Chapter 89: Chapter 89: Problem with the Space Attribute Crystal Core
Zerra could feel Isryn’s cool and comfortable fingers stroking her fur. Faint vitality flowed from her hand, most likely from her earlier deeds of healing the tiger and others.
She subconsciously let out a happy purring sound, like a cat.
"Oh, you are so cute!" Isryn gushed, her attention temporarily distracted.
Zerra used her remaining spiritual energy to make something fall in the bathroom. Isryn turned to the bathroom. "Oh, you are in the bathroom, Zerra?"
Before Isryn could walk toward the bathroom to check, Zerra jumped out of her arms, scaring Isryn into shock. Holding her heart, Isryn sighed. "Be careful. Don’t just jump like that and scare me."
Zerra put on an innocent expression. Just as Isryn tried to dive to catch her again, Zerra evaded her mischievously. She subconsciously licked her paw proudly.
"Come here, little one..." Isryn coaxed as she approached Zerra again.
Zerra turned to the slightly ajar door and dashed out, ignoring Isryn’s worried call to come back. After she was outside, her eyes were searching for something.
Or rather, someone.
She wanted to see whether that man had a crystal core with spatial attributes or not.
When Isryn had gone to check on Eryx earlier, she had tried to absorb the energy in the translucent crystal core, thinking that her power would directly be promoted to level four.
However, no matter how she tried, she really couldn’t absorb that thing. Had she ever attempted to absorb a crystal core with spatial attributes in one of her reincarnations? She didn’t remember. After all, such a crystal core was too rare.
At a higher level, someone with space ability would be able to teleport. She and Cassias had fooled others by insinuating that she could teleport before, but she actually couldn’t do that at her current level yet. Unless she used her precious spiritual energy.
So, Zerra wanted to find Cassias and ask for a crystal core with a lower level. Perhaps the energy was too much for her, and she should begin with a crystal core below level four.
That man had killed tons of mutated animals and zombies, reaping the biggest amount of crystal cores compared to other members. He was rich again, and Zerra couldn’t let that happen.
"Foxy, what are you doing here?" Laziel briskly walked toward her, crouching down. Her movement paused, and she stared at Laziel innocently.
She held out her paws to him.
The meaning was clear: I am hungry, and I need crystal cores.
He was so stingy last time, giving the biggest share of his crystal cores to Nyra for saving. Now that Meira had appeared, he would turn into a foolish love-brain and give most of his crystal cores to her.
What about her? She was so kind that she always gave him a lot of snacks!
"You want crystal cores?" Laziel sheepishly scratched the back of his head. "I don’t have any..."
She blinked at him; unimpressed. Oh, she was too late. Laziel was too blind in love, anyway.
As if noticing her disdain, Laziel cleared his throat. "I am poor, little one. How about you go back to Cassias and ask him for crystal cores? Why do you wander alone though?"
At the same time, Isryn’s voice rang out. "Little fox, where are you? Don’t run around. It’s dangerous outside."
When Zerra heard that, she instantly clung to Isryn’s feet, abandoning Laziel. Isryn picked her up, and there was surprise when she saw Laziel there. "Laziel?"
"This fox is–" she trailed off, unsure.
"It’s Cassias’ fox." Laziel pursed his lips upon noticing the fox’s contented expression as she nestled in Isryn’s embrace.
"It has an owner already?" There was slight disappointment in her rhetorical question.
Zerra inhaled as she gathered the vitality from Isryn’s figure onto her. She noticed her old wounds gradually disappearing and the drawback from overusing her spiritual energy recovering.
Isryn was really a heaven-sent blessing!
"Cassias is probably looking for her. How about I take Foxy back to him?" Laziel cleared his throat.
Zerra snorted, kicking his hand when he tried to get a hold of her. Isryn giggled. "She doesn’t like you."
Laziel sighed dramatically. "She likes me only when she has something she wants from me."
"I will escort her to Cassias then," Isryn muttered.
They both went and knocked on Cassias’ place, who opened the door expressionlessly.
"Do you need something...?" He trailed off upon noticing the fox in Isryn’s arms. His expression softened as he took Zerra out of Isryn’s arms. "She ran off again. Thank you."
