Chapter 303 - 265: Skill Upgrade: Regeneration Fruit

Mr. Ya’s Earth Escape couldn’t pass through the transparent container, so the two of them had to return to the surface.

To get the Earth Core Potatoes, they had to enter the transparent container, which meant entering the Earth Core Potato’s territory.

They could either dig with tools or use Earth Escape to go straight down.

Su Ze’s Storage Pendant still contained a hoe and shovel he had just gotten from the warehouse, which were perfect for digging. However, digging was too slow and would give the Earth Core Potato plenty of time to prepare and react.

The Earth Core Potato might detonate before they even finished digging.

’However... the transparent container isn’t that large, and it’s densely packed with Earth Core Potatoes. If one of them detonates, the others will certainly be affected and explode as well. That’s no different from setting off a bomb in an armory. So, if the Earth Core Potato detonates one of its own, isn’t that basically suicide?’

The environment of the growth chamber limited the Earth Core Potato’s capabilities. In nature, it would sink its roots deep into the earth, and its potatoes would be spread throughout the underground. But in the growth chamber, the space available for it to grow was limited.

This particular Earth Core Potato was a variety modified by the spaceship’s owner, allowing it to produce many potatoes even in a confined space. This made harvesting convenient for others, but for the plant itself, it was undoubtedly a regression.

It had lost its strongest survival mechanism, turning its most powerful attack into a method of suicide.

Realizing this, Su Ze thought he might be able to negotiate with the Earth Core Potato.

’You don’t want to blow yourself up, do you?’

Su Ze began using his Spiritual Power to reach out and communicate with the Earth Core Potato.

They didn’t share a language, but Spiritual Power could directly convey intent, bypassing the language barrier to express his exact meaning.

The message Su Ze conveyed was simple: "I just need to dig up three—no, five Earth Core Potatoes. I won’t harm you, so you’d best cooperate."

The Earth Core Potato’s response was simple, and Su Ze could feel its rage: "I’ll blow you up!"

Su Ze didn’t hold back. "Go on, blow one up and see what happens! If you want to kill yourself, I won’t stop you."

As a Rank-5 Spiritual Plant, the Earth Core Potato was quite intelligent and certainly understood its own predicament. It could either compromise with Su Ze or end everything in mutual destruction.

For a moment, the Earth Core Potato fell silent.

Seeing his chance, Su Ze pressed on. "You’ve grown so many potatoes, what’s the harm in giving me five? I swear, as soon as I have them, I’ll leave immediately and never bother you again."

The Earth Core Potato finally replied, "One!"

Su Ze smiled slightly. ’It’s finally budging, so this should be easy. The rest is just haggling. I estimate I only need one to upgrade my skill anyway.’

"Four!" Su Ze said.

"Two!"

"Four!"

"Three!"

"Four!"

"Three! That’s it! Ask for one more and I’ll explode!" the Earth Core Potato raged.

"Fine, fine. Three it is," Su Ze said, satisfied.

Su Ze took out the recently acquired hoe and prepared to dig, but Mr. Ya quickly interjected, "Boss, let me go. What if that thing suddenly changes its mind?"

Su Ze considered it. ’I don’t think the Earth Core Potato would do that, but sending Mr. Ya is indeed safer.’

Even if the Earth Core Potato lost its nerve and self-destructed, Mr. Ya could escape unharmed with his invincibility skill.

So, Mr. Ya shouldered the hoe, swaggered over, and dug up three Earth Core Potatoes without incident.

Su Ze gave one of the three Earth Core Potatoes to Mr. Ya and kept two for himself.

He ate one of the Earth Core Potatoes on the spot.

Its texture was similar to a potato, but it had a hint of sweetness and was much juicier, almost like eating a piece of fruit.

As soon as he’d eaten the Earth Core Potato, Su Ze felt his body absorb it. It transformed into a stream of energy that flowed throughout his system, remodeling him from within.

A few minutes later, the transformation was complete. Su Ze could clearly feel that his physique had improved, and the enhancement was significant.

More importantly, one of his skills had upgraded. As expected, it was once again the "Regeneration Body" skill.

His original Rank-2, S-Class "Regeneration Body" skill, after two upgrades and one enhancement, was now a true Rank-4, S-Class skill!

First, his Self-Healing Ability was enhanced. Even if Su Ze were to complete his fourth evolution and become a Sage-level powerhouse, the healing from "Regeneration Body" wouldn’t fall behind; it would be more than sufficient.

His other fundamental abilities also improved across the board. The recovery rates of his evolutionary power and stamina, as well as the speed at which his Regeneration Core re-formed after shattering, all became faster.

Beyond these fundamental enhancements, he also gained a new ability. Su Ze could now extract the life energy from his Regeneration Core to create a "Regeneration Fruit," an exceptionally effective Holy Medicine for healing.

The healing efficacy of the Regeneration Fruit depended on the amount of life energy Su Ze extracted. He could even drain his entire Regeneration Core. A Regeneration Fruit created that way could bring any life form at or below the Sage-level powerhouse tier back to full health, as long as they still had a single breath left in them.

The trade-off, however, was that the more life energy Su Ze extracted, the longer it would take for the Regeneration Core to replenish. If he drained it completely, the core would disappear and need to be re-formed from scratch.

