Chapter 60 – Florida Man Cultivates Mushroom for New Drugs, Accidentally Turns Visitor into Zombie
.
Name: Situ Luan
Age: 212
Remaining Lifespan: 999 Years, 11 Months, 13 Days, 15 Hours, 9 Minutes.
.
Situ Luan and others were stunned as they had never seen anything like this before in their lives. Similar to the others, they reached out to touch the screen, but their hands went through the system panel.
CHING-CHING-CHING
Suddenly, the lifespan rapidly decreased. From 999 years, Situ Luan's lifespan dropped to zero!
"Hah?! What the hell?!"
Unable to comprehend anything, Situ Luan turned his attention to Leo. However, it was too late for him and others to react as their bodies disintegrated into ash, flowing away by the wind. Their spatial rings, clothes, and belongings fell to the airship's deck.
The captain and the crew of the Fatui Cult's airship trembled in fear. As they didn't attack Leo, they go to keep their lives. Everybody rushed back to the cabin while the captain turned their ship around to flee from there.
Unfortunately, something prevented them from leaving. The rift in front of Leo's store generated an intense gravity force, pulling the entire ship and the crewmates into the black hole.
"NOOOO!!"
The captain, the ship, and the crew lost control as they were a lot weaker than the other cultivators. They were the first who got sucked into the whirlpool of gravity rift. Their bodies were shattered and reduced into small particles before they vanished into the arm-sized hole. Even the large ship was compressed and disappeared.
.
Leo was the closest person to the rift. He broke a sweat as he didn't want to get sucked into the black hole. He cursed the Fatui people for making things complicated.
"Those idiots. Can't they just attack me and be done with it? Why do they have to create something this complicated!?"
Leo looked up and glanced at Bo Cai and Ouyang Feng. However, the crowd already turned around and tried to flee.
Seeing how the crowd was leaving, Leo was frustrated. He activated the shop domain system, letting everybody in the area see their lifespan. Then, he shouted.
"IF YOU DON'T WANT ME TO REDUCE YOUR LIFESPAN TO ZERO, GET DOWN HERE!"
The voice was so loud that it caused a ripple in the air. Even though there was a black hole and a magnetic field in front of Leo, it failed to negate his sound.
Nascent soul and golden core cultivators in the sky screamed as their eardrums shattered. They lost their body balance and fell to the ground one after another, except for the lucky ones that came with a flying boat.
Ouyang Feng and some of the clansmen fell to the floor, and their ears bled as well. Ouyang Feng groaned and begged his master.
"Master, help me! We need to get out of here!"
"…"
Cheng Yuanzhi was unaffected by the voice. However, he was shaken by the presence of the system screen in front of him, showing his remaining lifespan.
.
Name: Cheng Yuanzhi
Age: 332
Remaining Lifespan: 1,033 Years, 5 Months, 7 Days, 9 Hours, and 12 Minutes.
.
Cheng Yuanzhi hesitated if he should flee with Ouyang Feng or submit to this person. He was afraid that Leo would kill him as how he slaughtered the Fatui cultists.
RUMBLE
Although Cheng Yuanzhi wanted to submit, he had no time to react. The rift's suction force intensified, and their flying ship could no longer resist gravity. It was slowly pulled toward the store.
No longer hesitating, Cheng Yuanzhi grabbed Ouyang Feng and leaped toward the sky, flying north and fleeing the scene. As for the people of the Ouyang Clan, Cheng Yuanzhi abandoned them. They were pulled into the rift one after another.
.
Bo Cai was not as fortunate. His eardrums were shattered, and he fell directly to the rooftop of the alchemist workshop number two, where Leo had used to grow weird mushrooms. As the rooftop was in a triangle shape, he rolled and fell to the ground in front of the workshop.
While crawling and trying to get back on his feet, something tiny slipped out of the building and entered his nostril. He sneezed, but the thing already entered his respiratory system.
Bo Cai was an experienced cultivator. He could sense small cells inside him. When the mysterious mushroom spore entered him, he circulated his Qi to drive it out.
Soon, a strand of Bo Cai's Qi touched the mushroom spore. It wrapped around it like a rope, and the string floated up, carrying it from the lung to the throat.
WIGGLE
However, the spore instantly consumed the Qi string and grew larger. It rapidly grew and blockaded the respiratory system!
Bo Cai gasped for air as he suddenly couldn't breathe. He smacked his chest and grabbed his neck, circulating more Qi to destroy the blockade.
Unfortunately, this action was the same as feeding the fire with oil. The Qi strings ended up becoming food for the spore, and the forbidden mushroom started to grow from inside him. It rapidly ate Bo Cai's Qi and cells from the inside and emitted odorless and transparent gas, which soon reached his brain.
The mountain bandit's body uncontrollably shook for a minute before he stopped moving. After the severe seizure, Bo Cai hadn't died yet. Instead, he fell unconscious. Moreover, he had a strange dream.
In the dream, Bo Cai found himself laying on the field of an abandoned town, and he was strangely hungry. There was nothing there but decayed wood and metals.
PLOP
Suddenly, Bo Cai saw something fall from the sky. They looked like pigs, and they smelled like the most delicious grilled boars that he once tasted. Driven by instinct, Bo Cai tried to stand up, but his ruptured eardrums ruined his body balance, and he fell to the ground.
Bo Cai groaned and crawled toward the fallen pig. He salivated, hoping to get a piece of that meat. He soon reached the twitching body of a massive pig with a humanoid body.
As Bo Cai wasn't aware that he was in a dream, he failed to think with logic. He opened his mouth and bit the pigman.
CHOMP
"AAAAAHHHH!!"
Bo Cai heard the weird voice of the pig. It sounded strangely like a human. However, the meat in his mouth was delicious and juicy. Unable to control his hunger, Bo Cai aimed for the sweetest part of the pig – the neck.
