29: Chapter 29 Unboxing!

After washing up and changing into a professional casual outfit, Li Muzi sat down at the dining table in the second-floor lobby with Zhou An and Luo Ning.

When Zhou An brought out three steaming bowls of meat porridge made with blood crystal spirit wheat, this usually calm and intellectual older sister finally lost her composure.

"This... is this spirit rice?! A purple epic-grade crop?!"

Li Muzi pushed up her glasses and looked at the porridge emitting a gentle purple glow, her breathing quickening.

As the possessor of the [Shennong] talent, she had a natural, keen perception of plants.

"Try it. From now on, this will be our daily staple food."

Zhou An said with a smile.

After a whirlwind of devouring the meal, Li Muzi also collapsed onto the sofa, feeling the warm current surging within her, her eyes filled with disbelief: "Boss, I now completely believe that you have the ability to support idlers."

"You are not an idler."

Zhou An got straight to the point, "Tell me specifically about your [Shennong] talent."

Li Muzi immediately sat up straight, returning to her professional state: "The core ability of [Shennong] is plant tissue extraction and forced growth."

"Simply put, as long as you give me an existing plant, even if it's just a leaf or a piece of stem, I can consume a small amount of water and energy to forcibly extract its seeds through the system interface and mass-produce them."

"However, this talent has a limitation. The higher the rank of the plant, the longer it takes to extract the seeds."

"If it's the purple blood crystal spirit wheat from just now, I estimate that extracting one seed would take a full week."

Saying this, Li Muzi stood up and walked toward the few metal potted plants that Luo Ning had helped her move to the first-floor work area.

"These are all my belongings."

Zhou An followed her gaze and saw a few shabby iron pots containing a few wheat plants that were growing somewhat listlessly, as well as a small apple tree less than half a meter tall.

These were the parent plants of the batch of seeds she had originally sold to Zhou An.

"Apart from these, are there no other varieties?"

Zhou An asked, frowning.

His current [spatial cultivation chamber] was five hundred square meters, and just growing wheat and apples was too monotonous.

Li Muzi shook her head, somewhat helplessly: "There really isn't anything else. Plant resources in the sky are too scarce."

"I've been through dozens of material rains these past few days, and I haven't even managed to get a single rotten leaf."

"Then where did you get this wheat and apple tree?"

Luo Ning interrupted curiously.

"Sky Islands."

Li Muzi pushed up her glasses.

"On the second day after I started, I used the high mobility of my private plane to forcibly land on the edge of a micro Sky Island and dug up these plants from the ruins there."

"But before I could go deeper, the Sky Island started to sink, and I had to run."

"It seems that material blind boxes basically don't contain seeds. If we want to enrich the plantation's species library, we have to go to those Sky Islands that haven't been completely destroyed to find them."

Zhou An thought thoughtfully.

Although he had also been to a Sky Island in the Abyss, it had long been polluted by the Abyss aura.

Li Muzi nodded, her expression becoming serious: "If you want to collect plant resources on a large scale, Boss, then our current route and speed must change."

She opened the radar panel and pointed to an area above, explaining: "We are currently at an altitude of about 13,000 meters, too far from the main force on the front line."

"Truly resource-rich, intact medium and large Sky Islands start spawning from the extreme altitude of over 20,000 meters and then slowly sink over time."

"Right now, the top guilds in the region, such as Sky Engine, Four Seas Chamber of Commerce, and Blood Blade, have their elite forces firmly stuck at the golden altitude of 19,000 to 19,500 meters."

"As soon as a new large Sky Island spawns, they will immediately pounce on it like a pack of wolves to divide the core resources."

"By the time the Sky Island sinks below 15,000 meters, anything of value on it has long since been looted."

Li Muzi looked at Zhou An.

"So, if we want to get a piece of the pie, or even get rare seeds, we must raise our altitude and enter the contested area where guilds are everywhere. But it's... very dangerous there."

"That doesn't matter. As long as we aren't besieged by dozens of ships at once, I'm confident. My vehicle isn't a pushover, and besides, there's Luo Ning."

"But the urgent task now is to farm treasure chests in the fire rain..."

"However, we can also raise the altitude first and go up to see what the situation is like."

"..."

After a long time, the red light covering the sky receded like a tide, and the "fire rain" natural disaster, which had lasted for three full days, finally came to an end.

At this moment, the [Cloud Top Fortress] was traveling steadily at an altitude of 19,000 meters, where the sea of clouds rolled like raging waves, and the surrounding area was no longer the desolate vacuum zone it had been before.

