Chapter 90 unlocks the farming function, progress in eroding authority increases, renovations...
Although he had decided to eliminate all the cultists in this underground processing plant, Zhou Fangdong was currently in the early stages of the [Disguised Evil God Descends] state and needed to develop for a period of time before he could move freely.
Zhou Fangdong planned to use this time to extract some information from these cult members.
First and foremost, of course, is where the core of the evil god's clone is located.
He chose this place to devour more cores in order to upgrade his [Erosion Authority] function.
Zhou Fangdong began muttering in the mind of the cultist he was possessing, "The location of the core of the evil god's clone..."
The cultist, possessed by him, gradually slowed down his recording movements, making meaningless taps on the paper with the tip of his pen, as if he were pondering something.
This cult member was the foreman of the processing plant, a position higher than that of a deacon, and equivalent to a hall master in the Bone Inheritance Society.
Therefore, compared to the cult workers around the lake who were using machinery to extract energy from the evil god's clones, the location of this overseer was very safe.
He was positioned on a high platform that overlooked the entire cave and almost reached the top of the cave.
At the top of this high platform, far from the evil god's clone, is a completely transparent glass box. The overseer sits on a soft sofa, observing everything that is happening below.
Faint blood-red runes could be seen flowing on the glass around the private room, clearly indicating that the protection here was much better than that of the cult workers working around the lake below.
After being distracted by Zhou Fangdong for a while, the foreman picked up a walkie-talkie from the table next to him and pressed the communication buttons in a fixed sequence: "How many cores for summoning the gods' clones are left in the warehouse?"
The cultist on the other end of the walkie-talkie replied respectfully, "Three cores remain. Shall we request more from the stronghold in the mirror?"
The foreman subconsciously shook his head: "No need, this is enough to last until next month. I contacted you just to remind you to be careful with your protection. I'm feeling a bit uneasy... Even if the cores can be mass-produced now, we can't be careless. This is an important resource, so we can't afford any problems."
"Yes, foreman, we have already increased the number of patrols."
After receiving a reply from the other side, the supervisor put the walkie-talkie back in his hand.
Zhou Fangdong felt somewhat helpless.
This person only asked about the number of cores, instead of going directly to the warehouse where the clone cores were stored like that cultist in the abandoned amusement park... I feel like my ability to influence thought has weakened considerably.
Zhou Fangdong continued to mutter incessantly into the man's mind, but this time the cultist remained unmoved; only the blood-red runes on the transparent glass surrounding the private room became increasingly clear.
Seeing this change, Zhou Fangdong suddenly understood.
These runes have a protective function that isolates the influence of the evil god's power, and the [Disguised Evil God's Descent] function that he is currently using originates from the same source as the evil god's power, so it has also been weakened by the runes.
This is a bit troublesome. If this cultist stays in this private room any longer, Zhou Fangdong doesn't know if he will be able to develop his power to the point where he can control his body.
Just as Zhou Fangdong was searching for a way to break the deadlock, he suddenly realized that by focusing his attention on the lake-sized evil god clone below, he could also draw power from the evil god clone like those 'water pumps'.
He immediately perked up and began to concentrate, devouring the evil god's clone in the lake below.
Thanks to Zhou Fangdong's efforts, the evil god's power originating from below began to gather, forming a point that broke through the weakest point of the glass runes and slowly entered the body of the cultist inside the glass box.
While Zhou Fangdong focused on absorbing the power of the evil god to develop himself, the cultist he possessed continued to do his own thing.
After stopping recording, the supervisor seemed to be pondering something, his finger constantly pressing the walkie-talkie button, as if hesitating whether to dial the number.
Just then, the walkie-talkie he was holding suddenly rang, and he reflexively pressed the answer button.
A series of noisy electrical hums passed by, followed by the deep, magnetic voice of a middle-aged man: "The blood sacrifice ritual and the resurrection ritual in Fengrao Village have both failed due to the intervention of the main god, and the god's avatar has also failed to return."
