Chapter 121: Cultivation

Early morning.

Fan Li finished searching the final room. It was difficult to find a usable weapon in a civilian residence; aside from scattered kill points, he found only some food with decent airtight packaging.

"Gulp..."

Fan Li took a sip of a carbonated drink and pulled out his Monster Manual. During his long hunt, he had acquired quite a few sealed items.

He flipped through it casually. Like a dynamic 3D effect, the monsters within even glared at Fan Li with evil intent. No matter how powerful they had been before, they could not break through the thin paper to descend upon the human world and wreak havoc again. They wore ferocious expressions, with some zombies even frozen in mid-leap, harborng deep hatred for Fan Li. However, they were merely prisoners, and in Fan Li's eyes, they posed no threat at all.

Among them were two monster-class zombies: Nightmare and Suffocation. The other pages contained various sealed mutants: a zombie dog, a weeper, and a mist.

As Fan Li idly turned the pages, his thoughts shifted to whether he should clear out his inventory of mutants. He now possessed enough strength to protect himself; even if he consumed the mutants, they would only provide minor tricks that wouldn't turn the tide of a major battle. He could handle small skirmishes on his own, and in major battles, these small fries were too weak to be of any use. After all, consuming them required mental energy, making the mutants feel like useless baggage.

It would be better to feed them to the monsters to increase their affinity. Combining white-tier items into blue-tier ones—wasn't that standard procedure?

Fan Li did not hesitate. He tapped his finger on the zombie dog's page. From the pitch-black background, dozens of viscous, undulating tentacles emerged and coiled around the zombie dog. The dog struggled in vain before being hoisted into the air by the tentacles, which squeezed until the creature was crushed into a cloud of black mist.

"Feed the Butcher!"

He forcibly ended the summoning, though his affinity with the Butcher was currently at zero. He valued this fierce subordinate highly. Having consumed the zombie dog, he opened the page for the Mist, performed the same operation, and fed it to the Butcher as well.

[Affinity +30]
[30/100]
[The Butcher now has some impression of you, but it is merely an acquaintance. Away from the cross, you would still be treated with cruelty. The relationship needs strengthening.]

Fan Li had previously cultivated Ellie and knew that affinity could be increased rapidly through feeding up to 70, but beyond that, it required more than just food; it took a series of interactions to form a bond. He just didn't know if the Butcher would stop being so irritable once his affinity improved, or if he would continue to draw his blade at the slightest provocation. The "ignore faction" trait was truly difficult to control; starting a team battle by slaughtering one's own side was the definition of a "griefing" teammate.

Fan Li didn't stop. He turned to the page of the Weeper. Perhaps sensing the fate of its fellow inmates, the Weeper’s whimpering even pierced through the Monster Manual to affect the reality around him. Eerily, despite the sharpness of the sound, it did not evoke fear, but rather a sense of pity. The Weeper possessed charming abilities; if it had been a fox spirit or a cat spirit, Fan Li might have hesitated, but this was a mutated zombie. When it bit people, it certainly didn't look this pathetic.

"Feed the Obsession Textbook!"

With many monsters currently in his care, Fan Li had to ensure he treated them all with attention.

[Affinity +10]
[The Obsession Textbook does not want to talk to you! Your relationship is currently just above freezing point.]

Physical interaction had its pros and cons. For an immature monster like Button, a few beatings were enough to make it understand his good intentions. But the Teacher's personality was naturally stubborn, and after mutating into a zombie, the parasitic entity of the Obsession Textbook amplified these negative emotions.

Fine, don't talk then.

Fan Li was now at a critical stage of summoning monsters. He decided to put aside the idea of using kill points to heal the Obsession Textbook and would wait until the third monster appeared to arrange for its recovery.

By now, Fan Li had cleared out all his existing mutants, and the affinity of his monsters had increased. Ellie: 80; Button: 80; Butcher: 30; and the Obsession Textbook remained the lowest at 10, and unstable at that—a tiny friction could cause it to drop.

Occasional meetings were useless; only daily contact could make affinity rise rapidly.

Fan Li looked back to see Ellie sitting on the edge of the bed, repeatedly taking out a bag of cucumber-flavored potato chips and putting it back into her bag. She seemed to be struggling with some internal conflict. If she couldn't even bear to eat them herself, why had she offered them to him yesterday? Fan Li once suspected that Ellie was just going through the motions, but if that were the case, she had already learned the essence of human social interaction.

Monsters needed cultivation. Except for Button, who had been dealt with in one go, the others required patience and time to train and communicate.

Of course, Fan Li had not forgotten the requirements for summoning the Obsession Textbook. The requirements for the mediums were increasingly perverted; compared to Ellie devouring zombies, the Obsession Textbook required him to recite an English passage. Fan Li couldn't exactly pull out a book and read it in the middle of a fight, so he memorized a short passage to recite mentally when needed.

"Did he dare to go out on such a stormy night?"

The cumbersome incantations wasted too much time, so he had chosen a relatively simple sentence.

Ellie required feeding, the Butcher required blood, Button required the sensation of cold, and the Obsession Textbook required him to withstand mental attacks during the recitation. Fan Li rubbed his temples, feeling that an increase in the number of monsters might not be something to celebrate.

...

Rolling smoke spread toward the horizon as Fan Li stood expressionless before the raging fire. The mutated body of a monster held a strong temptation for zombies; cremation was perhaps the best ending for the young girl.

Fan Li had been out for three days. He needed to quickly clear out the monster in the hospital. The girl who had turned into a deviant had served as a warning; he didn't want to return home only to find his base destroyed and deviants gnawing on the necks of Yang Shuo and the others.