Fear of food

Chapter 40 Qualitative Change in Ability
"Ugh!" Zhui Feng pinched his nose. "Where did you find this stuff? The smell is too strong!"

Coffee looked at the indescribable mixture of leftovers in the lunchbox. It was made up of rice and broken noodles, topped with shrimp heads, minced meat, fish bones, vegetable leaves and other odds and ends. These leftovers were soaking in an unknown broth, with a thick layer of greasy red oil floating on top.

She frowned and said, "Didn't you always eat the swill from that restaurant and say it's pretty clean? Yours is all spoiled!"

"I'm too embarrassed to go to that restaurant," Gan Shui sighed. "Last time I went there, the owner insisted on taking me to her house for dinner. When I didn't want to go, she still tried to give me two hundred yuan."

"I discovered this high-end food after I switched to another restaurant."

Chen Qi asked in confusion, "Is this high-class food a whole serving? Do I have to eat it all?"

"That's right, it was already covered in a takeout box when I found it. High-grade food requires you to eat all the edible parts, otherwise you can't get the derivative food."

After saying that, the swill container was opened, and a spoon was taken out to prepare for the meal.

Chen Qi remarked that it takes great perseverance for the swill to remain unpolluted to this day.

"Move away from me and eat! This smells awful!" Zhui Feng said with disgust.

"I'm disgusted by you!" The swill-eater chased after the wind while eating. "What's wrong with this food? This food is amazing!"

In the childish bickering of the two middle-aged people, the swill consumed an entire serving of premium swill.

Then he opened his palm, and a small bone appeared in his palm.

"Your derivative food is a bone. How are you going to eat it? Swallow it raw?" Big Pancake asked in surprise.

The bones were completely smooth, without a single strand of meat on them.

The swill opened its mouth and moved its upper and lower jaws, its expression strange, and said, "Why do I feel like I can bite it?"

He rummaged through the snacks brought by everyone and quickly found a bag of tiger-skin chicken feet.

Then I tore open the packaging, took a bite out of half a chicken foot, and swallowed it whole.

Then he swallowed the remaining half of the chicken foot into his mouth, chewing it up and swallowing it along with the bone.

"Goodness, you've enhanced your bite force, huh?" Chasing Wind gave a thumbs up. "As expected, it's a pretty useless ability, not as good as my electric scooter specialization."

The swill was quite satisfied. The food he usually found often contained small bones and fish bones, which made it troublesome to eat. With this ability, he could eat heartily.

Coffee said, "Although Swill now possesses a derivative food, we don't yet know what abilities it will grant, so we can't rely entirely on it for combat power."

"If we want to help the cookies get the cream cake, we still need more derivative foods as our trump card."

Zhui Feng said, "Should we discuss a plan or something?"

Coffee looked at Chen Qi: "That pica person you met at the hospital before, do you think she would be willing to help?"

Chen Qi nodded: "They should be willing."

Xu An'an had helped him several times already, and given their friendship, he believed she wouldn't stand idly by.

He can pay for it if necessary.

Coffee said, "Then let's arrange to meet and talk together. If she can act as our inside man as an intern doctor, it should save us a lot of trouble."

"Why don't you ask her if she's free tonight, and we can meet up? It just so happens that we all have time today."

Chen Qi discovered that Coffee seemed to have such a decisive and efficient nature; if something could be done today, it would never be put off until tomorrow.

"Okay, I'll ask her about it later."

Chen Qi also planned to go back today and have a good talk with Xu An'an.

Just then, the wild instant noodles placed to the side gradually shrank, finally bursting like a bubble and disappearing.

The miniature food phobia zone centered around wild instant noodles has also disappeared.

Coffee took out his phone, typed notes as he summarized:
"It feels like wild food is a source of pollution, spreading contamination and plunging the surrounding area into terror, but this process also constantly consumes its energy." "Once the energy is exhausted, the wild food disappears."

"Of course, these only happen after wild food leaves the food-fear zone. Within the food-fear zone, it can persist for a long time and will not disappear."

Putting down his phone, Coffee said, "We've eaten our fill and made an unexpected discovery, so it's time to head back."

Zhui Feng patted his round belly and said, "I'm so full from eating normal food that it's actually not very interesting. I kind of miss my takeout."

Swill nodded: "Although I don't want to admit it, I do think my special food tastes better than those other things."

Coffee said helplessly, "When we were inside, we were always thinking about food. But now that we're out, we've actually started to eat. Suddenly, we've lost our fascination with normal food. It feels like we can never go back to the way things were."

Dabing said with some disappointment, "We came all this way just to get off the highway, grab a bite to eat, and then go back?"

"What else? We should go back and find some high-quality food, and figure out a way to get the cream cake for Biscuit."

Zhui Feng said, "Big Pancake, we mainly need you this time. Biscuit can't find any new high-end food, and neither Coffee nor I have much fighting power. The derivative food of swill may not be of any use."

Coffee agreed, saying, "Big Pancake, you've already eaten high-grade food twice. If you eat it again, it should bring about a qualitative change in your abilities! At that time, you might not even need to rely on derivative foods to have considerable combat power."

Chen Qi overheard a new term: "Qualitative change in ability? What's that?"

"Didn't you mention this when you were training Zhui Feng?" Coffee said to Zhui Feng with a speechless look, "Just how much did you leave out of your explanation?!"

Zhui Feng could only laugh awkwardly: "I didn't have time."

Coffee explained, "In my experience, after three upgrades, there will be a qualitative change!"

"Take myself as an example, my foraging ability is to transform all sorts of bizarre drinks and soups into coffee. My ability upgrade path is very simple: to stay alert!"

"Refreshing?"

"That's right. After eating high-quality food, my mental state improved, my mind became clearer, my insight became sharper, and my memory improved as well."

"This..." Chen Qi felt it was hard to judge. If you said it wasn't impressive, it was actually quite impressive. But if you said it was impressive, it really had no fighting power at all.

No wonder Coffee, who had eaten high-class food three times, didn't lift a finger when fighting the parasites before.

Coffee continued, "And after I ate high-class food three times, my abilities underwent a qualitative change, and I can now make super coffee!"

"The effect of Super Coffee is to restore energy, but only I can drink it."

"I've been using super coffee and haven't slept for seven days straight. I'm not sleepy at all, and I haven't had any health problems."

"Theoretically speaking, I could never go to sleep!"

Chen Qi: "6!"

Isn't that like having unlimited energy? It's like living a few hours longer than others every day.

Coffee said, "It is quite powerful, but I only gained this ability after three enhancements. As for you, Cookie, even before you had eaten high-grade food, your wild food already had a strong restorative ability."

"So I feel that you possess abilities at a higher level than us. I'm really curious to see what your abilities will be like after this qualitative leap?"

Chen Qi himself was also very curious.

While derivative foods are effective, they are ultimately disposable items.

To maintain stable combat effectiveness, one still needs to rely on their own abilities.

However, their current abilities, which have been enhanced once or twice, are too weak. Things like animal affinity, electric vehicle expertise, increased bite force, and ranged garbage detection...

Why would you risk your life to fight the parasite?
The only hope is that after a qualitative change in their abilities, their combat power will see a qualitative improvement.

(End of this chapter)