Upon hearing this, the foreman stood up in shock: "Your Excellency, when did this happen? What about our processing plant..."
"The incident in Fengrao Village happened this afternoon. All your blood sacrifice and resurrection rituals in the east are suspended. We need to deal with the main god first. This guy has interfered with us more than once; we can't let him continue like this. Later, shut down the factory and go to the vicinity of the resurrection ritual in the eastern suburbs. Someone will contact you there."
"Okay, I'll go prepare it right away."
Zhou Fangdong, who was attached to the overseer, heard their conversation and breathed a slight sigh of relief.
It seems there's no need for him to deliberately guide anything anymore; the members of the Bone Inheritance Society have already decided to target the Supreme God first.
This overseer probably won't be able to meet up with the person who arranged the ritual, since he's going to hand over the factory tonight... If only he could find out where the Fusu ritual is from him before then.
Just as he thought of this, the foreman, as if under control, picked up a pen and paper and wrote down two locations.
As Zhou Fangdong absorbed more and more of the evil god's power, the protective effect of the glass runes in the private room weakened, and his influence on the possessed person's mind returned to its usual effect.
After noting down the location on the paper, Zhou Fangdong silently increased the speed of his devouring.
As he devoured more and more of the evil god's power, Zhou Fangdong felt himself breaking away from this cultist.
As his consciousness gradually faded, before falling into a deep sleep, Zhou Fangdong found himself in a lake.
He transformed into the enormous evil god's clone whose power had been drained.
The cultists, still operating the machinery, were unaware of the impending disaster... until an eerie silence suddenly descended.
The roar of machinery and the sounds of runes taking effect vanished, plunging the entire underground cavern into an extreme stillness, like the calm before a storm.
As all the cultists were filled with fear and unease, a disturbing, muffled breathing sound suddenly emanated from the central aggregate of the evil god's avatars.
On the muddy surface of the massive, lake-like avatar of the evil god, the facial expressions that had been constantly breaking and reforming froze. They stopped changing and all surfaced, the twisted and painful expressions on their faces turning into a strange, serene, and relieved smile.
The terrifying pressure that solidified into a tangible form began to spread outwards. The chaotic and filthy mental pollution was like chaos itself. Every rock in the cave was trembling slightly, the protective runes were rapidly dissolving, and the bodies of all the cultists were trembling in sync with the surrounding rocks, as if they were about to collapse at any moment.
After a few seconds of silence, the delicate balance was broken.
With the blessing of some unknown force, the evil god's clone successfully broke through all rune protection.
The enormous mud body was like boiling water, and countless tentacles shot out from the surface of the mud like fountains. They had only one goal—to devour and assimilate everything they could reach into their own body.
The suddenly erupting evil god's avatars appeared to move slowly, but by the time the naked eye noticed its transformation, its deadly tentacles were already upon them.
The nearest cultist had barely raised his head, and before he could even let out a complete scream, a mud tentacle wrapped around him.
His runic protective suit instantly turned charred and brittle; the specially designed suit, capable of resisting a certain level of contamination, was easily torn to shreds like paper. The immense force compressed his body into a mangled mass of flesh and blood, which was then devoured and absorbed by the sludge writhing on the tentacles.
Another cultist tried to escape, but as soon as he turned around, another mud tentacle descended from the sky, crushing the cultist and his bizarre machine into a pulp. The ear-piercing sound of metal twisting and breaking mingled with the crisp sound of human bones shattering, before both were swallowed by the spreading mud and silence returned.
Almost instantly, all the cultists, processing equipment, and supernatural objects created around the lake were swallowed up by the suddenly boiling silt.
The foreman in the box at the top of the tower was stunned. He looked at the horrific scene below in disbelief, and then, as if waking from a nightmare, he rushed to a faceless statue next to him and slashed his wrists without hesitation.
Blood quickly stained the faceless statue red, and a sealing power capable of dispelling the pollution spread outwards from the tower.
