Chapter 162: The Flower of the Demon

Feng Xue paid no mind to the shadowy, ethereal transmigrator, choosing instead to bypass him with the assistance of the shadows gathered by the Imaginary Origin.

For an opponent who was clearly of the assassin archetype, Xiao Bai would undoubtedly be at a disadvantage. Although his own enhanced perception and imaginary concepts gave him an edge against such foes, he had no desire to fight to the death here. After all, no one knew how many transmigrators remained, and sustaining severe injuries at this point would make even defeating the enemy entirely unprofitable.

The assassin-type transmigrator evidently shared this sentiment. Upon realizing that Feng Xue had likewise employed a stealth technique, he ceased his pursuit, leapt into the woods in a few fluid bounds, and concealed himself once more.

What surprised Feng Xue, however, was that Chi Xiaobai had remained completely silent the entire time.

Looking down, a faint smile involuntarily tugged at the corners of his lips.

Clutched in Feng Xue’s arms, Chi Xiaobai’s face was flushed crimson as she squirmed shyly. It was only at moments like this that this little foodie actually seemed like a girl.

"Wait!" Feng Xue suddenly felt his Gourmet Demon transmitting a violent urge. Such an experience was entirely unprecedented for him; the closest thing to it had been right after he consumed the geoduck.

"Could it be that there are ingredients suitable for me nearby?" Feng Xue frowned slightly, parting his lips. With his breath, streams of sensory information grazed across the tip of his tongue, bringing him the data of everything within a ten-meter radius.

"Feng Xue, Xiaobai has a rather uncomfortable feeling!" Xiaobai's mental fortitude was somewhat lacking, and only now did Feng Xue realize that, at some point, Xiaobai's sanity value had begun to plummet sharply!

"Stay close to me, I'm activating an aura!" Feng Xue pulled Xiaobai to his side and expanded the range of his Sanity Aura to encompass her. As the seconds ticked by, Chi Xiaobai's complexion finally began to improve.

"Is it a Nightmare Aura? Could it be a boss-tier monster?" Feng Xue carefully scouted the surrounding environment, yet found no trace of any animals.

"Wait? Could it be..." Feng Xue's gaze suddenly dropped, finally coming to rest upon a peculiar flower.

The flower was far from beautiful, radiating an almost grayish-black, ink-green hue that looked thoroughly sinister. The nightmare aura Feng Xue had perceived was emanating precisely from this bizarre bloom.

"An Evil Flower?" Feng Xue named the blossom. In the game, merely approaching this flower would deplete one's sanity value, and uprooting it would strip away a full quarter of that value!

More than that, this type of flower was also the resource used to refine nightmare fuel in the game—and nightmare fuel was, in essence, the power of nightmares that Feng Xue had witnessed within the Book of Nightmares.

"Can this thing be used to refine energy superior to imaginary magic?" Feng Xue scrutinized the thoroughly unsightly flower. Ever since he had passed the willpower appraisal of the Book of Nightmares, this sort of ordinary nightmare aura was no longer an issue for him.

"Feng Xue, that thing gives me a very bad feeling!" Chi Xiaobai stared palely at the Evil Flower. Although her sanity value had recovered under the effect of Feng Xue's Sanity Aura, the lingering dread of such eerie power still remained in her heart.

"It's fine, my Gourmet Cells are telling me that this thing will make for excellent ingredients!" Feng Xue gently plucked the Evil Flower up by its roots. According to the records in the Book of Nightmares, the Evil Flower was not a distinct species of plant, but rather ordinary flora that had been corrupted and influenced by the power of nightmares.

One only needed to cultivate it while enshrouded in nightmare power, and ordinary flowers would transform into Evil Flowers.

This meant that once a single foundational unit of nightmare power was obtained, Evil Flowers could be mass-produced.

A mass-producible Full-Course Menu?

Feng Xue expressed his profound interest.

However, after pinching off a petal and placing it in his mouth, he could not help feeling somewhat disappointed. Aside from causing a massive drop in sanity value, the taste of the nightmare flower was indistinguishable from an ordinary blossom. If he had to describe it, there was a sort of astringency akin to grape skins, though the dew on top carried a faint, fantastical, and stimulating flavor.

"Wait? Grape skins!" A flash of inspiration struck Feng Xue's mind. He extended his tip of his tongue to gently lick the petal, and in an instant, a wave of delightful surprise welled up in his heart!

"Could this be yeast? Is the nightmare flower meant to be used for brewing wine?" Feng Xue suddenly felt a sense of unreality. Although finding wild yeast on flowers was hardly a rare occurrence, it was far too much of a coincidence for his Gourmet Demon to stumble upon it like this. Could it be?

Feng Xue suddenly recalled that profound and esoteric mysterious power he had obtained back in the world of Food Wars, and instinctively opened his Imaginary Sight to look at Chi Xiaobai. Sure enough, Chi Xiaobai was likewise wreathed in this miraculous power.

Its concentration was even higher than his own, despite the fact that he was the one who had specifically gathered it!

"You really are my lucky star!" Amidst Chi Xiaobai's bewildered gaze, Feng Xue scooped her up, spun her around in the air several times, and finally set her back down.

Following that, Feng Xue paid no further heed to Chi Xiaobai, who still wore a look of utter confusion, and instead opened the Book of Nightmares in his hand.

"#%&#￥！#￥&..." A string of skin-crawling incantations tumbled from Feng Xue's lips. Had Feng Xue not been maintaining his Sanity Aura at that moment, merely hearing those sounds would have been enough to slash Xiaobai's sanity value by over thirty percent.

As Feng Xue chanted the incantation, the petals of the Evil Flower began to wither. Wisps of grayish-black vapor began to seep out from within, condensing above the petals into a ghost-like shadow that looked rather peculiar.

Harvesting in reality was nothing like a video game where, regardless of the flower's size, one could only ever gather a single petal. The number of petals one could harvest in reality depended entirely on the flower itself—though naturally, if you stomped the flower flat with your foot, you wouldn't be able to harvest even a single one.

Feng Xue rubbed the shadow between his palms. The texture felt somewhat similar to the cover of the Book of Nightmares, but the resistance was far lower. If the material of the Book of Nightmares felt like compressed cotton, nightmare fuel felt more like carded cotton, vastly fluffier.

With a single unit of nightmare fuel as a primer, Feng Xue now possessed the means to mass-produce Evil Flowers.

Yet at this moment, Feng Xue recalled a single question—

"Oh right, Xiaobai, does time flow in your spatial storage? Can you put living creatures inside?" Feng Xue asked, twirling the nightmare fuel in his hand.

"Um... I've never tried living creatures, but whenever I put food in there for too long, it goes bad. It's such a nuisance!" Chi Xiaobai's expression turned exaggerated, looking as though she had eaten something foul. But speaking of which, you wouldn't happen to be eating spoiled food, would you? Just how much of a glutton are you?

Still, the fact that it could spoil meant that microorganisms could survive there, and time flowed after all...

An idea suddenly sprouted in Feng Xue's mind. However, to put it into practice, he still needed to find a place to make camp. Nevertheless...