Building Card

The appearance of the cards confirmed to Tang Zhixue that the two beasts were completely dead.

"Two cards. That's a pretty high drop rate."

Murmuring to himself, Tang Zhixue walked out of the dense woods.

It had not been apparent from a distance, but as he approached, he discovered that the two beasts were much larger than ordinary tigers and wild boars.

"They really are huge. I wonder if their meat is edible..."

Tang Zhixue studied the two carcasses curiously for a moment, then reached out to collect the cards.

The carcasses were not going anywhere. He was more curious about the two cards they had dropped.

[Item: Building Card]

[Grade: first tier]

[Description: Tearing this card allows one room in the Shelter to be converted into a specific building room, provided that the required item has been placed in the original room.]

[Item: Knowledge Card]

[Grade: first tier]

[Description: Tear this card to obtain the forging recipe for spirit-pattern iron.]

The former came from the Sharp-Horned Tiger, and the latter from the Mud Boar.

"A Building Card? A Knowledge Card?"

Tang Zhixue held the two cards before his eyes and examined them closely. "New types of cards. I wonder if there are any other types."

He did not use these two cards right away either, instead putting both into the Back Basket.

The two beast carcasses on the ground posed something of a problem for Tang Zhixue.

They were so large that transporting them back would be difficult.

Standing where he was, he looked up and surveyed his surroundings. Seeing that the path he had taken was fairly wide, Tang Zhixue suddenly had an idea.

First, he dug up the plant along with the soil around its roots and placed it directly into the Back Basket.

Then he used the Iron Axe to cut a dozen or so wooden poles from the surrounding trees, each as thick as the mouth of a bowl and four or five meters long, and bound them tightly together with vines to make a simple hauling platform.

He cut several more poles of roughly the same size and placed some of them beneath the platform at set intervals.

After putting the beast carcasses onto the platform, Tang Zhixue laid the remaining poles one by one in front of it, spacing them the same distance apart.

"Heave, ho!"

Standing in front, he pulled hard, and the platform immediately slid forward until it reached the last pole.

Then Tang Zhixue went back to retrieve the poles left behind, one by one, and placed them in front again.

Tang Zhixue kept repeating these movements.

Fortunately, the way back was fairly wide. Even the plants blocking his path were small ones that he could easily clear away with the Iron Axe.

By the time the sky grew dark again, Tang Zhixue had brought the two beast carcasses back to the Shelter, once more drenched in sweat.

[Item: Thorn-Horned Mutant Tiger carcass]

[Grade: first tier]

[Description: The carcass of a first-tier mutant beast. Edible; can improve physical attributes.]

[Item: Mud-Armored Boar carcass]

[Grade: first tier]

[Description: The carcass of a first-tier mutant beast. Edible; can improve physical attributes.]

The descriptions of the two mutated beasts were brief and to the point.

Only because the Shelter had been upgraded could it hold the two mutated beast carcasses at all, but bringing them inside made the Shelter as cramped as it had been before.

"Well, now there's no room for a forge or anything else."

After relighting the fireplace, Tang Zhixue shook his head helplessly.

He took several cards out of the Back Basket and sorted through them.

While rummaging through the Back Basket, however, he took out a pale blue plant he had forgotten about.

[Item: frost-ash grass]

[Grade: second tier]

[Description: A short plant that is pale blue throughout, with long, narrow leaves like blades of ice. It produces orange-yellow fruit when mature. The mutated plant itself can dispel the silent white fog within several meters. Its fruit contains a large amount of pure energy and can accelerate the evolution of mutated beasts that consume it. Living near the plant over an extended period can also slowly improve resistance to the silent white fog.]

"Second tier!"

Tang Zhixue's eyes shone as he gazed excitedly at the frost-ash grass in his hand.

This was the first second-tier mutated plant he had obtained.

Then he picked out the two cards dropped by the dead mutated beasts from among the cards: the newly appeared Building Card and Knowledge Card.

After thinking for a while, he took the Building Card and the frost-ash grass into the room containing the Planting Box.

The room was quite spacious, with an area of around forty or fifty square meters.

Of course, that conclusion came from comparing it to an ordinary room. Compared to farmland, it was naturally a very small area.

"I just tear it?"

Standing beside the Planting Box, Tang Zhixue curiously tore the Building Card in his hand.

[Planting tool detected in room: first-tier Planting Box]

[Conversion requirements for special building [Planting Cottage] met]

[Beginning conversion...]

[Conversion successful!]

The Planting Box in the center of the room slowly sank, and soil gradually covered the entire floor.

Finally, the Planting Box vanished completely. A thick layer of soil covered the entire floor, and the mutated plants originally inside the Planting Box were now planted in the center of the room.

[Planting Cottage: Currently contains fifty square meters of indoor planting area. Can absorb free energy from outside to rapidly replenish soil fertility.]

Tang Zhixue hurriedly opened the Shelter information panel.

[Shelter: Blazing Sun]

[Level: 2 (0/1000)]

[Function: regional trading]

[Buildings: Martial Arts Space, Planting Cottage]

[Effects: door god protection · first tier, clear spirit evil-repelling, purification · temporary]

Sure enough, the Planting Cottage had appeared in the buildings section.

"Not bad, not bad."

Tang Zhixue was quite satisfied with the appearance of the Planting Cottage. Now he did not have to worry about the effects of the silent white fog outside.

He planted the frost-ash grass in his hand, then returned to the main hall outside.

He had no plant vitality now, so he would go out each day to draw vitality for the frost-ash grass. Even if it did not adapt, it probably would not die in a single night.

Tang Zhixue sat beside the fireplace and tore the remaining Knowledge Card.

However, the book Tang Zhixue had expected did not appear. Instead, the card turned into a streak of light and entered his body.

"So that's how it works..."

Tang Zhixue came back to his senses, a look of realization appearing on his face.

The knowledge contained in Knowledge Cards was acquired in this form.

That streak of light had contained information about a special metal called spirit-pattern iron.

As Tang Zhixue understood it, spirit-pattern iron was essentially a special alloy. It required ordinary iron to be mixed with powdered energy crystals, then forged until the two were fully fused.

This energy crystal powder was made by grinding platinum crystals, which were similar to Plant Vitality Crystals, though other energy crystals containing metal-aspect energy would also work.

Spirit-pattern iron only needed the metal-aspect energy contained within the energy crystals.

Plant Vitality Crystals contained pure wood-aspect energy, while platinum crystals contained pure metal-aspect energy.