"Spit? Eww…"
Fu Zhu put some distance between himself and Herta, his expression a little disgusted as he averted his gaze.
Seeing him pretend not to know her, Herta's ears flushed red with anger. She clenched her fists tightly and explained irritably, "I was just proposing a hypothesis! A genius would never do something like that!"
"But then again…"
Fu Zhu turned his head back to Herta, a teasing look in his eyes. "You don't want to test your hypothesis?"
Herta was speechless. Fu Zhu shouldn't have said that. Now that he mentioned it, she really did want to try.
After a moment of thought, Herta decisively pointed a finger at Fu Zhu. "You. Go spit on it a couple of times."
Fu Zhu gave Herta a speechless eye-roll before drawing his Divine Meteor Sword, walking forward, and hacking the two Blazes to pieces in a few swings.
Herta looked on with some regret at the Blazes as they dissipated into particles. She had really wanted to test if spit could exist in the Nether, where "water" was forbidden!
Seeing Fu Zhu walk over to the spawner and stand with his back to her, she quickly and sneakily turned around. Mimicking how she'd seen others spit, she carefully spat a small mouthful.
The moment the spit left her mouth, it sizzled and evaporated, causing Herta's eyebrows to raise.
"The temperature here is high, but not so high that it would instantly vaporize spit. It seems the rule forbidding the existence of water is a fundamental law of this world."
While Herta was muttering to herself, Fu Zhu, who was standing by the spawner, suddenly turned to face her.
"Did you just secretly spit?"
Herta jumped, whirling around with her arms crossed. She lifted her smooth chin and hummed, her eyes closed.
"H-How is that possible? How could I do something so vulgar!"
"Really?"
Fu Zhu held back a laugh and put his phone away. There was one thing he had never told Herta and the others.
As a player, he could enable sound prompts for his surrounding environment. Just now, a notification for the sound of Herta spitting had popped up in the bottom right corner of his vision. He had immediately taken out his phone and started recording. Although he only caught half of it, it was still a clip worth treasuring.
Fu Zhu didn't expose her. After putting his phone away, he quietly stood by the spawner, waiting for the Blazes to respawn.
Although he had already found a material on the Luofu that could be converted into Blaze Rods, it was always a good idea to collect more.
Herta walked over, looked down at the spawner on the ground, and saw a tiny Blaze spinning inside. She looked up at Fu Zhu curiously.
"What is this?"
"A spawner. It can continuously spawn Blazes."
Fu Zhu's answer was concise, which only made Herta more curious.
"Continuously? Without any limits?"
"There are some limits. Light affects it, but that's about it."
Herta's eyes widened. She had assumed the limitations Fu Zhu mentioned would be something like an energy source. She never expected it to be something as simple as light.
Fu Zhu then added, "And as long as it's an egg-type item, you can put it directly into this spawner, and it will continuously spawn the creature corresponding to that egg. Just like with the Vidyadhara. If you could put a Vidyadhara egg inside, it would continuously spawn Vidyadhara."
"Even Vidyadhara would work?!"
Herta's voice became a bit sharp. She wouldn't have been so surprised if it were some other creature, but the Vidyadhara were a different matter entirely.
Others might not know, but she was aware that the Vidyadhara were a race that had been stripped of [Procreation]. After the Aeon of [Immortality] fell, they lost the ability to reproduce.
Although she was confident that she could eventually find a way to allow the Vidyadhara to have newborns through continuous research, it would be nowhere near as efficient as a spawner, and the resources required would be astronomical.
"It's a good thing the Vidyadhara on the Luofu didn't forcibly keep you there…"
"They wouldn't dare."
Fu Zhu revealed his SlashBlade, running a finger along its edge. "They wouldn't dare make a move on me without absolute confidence that they could take me down. Besides, my rate of growth is not something they can compare to."
Though his words sounded incredibly arrogant, Herta, standing beside him, couldn't help but agree.
Just as he said, when she had first met Fu Zhu, she had thought of him as just a little guy who happened to possess some magical tools.
But now, Herta wouldn't dare to underestimate him. If they were to truly fight, the probability of her losing was perhaps over seventy percent.
"So, can I take this with me?"
Herta stared at the spawner greedily. If not for her unfamiliarity with it, she would have loved to just grab it and take it back for research.
Fu Zhu shook his head regretfully. "No, you can't take it. Only I can."
He would even need to install a specific mod just to be able to move the spawner.
"A pity…"
Herta sighed with some disappointment, then shifted her gaze away from the spawner, afraid that if she kept staring, she would be overcome by curiosity and try to take it anyway.
For the next short while, Fu Zhu and Herta waited by the spawner, casually chatting while dispatching any Blazes that spawned.
During that time, a few Wither Skeletons also spawned nearby, but they were swiftly taken care of by the idle Herta. She even got lucky and they dropped three Wither Skeleton Skulls.
Herta gave two of the skulls to Fu Zhu and kept one for herself, turning it over in her hands with curiosity.
However, as she handled the Wither Skeleton Skull, she felt a strong sense of unease originating from her very soul.
After a few minutes, she could no longer bear the feeling and put the skull away.
"Alright, we've collected enough materials. It's time to meet the boss of the Nether."
Fu Zhu put away his weapon and used a few blocks to cover the spawner, preventing newly spawned Blazes from harassing them.
