"Elijah, are you alright?" Daisy asked anxiously as she saw Elijah collapsed on the ground.
"I'm fine; just need to rest for a bit!" Elijah replied, then looked at the spiritual fruit still hanging on the withered branch.
Given his current condition, he was not fit to eat it.
He instructed Daisy to take the fruit down and seal it in a box made of ice, causing the enchanting fragrance to immediately vanish.
"What kind of fruit is this? It looks so delicious!" Daisy gulped.
"I haven't seen it before either, but given the difficulty I had healing it, it seems more advanced than Crystal Grass!" Elijah said.
"Does that mean if you eat this fruit, you could advance to the fourth tier?" Daisy's face lit up with excitement.
"Possibly!" Elijah couldn't hide his smile.
"Then let's transplant the spirit plant and take it back! This way, everyone might eventually advance to the fourth tier!" Daisy said eagerly, brimming with energy as she prepared to transplant the snow lotus spirit plant.
"Wait a moment. Let me recover first, and then I'll use my abilities to ensure it's done correctly!"
"Alright, get meditating then!" Daisy urged.
Seeing Daisy's insistence, Elijah had no choice but to start meditating to recover his strength. Charlotte and Daisy stood by, guarding and studying the fruit and spirit plant.
After some time, feeling that he had regained part of his strength, Elijah opened his eyes. With Charlotte and Daisy's assistance, he successfully transplanted the snow lotus spirit plant from the lakebed.
After burying a few corpse cores around the roots and using his abilities to heal and stabilize it, Elijah was finally relieved to see the new tender shoots of the snow lotus spirit plant brimming with vitality.
The three returned to the shore, where the female zombie Elena looked at the two items in Elijah's hands with longing, filled with desire and the grievance and hatred of having her beloved possessions taken away!
"That's... mine!" Elena said angrily.
"Uh..." Elijah felt an odd sense of unease at Elena's words. If he had worked hard to kill countless zombies and cultivated a tier-up spirit plant in the lake, and then someone came and took it away at maturity, he would also feel intense pain and anger.
Thinking this, Elijah suddenly felt a bit sorry for Elena. He wondered how she had died at the hands of a group of people and now had her things taken by him...
However, handing it over was clearly out of the question! But it did make Elijah reconsider how to deal with the female zombie Elena.
Originally, the plan was to kill Elena and extract the core once she was no longer useful. Even though they had a contract, Elijah couldn't fully control her, making her a ticking time bomb. It was better to destroy her directly!
But now the situation was different! Since advancing to the fourth tier was almost certain, with tier suppression, Elijah could fully control Elena! A smart zombie was far more useful than those silly second-tier zombies!
Moreover, Elena had a good appearance and would be pleasant to keep around!
As for why he wasn't advancing to the fourth tier right away, it was simply because Elijah wasn't sure if eating the fruit would guarantee his advancement.
If he couldn't advance, it wouldn't make much difference from his current situation.
It would be better to take the fruit back to Azure Isle, where if eating it didn't work, he could still try consuming Crystal Grass or Blood Spirit Grass, or even zombie grass, to make up for the missing Chi and attempt to break through to the fourth tier.
Once he actually advanced to the fourth tier, he could go to the YLK Group and then come back to fully subdue and take Elena with him.
Abigail soon brought the remaining six second-tier zombies over.
"Master, everything is arranged inside!"
"Good!"
Elijah nodded and then crouched down to treat Elena's leg and arm.
"Is this the fragrance that thing released earlier?" Abigail asked as she approached Daisy, staring at the spiritual fruit in the ice box.
"Yes!"
"Open it up and let me see!"
"You're just trying to steal a taste, aren't you!" Daisy replied, knowing that Abigail's intentions were obvious.
Unfortunately, the fruit was crucial to Elijah, so she had to keep a close watch and couldn't let Abigail succeed.
"Stingy, it's not like I haven't eaten it before!" Abigail huffed, referring to the dancing grass she had consumed in the past.
This made Elijah even more certain that the dancing grass was similar to the snow lotus in terms of spirit plant level.
"Looks like I need to cultivate dancing grass properly when I get to the YLK Group..."
Elena's injuries were soon healed, and as soon as she was better, she fixated on the spiritual fruit in Daisy's hand. Truly, she was very stubborn!
Unfortunately, Elijah had anticipated this. Daisy slipped into the shadows and disappeared.
The others and zombies quickly retreated towards the school gate, and Elijah kicked Mason towards Elena to slow her down!
At the same time, the crowd in the cafeteria suddenly surged out and scattered, leaving Elena no time to deal with Elijah and his group.
She quickly dealt with Mason and then chased after the fleeing crowd in the cafeteria.
Once again, the quiet campus erupted with the sounds of desperate apologies, pleas, and screams...