Chapter 54: Heating Up

It was then that Lily Rhodes noticed that Sprout, usually so energetic, had somehow become listless. Even its leaves had started turning yellow, making it look completely malnourished. Seeing this, she hurriedly took fish meat out of the warehouse and began feeding it. After half an hour of feeding, Sprout finally recovered. The yellowed leaves could not be restored and simply fell off on their own. New leaves had already grown in, but they were still very tender, leaving Sprout looking somewhat bare.

After a bit of questioning, Lily quickly figured out the whole story. It turned out that Sprout had been asleep when Shelly upgraded. Woken by the massive commotion and seeing its good friend Shelly constantly growing larger, Sprout’s simple, sleep-addled brain did not question what was happening. Instead, its first reaction was that since its good friend was growing, it had to grow too.

However, Sprout was essentially a true carnivorous plant. The soil could not provide it with much energy, and its main source of food still came from the prey caught by its root system submerged in the seawater. But didn’t Shelly gain an extra layer of armor after upgrading? That just happened to lift Sprout’s roots right out of the water. The groggy Sprout completely failed to notice this, which led to its tragedy. Without a supply of nutrients, it fundamentally ended up consuming its own core essence.

Once she understood what had happened, Lily was both curious and amused. "Don’t do anything this stupid ever again, you hear me?"

Sprout swayed its newly grown tender shoots and wrapped them around Lily’s wrist to curry favor. "Master, I want to eat more."

Hearing this, Lily sighed. "Forget it, why am I arguing with a plant. Eat up, eat up. These are all yours."

However, this incident also served as a reminder. Sprout’s birth was meant to establish a defensive perimeter around them, and it needed to eat meat. Now that Shelly had upgraded, its position was no longer suitable for combat. That wouldn’t do. It seemed absolutely necessary to change Sprout’s growing location. Moreover, as Sprout continued to grow larger, the original fence was no longer enough for it. The turtle shell Shelly had just manifested through its upgrade was quite nice and perfectly suited for climbing. But now was not the time. Sprout had just suffered a severe loss of vitality. Moving it would have to wait a few days to let it recover its strength first.

She then opened the three Self-selected Prop Boxes and the previous purple Treasure Chest. Since she had already opened Self-selected Prop Boxes several times, she understood this type of chest very well. After skillfully selecting three items that suited her, she opened the final purple Treasure Chest. It was her first time seeing a purple Treasure Chest. As it opened, she found neither food nor items inside. There were no blueprints or monsters either, only a box full of Purple Crystals.

At that moment, the interface for her sailboat suddenly appeared.

[Detected sailboat upgrade material: Purple Crystal. Do you wish to upgrade?]

"Yes."

Although somewhat shocked and surprised, Lily chose yes anyway. She had originally thought that the upgrade material for the sailboat would be Refined Steel, but now it seemed that wasn’t the case. The upgraded sailboat had grown slightly larger. Its originally white hull was now adorned with many Purple Crystals, giving it a much more noble aura. "I’ll take the sailboat out tomorrow to test its speed when I have free time," Lily thought as she walked toward the planting area.

Shelly’s size had increased significantly once again, which meant there was a lot more land available for farming. Upon arriving at the planting area, she saw that under the combined blessings of the Wood Stone and the School of Golden Fish, almost all the plants had mutated to varying degrees. At a glance, everywhere was a gleaming golden yellow.

After patrolling the planting area, she went to the pasture. At this time, the number of pigs, cows, and sheep had not changed; there was still only one pair of each. After all, she had just acquired this building a few days ago. The gestation periods for pigs, cows, and sheep were relatively long, so she still needed to wait a while before they could give birth. The number of chickens, ducks, and geese hadn’t increased for the time being either, but they had already started brooding. It wouldn’t be long before the ducklings, goslings, and chicks were born. Everything was progressing in a good direction.

On the way back, Lily listed the Refined Steel she had obtained earlier on the market, asking for one Biological Energy Cluster in exchange for each piece of Refined Steel. With so many people out there, she definitely wasn’t the only one who possessed the Decomposition Technique, so others must have obtained Biological Energy Clusters too. Exchanging upgrade materials for upgrade materials was completely fair, right? However, Lily didn’t list all the Refined Steel at once. Instead, she only put up ten pieces. After all, if the quantity was too large, it would appear worthless. She also clearly stated that production was limited and there were only ten pieces available per day.

Before returning to her room, she made a point to check tomorrow’s weather. She originally thought the temperature would drop and it would continue to rain. After all, the weather outside was obvious—densely packed dark clouds. She would have even believed it if she was told another sea storm was coming, but that wasn’t the case.

[Tomorrow’s weather: Sunny. Temperature: 15 to 30 degrees Celsius.]

The weather for the following few days was exactly the same, and the temperature was still rising.

"This damn weather, is it going to heat up?" Lily cursed inwardly. After all, they were all called Survivors. The previous Sea Beast Frenzy and sea storm were clear for all to see, so it would only make sense for extreme weather to suddenly arrive.

If it really did heat up, water resources would become a highly sought-after commodity. However, because of her previous unconventional maneuvers, the Survivors who obtained Seawater Purifiers were directly selling the machines instead of selling water. As a result, although there were people selling water in the trading area now, the prices were all very cheap and the trading volume was low. After all, anyone who could afford it would just buy a Seawater Purifier, or at the very least, buy Lily’s air moisture collector.

Yes, indeed. By the time other Survivors caught on and began selling items capable of producing fresh water, Lily’s air moisture collector was quickly eliminated by the market due to its low efficiency. Yet, no one scolded her. After all, if it hadn’t been for her, the other Survivors wouldn’t have brought out their items directly to make money, which was no different from killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.

As for Lily herself, she was actually quite worried that the temperature would spiral out of control. After all, she had previously fused the Fire Spirit Pearl into Shelly. If the weather suddenly heated up, she had no idea what the result would be. Would two negatives make a positive, or would she just be handed a one-stop cremation package?

She returned to her room with these worries. Walking into the bathroom, she took a shower to wash away all the sweat she had produced earlier due to pain, and then walked out feeling completely refreshed. She hadn’t noticed it before, but now her body felt much lighter.