Chapter 192: Chapter 180: Beast Ability: Humanoid Serpent Woman

Carrying a bag of Level 3 Crystal Cores, Flora Bloom found her way to where Lex Cross and his group were staying. At that moment, Five and Chelsea Todd were sweeping the yard. Seeing Flora approach, Chelsea Todd snorted, dropped her broom, and stormed back into the villa.

Remembering what had just happened, Five’s expression soured when he saw Flora approach.

"Flora Bloom?"

"Five, is your boss here?"

Five’s expression was complicated. He hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. "The boss is out. If you’re looking for him, you might have to wait a few days."

"A few days? Where did he go that will take so long?"

Five sighed, and his tone suddenly turned hostile as he retorted, "Do you even care where he went?"

"Heh, you’re right. It really has nothing to do with me." Flora Bloom gave a self-deprecating laugh, extending the kraft paper bag to Five. "Give these Level 3 Crystal Cores back to him. I can’t accept a reward I haven’t earned."

Five stared at the familiar kraft paper bag, his lips pressed together, and didn’t take it.

"The boss never takes back something he’s given away. If you really want to return them, you should wait for him to come back and give them to him yourself." After saying this, he left Flora standing there and went back to sweeping on his own.

"Then wouldn’t it be more convenient if I just give them to you, and you can give them to him when he gets back?"

"It’s not convenient!" With that, Five also tossed his broom aside and went back inside.

Flora Bloom stared blankly at the bag of Level 3 Crystal Cores in her hand before pulling it back.

Having failed to return the items, Flora didn’t dwell on it. She tossed the kraft paper bag into her space and decided to head to the mission hall to turn in her quests and get some Crystal Cores.

One was a supply collection mission for eggplants: ten Crystal Cores per eggplant. The other was a wheat collection mission: thirty Crystal Cores per pound of wheat.

Although Flora didn’t have that many eggplants in her space, by anyone else’s standards, it was a huge amount.

As for wheat, that was what she had the most of in her space. So much, in fact, that it was taking up too much room and she was about to run out of storage!

So, on her way, Flora prepared ten pounds of wheat and ten eggplants, carrying them to the mission hall to complete the quests.

Holding the four hundred Level 1 Crystal Cores she received, Flora decided to look around the mission hall a bit more. She noticed that besides the quests scrolling on the electronic screen, some people were holding simple, mobile blackboards with their own mission requirements and rewards written on them, advertising their quests like middlemen.

Flora wandered around with interest and suddenly saw a woman in a corner of the hall. She was about twenty-five or twenty-six years old, completely wrapped in layers of cloth, writing a mission on a piece of paper.

"Mission Requirement: One live, venomous Sea Serpent of any kind. Reward: The location of a secret cave."

This mission, whether on the electronic screen or among these personal postings, had become a complete laughingstock and a topic of gossip for anyone who passed by.

But Flora Bloom didn’t think so.

She deliberately lingered at a few mission stalls near the woman for a long time, just to observe her.

’She was wrapped up so tightly. On such a hot day, wasn’t she burning up, wrapped so tightly with not a sliver of skin exposed? The hall was crowded and had no air conditioning, yet she just sat there on the ground, perfectly still and emotionless, for a long time.’ She hadn’t moved an inch.

Flora finally walked over and stood before her.

"This mission of yours, I’ll take it."

At first, the woman couldn’t believe it. But when she looked up into Flora’s eyes, she saw them crinkled into a smile, bright and clear. It was like a ray of warm sunlight trying to shine into her heart.

"Aren’t you afraid I’m a fraud?" The woman’s voice was strangely high-pitched and her pronunciation was a bit slurred. Between her words, there was a faint hissing sound, like air escaping.

Hearing this voice, the smile on Flora’s face suddenly widened.

"Are you a fraud?"

"I, of course I’m not!"

"However, to increase the credibility of your mission’s reward, please describe the entrance to the cave for me. Oh, I’m not trying to trick you or dig for information, it’s just a precaution!"

Flora’s conversation with the woman had attracted a crowd of onlookers. Seeing the woman glance around nervously, Flora said, "If you’re not afraid I’ll rob and murder you, why don’t we go to my place to talk?"

The woman looked at Flora and suddenly laughed. "Heh, for someone like me who struggles just to get a drink of water every day, what is there left to be afraid of?"

"Then come with me!"

Seeing the two were about to leave, the onlookers parted to make a path. In the crowd, Chester Sawyer pulled down the brim of his hat and turned to leave.

「In the villa district, at Morgan Sterling’s home.」

"Leader, Flora Bloom took that woman back with her!" Chester Sawyer said, carefully watching Morgan Sterling’s face.

Morgan Sterling’s brow furrowed, the handsome, cheerful demeanor he usually wore vanishing in an instant. "What? I told you to watch that woman, and you let Flora Bloom take her away?"

"This... it’s my failure! But Leader, what do we do now? If Flora Bloom discovers a place like that, once their power increases, we’ll have even less of a chance against them!"

"You think I don’t know that? Go to the dungeon and check on Lucia! Also, in a few days, after Flora Bloom leaves the base, you will go and deliver a message to Joel Bloom, supposedly from Lucia."

Chester Sawyer seemed to understand what Morgan Sterling was planning. He accepted the order and left the villa.

Meanwhile, Flora Bloom was leading the woman, who was wrapped seamlessly in cloth, through the streets and alleys of the base. They passed through the villa district and arrived at her own villa.

Flora’s urgency in bringing this strange woman back wasn’t born from a sudden act of kindness.

The apocalypse was a form of global evolution for all life. Humans were a type of advanced animal, and just like other animals or plants, they could all mutate.

This evolution of life generally took two paths. One was like that of human superpower users, who evolved one or two special abilities. The other was to be infected by the virus and become a zombie.

But there was actually a third, very special type of evolution: a genetic mutation that occurred simultaneously with one’s own evolution.

In her past life, there were rumors of a human who had mutated into a Serpent Woman. Her cultivation required absorbing various snake venoms to evolve. When she was discovered, everyone treated her like a monster and wanted to kill her. Later, someone saved her.

Afterward, she told her savior the location of a ruin. After visiting the ruin, that person’s Superpower Level increased dramatically, leaving his peers far behind in the dust.

However, that had happened five years into the apocalypse in her previous life.

Using her spiritual power, Flora sensed that the energy flowing through the woman before her was extremely strange. It was like the Beast Ability of an awakened human, yet also like the superpower energy generated by an evolved mutant animal.

The combination of the two was remarkably similar to the description of the legendary human who mutated into a Serpent Woman.

Flora tentatively extended her hand. "My name is Flora Bloom. So that we can communicate more easily, would you mind taking off the cloth you’re wearing?"

Hearing Flora ask her to remove her coverings, the woman’s eyes suddenly flashed with extreme nervousness. Observing closely, Flora noticed that the woman’s pupils had actually turned into vertical slits, like a snake’s.

Unlike a cat’s, her vertical pupils weren’t just a thin line. They were more like a vertical eye squinted into an open slit, revealing an eerie, dark green iris within.

A closer look was enough to give anyone goosebumps.

When she realized Flora was looking at her eyes, she grew flustered and began to cover them, not wanting to be seen.