Chapter 147 – Florida Man Earns Millions by Forcing Teen to Eat Black Matsutake Mushroom with Cheese
After setting up the array, four transparent walls emerged from the ground, trapping the pink spores and the growing world tree inside. The small twigs emitted strong elemental essence and fueled the array as if they were batteries.
Esen wrote unreadable words on the transparent walls, causing the array to shine. She then explained what she did.
"This will prevent the sweet dream mushrooms from spreading outside the array and limit the tree's growth. It's a temporary measure, though."
"Temporary? Not permanent?" Leo didn't like what he heard.
"You can't simply tell ants to stop reproducing. Even though we can limit their area of influence, we can't stop their growth completely. Look, geezer. Every tree, plant, flower, and fruit all have the same origin. Their ancestors were fungi. Look at how tree branches and roots grow and spread. Don't they look like mushrooms?"
"…"
Leo had no comment on that as he was not Neil deGrasse Tyson or a modern scientist. He slightly opened his mouth as he was enlightened.
"Because we can't stop the fungi from multiplying, we can only prune them. Well, in my era, we can just simply eat away those excess mushrooms. But in your case, heh, I doubt you can eat it."
Leo pursed his lips, "You sure?"
"No man can survive after eating it! I dare you, geezer. Go ahead and eat it. Then, you will become a mindless Jiangshi!"
"…"
Leo shrugged and walked into the array. His body phased through the invisible wall as they couldn't prevent him from entering the restricted zone.
Entering the mushroom farm, Leo walked closer to the planted world tree. It rapidly grew taller and bigger. On its trunk, pink mushrooms rapidly grew.
Leo ignored the pink mushrooms. He gazed at several dark spots on the golden tree as new mutated mushrooms emerged one after another.
He picked up a black mushroom with white dots on its head. It had the same shape as matsutake mushrooms, but it looked poisonous.
'New specimen? Welp, research, it is.'
Leo put the mushroom in his spatial ring to contain it. Then, he pulled a pink mushroom from the world tree and ate it.
It smelled like truffles! He chewed it in glee and savored the rich taste.
DING
<Your lifespan has increased by 1 year.>
The lifespan reward was disappointing. The only thing good about these mushrooms was the taste. They were a lot better than bland mutated vegetables and bananas as Leo grew sick of them.
Leo drooled. He then smacked his forehead.
'I shouldn't have listened to Hua Jiashan. I should have cultivated these mushrooms from the start! I could even make several luxurious dishes with these!'
He regretted removing the previous batches of sweet dream mushrooms. He wished that he should have let them grow inside the workshop.
Addicted to the rich taste and the rewards, Leo began plucking mushrooms from the golden tree and stuffed them in his mouth. His hands never stopped moving as he swiped every mushroom in his reach.
Esen stood there, staring at the weird scene in a daze. She was puzzled.
"Huh? Is he infected?"
Curious, Esen walked closer to Leo to check his condition.
But Leo suddenly turned around while one of the pink male-genital-like mushrooms was still in his mouth.
"Wut? Want some Non-Nom?"
"…"
Esen paused for a long time as Leo's expression was weird and vulgar. But when she regained her senses, Leo already finished 50 pieces of matured mushrooms. She even saw him put a long black fungi into his mouth.
Leo didn't think much of it. He bit the tip off and chewed the mutated mushroom.
The pink tasted like truffles, but the mutated one tasted like hot cheese and cooked truffles.
It was delicious!
DING
<Your lifespan has increased by 10 years.>
The boost was not rewarding, but it filled his stomach. Moreover, the smell of hot cheese was never wrong.
After finishing the first black mushroom, Leo plucked the third one and was about to eat it.
However, an intrusive thought and Leo's ADHD acted up. He looked at the thick black mushroom for a moment. He secretly cut the tip, and a drop of white juice leaked. He grinned and pointed it to Esen's face.
"Here, wanna eat it? This one is very good."
"Huh? What is that? I've never seen sweet dream mushrooms in that color."
"Here, put it in your mouth. It tastes like cheese."
"What is cheese?"
"Try it first. Open wide."
"…"
Esen realized that Leo was never affected by the mushrooms. She frowned and stared at the fungi. Although she wished to question Leo how he was immune to the mushroom's parasites, her desire to taste a new food overwhelmed her. She opened her mouth and showed her tongue.
Leo chortled like a villain before he shoved the black long mushroom into her mouth. Then, he squeezed it.
SPLASH
The white juicy liquid in the black mushroom got pushed to the tip. Then, it released the sticky cheese liquid into her throat.
"MMM!"
The scene looked straight from a hentai or a porn movie. Leo cackled to the point that he rolled on the ground and laughed in tears.
Meanwhile, Esen choked. She coughed and spat some of the mushroom cheese from her mouth. Then, she threw the half-eaten mushroom at Leo.
