Chapter 102 – Florida Man Traveling to China to Join Shaolin Temple Discovers Rare Pokemon
"Since when have I cleared the secondary objective?"
Leo thought of the orb that he ate earlier. He wondered if it was really the entity fate crystal that the system mentioned. If so, he was curious about what it could do.
So far, Leo didn't feel the changes. He was still him, and the cancer cells remained the same, except they seemed cleaner.
"System, what is entity fate crystal? What can it do?" Leo asked the system as he was curious.
Unfortunately, the system reverted back to silent mode. He got no answer or response.
Leo clicked his tongue. He grumbled and kicked the wall, which was fully carved with ancient texts and images. The wall broke, and a portion of the pyramid blocks fell from the structure outside the building.
Because of the new window, the wind blew into the room and removed the stagnate air inside. Leo welcomed the fresh oxygen, and his mood got better.
As Leo's mood improved, his brain functioned better. He remembered that he hadn't found the gnosis thingy or recovered the 10th-rank monster core yet.
Putting his thought to work, Leo created four strings of Qi and injected them into the four remaining spatial rings of Situ Nantian.
CLICK
CLICK
Every array in the rings was removed as Leo's Qi drained all their energy. He could finally access all the rings. Without hesitation, Leo searched for the item that Situ Nantian had stolen.
It was inside a plain iron ring with weird carved texts on it. Moreover, the space inside was as tiny as four cubic meters. Fortunately, it stored the entire dragon fruit plant there.
The plant was also alive. When Leo sent his Qi in, it tried to pull his Qi string and devour it.
Leo was amused. He ejected the entire dragon fruit plant.
WHOOSH
The plant manifested from the ring and fell to the floor. Its branches and roots wiggled, trying to get back up.
Leo seized its roots and stomped its stem. Using his fingernail, he sliced the plant vertically, looking for the 10th-rank monster core that it ate.
It wasn't difficult to find it as the tentacle eyeball earlier was still hiding in the plant's stem. When Leo cut the plant open, it was right before his eyes.
Leo sneered at the eyeball. He grabbed it and picked it up.
*WIGGLE*
The eyeball tried to flee, but it couldn't get out of Leo's hand. Moreover, it sensed a dreadful aura and cancerous cells, which tried to enter its eye.
The eyeball monster wept. Without saying anything, it pleaded, begging for its life.
"…"
Leo deeply frowned. Although he could be ruthless against thieves and aggressive animals, he was weak when he dealt with cute animals or monsters.
He deeply sighed. Since the eyeball cried and begged for its life, it deserved a second chance.
"You know what? You can have that. But I have a condition."
The eyeball tentacle monster widened its eye. Then, it nodded, eager to fulfill the condition.
"I need to absorb the gnosis of rabbit trent king, but I don't know what it is or what it looks like. If you can bring me that stupid gnosis, I'll let you have that monster core, and I'll set you free."
The eyeball paused for a long while. It then turned around and looked at the plant, hesitated. The monster closed its eye and shed a tear. After making its decision, it turned around to face Leo.
The monster pointed its tentacle at the dragon fruit plant.
Leo raised his eyebrows in confusion for a moment before his brain registered the hint. He was astonished.
"So, the plant is the gnosis?"
The eyeball nodded. Still, it looked sad as the plant had been its home for centuries. It didn't want to part from it. Moreover, it was born from one of the dragon fruits. Therefore, the plant was akin to its mother.
Looking at the eyeball, Leo felt bad. He wondered if he could absorb the gnosis without eating the plant.
"Gnosis is the plant? But gnosis means the teaching of a god or knowledge… knowledge?"
Leo's eyes gleamed. If gnosis was knowledge, the gnosis of rabbit trent king could be the king's knowledge. However, as it was related to the dragon fruit plant, it might refer to something else.
"Is gnosis… a dao? A dao that connects to this plant?"
The monster suddenly widened its eye. It repeatedly nodded and jumped around.
Leo continued contemplating, "So, if the gnosis is a dao and I have to absorb the gnosis, all I have to do is to learn that freaking dao, then the quest is completed?"
He gave the eyeball a meaningful look. He slowly nodded.
"Alright. Let's give this crap a try. Let's try not to harm that plant for now. I need to learn what it can do and what I can learn from it."
SCREECH!
The eyeball was overjoyed. It lapped around Leo and hopped on his shoulder, unafraid of his intruding cancer cells.
As soon as the eyeball monster touched Leo's skin, the radiation and cancer cells latched onto its body. However, all cells and radiation disappeared into its fluid, becoming its food.
