Green gave a sheepish chuckle and did a slow loop in the air, as if buying time to word her next excuse carefully. "Um, well... I'm definitely sure about the patching-your-body part. That's tried and tested." She paused dramatically, twirling. "But as for the gathering energy bit and, you know... actually cultivating it? That's a whole other scroll."
"Hehe, get it, scroll..."
My eyes narrowed. "So I'm Snow White nibbling on a sacred fruit, except instead of dying or getting kissed by a prince, I get... vague benefits and zero instructions."
Green stopped mid-air, placing a finger to her lips. "You make it sound like I tricked you."
I raised the apple slowly. "Did you?"
"No!" she gasped, floating down dramatically like a shocked fairy soap opera star. "I just—look, you would need a manual, Master. One of those special ones cultivators use to guide their techniques. Right now, you've got the engine, but no driving manual."
I stared at the apple, then took another cautious bite. The spiritual warmth immediately pulsed through my veins again like warm honey... or molten lava, depending on which part of my body it decided to heal. I winced.
Green beamed. "See? Progress!"
"You mean pain."
"Progress is pain. Very poetic. Write that down," she said, completely missing the sarcasm.
I flopped back onto the couch with a groan. "Next thing you're going to tell me is I have to go on a quest to find some ancient cultivation manual buried beneath a volcano guarded by a grumpy turtle."
Green tapped her chin. "Well, technically I can generate a prompt from the system's shop if you have enough points."
I paused mid-chew. "...you can do that?"
Green's eyes twinkled. "Oh, Master, we're only just getting started."
.
.
.
I soon found that eating the food in my hands was easier said than done. Every bite of that deceptively sweet apple sent waves of searing warmth coursing through my limbs, like I'd swallowed a mini sun trying to burn a path through my veins. The constant struggle to keep my consciousness from slipping into the comforting void of unconsciousness was proving to be a far harder endeavor than I'd anticipated.
Who knew healing could feel like being roasted alive from the inside out?
Then again, I wasn't exactly healing my body in the normal, 'herbs-and-bedrest' kind of way. No, of course not. Like Green had further explained, I was regenerating my meridians with a spiritual fruit grown in a mystical space farm managed by a flying, overly optimistic fairy.
Naturally.
Each bite pushed my tolerance to its limit. One moment I was sweating. The next I was freezing. The apple wasn't just "healing" me—no, it was stretching my body out like dough, mending every brittle bone and burned-out nerve as if my entire insides had been run over by a spirit truck and were now being... reassembled.
If I had to put it into an image, it was like plugging a firetruck's hose into a flimsy water balloon. The apple was the firetruck and its hose—powerful, relentless, and definitely overqualified for the job. And the balloon? That was me. My measly, fragile body trying its best not to explode from the spiritual energy being pumped into it at high pressure.
The only reason I wasn't currently painting the walls of this serene little farm room with pieces of myself was because of Green. She hovered beside me like a determined school nurse on caffeine, her hands glowing faintly as she sectioned the Qi entering my body, bit by agonizing bit. It was like she was holding back a tsunami with paper fans, but somehow, miraculously, it worked.
"If you weren't here, I'd be soup right now," I muttered between clenched teeth, clutching the apple like it was both salvation and a grenade. "Pieces of flesh, chunks, a smoothie probably."
"I'm honored by your trust, Master," Green replied, sounding far too cheerful for someone whose patient was on the verge of spiritual combustion. "But I did set the emergency drain protocol to 'active,' so if anything goes wrong, I just flush all the excess energy out through your feet. Like pulling the plug on a bathtub!"
"Wow," I wheezed, "comforting."
"I thought so too!" she beamed.
I stared at the apple in my hand. One more bite to go. Just one. This is either the road to heaven... or a shortcut to reincarnation.
.
.
.
After instructing Green to harvest every time the food was ready, I finally collapsed back into reality unto my hay bed for some well-deserved rest, after putting my poor body through what could only be described as spiritual hazing. Well... maybe not torture exactly, but it sure came close. Like running a marathon while someone pelted you with healing bricks. Repeatedly.
Oddly enough, the apple didn't even have seeds. Not a single one.
"I've checked twice," Green had said, even holding the core upside down as if a seed might fall out like a shy coin from a piggy bank.
We both stared at the hollow apple core in silence. The kind of silence that comes with the realization that your dreams of starting an orchard might've just been system-patched into oblivion.
"I think the system does it on purpose," Green added finally, her arms crossed as she hovered upside down now, clearly pouting more than I was. "It's probably to prevent people from, you know, cheating the grind."
Much to my utter dismay, I had to agree. It made sense. Annoying, soul-crushing, seedless sense.
"Ugh, figures," I groaned, throwing an arm dramatically over my eyes. "Even magical apples come DRM-locked now."
It would've been nice to get some free stuff generating like that, but eh.
When I awoke the next morning, it wasn't Green's floating, smug little face that greeted me, but a glowing blue notification hovering right above my head like it had been standing sentinel all night. I blinked a few times, still groggy, still sore in places I didn't know existed, and stared at the semi-transparent box.
Just like that, my first night in another world passed by with no surprise bandits, no mysterious dream guides. So I'd say it was a solid win.
[LEVEL 1 --- 30\50]
[LEVEL 2 --- 10\100]
[You have received
>50 Apples
>100 corn ]
[INVENTORY
APPLES [74]CORN [150] ]