blogombal Chapter 79 Hand-grabbed Rice
Chapter 79 Hand-grabbed Rice
Ascending upwards, Luo Lan stepped back into the first level of this underground city-type rift.
The air that hits you is still that damp air mixed with a fishy, cold, and musty smell.
However, compared to the violent scene when they first entered the Rift Ruins during the Demon Tide, the current environment was unusually oppressive and deathly quiet.
After the core of the Rift was absorbed by Luo Lan [Condensation], the high-concentration chaotic aura "Demonic Tide" that had forced the Walking Mushroom to frantically spray spores and the Demon Wolf to go berserk with red eyes had completely dissipated.
At this moment, the walking mushrooms were lazily scattered throughout the first level of the Rift Ruins.
Some mushrooms huddled together in twos and threes beside the mycelial carpet, with a few hair-thin mycelial cords extending from the tips of their short stems, slowly absorbing nutrients from the carpet. The edges of the caps twitched gently with the rhythm of absorption, as if they were taking a nap.
Some mushrooms had their lower stems submerged in the water in the cave, the water reflecting the colorful gills on the back of the mushroom caps, making the whole mushroom shimmer slightly.
These small fungal monsters of the Black Iron rank were not particularly aggressive to begin with, and now that the demonic tide had stopped catalyzing them, they became even lazier, aimlessly wandering around.
However, the dire wolves were not so leisurely.
Compared to the mindless walking mushrooms, the pack of demon wolves, whose intelligence was clearly superior, paced restlessly in the cave.
"Rumble..."
The ground shook violently again, and several pieces of gravel crashed from the top of the cave into the pool of water, splashing up murky water.
With each tremor, several dark spatial fissures would appear to tear open in the rock wall.
Without the core of the Rift, the entire Rift could collapse at any moment.
Victor's previous estimate for this was: two days.
Driven by the strong instinct of wild beasts to seek advantage and avoid harm, many demon wolves have already sensed the impending annihilation of this rifted wasteland.
Groups of gray-furred wolves walked around the spatial rifts that appeared out of nowhere, their ears flattened, tails tucked between their legs, their noses twitching as they sniffed the air, and uneasy growls rumbling from their throats.
A dozen or so demonic wolves had already gathered in front of the purple light screen near the exit of the first level of the Rift Ruins.
They huddled together, their front paws resting on the rocks at the edge of the light curtain, but none of them dared to step out.
Their instincts told them that the place was about to collapse.
But it is also instinct that makes them hesitant to step into the outside world, which lacks the aura of chaos, behind the purple light curtain.
After all, not all dire wolves possess the intelligence of "Shorttail" with a score as high as 9, daring to charge directly into completely unknown territory.
Looking at the scattered demonic wolves and walking mushrooms around him, just like when he first arrived, Luo Lan had no intention of drawing his sword to clear the area.
In this typical dungeon-type rift, the number of Chaos Source Points that these low-level Black Iron Rank monsters can provide is far too few compared to the rift core, which condenses the vast majority of chaotic matter.
Moreover, the walking mushrooms and dire wolves are scattered too far apart, unlike the densely packed plant monsters on the second floor.
It would still take a considerable amount of time to hunt them down one by one.
"Rumble..."
The rock formations above Luo Lan's head emitted another muffled rumble.
With the Ruins on the verge of collapse, and possessing the [Mark of Sin - Remnant], the most important thing is to get out of the Holy Kingdom as soon as possible.
Luo Lan guessed that in the future, if the goal of exploring other Rift Ruins was to achieve the highest efficiency, this process would probably be the same: prioritize capturing the Rift Ruin core, kill the small monsters as much as possible, and not deliberately try to clear the entire map.
However, even though killing these scattered monsters on the first level of the Rift Ruins was not very efficient for clearing the area, Luo Lan still wanted to take away the useful monster feats.
Luo Lan walked straight to a puddle.
There was a lone walking mushroom there, slowly shuffling along.
"Zheng—"
Without any unnecessary movements, the broadsword flashed with a silver light.
The sword's edge sliced the half-human-sized fungal monster in two.
The walking mushroom with its short legs sprayed out a mist of murky spores from its lower half and collapsed into the mud.
Sheathing his sword, Luo Lan stepped forward, squatted down, and placed his left hand on the fragment of the walking mushroom with legs.
[Condensation Casting - Melting Casting]
[Consumed Chaos Essence: 55]
[Current Chaotic Essence: 1344]
The purplish-black particles surged out instantly and burrowed directly into the soft fungal body of the Walking Mushroom.