However, this nascent sealing power was utterly inadequate against the already rampaging evil god's clone.
As the overseer was bleeding him out, six mud tentacles shot out from below, shattering the glass marked with blood-red runes and reaching behind him—one tentacle pierced his throat, one pierced his chest, and the other four tentacles grabbed his limbs.
A terrible tearing sound rang out as the overseer was ripped to pieces, his severed limbs and internal organs being swept into the muddy lake by the tentacles.
The blood on the faceless statue faded, and it was eventually swallowed by the silt that surged to the top of the tower.
In just a few minutes, the entire processing plant was covered in silt.
But the sludge monster that filled the entire underground cavern did not calm down; its surface was still boiling wildly, like a giant stomach digesting food, trying to spread to other places.
Just then, an electronic voice, seemingly from nowhere, rang out:
[Erosion of Authority Progress 25%]
The boiling sludge monster seemed to be grabbed by an invisible hand and vanished into thin air.
When Zhou Fangdong regained consciousness, he found himself back in his apartment room.
It was still dark, and a bunch of pop-up ads were popping up in front of him.
Zhou Fangdong ignored the dense barrage of pop-ups, endured his headache, opened the system shop, and gave himself another bottle of mental potion.
After his headache subsided a little, he began to check the pop-up window.
[Ten cores and several supernatural items were extracted from the body of the evil god at the processing plant. A small amount of indigestible cultist remains were automatically disposed of in the apartment's garbage dump. The supernatural items and most of the evil god's remains were moved to a hidden room on the second floor of the apartment.]
The progress page for the [Erosion of Authority] feature has been unlocked.
[Erosion of Authority Progress 25%]
[The progress of the [Erosion of Authority] function has been improved. The 1000 Ghost Coins cost for using [Disguised Oracle] has been eliminated.]
The [Disguised Oracle] function can be used on ten rituals simultaneously.
[A large number of paranormal items have been detected inside the apartment; new feature unlocked]
[Reach 300 decoration points in your apartment garden to unlock planting areas]
Finally, Zhou Fangdong's gaze lingered on the [Unlockable Planting Area].
—You can farm in the apartment now.
An ancient gene hidden deep within his soul suddenly awakened. If it weren't still dark, Zhou Fangdong would have wanted to teleport to the apartment garden right now to unlock the farming function.
Perhaps due to the [Erosion Authority] function, last time in the abandoned amusement park, only one tenant was rescued by [Disguised Evil God Descending], but this time the system retrieved everything in the processing plant, even the corpses of cultists.
Apart from the corpses, all the spoils of war were thrown into a hidden room on the second floor by the system.
Just as Zhou Fangdong was about to control the slime's body to check the spoils, a pop-up window suddenly appeared from the system:
A peddler appears outside the Ghost Market teleportation point and requests entry to the apartment.
In the afternoon, Zhou Fangdong summoned a peddler to transport all the ghost-related items from room 207 to the ghost market to sell. Unexpectedly, the peddler was so efficient that he sold them all in one night.
After closing the system pop-up, Zhou Fangdong switched his view directly to the slime's body in the hidden room on the second floor.
Because he had devoured the lake-sized evil god that controlled the processing plant, Zhou Fangdong discovered that his slime body had become much stronger.
He could clearly sense that he could directly use this body to [disguise as an evil god descending], without having to possess a cultist's body as awkwardly as before.
This will be much more convenient from now on. While cleaning up cult members at night, I can also do other things, which will greatly improve my efficiency.
Because it had absorbed too many evil god clones and hadn't digested them yet, the slime's body couldn't be molded into a human form for the time being. Zhou Fangdong had no choice but to struggle to the second-to-last cell and extend a tentacle to help the peddler open the teleportation point door.
The door opened, and the peddler immediately saw the enormous slime inside, its body reaching the ceiling.
He was silent for a moment, then said in a low voice, "I'm sorry... I... I think I went to the wrong place..."
