Chapter 16

Cheng Zhiyu pondered for a moment and asked the system, "Is the preservation function the same as a refrigerator’s freezing function?"

The system replied, "The preservation function ensures that whatever you put in stays exactly the same when you take it out."

Cheng Zhiyu: "!!!" he thought, astonished. That’s incredible!

Compared to this, the preservation function seemed far more appealing than a larger storage capacity.

But he still didn’t rush to make a decision. After some thought, he asked, "If I choose the preservation function, will it apply to the entire storage space no matter how much it expands in the future, or will it only work for this one cubic meter?"

This point was clearly important.

The system replied, "It will apply to the entire storage space, regardless of its size."

Upon hearing this, Cheng Zhiyu’s eyes lit up. This meant the preservation function only needed to be selected once. He immediately made his decision: "I choose preservation."

The system said, "Storage space upgrading. Please check again in five hours."

Cheng Zhiyu tried to retrieve something from the storage space but found it impossible. It seemed he would have to wait five hours.

Alright then...

Cheng Zhiyu cultivated for a while, then took the remaining cabbage seeds and entered the system space.

There were two red cabbages left from the previous planting, and he needed to harvest them quickly before they started to flower.

Cheng Zhiyu debated whether to leave one plant to flower and produce seeds but eventually decided against it. His food supply wasn’t abundant yet, and he still had cabbage seeds to plant. He could always save seeds for later.

With this in mind, he harvested the red cabbages and planted the remaining cabbage seeds. This time, he planted them not only around Xiao Er but also around Little Iron, after consulting Little Iron.

As for Little Yellow, its condition wasn’t stable enough yet, so he didn’t plant anything around it to avoid competition for nutrients. The area around Little Yellow remained empty.

Even so, Cheng Zhiyu planted about ten cabbage plants, which would last him a long time once they grew.

He was also curious about what would happen to the cabbages planted around Little Iron. Would they become as tough as Little Iron? And if so, would they still be edible?

Well… he would find out once the cabbages grew.

Speaking of which, after yesterday’s zombie hunting, Xiao Er and Little Iron had both improved significantly. Judging by their appearance, Cheng Zhiyu estimated they were almost at level two.

He petted Xiao Er and Little Iron, praising them repeatedly. The now slightly larger Xiao Er happily rubbed against Cheng Zhiyu, while Little Iron, perhaps feeling jealous, transformed into a cleaver and swung at Xiao Er.

Xiao Er wasn’t about to back down either. One moment it was acting cute, the next it turned into a fireball. The fireball and the cleaver went at it fiercely.

Cheng Zhiyu: "..."

He stayed calm, having grown accustomed to such scenes. He used to worry whether the two would hurt each other, but later realized his concerns were unnecessary. They knew what they were doing and were just playing around.

Seeing that their fight wouldn’t end anytime soon, Cheng Zhiyu left the system space, not forgetting to tell them, "Be careful while fighting. Don’t damage Little Yellow or my cabbages."

The two paused for a moment and moved farther away from Little Yellow and the cabbages.

In the afternoon, the storage space upgrade was completed. Cheng Zhiyu couldn’t see any obvious changes, so he decided to test it by placing a cooked dish inside. When he took it out in the evening, the dish was still hot, as if it had just been cooked.

Cheng Zhiyu: "!!!" Now that’s some high tech!

After that, Cheng Zhiyu stayed busy. Every day, aside from eating and cultivating, he took Little Black and the others out to hunt zombies.

The zombies in the apartment building had already been cleared out, so he moved on to clearing out the zombies in the residential compound. Soon, almost no zombies were left in the compound, with only a few stragglers occasionally drifting in from outside.

During this time, Cheng Zhiyu’s combat skills became more sharpened. Even when facing a group of zombies, he could take them down with ease.

Additionally, there was good news: Xiao Er had leveled up!

The timing of Xiao Er’s upgrade was quite lucky. At the time, they were surrounded by a group of zombies that kept coming endlessly, and the situation was stuck.

Cheng Zhiyu noticed one zombie hiding among the others. It seemed inconspicuous, but it still caught his eye.

This zombie was noticeably more agile than the others, and its body was less rotted. The surrounding zombies appeared to attack randomly, but in reality, they were subtly protecting this particular zombie.

The group was protecting this zombie.

Moreover, Cheng Zhiyu could sense that this zombie was likely more powerful than the female zombie they had encountered before. If the female zombie was at the edge of the first tier of evolution, this one had already fully evolved to the first tier.

Soon, Cheng Zhiyu knew he was right.

When Little Black tried to crush the zombie’s head with a water sphere, he found that unlike other zombies, its head didn’t shatter like a watermelon.

Little Black narrowed his eyes: Metal ability.

This zombie had consciously reinforced the defense of its head. Little Black’s Water ability was at a disadvantage against Metal.

The zombie seemed to realize it had been discovered and stopped pretending to be an ordinary zombie. The next moment, Cheng Zhiyu heard a sharp whizzing sound as surrounding metal objects came crashing toward him.

Cheng Zhiyu reacted quickly, leaping aside as the metal objects crashed together loudly. If he hadn’t moved fast enough, he would have been splattered.

