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Chapter 28 - Chapter Twenty Seven - The Second Plant

Long Teng covered his face and pouted, "I can just follow someone else. I won't get lost." 

The old man ignored him and looked at Maine. "You have a few people on your team right now. If there's room, take him with you. I'm lucky I met you, otherwise I wouldn't have found anyone who could control this kid." 

He knew his grandson well. Even as a teammate, he was probably always thinking about sparring and fighting. Maine was the only one of his peers he'd met with comparable skill. 

Maine shook his head, "No, he's always thinking about fighting, and it's ruining everything." 

The old man grabbed Long Teng's ear, "Quick, swear to him that he won't pick a fight during the league." 

"Grandpa, let go!" Long Teng leaned towards the old man's neck to stop the tug. "With so many opponents in the league, fighting is inevitable!" 

The old man glared at him, "If you start a fight, the others will gang up on you, and you won't even get a permit to enter the city." 

Xie Sen then spoke, asking Maine, "How many members can we confirm?" 

Maine went to ask Bai Jiao, but he didn't know if they had found anyone else, so he decided to confirm first. 

"Three." Maine said. 

Xie Sen's eyes lit up: "Did Bai Jiao agree?" 

Maine nodded. Xie Sen said again: "Why not let Long Teng join our team? It will be exactly four people." 

The protagonist and the villain boss team up and fight together. Maybe they will develop a friendship and may not stand on opposite sides in the future. 

He also felt that the more friends Maine made, the less likely he would turn evil. 

Maine looked at him: "Do you want him to join?" 

Xie Sen smiled: "We are neighbors. He is also very strong. Don't you want to win the championship? He will be a great help." 

At this point, Xie Sen suddenly realized that if Long Teng joined, wouldn't his teammates be the "strongest combination" mentioned on the forum? 

Suddenly, he felt a lot of pressure. He had to speed up the improvement of his abilities! 

Is it because he wants to win the championship? Main glanced at Xie Sen and said to Long Teng, "You can join, but you have to obey me about fighting. No fighting on your own." 

Long Teng's baby cheeks puffed up, clearly dissatisfied. The old man pinched his open palm, and the puff disappeared instantly, forcing his mouth into a pout. The old man urged, "Hurry up and agree." 

The old man didn't remove his hand, and Long Teng's voice was slurred, "I agree, I agree, Grandpa, please let go!" 

The old man released his hand and said with a smile, "That's great. Please take good care of Xiao Teng when the time comes." 

Having achieved his goal, the old man happily grabbed Long Teng and said goodbye, leaving the apartment. 

Xie Sen knew that Main's first thing to do when he got home every day was to take a shower, and now he had already delayed quite a bit. He said to Main, "I'll make dinner. You go take a shower first." 

Main looked at him and walked towards the bedroom. Xie Sen received the energy 1 notification and smiled at his back. 

During the meal, Xie Sen thought of the old man's words and asked Maine, "When you said something illegal needs to be kept secret, are you referring to leaving the city?" 

The matter was already clear, and there was no need to hide it anymore. Maine nodded, "Yes." 

Xie Sen was puzzled: "Didn't they say you can't leave the city without an exit permit? How did you get out?" 

"I'm from the Information Department." 

Xie Sen suddenly realized: "Did you tamper with your information and make a fake exit permit?" 

"Yes, I plan to destroy the fake exit permit after the league. I can make sure there is no trace left." Maine glanced at Xie Sen, "If it is discovered, you will also be implicated for not reporting it." 

Xie Sen smiled, knowing that he had not done the bad thing he thought, and felt relieved: "So you keep saying it's a secret?" 

"Yeah," Maine said, "The early exposure was an accident. I didn't expect Long Teng's grandfather to be able to smell the source of the blood. He's very powerful." 

Xie Sen nodded in agreement and asked curiously, "Why did you leave the city? The old man said the blood on your body was from a hairy wild boar beast. Are you in danger?" 

"No, I leave the city just to hunt. Hunting helps me hone my skills, and I can sell the beasts I hunt for money." 

"Amazing!" Xie Sen exclaimed. No wonder he was on par with Long Teng in strength; it turned out he was always training. "Are you short on money?" 

"Not right now, I'm just preparing ahead of time," Maine said without hiding anything. "If there's a Giant Lion Beast on the market, I can't buy it without money. Even if I go looking for it myself, I'll need enough money." 

Xie Sen looked at his flawless face, feeling immense admiration. He had been older than Maine at the apocalypse, but he hadn't lived as planned. 

"You're amazing," he exclaimed again, unable to help but feel a pang of heartache. People his age who were looking for contracted beasts probably had family members to help them, but he was relying on himself. 

Maine chuckled and glanced at him, but remained silent. Xie Sen thought about the league: "Should our teammates get to know each other in advance and make plans?" 

"No," Maine said without hesitation. 

That night, after Xie Sen finished training with Chili Tree, he showered and sat on his bed, browsing the forums. There were countless posts seeking teammate recruitment, and strategy posts were always floating at the top. 

He clicked on it and saw the poster hadn't updated. He scrolled through the comments, but found nothing useful. 

