Chapter 204: Check It Out

Chapter 204: Check It Out

“Tsk! Such a hassle, can’t even find a suitable test subject.” Zheng Yichen clicked his tongue and tossed the Contact Lens back into the container. He glanced at the pitiful, wriggling vascular tentacles at the edge of the lens and clicked his tongue again. The protective membrane covering the eyes of the Dragon Clan was undeniably tough.

It wasn’t as sturdy as Scales, but under normal conditions, even Zheng Yichen jabbing a fingernail at it wouldn’t break the skin. So when he heard that for other large creatures, the eyes were considered weak points, he couldn’t help but feel… what trash!

Such an evolutionary shortcoming, wasted on such a large body size. With a big body, there should be corresponding protective evolution, especially for eyes that often exceeded half a meter in diameter. Eyes that huge with no protection—how fragile could they be? Cleaning the dust off every day would be a pain.

Zheng Yichen mumbled for a while, then after some thought, gave up on a second Magical Modification. This Magical Modification had already pushed this slimy eyeball to its limit. Any more would only destroy it; there was no room for further adjustments.

“You really don’t want to try it? This thing is amazing, I promise nothing will go wrong… probably.” Seeing Zheng Yichen’s conflicted expression, Lily glanced back at the small creatures in the basket. These little animals were either tied by the neck or had their legs bound.

They were all very restless and would run off quickly if not restrained. After being kept for a while, they seemed normal—aside from having an eye of the same color, nothing unusual about them…

“Alright…” Finally, she gave a slight nod. Her past experiences made her believe there was no free lunch in the world. Zheng Yichen was willing to raise her and even give her a chance to become stronger. It seemed free for now, but she didn’t think it truly was.

Lily took the small box from Zheng Yichen’s hand, hesitated for a moment, then pinched the Contact Lens inside and quickly placed it into her left eye. A slimy, disgusting sensation shot through her nerves. She could feel the Contact Lens gently wriggling beneath her eyelid, slowly spreading out, while some tiny tentacles began forming connections with her eyeball. She endured the strange feeling.

After a while, when the sensation faded, she slowly opened her eyes. The two distinctly separate fields of vision made her head spin, and her body swayed involuntarily. Before she could fall, Zheng Yichen hooked her collar and tossed her onto the center of his claw. “How do you feel?”

“Awful…” Lily tightly shut her left eye. The feeling of two overlapping fields of vision was just terrible. And the scenes layered over her original vision weren’t a single image but six stacked circular views! The clarity of these images was decent, but the transparency was low, somewhat affecting her original vision. However, if she focused, her original vision wasn’t too severely disrupted.

Still, this overlapping vision easily interfered with her judgment and was hard to get used to. Also… carefully distinguishing between those six different images was especially mind-draining!

Only after closing her left eye did she feel a bit better.

“Then take it off for now and tell me how it felt.” Zheng Yichen nodded.

Lily pinched her left eye lightly with her small fingers. The Contact Lens attached to the surface of her eyeball contracted slightly but couldn’t avoid being pulled off. During the removal, Lily felt another slight, strange sensation—like pulling out a hair. It hurt a little, but it was bearable.

“Oh~ Seems I made a pretty good thing.” After recording Lily’s description, Zheng Yichen said sincerely. The overlapping vision just needed getting used to. As for the six images, according to Lily’s description, she could focus on one if she concentrated. Of course, with enough mental effort, she could watch all six simultaneously. These images were undoubtedly linked to those small animals. “No farsighted effect; probably a mutation removed that function. So the requirements for the eyeball as the main material might not need to be too strict. But we can’t rule out the possibility that secondary processing damaged the Contact Lens, weakening its functions…”

Zheng Yichen held a pen, analyzing possible scenarios and making a temporary summary of the experiment. With sufficient results, they could pause for now. Most of the experimental process had been documented anyway, allowing for replication later when there was time.

“Hmm? What? You like this thing?” Zheng Yichen asked with mild interest, noticing Lily staring blankly at the container. Lily hesitated, shook her head, then nodded slightly.

“If you like it, you can play with it for now. This thing can only be soaked in this nutrient solution when not in use, or it’ll quickly become useless.” Blood could work instead of nutrient solution, but blood had a shelf-life once out of the body, unless carried on one constantly.

However, Zheng Yichen had considered another issue: if carried for too long, someone with insufficient constitution might become parasitized later. Those vascular tentacles could grow. If someone with a weak constitution wore it for an extended period, Zheng Yichen couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t fuse with the body…

“Even if you want to play with it, for now… don’t wear it for more than half a day at a time.” Zheng Yichen said after some thought. This modified version was weaker than the original. The parasitic intensity had decreased, but placing it directly in the eye skipped part of the parasitic process. So even though Lily could now kill a small animal with one slap, she should strictly limit its usage time.

“Mhm…” Lily nodded and prepared to return to her little basket, but Zheng Yichen stopped her. “Hmm… take these to look at.”

“?” Seeing the large stack of books Zheng Yichen placed before her, a flicker of confusion passed through Lily’s eyes… When she opened one and saw its contents, she froze. “Are you making me study?”

“Study? What’s that? Being literate is enough. I wrote these stories when I was bored. Just look at them for fun. I noticed you’ve been spacing out a lot lately.” Zheng Yichen scratched his chin dismissively. What did people from the Otherworld need with textbook learning anyway… From what Zheng Yichen understood of that world, basic literacy was enough for normal learning. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division? Numerical calculations? What use were those unless studying Alchemy or Engineering?

The mainstream textbooks in the Otherworld were about combat, Magic… or maybe singing and dancing. Normal subjects like language or math were basically non-existent… They didn’t have them!

As for what these stories were… oh, fairy tales…