Zhou An sat in the main control room, watching the few faint green dots that occasionally flashed across the radar, feeling a slight sense of reassurance.

"Boss, our speed is quite intense."

Luo Ning stuffed a washed apple into her mouth while staring at the route map, clicking her tongue in amazement.

"In three days, we pushed against the fire rain and moved upstream; we've now caught up to the top 60% of the region's route. A few hundred kilometers ahead, that's probably where the main forces of those big guilds are."

"If we don't run fast enough, the Sky Island core crystals will sooner or later be picked clean by them."

Zhou An rubbed the corners of his eyes; although there was a recovery bed, the continuous high mental concentration for several days still made him feel somewhat tired.

Just then, the system panel lit up again, and a cold, mechanical voice broke the brief silence:

[Natural Disaster Change Notification!]

["Sky-filling Fire Rain" has ended, ambient temperature is cooling rapidly.]

[Three hours later, the second stage of the natural disaster— "Hail" will descend upon the entire region. Please all survivors pay attention to cold protection and reinforce your decks.]

"Hail? It really doesn't let anyone catch their breath."

Zhou An gave a wry smile and then stood up.

"Muzi, Luo Ning, get ready. We need to open all the loot from these three days before the hail arrives!"

Upon hearing about the loot, Luo Ning jumped straight up from the sofa, and even the dignified Li Muzi put down the planting observation notes in her hand and walked quickly to the first-floor lobby.

At this moment, in the lobby, treasure chests had piled up into a breathtaking small mountain.

Over these three days, Zhou An not only used the [Electromagnetic Rail Main Cannon] to crazily bombard meteorites but also relied on the passive of [War Treasure III] to turn all the incoming fire elemental monsters into chests.

Zhou An took a deep breath and pulled up the material list:

Ordinary Material Blind Box: 1262

black iron treasure chest: 404

bronze treasure chest: 306

Silver treasure chest: 20

Gold treasure chest: 1

Platinum treasure chest: 1

"Plus the little bit of surplus we had before, we're going to do something big."

Zhou An rubbed his hands, and the colorful Hextech [Level Up!] light bloomed in his palm.

"System, activate automatic fusion mode! Target—highest level!"

For a time, the entire first-floor lobby of the Cloud Top Fortress was swallowed by a gorgeous, seven-colored rainbow light.

Those thousands of chests disintegrated and recombined like molecules in the light, emitting bursts of crisp clashing sounds.

"Goodness..."

Li Muzi adjusted her glasses.

Luo Ning kept muttering: "We're rich, the Boss is really going to defy the heavens this time."

As the light continuously compressed toward the center, the number of chests plummeted, but the pressure emanating from them became increasingly terrifying:

1263 Ordinary converted to 421 Black iron

825 Black iron converted to 275 Bronze

582 Bronze converted to 194 Silver

215 Silver converted to 71 Gold (2 Silver remaining)

72 Gold converted to 24 Platinum

25 Platinum finally turned into 8 Diamond!

1 Platinum remaining

When the last trace of light dissipated, the "mountain of chests" that had originally filled the lobby disappeared, replaced by 8 [Diamond treasure chests] quietly floating in mid-air, crystal clear and as if carved from stars.

Zhou An looked at these 8 Diamond chests, his breathing quickening. Just as he was about to try fusing them again to see if there was a higher quality than Diamond, the system suddenly popped up a blinding red light:

[Warning: Host detected attempting super-rank fusion!]

[Current vehicle level: LV3. Limited by world rules and vehicle civilization level, Diamond quality is the current stage synthesis limit.]

[Cannot continue to upgrade, please have the Host first upgrade the vehicle level or world exploration progress.]

"As expected, there are restrictions."

Zhou An sighed with regret, but in an instant, he was filled with immense ecstasy.

A full 8 Diamond treasure chests!

Previously, just one Diamond chest had yielded a heaven-defying artifact like the [spatial cultivation chamber]; if these 8 were all opened...

Zhou An turned his head and found Luo Ning and Li Muzi standing side by side, both of them opening their mouths in unison.

Li Muzi looked at the chests and gave a wry smile: "I originally thought that the seeds I collected were the most precious things in this world, but now it seems that poverty has limited my imagination."

Zhou An laughed heartily and clapped his hands: "Since it's restricted and can't be upgraded further, let's open the chests before the hail arrives!"