For the next few days, Xie Sen worked incredibly hard, practically every day except for his lunch break, sometimes even working an hour overtime on his own initiative. 

Sun Mao praised him profusely and said he would apply to the Human Resources Department for an early full-time position. 

Xie Sen, simply seeking energy, was overjoyed by the unexpected surprise. Although the matter hadn't been finalized, he thanked Sun Mao sincerely. 

Soon, his weekend off arrived. After breakfast, he headed straight to the supermarket, stocked up on toys and daily necessities for the children, and then headed to the orphanage. 

The orphanage he visited was the largest, and he was warmly welcomed. He gave out gifts and then played games with the children until lunchtime. 

He returned to the shuttle and instantly collapsed. The children's energy was simply too much, but the payoff was enormous: he'd gained over thirty energy points in the morning. 

He slept on the shuttle for an hour before eating lunch. After lunch, he rested for a while, then went to the supermarket to buy 50 kilograms of meat and some daily necessities before heading to the slums. 

Xie Sen handed the meat to a dark-skinned man, who took it with a smile. Turning around, he murmured to himself, "Isn't he a fool? He's got so much money, he's got nothing to do." 

Xie Sen's smile faltered, and the people in line behind him urged him on. He hurried to continue distributing the items. 

The process of distributing the money went smoothly, but the energy harvest wasn't. It was completely different from the welfare home, as many people shared the dark-skinned man's sentiments. 

Fortunately, not everyone shared his sentiments. Some expressed gratitude, praising him for being a good kid. Others actively asked if he had a partner and offered to match him up. 

After delivering the items, Xie Sen quickly returned to the shuttle and drove back to his apartment. While the harvest in the slums wasn't large, his total energy harvest for the day had reached a record high, over 50. He 

was almost at 100, enough to activate a second plant! 

Xie Sen returned to his apartment and decided to temporarily abandon the slums. He found all the welfare homes in Star City, a total of five, and made a table according to the distance.

The birth rate on Brandt Star has been declining year by year, and children are precious. Most of the children in the orphanage were sent there due to sudden family changes. 

The orphanage staff told him that with so many couples applying for adoption every day, children rarely stay in the orphanage for more than a month. 

If it weren't for the extremely strict adoption procedures, the orphanage probably wouldn't have a single child. 

On his second day off, he visited two more orphanages, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The morning one was small, with only six children. After giving them gifts, he spent the entire morning playing with them. The children were reluctant to leave when he left. 

He discovered that the children's energy wasn't due to the gifts, but rather to his playing with them. 

The afternoon one had thirteen children. As he was playing games with them, he felt a sudden warmth in his mind, and the image of a green, hardcover book surfaced in his mind. 

The pages slowly unfolded, and green leaves gradually emerged above the blank second page, with countless delicate roots emerging below. 

[Congratulations, Master, you've activated the plant: Potato. Each fruit requires one energy. The density is up to you.] 

Xie Sen's eyes lit up instantly, and he swallowed silently. Potato! 

"Little Brother Xie, I've got you!" Someone grabbed his leg, and he snapped back to reality. A little boy lifted the bandage from his eyes, looking up with a beaming smile. 

"Well, I'll catch you next. Go hide!" 

Xie Sen played with them all afternoon. After expending a hundred energy points on activating the potato, he still had nine energy points left. 

He returned to his apartment and eagerly went to his room to summon the potato. Since the fruit grew at the root, the summoned potato was intact, including the roots. 

The two plants he had activated during the apocalypse were red peppers and potatoes, and he was well aware of their abilities. 

Potatoes can't shrink their branches, but their roots can, though they're weak and lack attack power, just like the branches of a pepper tree. 

When activating the potato, the system gave the keyword "density"! This meant its abilities were related to density. 

He wondered if the potato had changed since the apocalypse. Xie Sen pondered, hesitated for a moment, then glanced at the word "Exchange," selected quantity one, and exchanged one energy for a potato. 

Instantly, a palm-sized yellow potato appeared at the base of the potato. He reached out and held it, feeling its weight. Then, in his mind, he continuously issued commands, causing the potato's density to change from high to low. 

As the density decreased, the potato grew larger. He occasionally dragged it with his hand, but the total weight remained constant. 

He continued issuing commands, gradually increasing the density, and the potato became smaller and smaller, eventually reaching the size of a marble. He felt the weight and found that launching it with force had decent impact. 

Confirming the potato hadn't changed and understanding its training direction, Xie Sen decided to resume training after dinner. He looked at the potato, thought for a moment, and then asked it to double its original size before picking it off. 

As long as the potato was connected to the root, it would transform according to his commands; if it was disconnected, it would not. 

The flavor of the potato would become weaker as it grew, but having a vegetable was good enough; he wasn't looking for perfection. 

Even if the flavor was diluted by half, it wouldn't be unpalatable. A potato this size could make a whole plate of stir-fry. 

Maine returned to his apartment and as soon as he opened the door, he smelled an unprecedented fragrance. He entered the room and was about to close the door, but he put one hand against the door, stretched his neck to look inside, and swallowed his saliva: "What a nice smell! What delicious food are you making?

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