C3 The Miracle Fruit

*Thump, thump, thump...*

Heavy footsteps reverberated from afar.

Turning his head towards the direction of the sound, Qin Hao was utterly dumbfounded to see a four-meter tall zombie walking towards him!

Qin Hao cursed aloud, "Jesus christ! Just how much hormones does that zombie have to grow this huge?"

With rigid, toned muscles all over its body, the zombie looked just like a small mountain even from afar. As such, Qin Hao feared that his thin threads would not be enough to stop it in its tracks.

Just as Qin Hao began thinking of a countermeasure, the giant zombie suddenly accelerated and rushed towards him like a crazy bull!

The other ordinary zombies that could not dodge in time were either knocked aside or trampled to death by it.

Flashing towards to the intersection in the blink of an eye, it then crashed into Qin Hao's trap.

*Pak! Pak!* Although the threads remained intact, the stone pillars on both sides of the road had been forced out of the ground from the overwhelming force.

Without the support of the pillars, the trap had become useless. Thus, the horde of zombies could now walk past the threads towards Qin Hao, with the giant zombie leading the fray.

Despite the unexpected turn of events, Qin Hao had come prepared. Shooting out a thin thread from the tips of his fingers to the top of a building, he then pulled himself towards the roof at once.

In the next instant, he swung around and rose towards the high ground just like spiderman.

At that moment, the giant zombie suddenly leaped high into the air and let out a fierce roar towards Qin Hao.

Rather than running away, Qin Hao quickly read the instructions on how to use his newly-attained Zombie Saddle.

"So, I'll have to place the saddle on the neck of the zombie in order to tame it into a mount! Alright! You're gonna become my mount today, big guy!"

After saying that, Qin Hao shot out his thread once again and circled around to the back of the giant zombie with the saddle in his hand.

Having caught the giant zombie off guard with his unexpected actions, he swooped past the giant zombie's neck and place the saddle directly behind the neck of the giant zombie.

[Ding! Congratulations to the host for successfully taming a mutated zombie!]

A mutated zombie?

Qin Hao was somewhat startled, but now was not the time to worry about such things.

With fast thinking, he quickly ordered the giant zombie, "Kill all the zombies around you!"

Hearing its master's command, the giant zombie went on a complete rampage and started slaughtering all the other zombies around it!

Without the strength to defend themselves from the mutant, the ordinary zombies could only helplessly accept their fate as they collapsed onto the cold, hard asphalt one after another.

Impatient, Qin Hao then ordered the giant zombie to pull out a utility pole from the sidewalk and use it as its weapon.

In the span of a mere hour, the sole remaining zombie standing was none other that the mutant!

Only then did Qin Hao finally come back down from the roof of the building. Taking out the Lasso of the Undead, he then stored all the zombies that weren't completed shredded into pieces into the Zombie Farm.

After that, he began observing the giant zombie thoroughly. Taking a closer look, he found that its muscles looked even more terrifying. Rather than flesh, they seemed more like iron plating from an armor!

"System, you mentioned that this guy was a mutated zombie. Do zombies have different levels as well?"

[Exactly! Since the apocalypse has already lasted for the past centuries, zombies have long since begun mutating, creating a clear classification of zombies. Starting from the lowest to the highest stage, there are the ordinary zombies, mutants, deviants, lickers, and tyrants.]

"How do I differentiate them from one another?"

[You will be able to differentiate them based on the color of their eyes. Ordinary zombies have gray eyes, mutants have yellow eyes, deviants have blue eyes, lickers have red eyes, and finally, tyrants have dark black eyes.]

"I see. Then I have to be extra cautious in the future!"

Qin Hao then said to the giant zombie, "You look just like a small mountain. In that case, I'll call you Delmont from now on!"

"Roar!"

The giant zombie responded with a loud roar before squatting down.

Taking a closer look at the Zombie Saddle once again, Qin Hao noticed that it was actually made up of two parts.

One part was the collar hanging on the zombie's neck while the other was the seat connected to the collar, hanging down the back of Delmont. Sitting down on the seat, Qin Hao was now sitting faced away from Delmont.