"BASTARD! WHAT DID YOU DO?!"
"DAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!"
Leo pointed at her flushed face. He mocked her.
"You look very sexy, brat! You should star in AV movies! I bet Epstein and his customers would love it!"
"What the hell are you talking about?! Wait… Dammit, geezer! You bully me again!"
Esen screamed at Leo and kicked his butt several times. Although her kick did nothing to him, Leo feinted getting hurt and then ran away from her.
After Leo had run away, Esen snorted. She turned her attention to the other black mushrooms on the tree.
'What's so funny about the mushrooms? It's delicious, though.'
Not understanding the references, Esen plucked a black mushroom to eat it, but she put the tip into her mouth first. Then, Esen started sucking the cheese out before eating the entire thing.
She didn't realize that Gao Yan had been watching their interaction, and his face was as red as tomatoes.
.
.
With Esen's help, the domain got a new manmade farmland, aka the mushroom farm. Although it consisted of a tall golden tree and four short twigs, it continuously produced sweet dream mushrooms and mutated mushrooms every few minutes.
Esen got a new job. She was in charge of managing the mushroom farm and the world tree. Leo ended up giving her an upgraded barrel, and he taught her how to use it.
After learning the applications of the new cube, Esen played with it. She followed Leo's instructions and created a new crewmate spacesuit to wear. Then, Leo gave her a newly upgraded container for her to collect or store the mushrooms.
Just like that, Leo gained the first official crewmate to join his cosplay party. Esen painted her suit yellow to match her hair color while Leo continued using his rainbow suit.
.
.
Leo hummed as he brought a few sweet dream mushrooms and the black ones to the workshops.
One workshop continued working on dantian pills. Another one was still busy with the Floridian Dantian Pill. As for the third, it was idle.
Leo had ordered the mannequin to make something from the world tree twig, but he didn't give it a new order. As a result, after the workshop finished making the product, the local mannequin waited for Leo to replenish the ingredients.
He went to the workshop and picked up the finished product. He checked the result.
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Cugatti, the Flying Sword of Living Death
This flying sword has been merged with the Twig of Sweet Dream World Tree. Any opponent being inflicted by this word will be branded with the Undead Curse – The victim will undergo a mutation and die while their consciousness will be controlled by the curse.
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In short, Leo could use it to turn others into zombies!
Leo smacked his lips. He found it silly as he never intended to use it as a weapon.
He still had a pistol. A Floridian like him didn't need anything else but bigger guns!
Since Leo had no intention of continuing to use this sword, he looked around, wondering if he could see it to somebody. Then, he came up with an idea.
"Right. I can put this in my store as merchandise. The guns, too!"
Leo kept the sword to himself for now. He didn't forget what he came here for.
Bringing out the black mushroom, Leo tossed it into the cauldron and researched it.
DING
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True Death Mushroom
Can only be found in demon realms. This mushroom's spores can strip a cultivator's immortality and life force if the cultivator doesn't have virgin yin or virgin yang essence in their dantian. Can be used in alchemy.
[Alchemy Recipe – True Death Poison Pill]
One True Death Mushroom
One Sweet Dream Mushroom
One Drop of Virgin Yin Blood
One Drop of Virgin Yang Blood
Wood and Earth Crystalized Essence
.
The recipe looked normal, except for the essence part and the catalysts. It didn't require an element catalyst like the others, but it demanded crystalized essences.
Leo wasn't confident that he could make this pill any time soon as the crystalized essence was new. For the moment, he took notes of the recipe. Then, he checked for a recipe that required sweet dream mushrooms as a material.
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[Pill Recipe – Hope and Dream Pill]
One Sweet Dream Mushroom
Ten Yang Catalysts
Fire, Water, Earth, Metal, and Wood Essence
[Pill Recipe – Determination Pill]
One Sweet Dream Mushroom
Ten Yin Catalysts
Fire, Water, Earth, Metal, and Wood Essence
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Looking at the recipes, Leo remembered something. He recalled that he once ordered his mannequin to make the hope and dream pill, but he forgot about it.
As the mannequins either stored their finished pills in the warehouse or the workshops, Leo searched for the pills. It wasn't hard to find the finished products as they were kept separately in a Tupperware box.
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Medium Grade Hope and Dream Pill
- Heal Medium Wounds
- Restore 300cc of Blood
- Restore Stamina by 30%
- Enhance Qi and Physical Strength for 3 Hours
- Induce Sleep for 3 Hours
.
For the first time, Leo received a proper healing medicine. With this, he no longer needed the elixir grain pills, which had too many side effects.
However, this pill's effects were questionable.
"What's the point of the buff if you will put someone to sleep?! Is this Sleeping Zenitsu pill?!"