Before Zerra could continue clinging to Isryn, Cassias’ speed was faster. He lifted her just like that when she was about to grab Isryn’s hands.
Isryn, upon seeing the fox get taken away, sighed inwardly. However, she also didn’t fail to notice that there wasn’t usually any fox around Cassias. It meant that the man must have some secret.
Well, everyone had secrets, and she wasn’t going to dig into his anyway.
Zerra, not wanting to be in the same room as Cassias just with the two of them, jumped out of his embrace and trotted to the living room. The group followed, making her feel very satisfied.
"Are you hungry?" Cassias poked her tail. Zerra glared at him, pulling her tail, and hugged it.
"So stingy?" He commented. With a wave of his hand, the small hill of crystal core appeared in front of her. Zerra’s eyes lit up as she hugged them.
She didn’t even bother to pay attention to Cassias, who was now playing with her tail. Her focus was on the small hill as she rummaged through the crystal cores to find the ones with spatial attributes.
"She isn’t eating it? What is she doing?" Laziel raised his eyebrows.
Zerra couldn’t find one after a while, and she started to feel frustrated. But she managed to find some crystal cores with lightning attributes.
She turned around and bit Cassias’ hand that was snatching her tail. He jolted, releasing her. Cassias scowled. "Heartless little thing!"
She gave him the back of her head and trotted to Laziel, giving him the water attribute crystal core. Then, she moved to Cassias who was rubbing his fingers, handing over the lightning attribute crystal core.
"What does she want us to do?" Laziel was puzzled.
She didn’t have a crystal core with the wood attribute because they were just as rare as the spatial crystal core. They needed to be taken out of a mutated plant, and there wasn’t a guarantee that the crystal core would have wood attributes.
"Do you want us to absorb this?" Cassias lifted his eyebrows.
Zerra climbed onto the table and sat down, not answering his question. She stared at him innocently as if she didn’t understand what he meant.
"It’s level three crystal core." Laziel raised his eyebrows. "Thanks for sharing, Foxy."
With that, he took a seat on the floor an concentrated to withdraw the energy from inside the water attribute crystal core. Zerra watched him unblinkingly.
A look of contemplation appeared on her small face. She narrowed her eyes, full of thoughts.
She had never taken a serious observation of how those ability users withdrew the energy, but now that she did, she faintly sensed the energy on the crystal core swirling around Laziel before it entered his head.
Zerra inwardly frowned. She had been using it right, drawing the energy within the crystal core into her head.
Her attention to Cassias, who had taken a seat near Laziel and was doing the same thing. She jumped from the table and stood in front of the crystal in his hand, examining it.
Was this man hiding his strength? Zerra raised her eyebrows.
His process of drawing the level three lightning crystal core was too quick. Just as she was about to turn around and mull over her thoughts, someone caught her tail.
"Stay here, Zizi," Cassias whispered.
Then, he proceeded to use his evil claw to brush her soft fur. He even took out a comb from his space.
"Her name is Zizi?" Isryn scooted closer to them.
Zerra begrudgingly stayed put, waiting until Cassias was done before running away to Isryn’s side. Cassias narrowed his eyes, but he still nodded at Isryn’s question.
"It’s a cute name." Isryn commented, stroking the fox’s soft fur under Cassias’ inscrutable gaze.
He looked like he wanted to snatch the fox but still held himself back. Zerra let out a contented yip, enjoying the rich vitality floating around.
After she was quite satisfied, Zerra jumped out of Isryn’s lap. She was eager to execute the crystal cores on the table. What if the evil male lead thought that she didn’t eat crystal cores anymore and took them away?
She had to eat all those and upgrade to level four even if the space attribute crystal core couldn’t help her.
"Is this okay?" Isryn’s concerned voice rang out. "Eating crystal cores like this wouldn’t hurt her, right?"
"It won’t. She eats those like marshmallows." Laziel, who had just woken up, clicked his tongue.
Zerra ignored the chatter around and focused entirely on the food like her life depended on it. Before she went back to her room to shift to her human form, Isryn gave her abundant vitality, worried that she would get sick.
***
"Did you absorb the space attribute crystal core?" Cassias asked her the next morning.
Zerra, yawning with her eyes looking like a panda, shook her head. She complained, "I also do not know what’s wrong."