CHOMP!
CHOMP!
.
Meanwhile, Leo's instinct forced him to turn around. He had a bad feeling about the back of his store as he saw several people from the south falling on top of the workshop buildings.
'Not again. I'm gonna need a fence or something to block those rude idiots from infiltrating my store's workshops. They might steal my precious items in the warehouse and the buildings. Oh, speaking of which, I forgot about the mushroom. It has been a long time. They should have grown by now.'
.
[Sweet Dream Mushroom Seed]
This is a seed of the notorious mushroom that once terrorized the Jianghu 500 years ago. It can be grown in any place with thick Qi, and it's resilient to temperature changes. However, it is not advised to domesticate it unless your mental strength is the same as Buddha's. Can be used as a catalyst for every element.
.
Leo thought of the Sweet Dream Mushroom, which he had left in the second alchemy workshop. He wondered if they had grown nicely as he could use them as universal catalysts for every pill and item. He also wondered if he could get some lifespan from the mushroom.
As Leo was the type who could easily be distracted, he turned around and kicked the ground. Instantly, he broke away from gravity and arrived in front of workshop number two. He gazed at the door and found that it was still locked.
Seeing the locked door, Leo was relieved. He reached the lock pad and was about to unlock it.
"GET OFF ME!"
"MONSTER!"
The voice came from the right side of Leo. He looked at the source of the voice. Then, he found an interesting scene.
There was a mushroom zombie, grabbing and trying to eat a helpless cultivator. The latter summoned his dao avatar and swung his sword at it, but the zombie's skin was too hard for the sword to cut through. It soon caught and pinned down the cultivator. Then, it bit the poor guy's neck.
The nascent soul cultivator used everything to resist. But a few seconds later, he stopped moving. Then, the zombie continued eating the corpse.
"Wut da hail?"
Leo thought that a cultivation world was weird enough, but he didn't expect to see a cordyceps zombie in real life. He was amused, so he continued observing it for a while.
RUMBLE
Unfortunately, Leo ran out of time. The rift got larger, and it became two meters wide. The iron pine trees and the soil got pulled into it, leaving only the system buildings, the farms, and the structure's foundations intact.
GROWL!
The zombie also floated because of gravity. The corpse and the zombie got sucked into the rift along with the other weak nascent soul cultivators. A hundred people disappeared into the distorted black hole at once.
RUMBLE
After a hundred cultivators entered the rift, the gravity force subsided. The rift shrank and vanished like smoke.
"…"
Leo pursed his lips. He was relieved that the black hole disappeared. He checked the front of the store to see the damage.
The front yard area ended up becoming a large crater. The farmlands were semi-devastated as the area around the farm turned into moats, leaving only two pillars of farm plots. The granary near the farm was the same as the rift stole a lot of soil and dirt around it.
Fallen iron pine trees and strange blue trees were also plenty. A dozen fell into the moats and got stuck there. Tree leaves were scattered everywhere and dirtied the windows and the tiles on the roofs.
Leo checked the store's windows and found that it was still in good shape. He widely grinned and patted it, satisfied with its durability.
After the crisis subsided, Leo turned his attention to the visitors. He wondered how many were left after the chaos. He looked up and scanned the sky.
"…"
They were gone.
No one was there anymore.
"DAMMIT!"
Leo regretted that he only managed to get only 40ish people's worth of lifespan. He lamented the loss of the other 160 cultivators.
"I should have challenged or annoyed them more! I could have done something cliché like… if you can make me flinch in three hits, I'll give you a pill or something. I would have conned them to attack me and I would have gotten their lifespan that way! Dammit! I'm so stupid!"
He slapped his forehead several times as his heart couldn't take it. He felt like he had wasted over 100,000 years of lifespan for nothing.
While Leo had a mental breakdown, a massive flying sword slowly approached the area. It descended and hovered over the farmland. Then, the people on the swords got down.
They were Wu Buyi, Han Hao, Han Meng, Tiger Swordsman, Hua Jiashan, and a dozen elders who used to visit the store.
Leo sensed the newcomers. He changed his expression and smiled at them, "Welcome, dear customers. Are you here to rob me, or are you here to purchase my goodies. But sincerely, please hit me with your best shot, and I'll give you the painless death."
Wu Buyi, Han Hao, Han Meng, and Tiger Swordsman sweated profusely. They waved their hands and reminded Leo that they were his customers, not enemies.
"It's us, Daoist Florida Man! We're your friends!" Han Hao panicked.
Wu Buyi prostrated to the ground, "Lord Immortal, please don't joke around. We're here to buy your items!"
Han Meng also kowtowed, "Daoist Florida Man! We're not your enemies. Please come back to your senses!"
Tiger Swordsman gulped and politely saluted, "Sir, we are from the Life Sword Sect. We're not your foes."
Seeing how the top elders reacted to Leo, the other minor elders also knelt and cupped their fists, begging for forgiveness.
"Senior, sir. We've come in peace."
Meanwhile, Hua Jiashan bitterly smiled and shook his head. He sighed and cupped his fist. Then, he lowered his head to give face to Leo.
"My name is Hua Jiashan. I'm the sect master of the Life Sword Sect. Thank you for taking care of my disciples and these idiots. We're forever grateful to you, so I've come here to pay respect and gratitude myself."
"Oh," Leo finally recognized their faces. He was slightly disappointed. "It's you, people. I thought I hit the jackpot. Anyway, welcome! Well, please excuse the mess here. Let's talk inside the building. I'll serve you tea."
Everybody's faces were as pale as a sheet. Judging from Leo's tone, they figured that the guy really mistook them as enemies, and he almost killed them. Still, they accepted Leo's invitation and entered his store.