Just as the peddler's figure was about to disappear into the darkness, Zhou Fangdong quickly flicked out a tentacle to pull him back.
Just when the peddler thought he was about to be devoured by this disgusting monster, he suddenly saw a face on the surface of the mud open its mouth, and then a familiar voice came from that mouth: "You've come to the right place, this is Liwan Apartment, I am the apartment landlord, this is my body... one of them."
The peddler froze, staring at the massive lump of filthy mud before him, and fell silent once more.
As expected of the landlord chosen by Liwan Apartments, he can even take over the body of an evil god for his own use.
Moreover, judging from its size, it's definitely not just one clone... Could this landlord have eaten all the existing evil god clones of the Bone Descendants Society?
The peddler secretly made up his mind that no matter how much the cultists from the Bone Inheritance Society paid, he would never cooperate with them again.
This guy can eat evil gods like it's nothing, dealing with those cultists is just a matter of lifting a finger, he doesn't want to be eaten by the landlord of Liwan Apartment just because of a little bit of ghost money.
"Payment... here you go..." The peddler stretched out his hand, and a wisp of black mist floated from his hand into the slime's body.
Received 1000 Ghost Coins as payment.
The amount paid was much more than Zhou Fangdong had imagined; he never expected that the ghostly derivatives in room 207 would be so valuable.
After receiving payment, Zhou Fangdong released his tentacles.
The peddler, now free, returned to the door as quickly as possible.
Zhou Fangdong manipulated the slime's body back to its original cell and then released control of the body.
After returning to my room and resting with my eyes closed for a while, the system notification sounded again:
[Dynamic Event: Night Attack of a Hundred Demons (Countdown: 8 days)]
Zhou Fangdong opened his eyes and was immediately teleported to the apartment garden.
He first knocked on the garbage station and collected today's ghost coins from it.
Yesterday, the huge pile of plastic bags and body parts that the dismemberment ghost brought back from the mall, plus the cult corpses he collected last night, actually made the garbage station produce 1150 ghost coins... It's true that quantity leads to quality, and even garbage becomes valuable when there's too much of it.
After collecting the Ghost Coins, Zhou Fangdong opened the apartment garden beautification interface, preparing to increase the decoration value and unlock the farming area.
Purchasing the lowest-tier fountain costs 1000 Ghost Coins and increases decoration value by 100. The lowest-tier flower bed costs 500 Ghost Coins and increases decoration value by 50.
Then just buy two fountains and two flower beds, which will give you 300 decoration points and unlock the farming area.
Although it will cost three thousand ghost coins... this is farming, who can resist the temptation of farming?
Moreover, he just received 1150 ghost coins from the garbage dump, plus the 1000 ghost coins from the peddler, so he only spent 850 ghost coins... which is practically nothing, so he'll definitely open the shop now.
Zhou Fangdong first repaired the flower beds and fountains that were closer to the garbage station.
After all, the garden beautification page says that increasing the decoration value will also increase the garbage station's mood value, and the garbage station will produce more ghost coins every day.
After the purchase was successful, there was no waiting time at all; the two flower beds and two fountains instantly transformed into a brand new look.
Zhou Fangdong observed the successfully repaired flower bed.
The flower bed is small and simple, a circular one, surrounded by marble, with the edges of the marble bordered by colorful pebbles.
Different types of flowers from different seasons bloom simultaneously in the flower bed. The petals of all the flowers are arranged too neatly, like plastic artificial flowers produced on the same factory assembly line, exuding an unnatural stiffness.
However, none of these are anything special. What's truly unusual are the clusters of dahlias, each the size of a bowl, at the four corners of the flower bed.
A human eyeball was embedded in the layers of petals of a red dahlia.
It was a complete human eyeball, slowly rotating as if it were alive, like a surveillance camera monitoring the garden environment.
Seemingly noticing Zhou Fangdong's gaze, the dahlias silently changed the direction of their petals, obscuring their eyes and refusing to meet his gaze.