He got ready, but the Metal zombie didn’t attack again. Instead, it let out an angry roar, and more zombies charged toward Cheng Zhiyu.

Cheng Zhiyu said, "It probably can’t attack continuously."

If zombies were to be ranked, this Metal zombie was likely only at level one.

Cheng Zhiyu let out a sigh of relief. It was fortunate. If the zombie could attack continuously, it would have been a real pain to deal with.

Though it was still quite challenging.

Little Black jumped onto Cheng Zhiyu’s shoulder, his gaze fixed on the Metal zombie. He narrowed his eyes. It was only level one, but his Water ability was still too weak.

He lifted a paw and patted Cheng Zhiyu’s hand, which was holding the Little Iron Cleaver.

Cheng Zhiyu immediately understood his meaning: "You’re saying Little Iron can crack its skull?"

Little Black nodded. Little Iron was not regular metal. Even at level one, it could suppress the Metal zombie.

Of course, if they encountered a level-two zombie, it would be much harder to handle.

Now, they needed to close in on the Metal zombie. But how?

Little Black’s expression shifted, and the next moment, Cheng Zhiyu found himself completely surrounded by water. "Little Black?"

Little Black patted Cheng Zhiyu’s shoulder with his paw, telling him to act quickly.

Clearly, Little Black couldn’t keep this up for long.

Cheng Zhiyu nodded and headed for the Metal zombie. The ordinary zombies tried to attack him, but as soon as they touched the water surrounding him, they were shredded.

The water clouded up for a moment before quickly clearing again, continuing to shred any zombies that charged forward.

Cheng Zhiyu: "!"

His eyes widened slightly, but his movements didn't stop as he charged straight toward the Metal-type zombie.

The zombie clearly sensed the danger and grew agitated, drawing more zombies to surround itself in an attempt to evade Cheng Zhiyu.

However, against Little Black's water wall, even a horde of ordinary zombies were no match.

Just as Cheng Zhiyu was about to reach the Metal-type zombie, it launched another attack, hurling metal objects at him.

Cheng Zhiyu frowned. The Metal-type zombie obviously knew the water wall wouldn't last long and was trying to stall for time.

The water wall couldn't block the incoming metal objects... Just as Cheng Zhiyu was about to leap aside, the system’s prompt sounded in his ear: "Congratulations, Host. Xiao Er has reached maturity level 2. Please explore its new abilities."

For the first time, Cheng Zhiyu found the system's mechanical voice surprisingly beautiful and pleasant.

Xiao Er instantly expanded from palm-sized to the size of a human head.

As the metal objects flew toward Cheng Zhiyu, the head-sized fireball enveloped them, halting them mid-air.

Before the Metal-type zombie could react, Cheng Zhiyu swiftly swung his cleaver at it. Its skull was indeed tougher than that of an ordinary zombie, but not as hard as Little Iron.

When the cleaver struck the zombie's head, Cheng Zhiyu's hand vibrated from the impact. Gripping the cleaver tightly, he delivered another forceful blow, and the zombie instantly fell motionless.

The next moment, the water wall around Cheng Zhiyu dissipated and surged toward the remaining ordinary zombies, crushing them to pieces instantly.

It was clear that Little Black was pretty angry.

Cheng Zhiyu asked with concern, "Little Black, are you tired?"

Little Black had overused his ability and was feeling uncomfortable. Though overexertion was uncomfortable, it had its benefits—once his ability recovered, he would become stronger.

However, few people deliberately overused their abilities to gain strength because the discomfort was too intense.

Noticing Little Black's lack of energy, Cheng Zhiyu quickly stroked him, tucked him inside his clothing, and patted him gently through the fabric. "I'm here. If you're tired, just sleep."

Little Black's barely open eyes slowly closed. It was strange—this seemingly weak human gave him an inexplicable sense of security.

The head-sized fireball floated over and hovered in front of Cheng Zhiyu. He immediately understood Xiao Er's intention and praised, "Xiao Er, you're amazing. Thank goodness you were here at the critical moment."

Xiao Er, feeling shy from the praise, wanted to act spoiled with Cheng Zhiyu. But since it had just leveled up, it needed to return to the system’s field to stabilize and reluctantly went back.

After Xiao Er left, Cheng Zhiyu noticed Little Iron floating around anxiously around the Metal-type zombie, as if anxious about something.

Puzzled, Cheng Zhiyu wondered if the zombie had something Little Iron wanted.

An idea struck him. He found a branch and, frowning, prodded around inside the Metal-type zombie's skull.

Soon, he hit something hard. His expression shifted, and he carefully extracted the object, rinsing it clean with water.

It was an irregular silver crystal, about the size of a thumb, glinting brilliantly under the sunlight.

Cheng Zhiyu couldn't help but exclaim, "So there really are crystal cores."

Who would have thought that such an ugly zombie could harbor such a beautiful crystal inside its head?

This zombie was of the Metal type, and Little Iron was also Metal-type. No wonder Little Iron had been hovering around the zombie earlier.

Clearly, the crystal core was beneficial for Little Iron.