Qin Hao directly ordered, "Go around and kill any zombies in your sight!"

Delmont immediately stood up and walked all around the streets with Qin Hao on his back while looking for zombies.

Meanwhile, Qin Hao had set his mind on the Zombie Farm.

Qin Hao had a bumper harvest this time!

Not only did he capture more than five hundred zombies, but he had even accumulated more than ten thousand experience points!

Even so, he was not in a rush to plant the zombies. Instead, he planned to do so after upgrading his land once more. This way, there would be higher chances of him getting better items.

Qin Hao clicked on the Crimson Land and saw that it required 1,000 points to upgrade each piece of Crimson Land — ten times the amount of the previous upgrade!

After thinking about it, Qin Hao decided that the large investment would benefit him overall. However, rather than upgrading all six pieces of his Crimson Land, he thought to focus on upgrading a single one as much as he could!

With that, he immediately used 1,000 experience points to upgrade one of his Crimson Land to the Dark Land.

But in order to upgrade the Dark Land to the next stage, it would require a total of 10,000 experience points!

"Ten times the previous amount again?! It seems that the higher level the land, the more difficult it will be to level it up."

Gritting down on his teeth, Qin Hao proceeded to upgrade his only piece of Dark Land to the Golden Land!

With only a few hundred experience points left, he no longer had enough to upgrade even one of his Crimson Land to the next level.

However, Qin Hao did not regret his decision, for he could not wait to see what kind of items could be produced from the Golden Land.

When a dark green seedling suddenly appeared in the Golden Land, Qin Hao quickly clicked on it to see what had sprouted!

Name: Explosive Tree

Status: Seedling

Function: The fruits growing from the tree can be used as explosives

Growth cycle: 180 days

Available harvest: 30

Note: Needs to consume 180 ordinary zombies to fully mature

Explosive trees also existed in Qin Hao's previous world.

Back there, it was commonly known as the Miracle Tree as the ripened fruits contained unusually large amounts of hydrocarbons.

However, the Explosive Tree cultivated by Qin Hao was clearly much different as it appeared like a green jade!

"It's a good item, but it takes too long to grow!"

Without any choices, Qin Hao bore with his reluctance and used up 180 of his captured zombies for the Explosive Tree to fully mature.

Having obtained 30 golden Miracle Fruits, however, Qin Hao quickly disregarded the pain he felt in his heart.

As a test, Qin Hao tossed one into an abandoned two-story building.

*Kaboom!*

In a flash, the two-story building had seemingly disappeared as only a four to five-meter-deep crater could be seen in the original spot. Had it not been for Delmont keeping Qin Hao safe, he would have been knocked unconscious by the flying debris.

Seeing just how large of a commotion he had just created, he did not dare stay here any longer and hurriedly ordered Delmont to get away from that place as quickly as possible.

Only after running away for about half an hour did Qin Hao order Delmont to stop running. He then clenched his fists in pure excitement.

"The power of these explosive fruits rivals even that of a whole box of dynamite! What else can't be solved with a single Miracle Fruit? Heck, I can even throw in two if needed!" Qin Hao exclaimed in a proud voice.

With over four hundred zombies left in the Zombie Farm, Qin Hao continued cultivating them in the Golden Land.

Name: Stellar Pumpkin Vines

Status: Seedling

Function: Used to obtain Cinderella's pumpkin carriage

Growth cycle: 250 days

Harvest quantity: 1 cart

Note: Needs to consume 250 ordinary zombies to fully mature

Qin Hao smiled bitterly and said, "A new record for the length of the growth cycle!"

At this moment, he only possessed a single piece of Golden Land while the remaining five were all Crimson Lands. Thus, he could not afford to wait 250 whole days for a single item to fully mature.

"Oh well. Even if I use up all the zombies, I can always go around catching more!"

Helpless, Qin Hao ultimately decided to accelerate the process. But when the pumpkin carriage appeared before him, his jaws almost dropped to the ground in pure shock!