Under the tearing and reconstruction of the purplish-black particles, the half-section of the walking mushroom quickly shriveled and was forcibly dismantled into tiny mycelia that were difficult to detect with the naked eye.
These hyphae flowed smoothly from Luo Lan's palm and penetrated deep into the muscle fibers of his entire body.
There was no substantial change in appearance, but Luo Lan clearly felt that the semi-liquid flesh and blood inside her body seemed to have undergone some kind of microscopic structural change at this moment.
It feels like there's something extra under my skin.
A faint, wriggling sensation, like a group of extremely thin earthworms living between muscle fibers, quietly coiled up, awaiting Luo Lan's command.
[Already melted down: Living root mycelium of the walking mushroom]
[Tier: Black Iron]
Specialty: Organic Extraction
[Organic absorption: It can differentiate and grow flesh-forming hyphae on its own body surface, decomposing most of the organic matter into absorbable nutrients, which are then transported into the body through capillary action to replenish biomass energy.]
I went over the description of my expertise in my mind.
Luo Lan reached into the magic cross pendant and pulled out a piece of dried, hard smoked meat that she had bought in Fallen Leaf Town.
He placed the salty, fishy-smelling dried meat directly in the palm of his left hand.
Strange changes began to appear on Luo Lan's newly grown, pinkish left hand, whose skin color was distinctly different from her right arm.
The semi-liquid skin surface suddenly began to twitch slightly.
About ten seconds later.
Strands of dark red, fleshy fungus, almost as thin as a strand of hair, differentiated, grew, and stretched directly from the palm of the hand.
These tentacle-like, fleshy mycelia quickly wrapped around the piece of jerky, gradually adhering to its surface.
The tips of the flesh-forming hyphae begin to secrete a powerful dissolving enzyme. Under the action of the enzyme, the dry, hard smoked meat quickly softens and dissolves into a mushy, meat-like liquid upon contact with the hyphae.
Subsequently, these fleshy mycelia act like tiny straws, efficiently "absorbing" these fluid biomass directly into the body.
It looks as bizarre as the way starfish and other echinoderms in documentaries on Earth turn their stomachs inside out to digest their prey.
The entire process of the mycelium dissolving the flesh and absorbing the biomass energy from the dried meat is quiet and slow.
Two full minutes passed before the dried smoked meat in Luo Lan's left hand was completely "absorbed," leaving not a single scrap of meat behind.
"Hmm...it's a bit slow?"
Luo Lan muttered something under her breath.
Luo Lan felt that spending two minutes "extracting" a small piece of jerky was less worthwhile than simply eating it in a few bites.
Hearing Luo Lan's words, the kitten on her shoulder tilted its head:
"Correction: From a thermodynamic perspective, the feeding behavior of traditional primates involves a significant amount of energy expenditure..."
Neutral synthesized sounds are smooth and the speech rate is precise.
"The typical metabolic process for primates is: chewing, swallowing, hydrolysis by gastric acid, absorption in the intestines... The energy conversion rate of food is usually less than 30%. The rest is lost as heat or excreted as undigested feces."
After a pause, the cat's paw hovered in the air, lightly touching Luo Lan's palm, where the smoked meat had previously disappeared.
"Conclusion: Compared to traditional primate feeding methods, organic nutrient absorption eliminates redundant metabolism in the digestive tract and directly obtains liquid nutrients through dissolving enzymes, resulting in an energy conversion efficiency that is approximately 3.6 times higher."
After listening to Victor's academic explanation, Luo Lan pondered for a moment:
[Therefore, compared to normal human eating methods, this specialty is actually far more efficient.]
By absorbing biomass through "organic extraction," the slow digestion of food in the stomach is completely eliminated. Organic matter is directly converted into readily available biomass energy.
While it may seem slow to spend two minutes "eating," it actually saves several hours of slow digestion.
As a specialty only at the Iron tier, the improvement in supply efficiency it brings is already quite significant.
Therefore, Luo Lan silently made up her mind:
[From now on, if I encounter something I don't like, I'll just eat it with my hands.]
When faced with a delicious feast, Luo Lan decided to eat with her mouth and enjoy the human desire for food.
In this way, organic absorption can be used in the stomach to improve biomass conversion rate and completely digest food.
But if it's not tasty, I won't eat it.
For example, instead of hard, dry bread that could break your teeth, or various kinds of dry food that taste terrible, Luo Lan plans to "eat" it directly with her hands in the future—literally "eating with her hands."