The fountain is also made of marble. Because it is the most basic type of fountain, it is as simple as the flower bed, with only a relief column in the middle of the pool.
Clear water cascades down from the top of the pillar, splashing sparkling water droplets in the pool at the bottom.
Only occasionally, strands of long, black hair swayed like water plants in the clear, bright water.
Her long hair was swept into the air by the water flow, then fell limply back down, tangling around the edge of the fountain and sticking wetly to the marble wall.
Zhou Fangdong peered over and discovered that even more long hair had accumulated at the bottom of the pool, like clumps of writhing black shadows, turning the entire bottom of the fountain pool black.
The marble relief columns supporting the fountain appear at first glance to be intricately carved with classical patterns, but upon closer inspection, one can see that those relief patterns are a complete picture of hell—countless evil spirits howl and struggle on the stone pillars, as if they are bound inside the pillars, desperately squeezing the outer walls of the pillars, bulging themselves out but still unable to leave the pillars.
The demons' pained expressions and deformed limbs were carved with extreme clarity, as if they could leap out of the stone pillars at any moment.
Looking at these bizarre and terrifying reliefs, Zhou Fangdong shook his head and sighed helplessly.
Seriously, I'm speechless at the system's aesthetic sense. Even if it's the lowest-end fountain and flowerbeds, there's no need to make it like this. It makes the apartment look like a haunted house. Ordinary tenants who want to stroll in the garden and relax will definitely have their mood plummet when they see this.
The flower bed is alright. Although the marble outside is a bit monotonous, there are many kinds of flowers inside, and the colors are also very rich.
The fountain's decorative reliefs were inadequate, and its overall white color scheme made it both monotonous and unsightly.
If he were to design it himself, he would add colorful spotlights to the bottom of the pool, add some food coloring or glitter to the fountain water, and replace all the hair in the fountain with colorful ribbons. This way, the fountain would be colorful during the day, which would definitely attract a lot of tenants to rent the room.
Since the flower beds and fountains were all the same, Zhou Fangdong didn't continue towards the garbage station. Instead, he started looking at the details of the newly unlocked farming function.
The feature details state: Plant supernatural items or cursed items with strong side effects created by the power of evil gods into the planting area. After a period of time, the apartment will be transformed by the yin energy, and you can harvest brand new supernatural items.
Currently, three plots of land have been unlocked, allowing nine supernatural items to be planted simultaneously.
Farming is indeed the best thing. Not only can it modify the supernatural items of the Bone Inheritance Society, but it can also plant some cursed items with bad attributes in the soil to refresh their attributes.
...But to make the supernatural props grow better, you need to water and loosen the soil every day, and also chat with the crops for an hour.
Watering twice a day and chatting is a bit of a hassle. During the day, he not only has to clean his apartment, but also deal with cultists, and occasionally clear out the main god instance. He simply can't find the time.
Most of the tenants in the apartment have jobs to do, and the corpses created by Shadow Demon can't talk.
We need to find a tenant who is both free and talkative...
It's you I've decided on, He Yansheng.
Why be a pessimistic philosopher or doctor? Come down to being a hardworking, sunny old farmer.
Leave all your negative emotions to the crops in the field, and reserve your happy emotions for your wife.
This guy always falls into negative emotions because he's not tired enough. When his body is exhausted to its limit, he falls asleep as soon as he gets a good night's sleep and doesn't think about anything anymore.
Without hesitation, Zhou Fangdong teleported back to the second floor of the apartment.
After we find He Yansheng, we can continue cleaning the remaining rooms on the second floor.
Currently, only rooms 206 and 209 on the second floor remain unrented.
The tenants for room 206 have been decided as Zhu Di and Su Wan. Once these two girls are discharged from the hospital, the side quest for room 206 can be completed.
After cleaning room 209 and renting it out, main quest 3 can be completed.
The rewards for main quest 1 are so generous, I'm really looking forward to seeing what the rewards for main quest 3 will be.
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