Matrix Survival: One random treasure chest per day

Chapter 674 The End of Science Fiction is Fantasy
A painting of a hundred flowers.

Below these three small seal characters are hundreds of flowers in various poses and colors.

Li Zheng couldn't recognize all the flowers; he could only vaguely make out peonies, roses, and lilies, which were flowers he was more familiar with.

Although Li Zheng didn't recognize many of the other varieties, he could tell that these were not flowers from the universe on Earth.

There are absolutely none on Earth!
"It smells so good." Li Zheng's expression changed slightly. Although the Hundred Flowers Painting was a scroll, it smelled like real flowers, exuding hundreds of different fragrances.

The floral fragrance that leaked out when the treasure chest was opened earlier came from the Hundred Flowers Painting.

Miriel looked at the painting of a hundred flowers and liked it very much: "This painting is so beautiful, but... what's the use of it?"

Li Zheng also had this question.

Surely the item you get from the upgraded treasure chest can't just be a mundane object that's only good for decoration?
He examined it carefully, observing the patterns drawn on each flower.

Before you know it, you feel as if you are in a painting, surrounded by a sea of ​​flowers.

Li Zheng suddenly snapped out of his daze and turned to find Miriel with a dazed expression on her face, clearly indicating that what she had just experienced was not an illusion.

Or rather, even if it was a hallucination, he wasn't the only one affected.

"Wake up!" Li Zheng called to Miriel, "What did you just see?"

Miriel woke up with a start, too afraid to look at the painting of a hundred flowers any longer. She said in a panic, "It felt like I had just fallen into the world of the painting. There were flowers all around me, red, white, blue and purple. They were so real that I could even see the veins on each petal!"

But all of this happened unconsciously. I was surrounded by flowers and didn't realize something was wrong.

"Wait!" Miriel exclaimed in astonishment, "My mental strength seems to have increased significantly, almost to the level of absorbing one-tenth of a white magic crystal!"

"Mental strength?" Li Zheng closed his eyes to examine himself, but couldn't sense it.

His spiritual power was too great; no matter how much it increased, it seemed to be just a drop of water in the vast ocean, unable to even create a large ripple.

“Try again.” Li Zheng unfolded the scroll in front of Miriel: “You look at the painting, and I’ll look at you.”

"Ah."

Miriel obediently looked at the painting, but this time, for some reason, no matter how hard Miriel tried or how seriously she tried, she could not re-enter the world in the painting as before.

Li Zheng tried it himself, but he was also unable to replicate the experience.

He rolled up the scroll again, tied it with a red string, and pondered, "Perhaps this scroll has a usage restriction for a certain period of time. Let's try it again tomorrow."

“Okay.” Miriel nodded, then sniffed around, looking surprised: “We seem to smell like flowers too, how come?”

Hearing her say that, Li Zheng moved closer to Miriel and indeed clearly smelled a floral fragrance emanating from her, which was extremely similar to the scent in the Hundred Flowers Painting.

His expression shifted: "Open your mind, I'll go in and take a look."

“You mean…” Miriel said, “The spiritual world should be unique to each person and cannot be changed by external forces, right?”

Li Zheng pondered and said, "That's how it used to be, but the Hundred Flowers Painting came from a treasure chest, so it's not surprising that it has any use."

Miriel thought it made sense, so she lowered her mental defenses and let Li Zheng do as he pleased: "I'm ready, come on."

Li Zheng pointed his finger at Miriel's forehead, his mental energy flowing through his fingertip into Miriel's mind, easily locating her mental world and entering it. "Eek..." Miriel couldn't help but whimper, "So full."

Li Zheng had no time to spare and began to examine Miriel's mental world.

The once desolate abyss now had a splash of color.

Around Miriel's spiritual body, a ring of various kinds of flowers grew, just like the kinds depicted in the Hundred Flowers Painting!
Li Zheng was shocked: "This Hundred Flowers Painting can actually change the structure of a person's spiritual world?!"

Upon closer inspection, it's easy to see that the flowers surrounding Miriel sway gently, releasing pollen-like substances every now and then.

The pollen slowly dissipated, eventually transforming into pure spiritual energy, which was absorbed by the spiritual energy node above the head.

If Miriel could originally produce one unit of mental energy per day, with the addition of the output from these flowers, it would become approximately 1.001 units.

Although this spiritual energy is thin and cannot compare to what Miriel produces daily, it is still extra growth that continues indefinitely.

Broadly speaking, that extra 0.001 is like finding a machine that can automatically make coins on the roadside. Although it's only one cent a day, it adds up to a fairly considerable income.

Well, it's better than nothing.

After leaving, Li Zheng recounted what he had seen to Miriel: "From what I can see, this painting is indeed very beneficial to the improvement of spiritual power. However, it is uncertain whether the flowers in those spiritual worlds can exist permanently, and it is also uncertain whether those flowers will spread when we enter the world in the painting again."

We'll have to wait until tomorrow to try and see if we can re-enter the world within the painting to find out.

"How could this be?" Miriel exclaimed in astonishment. "I mean... it's just a painting, how could it have such a magical effect?"

"I don't understand either." Li Zheng smiled wryly. These things were all obtained from treasure chests, and especially today, Old Pu was very secretive and didn't give any explanation, so he had no way of knowing how these magical effects were achieved.

Thinking of the calming bell he had previously obtained, Li Zheng had a sudden thought: "That calming bell can influence the spiritual world through a specific frequency of sound. Could the Hundred Flowers Diagram achieve a similar effect from another direction?"

For example, lines?

Or perhaps it's color?
Li Zheng unfolded the Hundred Flowers Painting again, carefully observing and studying every visible trace, but gained nothing.

He can not understand.

But he recalled some optical illusion images he had seen online, which used visual illusions to deceive the brain and make people think that a pieced-together thing was actually a whole.

Or one might mistake a downhill slope for an uphill slope.

Although this principle cannot fully explain the secret of the Hundred Flowers Diagram, Li Zheng felt that it should be a similar technical method.

He put away the scroll and exclaimed, "The limits of science are getting more and more fantastical."

Whether it's the Hundred Flowers Painting, the Calming Bell, the Bodhi Tree, or the Marrow Cleansing Pill.

The appearance of these things once led Li Zheng to believe that what he had obtained came from a fantasy world.

But all of these things can be explained using scientific methods.

In comparison, the Bloodthirsty Demon Blade, which once possessed sentience, is actually more fantastical than these items found in the treasure chests.

(End of this chapter)