Chapter 93: A Lucky Discovery
The only question was whether the direction of their evolution would produce spiritual medicine or poison.
Thinking about that strange rain, Joo Joowon felt that poison was probably the more likely outcome.
He stood up and used spider silk to drag out the rats that had already been flattened beneath the tree.
After hesitating for a moment, he picked Byeol up and held him in front of the rat corpses.
"Byeol, do you want to eat these?"
Byeol lowered his head and sniffed them.
Very quickly, he lost interest and returned to grooming himself.
Joo Joowon pondered the situation for a moment.
He could not tell whether Byeol was uninterested simply because he was already full, or whether he would not have cared about the meat even if he had been hungry.
Still, since the system referred to them as Mutated Beasts rather than Zombies, the threat posed by their meat, even if it contained toxins, was probably not too severe.
It might be worth trying to make some jerky out of them later.
Based on Joo Joowon’s experience from reading novels in the past, animals with levels usually contained far more energy in their flesh and provided much greater satiety.
Whether this game followed the same rules was something Joo Joowon did not know.
However, following his principle of wasting nothing, he still wrapped the rats in spider silk and hung them from a high place nearby.
That way, the smell of blood and flesh would not spread into the surroundings, and hopefully no one would steal them before he returned.
After finishing all of that, Joo Joowon switched his talent to Enhanced Cognition.
He wanted to see whether there were any hidden treasures in the courtyard that he might have overlooked.
Because his Mental Power had already reached thirteen points, changing talents now required him to remove three pieces of equipment first.
Compared to before, the process had become considerably more troublesome.
As a result, Joo Joowon had already decided to permanently lock in his Mental Power talent and stop changing it in the future.
Compared to the Mind’s Eye effect he had relied on previously, he now found himself preferring Enhanced Cognition much more.
As the saying went, plans could never keep up with changes.
For the previous Joo Joowon, who had fought entirely alone, both Sixth Sense and Mind’s Eye had been far more suitable talents than Enhanced Cognition.
However, ever since obtaining the Spider Web Launcher, those two talents no longer felt quite as essential as before.
The versatility of the Spider Web Launcher had already fulfilled many of Joo Joowon’s needs.
In comparison, the abilities provided by Enhanced Cognition were something he currently had absolutely no substitute for.
To some extent, Sixth Sense and Enhanced Cognition overlapped in functionality.
After suffering once because of the rain, Joo Joowon had become wary of every seemingly ordinary object in the apocalypse.
He would no longer make reckless mistakes like before.
Because of this, Enhanced Cognition finally had room to shine and was able to replace part of Keen Intuition’s role.
As long as he treated himself like someone suffering from persecution paranoia and looked at everything as if it might be dangerous, then the chances of capsizing in the gutter because of overlooking some tiny detail would naturally become much smaller.
Joo Joowon narrowed his eyes and carefully examined his surroundings.
The first thing that caught his attention was still the tree pit.
It emitted an obvious black glow filled with ominous energy, a color that did not belong to any of the quality tiers defined by the apocalypse game.
This made it impossible for Joo Joowon to determine whether it was a good sign or a bad one.
In modern society, black was undoubtedly associated with misfortune most of the time.
Yet in ancient times, black was also known as the mysterious color and was the color worn by emperors in their ceremonial robes.
Even black cats were called mysterious cats and were believed to ward off evil spirits.
Furthermore, whenever Byeol granted him good luck, the energy it released had also been black mist.
Because of this, Joo Joowon could not easily judge the meaning behind the color.
Even so, at this moment, he still leaned more toward interpreting it as a sign of misfortune.
With so many corpses piled up in one place, he suspected that some sort of plague might break out or perhaps the age of apocalypse itself would take notice of this place and use the corpses to create an elite monster or even a Boss.
The experience rewards from Bosses were incredibly generous.
If these corpses had not been sitting directly beneath his own apartment building, Joo Joowon would have considered leaving them alone and observing the area.
Perhaps he could have fattened up a Boss before killing it later.
Unfortunately, this place was simply too close to where he lived.
Because of that, Joo Joowon decided that once he returned later, he would bury everything on the spot.
After deciding how to deal with it, he shifted his gaze away.
He looked first at the old tree.
It was wrapped in a thick gray glow.
There was no doubt about it.
The tree was completely dead.
His Enhanced Cognition could not be used on living things.
With that confirmed, Joo Joowon focused all of his attention on the weeds growing throughout the courtyard.
At first glance, every plant looked lifeless and covered beneath a layer of gray shadows.
They looked nothing like the beautiful and vibrant greenery his eyes saw at first glance.
Afraid of missing some hidden treasure, Joo Joowon examined the weeds one by one with painstaking care.
In the end, he found absolutely nothing.
Although he had already expected this outcome, he still could not stop himself from letting out a disappointed sigh.
Joo Joowon blinked hard several times to ease the soreness in his eyes and was just about to call Byeol over so they could leave when he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye.