. The Narrator had already hinted at that.

That made sense. If they only ate the flesh of Mutated Animals, the extraordinary energy contained within it definitely would not be enough.

Xu Zhi was a little dissatisfied, but when she considered that people without Familiars would probably struggle to obtain even a single core a day, she felt that her current situation was not bad after all.

Only now did she understand that happiness came from comparison. After all, she had always been the relatively unhappy one in the past, with no one else to compare herself to.

Xu Zhi was in no rush to use all the cores. The next morning, after waking up, she first sent her three Familiars out, then took out three [Moth] Attribute Cores and swallowed them.

She had deliberately saved one so she could gather enough Attributes for the Spirit Vessel.

After swallowing the three [Moth] Attribute Cores, for some reason, she did not experience the particularly vivid hallucinations from before. Instead, countless moths appeared in the room and fluttered chaotically around her. Gray scales drifted down from the air. Xu Zhi thought she would choke, but it was only an illusion.

The moths existed only briefly before vanishing, replaced by extraordinary energy within her body that seemed to have grown stronger.

"If only extraordinary Attribute affinity had a progress bar too."

As things were, she had no idea how much her affinity increased after swallowing a core.

After eating the cores, Xu Zhi checked Xiao Zhen's view. It was flying at high speed in search of Black Fruit. It did not fly very high, since the fog interfered with its vision. It could not easily spot prey from the sky as it could in the normal world.

Yet even while cruising at high speed, Xiao Zhen had only found one fruit so far.

"Looks like this thing really is rare."

So she had indeed been extremely lucky to find one before. The Narrator had not exaggerated.

For the rest of the time, Xu Zhi did not keep watching the game screen. Instead, she set the Game Console beside her and began reading.

After that, Xu Zhi simply repeated these daily routines. Every morning, she sent Xiao Zhen out to search for Black Fruit. Normally, she stayed home and read. Occasionally, she had her Familiars bring back daily necessities, and she would toss anything she had no use for upstairs to Shen Jinwen as a gesture of kindness.

Xu Zhi ate most of the [Moth] Attribute Cores herself. She could feel the extraordinary energy inside her growing each day, and the time she could continuously keep the Eye of Secrets active was steadily increasing. Xu Zhi did not notice that as her affinity with [Moth] grew higher and higher, the Eye of Secrets could see more and more. Even the color of her pupils gradually began to fade.

The change was subtle, though. To outsiders, it merely looked as though the girl had rather light-colored eyes.

Aside from that, Xu Zhi had deliberately saved two [Moth] Attribute Cores, two [Blade] Attribute Cores, the seven [Cup] Attribute Cores she already had remaining, plus three more she had obtained, making ten in total, along with one [Winter] Attribute Core and three [Heart] Attribute Cores.

At present, she only had eighteen Attribute Cores in her inventory.

There were two reasons for saving them. First, she needed reserves in case of emergencies. Second, she had to keep cores of different Attributes ready for the Spirit Vessel at all times.

As for whether to conduct an experiment that randomly sent something into the outside world, Xu Zhi was hesitant.

Her Familiars had brought back quite a few cores over the past few days, but... she and her Familiars also consumed a great deal. They had eaten almost all of them.

As for saving cores for the Spirit Vessel experiment, Xu Zhi was still considering it. She was not yet wealthy enough to squander cores freely, unless she could find a way to obtain a large number of cores, or secure a more stable and abundant source of them.

But what troubled her most at the moment was that she was no longer obtaining new types of Attribute Cores.

No matter how often they went out, she could only get these same five Attributes, as if they were deliberately at odds with her.

Five Attributes were not few, really. The Narrator had said there were only eight Attributes in total, and accumulating five types in such a short time was already impressive. But Xu Zhi still felt uncomfortable not knowing the full range of Attributes.

"Eighteen should be enough for one attempt."

She would use the [Heart] and [Cup] Attributes, which were temporarily useless to her, as the foundation, then mix in one [Moth] Attribute Core to make three Attributes.

"...Why do these three Attributes feel kind of strange together?"

If she classified them according to Dungeons & Dragons alignments, [Heart] felt inclined toward good, while [Cup] was unquestionably evil. As for [Moth], it was definitely chaotic.

What could come from the collision of good and evil, combined with chaos?

"That's pretty interesting."

Xu Zhi decided to give it a try.