When Qimeng dragged her fully loaded spoils back to the vicinity of her main body, a small mountain had already piled up in the center of the clearing.
Long-horned deer, iron-fanged boars, nocturnal rabbits...
These rations, which would be considered a luxury in the eyes of ordinary hunters, were casually piled together.
If placed in that frontier village before her reincarnation, these things would have been enough to feed a family happily until the next season.
Looking at the sumptuous buffet before her, Qimeng was extremely satisfied.
“Very good.”
“It seems that for a long time to come, I won't have to worry about filling my stomach.”
She stood with her hands on her hips, completely self-satisfied as the overlord of the forest.
That being said, a realistic problem immediately presented itself.
She could indeed directly devour nutrients through her root system.
But that way of eating was like pouring motor oil into a car; there was absolutely no pleasure to speak of.
For a modern person whose soul was deeply etched with memories of convenience store cold drinks and late-night barbecue stalls, giving up delicious food was out of the question.
“If life is lacking the pleasure of food, what's the point?”
“As expected, I still have to try eating normally.”
No sooner said than done.
Qimeng skillfully gathered stones and dead branches.
She set up a highly primitive grill.
Skinning, bleeding, portioning.
Her movements were so practiced it was almost pitiful.
After all, during those miserable years of being a knight and an adventurer in her past life, wilderness survival skills had long since become second nature.
Although those memories were too painful to look back on, at least at this moment, those skills translated into a very real sense of happiness.
As the flames flared up, grease dripped onto the charcoal.
The sizzling sound played a delicious prelude, and an enticing roasted aroma wafted through the air.
Qimeng couldn't help but twitch her nose, her eyes bursting with brilliant light.
It was a scent that belonged to the warmth of the mortal world.
“This is the taste! It's been way too long!”
As the first piece of grilled meat came off the fire, she couldn't wait to take a bite.
Crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, the juices exploded in her mouth, carrying a hint of pure magic power that elevated the texture to the absolute limit.
“It's so delicious I want to cry!!!”
At this moment, Qimeng actually felt an urge to burst into tears.
“I really still have my sense of taste!”
Since reincarnating as a tree, she had almost forgotten what it felt like to eat.
Fortunately, she had split off a human form. Otherwise, in this long life of a tree, if she could only get by on photosynthesis, it would simply be too tragic.
The next hour was practically a gourmet tasting session.
The rabbit meat was fresh and savory, the pork was chewy and firm, and the Demon Lizard meat tasted like delicious caviar...
If she were to open a late-night diner, the queue would probably stretch to the horizon.
However, just as she was enjoying herself to her heart's content, a strange phenomenon occurred.
The meat she ate vanished after entering her stomach at a speed that defied all biological common sense.
There was no residue, no waste.
It was almost instantly broken down into pure life energy, directly nourishing this body.
Qimeng patted her flat stomach.
She fell silent for a long time, her expression gradually becoming subtle.
“Wait, so... I evolved to the point where I completely got rid of biological excretion?”
In that instant, she felt her life had been elevated to a whole new dimension.
No more worrying about looking for a restroom in the middle of the night.
No more experiencing the awkwardness of wilderness survival.
Even the phrase “social death” had been completely erased from her dictionary.
This was a truly pain-free life!
“A glorious evolution! Is this the dignity of an overpowered life form?”
Before her excitement could fade, an even more serious worry loomed over her mind.
As a former guy with common sense, a deep-seated worry about menstruation still arose in her heart.
With a solemn expression, like a bomb disposal expert defusing a bomb, she tremblingly and meticulously inspected her own physical structure.
“Nothing, nothing, still nothing.”
Ten minutes later, she collapsed onto the grass.
A satisfied flush appeared on her cheeks.
“Beautiful.”
“No need to sleep, no need to use the restroom, and no periodic damage debuffs.”
This body was simply a work of art.
“What a steal! This is practically an epic buff!”
Pillowing her head on her hands, she gazed up at the starry sky, feeling for the first time that this reincarnation was practically a cheat-like power fantasy novel.
However, happiness is always fleeting.
Just a few days later.
While Qimeng was comfortably lying under the shade of the tree, idling and devouring sunlight, a subtle, strange sound echoed from deep within the earth.
“Hmm?”
The girl sat up straight, her consciousness turning into countless tentacles that sank into the earth along her root system.
With her continuous absorption over the past few days, the range of her root system had broken through the hundred-meter mark.
The underground structure of the forest was like a transparent blueprint in her mind.
Ninety-five meters... ninety-eight meters... one hundred meters!
When the tentacles of her perception crossed that boundary, Qimeng felt an indescribable sense of satisfaction well up inside her.
It was like unlocking a new map; this feeling of gradually bringing her domain under control was truly addictive.
But right at that moment, the very tip of her perception brushed against a wall.
She froze.
Why would there be a wall underground?
It was a sensation completely different from dirt.
Cold and hard, with a surface as smooth as a mirror.
It was a product of civilization, transcending nature.
Qimeng's heart leaped, and she intensified her probe inward.
Stone pillars, corridors, halls...
A grand ruin sleeping deep underground was revealing its breathtaking silhouette node by node through her perception.
“Ruins? An underground labyrinth?”
Her face darkened.
As a former professional knight, she knew all too well what such a place implied.
It meant unknown traps, ancient curses, or massive trouble buried by time.
She noticed that all the nearby vegetation was avoiding this area.
Even when roots encountered obstacles during their growth, they would curve away at an exaggerated angle, preferring to twist rather than touch that black wall.
That was not a physical barrier.
It was more like an instinctive fear of the forbidden, engraved into their very genes.
“A place that even the plants and trees have to steer clear of...”
Qimeng perceived that direction, a touch of coldness rising in her emerald-green eyes.
“Just what kind of secret is hidden inside?”
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