Chapter 145 - 108: Treasure Fruit Garden
"Distinguished guests, you must have come to our Underground City for a reason. We can be open with each other and each get what we need."
The implication was that he had already laid all of Xijing City’s cards on the table. It was now up to Lin Kong and his team to say what they wanted from the city. If they wanted something from Xijing City, they would have to help them in return.
Lin Kong and the others gathered to discuss the matter.
"This mayor seems to have a point."
"But do we have any objective here in this Underground City? I don’t think so, right?"
"The Lord just told us to explore this world. He didn’t really give us a specific objective."
"Weren’t we supposed to be investigating dangers?"
"These people aren’t dangerous!"
"What about that giant creature Nasnageer mentioned, the one that caused this world to become like this? Should we go check it out? Since it changed the entire world, maybe some new developments have occurred there."
"Good idea. Let’s go take a look. We might find something."
...
"Mr. Mayor, hello. I don’t think we really have any particular needs."
"Our Lord saw this frozen world and was curious if any life still existed here, so he sent our team to explore."
"On the ice sheet, we saw your communications building and thought it was a relic of a past civilization. That’s why we dug through the ice to come down. We never expected to find that you all still existed. We then followed the signal we detected to your city. Now that we’ve seen it, our mission is essentially complete."
"If there’s one thing that has piqued our interest, it would be the giant creature from the story Nasnageer told us."
"We’re quite curious what kind of creature could be capable of freezing an entire world."
After hearing Lin Kong’s words, the mayor was at a loss. He never imagined that after finally encountering an alien team that could break through the ice into the Underground City and communicate freely, they would have no desires whatsoever.
"Distinguished guests, normally, we would show you the way directly. But so many years have passed, and we’ve lost a lot of our records. We can only point you in the general direction," the mayor replied with a helpless sigh.
"Is that so? If all you can do is point us in a direction, then we probably can’t help you with much either."
"This... Can you please help us? We really need your help! You can take anything you want from Xijing City..." the mayor began to plead, his voice low and humble.
Seeing this, Lin Kong couldn’t bear it. "How about this? Show us anything you have that you consider special. Perhaps there’s something we can use. That way, we’ll have something to report to our superiors, and we can help you expand the opening in the ice."
The mayor was overjoyed and immediately gave an order, "Someone! Go to the warehouse and bring all the unidentified items we’ve collected. And bring a sample of the fruits from the Treasure Fruit Garden for our distinguished guests to try."
Soon, all the unknown items from the city government’s warehouse were brought out. Lin Kong and his team used their instruments to analyze them, but they didn’t find any rare items. They only identified a few common Extraordinary Items that weren’t of much use.
"Sigh... No good. This... this one, and this... These few items are actually quite valuable for you all. You should take them and use them yourselves. Their functions are..."
"Ah, Mr. Mayor, if this is all you have, it’s really difficult for us to—"
"Sir, bad news! The Treasure Fruit Garden has been raided again! Those mutated creatures are back!" The person sent to the underground Treasure Fruit Garden had just returned, but instead of fruit, he brought bad news.
"Mutated creatures?" Lin Kong asked, his curiosity piqued.
"It’s like this, distinguished guests. After we established the Underground City, we discovered that many animals that originally lived on the surface had also migrated underground. For some reason, many of them underwent atavistic mutations, and their strength increased enormously. Our weapons became far less effective against them."
"At first, it was fine. We were all just seeking refuge underground, so there were no conflicts. Everyone coexisted peacefully."
"But ever since we excavated a grotto filled with all sorts of rare and exotic plants, those mutated animals have started coming by from time to time to raid it."
"Sigh... Every year, we try to harvest some fruit before they come to raid, but I didn’t expect them to show up early this year."
"There’s nothing we can do. Honored guests, those mutated creatures are too strong for us to handle. We can only wait for them to eat their fill and leave on their own. My apologies, everyone. It seems we won’t be able to get you any fruit from the Treasure Fruit Garden."
The mayor explained the relationship between the mutated creatures and the Treasure Fruit Garden.
This, however, piqued the team’s interest.
"Sounds like... those mutated creatures are no longer ordinary beasts!"
"Seems like it. They sound a bit like the ’spirit beasts’ from our own territory."
"That Treasure Fruit Garden sounds like a real find. Should we go check it out?"
"Let’s go. We’re already here, after all..."
The team members discussed it amongst themselves and decided to go see this so-called Treasure Fruit Garden.
"Mr. Mayor, could you take us to see that Treasure Fruit Garden? Our team is a bit interested in it."
"Ah... no, you can’t, distinguished guests! It’s too dangerous. Those mutated creatures are extremely protective of their food. You’ll be attacked if you go to the Treasure Fruit Garden."