Nobody noticed – the eyeball monster's tentacle got slightly longer when it digested Leo's dead cancer cells and radiation.
Meanwhile, Leo deeply sighed and facepalmed, "Why am I getting soft whenever I see crying monsters or animals. Oh, wait. Those chickens cried too, but I still killed them. Oh, right. They're food. That doesn't count."
Sometimes, Leo laughed at his illogical self for having a double standard. This was one of those times.
Again, whenever Leo was in a good mood, his brain's efficiency rose. He raised the plant up and brought out spirit stones that he found from Situ Nantian's rings. He got an idea of how to connect to the plant.
The white plant's wound was already healed. Moreover, it didn't mutate after Leo had touched it.
Impressed by the plant, Leo put the spirit stones in his hands. A few seconds later, they transformed into essence stones. He put them next to the dragon fruit plant's roots.
The roots crept toward the essence stones as Leo had predicted. The roots coiled around the stones and digested their energy and essence.
PLOP
PLOP
As the plant digested the element energy from the stones, it produced new fruits. It only took the fruits one minute to fall from the plant as they already ripened.
Leo picked up the dragon fruit and looked at it. When he touched it, the white fruit darkened, unlike the plant.
"Hmm. This is difficult. What can I learn from this tree and its fruits? What is the dao or gnosis that I need to learn?"
The eyeball monster looked back and forth between the plant and Leo for a moment. It suddenly got an idea and jumped down from Leo's shoulder. Then, it ran toward the plant and merged into it.
A few seconds later, the eyeball appeared on the plant's stem. Its tentacle also emerged from the plant's skin, transforming into small vines. They pointed at one of the white fruits and gestured for Leo to plant the dragon fruit tree and the fruits.
Leo deeply frowned. He understood its gesture, but he wondered why he needed to plant them. Still, for the sake of uncovering this mystery, Leo accepted the monster's suggestion.
After putting a new pair of rubber gloves on, Leo stored the newly created fruits in the plain iron ring's storage space. He then carried the plant and jumped out of the pyramid.
When Leo looked down, he saw nothing but mutated soil and dead mushrooms. His expression was dark.
"I guess I shouldn't plant you here. This place is too dirty for you, right?"
The eyeball nodded. It then pointed at the west.
"You want me to bring you there?"
The monster moved its eye up and down, answering the question.
"I take that as a yes. Alright."
Leo looked up and noticed that Taxi was still waiting for him. He took aim, wiggling his butt as if he was a cat, preparing to attack somebody's foot.
WHOOSH
Leo vertically jumped while carrying the dragon fruit plant. Accurately, he reached the pervert unicorn and landed on his back.
"Alright, Taxi. Next station, the west! Let's go!"
Taxi looked back at Leo and noticed that he carried the plant with his favorite fruits. The horse widely smiled and showed the eyeball monster his ugly teeth.
The eyeball shivered in fear. It closed its eyes and wept again.
Seeing the trembling plant, Leo lightly patted Taxi's head. However, his "Light" pat was a hard slap from Taxi's perspective.
After getting a hard slap to the back of his head, Taxi protested.
"SMASH?! D:"
Leo rolled his eyes, "You're an elder. Don't bully a kid."
"Smash?! Smash!"
"Huh? You're only a thousand years old but this eyeball guy is over 3,000? That's the more reason you shouldn't be disrespectful to an elder! You damn donkey!"
"Smash… T-T"
No matter how old the eyeball monster was, Taxi got scolded anyway. The unicorn whined while it jetted toward the west at his full speed.
10 minutes later, they flew past the campsite of Wu Buyi and Gao Yan. Not long after, they reached the tall mountain area of the west zone, where only absurdly slim and tall mountains existed.
Taxi panted and landed on one of the mountain tops. Strangely, on top of every mountain, a small tea pavilion and a small courtyard occupied the flat peak. It seemed that cultivators deliberately built these buildings here for some reason.
Leo got down from the horseback and looked around. Upon seeing that many plants already existed in the mountaintop courtyard, Leo decided that he would grow the dragon fruit plant here.
"How about here, eyeball? Is this place good?"
The eyeball repeatedly looked up and down. It also came out of the plant and ran around the courtyard.
Next to the courtyard, there was a small pond, full of transparent liquid. The eyeball monster immediately jumped into it.
DONG
Unfortunately, the water surface was frozen. The eyeball tentacle failed to soak itself in the water.
Leo hadn't noticed the quality of the strange pond yet. He quietly dug into the rocky soil on the mountain and put the plant's roots in there. After he covered the roots, he stood up and looked around.
"I guess I should use this place to study. Should I say… cultivating instead of studying?"