Furthermore, if the Regeneration Core was not at full energy, shattering it would result in a diminished healing effect. If its energy was below fifty percent, the ability would fail completely.

Additionally, the created Regeneration Fruit could not be stored long-term and had to be consumed immediately.

’Not bad...’ Su Ze was mostly satisfied with this skill upgrade. Before, he could only heal himself; now he had the ability to heal others.

It was just that his Regeneration Core had shattered during the recent battle with Ye Muni and Amida, so he was currently unable to test the Regeneration Fruit’s ability.

Su Ze put away the last Earth Core Potato and continued exploring the growth chamber with Mr. Ya.

The two of them proceeded to explore the entire growth chamber. The Oasis Mother Tree introduced Su Ze to several other Spiritual Plants, but there wasn’t a single one he could afford to provoke.

’I’ll have to wait until I’m stronger to come back and harvest them...’ Su Ze eyed some of the Spiritual Plants with extreme desire.

There was even one Rank-5 Spiritual Plant that exerted a primal pull on him—another one that could upgrade his skills.

However, this Spiritual Plant was nowhere near as helpless as the Earth Core Potato. It was an iron-armored tree. Though only a little over a meter tall, its razor-sharp Iron Leaves bristled with killing intent, making it look extremely dangerous.

The evolutionary material Su Ze needed was the trunk within its iron armor, which meant he would have to kill it to get it. Negotiation was out of the question.

Su Ze weighed his chances and decided to give up.

"Let’s go," Su Ze said, leading Mr. Ya toward the exit.

They had finished exploring the entire growth chamber, and their haul had been substantial.

In addition to obtaining the Earth Core Potatoes and upgrading his skill, he had also acquired several Heart-shaped Fruits, not to mention the spoils from killing Ye Muni and Amida.

He hadn’t yet taken a close look at their Storage Rings, planning to examine them carefully later.

"I wonder how Mr. Gu and the others are doing. Do you think we’ll run into them when we head to the control room?"

...

Gu Chengguang and the others followed the middle fork in the path all the way to the end, where they came upon a giant flower over ten meters tall!

It was a type of flower they had never seen or even heard of before. It was incredibly strange—the bloom itself was black and shaped like a human head!

Aside from the facial features being blurry and indistinct, the flower was fundamentally shaped like a person’s head.

A jet-black human head sitting atop a stalk—it was a truly bizarre sight.

If they had a map of the ship’s interior like Su Ze, they would have known this flower was the "control room." But they didn’t.

And so, as they stared at the strangely shaped Demon Brain Flower, their minds couldn’t help but conjure up many unsettling ideas.

Things like an evil, brain-eating alien Spiritual Plant, or a demonic flower watered with fresh blood.

The five Sage-level powerhouses circled the Demon Brain Flower, running a series of tests and probes. They attacked it, tried to slice off the head-shaped bloom, and attempted to dig up its roots...

But in the end, all their attempts failed.

"We’re short on time. We shouldn’t waste any more of it here," Jasim suggested.

"True. By my calculations, the people from the Sovereign Country should be arriving any time now."

"We’ve explored this path to its end and found nothing. We should turn back and check the other two."

Thus, the group retraced their steps, returning once more to the fork in the road.

"Time is running out. Let’s split up," Jasim took the initiative to say. "Mr. Gu, how about you two and Heto take one path, while the two of us take the other?"

With a left and a right path remaining, Jasim had no idea which one might hold treasure. So, he arranged for one of the Great Desert Kingdom’s powerhouses to accompany Gu Chengguang’s group, ensuring that his people from the Great Desert Kingdom were on both routes.

That way, if Gu Chengguang and Li Fayi found any treasures on their path, the Great Desert Kingdom would be able to claim a share.

And if the two powerhouses from the Great Desert Kingdom found anything on their path, they wouldn’t have to share it with the Dongli Kingdom.

Although the Great Desert Kingdom and Dongli had always enjoyed a good relationship, everything took a backseat to profit.

Gu Chengguang pondered for a moment. He believed that if there truly was any treasure on this ship, Su Ze, guided by the Oasis Mother Tree, would undoubtedly be the first to get his hands on it.

Therefore, he wasn’t concerned with these minor gains or losses. He smiled and said, "Since we are in the Great Desert Kingdom, everything is at Your Majesty’s discretion."

"Excellent. In that case, Mr. Gu, please choose a path. Left or right?" Jasim inquired.

"Either is fine." Gu Chengguang smiled and shook his head. He knew Jasim suspected Su Ze had some kind of "inside information," so whichever path he chose would only arouse Jasim’s suspicion. That being the case, it was better not to choose at all.

So Jasim made the final decision: he would take the left path, and Gu Chengguang would take the right.

Gu Chengguang and Li Fayi, along with the Great Desert Kingdom powerhouse named Heto, set off down the right path.

Just as they were approaching the entrance to the growth chamber, they ran right into Su Ze and Mr. Ya.

Su Ze had tossed Ye Muni’s corpse into the growth chamber and was just climbing back out through the Big-Mouth Flower’s maw.

He hadn’t taken more than a few steps before he ran into Gu Chengguang’s party of three.

Heto immediately spotted the signs of battle and the bloodstains on the ground not far behind them and asked, "What happened over there?"

It was all blood from Ye Muni and Amida.