Chapter 390: Chapter 332 It Turns Out I am the Killer Myself!
"Directly enter the Outer City?" Li Zheng was completely intrigued this time. That was the place that concealed the method to leave the Matrix. Going there would mean a chance to return to Earth.
"Intrigued?" The Butcher suddenly turned his head, a strange smile appearing on his otherwise ordinary face: "The Outer City is not as wonderful as you imagine; it’s there that the true starting point of your test begins."
Li Zheng asked, "Is the Outer City more dangerous than the Matrix I’m in now?"
"Dangerous? Hahaha..." The Butcher suddenly burst into laughter: "The real danger, you haven’t encountered yet. When the time comes, you’ll miss this place because this is paradise."
The Butcher seemed to have slightly more authority than Luo Aiman, able to reveal a lot more information.
This was a rare opportunity, so Li Zheng continued to ask: "Once we reach the Outer City, we can’t come back here freely, right?"
"That’s right, unless you, like me, receive a related task to return here." The Butcher gestured with his knife towards the armored Dragon Turtle’s corpse, drawing virtual lines back and forth.
Li Zheng took two more steps closer and asked, "I’ve heard there’s a way to leave the Matrix in the Outer City, is it true?"
From the side, Li Zheng saw the Butcher’s smile becoming even more bizarre, a smile tinged with a hint of bitter irony.
"It’s true, and it’s also not true."
The Butcher seemed reluctant to discuss this topic: "When you get to the Outer City, find out for yourself. In any case... it’s not as beautiful as you think."
As the words fell, just as Li Zheng was about to ask more, the Butcher suddenly swung the bone-cutting knife in his hand, slicing through the air with invisible traces, and the armored Dragon Turtle’s corpse, already motionless, began to decompose layer by layer along those invisible traces.
A huge crack opened up at the juncture of the turtle’s shell, exposing the gray-brown flesh and viscera inside. As the Butcher waved the bone-cutting knife, chunks of fresh meat were peeled off, leaving the shell, entrails, and bones.
The whole decomposition process lasted only thirty seconds, and the two armored Dragon Turtles were reduced to merely frameworks standing on the ground, with fresh entrails wrapped inside, and not even a shred of meat left on the bones, all shaved clean.
With a wave of the hand, the meat and bones were collected, and the Butcher opened the shell that had lost its skeletal support, walked into the entrails, found the heart, gallbladder, and kidneys, abandoning the rest without a second glance.
Now, Li Zheng understood why the Butcher’s clothes were so dirty.
Curious, Li Zheng asked, "Isn’t there a specific decomposition function? Why go through the trouble of doing it by hand?"
The Butcher didn’t even turn his head as he walked towards the heads of the two armored Dragon Turtles, saying, "Didn’t you notice that the meat I collected by hand is more and more complete compared to what’s decomposed?"
With that, Li Zheng suddenly realized. Indeed, every time the Butcher made a cut, it was along the bone and muscle structure of the Dragon Turtle. It didn’t ruin the appearance of the meat, and the material gained was at least three times more than what the decomposition function yielded!
"You mean..." Li Zheng had some guesses but still had questions: "The terminal once prompted that decomposed food is safer to eat, what about the stuff you got this way..."
At this moment, Li Zheng suddenly realized that the Butcher standing before him was terrifyingly powerful; mere bacteria, viruses, or parasites inside a Diamond Level creature were of no concern to them.
The Butcher cleaved the Dragon Turtle’s head in two, extracted the edible meat, brain, and other parts, peeled off the skin, and took out two complete gray-yellow crystal cores, tossing them to Li Zheng: "You should know, the terminal provides so many functions, it’s definitely not free.
Although the decomposed items are safer to eat, a large portion is taken as a handling fee.
These two crystal cores are for you. If not for you, I wouldn’t have gotten these two ingredients that were about to break through to the Extraordinary Tier."
How could anyone refuse a freebie?
Li Zheng accepted the two crystal cores with a clear conscience; these were great for enhancing Xiao Ying’s power!
"Handling fee? What does the terminal need these handling fees for?"
The Butcher took away the skinned skull, which was also good for soup, leaving a pile of useless entrails and turtle skin fragments: "Do you think past players who went to the Outer City had any descendants born?"
With that, Li Zheng understood.
The Matrix provided a decomposition function, but when players decomposed corpses, a lot of edibles were taken to supply the Outer City’s consumption.
"There are no other sources of food in the Outer City?" Li Zheng found this unreasonable.
Was there no player among the countless generations who brought in things like cultivation dishes or edible crops?
"There are, but they’re far from enough!" The Butcher explained: "The rules of the Outer City differ from here. Every crop has a long growth cycle, unlike here, where a batch can be harvested every two or three days."
"In the past, some people took advantage of the convenience of their tasks to plant some crops in this area privately, only to find their coordinates missing the next time they returned."
Privately planted crops...
Could those be the cultivation dishes discovered during exploration?
Big sweat was rolling down Li Zheng’s back. He had discovered a few cultivation dishes on the day he entered the Matrix, and at that time, those crops were all unripe.
Doesn’t that mean the person who planted them had left less than twenty hours ago?
The Butcher grumbled, "In fact, not long ago, I sneaked in with some things, hoping to plant some vegetables and fruits for a change of taste and help a friend cultivate some poisonous plants for research.
Unfortunately, just before they matured, you guys came in, and not only did I lose my seeds, I didn’t even have time to retrieve the cultivation dish."
Vegetables, fruits, poisonous plants.
Damn!
Could it really be such a coincidence?
Li Zheng’s forehead was dripping with cold sweat: "So when you came back this time, you didn’t go looking for what you planted?"
"I did, and I was lucky. It took less than half a day to find the room where I planted the crops." The Butcher gritted his teeth in anger: "But there were only four cultivation dishes left, and all the planted items were gone! You folks in this generation show no morality. To hasten plant growth, I even brought a cultivation liquid storage tank, which was ruined by that damned person!"
Shit!
Now it’s confirmed, that damned person was himself!
Li Zheng wiped the cold sweat and thought, unsure whether the Butcher’s luck was good or bad.
If he found out that the one who took his crops and wrecked the storage tank was the same as his current target, what would he think then?
The Butcher, after finishing his complaints, seemed to receive some instruction, and said to Li Zheng: "Now that my task is complete, I should return to the Outer City. Before I leave, a word of advice: once you get the ticket to enter the Outer City, don’t rush to go. Wait until the time is ripe."
When the time is ripe?
What time?
Li Zheng was just about to ask, but the Butcher turned into a shadow and disappeared before his eyes.