"Oh? The boss of the Nether?"
Herta, who had been standing by idly, immediately perked up at his words. She excitedly rushed to his side. "What is it this time?"
"You'll know soon enough. Let's go, we need to find an open area."
Fu Zhu led Herta on a stroll around the Nether Fortress, eventually choosing a patch of nether wasteland connected to the fortress. He didn't summon the Wither immediately, however. First, he took out some Golden Apples and milk from his inventory and gave them to Herta.
"Take these. Stay far away later. Don't let the Wither drain your life force and turn you into a real old lady."
Herta had been touched by his concern, but his last sentence made her bristle.
"Who's an old lady! Have you ever seen an old lady as pretty as me?!"
Fu Zhu shook his head quite directly, affirming her words. "That's true. You are indeed the prettiest I've ever seen."
Herta froze. A blush crept onto her fair cheeks, and she turned her head away unnaturally, humming softly.
"Hmph… why are you suddenly saying things like that…"
After muttering to herself, Herta came to her senses. Her reaction just now felt strange. Plenty of other people had praised her like that before, but her heart had remained completely unmoved. Why did she have such a big reaction when Fu Zhu said it?
While Herta was puzzling over this, a deep purple health bar suddenly appeared in her vision. The next second, a hissing sound, like a snake flicking its tongue, echoed from above.
Herta immediately raised her guard, conjuring a shield for both herself and Fu Zhu with her staff. She looked up to see a bizarre-looking monster with three Wither Skeleton heads floating directly above them.
"Fu Zhu, enemy attack!"
Herta shouted a warning, her brows knitting together as she stared at the monster above.
Yet Fu Zhu just stood there "呆呆" (dāidāi - blankly/dazedly), staring at it without making a move, and even started muttering to himself with his chin in his hand.
"As expected, even the Wither is strengthened. Thankfully, it just seems to have more health. I wonder how many mods that guy, Weiying Long, brought back from the future? And, as expected, summoning the Wither with a command doesn't trigger the achievement. A pity, a pity."
"Fu Zhu?!"
Seeing him motionless, Herta shouted his name again.
"Relax."
Fu Zhu slowly switched to his SlashBlade—the Demon Blade "Hiruko"—from his inventory, its blade leaving its sheath to point towards the Wither floating in the air.
"I'll give it the first move. It's no match for me anyway."
If he didn't have a SlashBlade, he might have had to put in some effort against the Wither. But with it, things were different.
The Wither's projectile skulls were within the SlashBlade's reflection range!
The Wither in the sky made its move, immediately looking down and firing a barrage of azure Wither Skulls at Fu Zhu.
However, before the skulls could even explode near Fu Zhu, he swung his Demon Blade "Hiruko." The skulls that had been flying towards him instantly changed direction and shot back towards the Wither, exploding violently against its body.
Herta stood to the side, watching. She kept a close eye on the deep purple health bar in her vision. When she saw that Fu Zhu's counterattack had dealt no damage to the Wither, she frowned and muttered, "Immune to its own damage? It seems this is the boss of the Nether that Fu Zhu spoke of."
At that moment, the others who had been scattered throughout the Nether Fortress noticed the commotion and began to gather.
Upon their arrival, they saw Fu Zhu continuously swinging his Demon Blade "Hiruko," both deflecting the Wither's attacks and sending several slashes of sword energy flying towards the Wither in the sky.
Screwllum watched for a moment, and after confirming Fu Zhu was in no danger, he looked towards Herta.
"Herta, what happened? What is that creature?"
Herta kept her eyes fixed on the battle between Fu Zhu and the Wither as she explained to the three newcomers, "I don't know its name, but Fu Zhu said it's the boss of this world called the Nether."
"The boss?" ×3
Silver Wolf frowned as she watched the Wither being completely manhandled by Fu Zhu, unable to fight back. She couldn't help but mutter, "It looks pretty weak… Fu Zhu isn't even hurt. Even the ground beneath his feet is perfectly intact. Is this really a world's boss?"
Herta shrugged, unable to say for sure. Although she also felt this Wither seemed weak, since Fu Zhu said so, she would take his word for it for now.
The four of them stood by and watched the battle. At first, Herta, Screwllum, and Ruan Mei had intended to use the opportunity to study the Wither's unique attributes that would earn it the title of "boss of the Nether."
But after watching for a while, they couldn't see anything special at all.
All they saw was Fu Zhu waving his Demon Blade "Hiruko" around like a child, deflecting all of the enemy's attacks.
They didn't even know what kind of effect the Wither's attacks had.
Just as the four of them were getting drowsy watching this one-sided battle, the entirely pitch-black Wither let out a roar, and its body became enveloped in an azure shield.
The four of them immediately snapped to attention. Silver Wolf was the most excited. As a veteran of countless games, she could tell at a glance that the Wither was entering its second phase!
Perhaps it would have some more powerful attack patterns!
But her hopes were dashed. They discovered that even after entering its second phase, the Wither was still being completely dominated by Fu Zhu. Aside from forcing Fu Zhu to eat a single Golden Apple, the Wither hadn't even managed to touch a single hair on his head.
Three minutes later, with a final roar, the Wither's entire body exploded violently. It left behind a glittering, cross-shaped star before disappearing completely.
The four of them blinked, looking at Fu Zhu with disbelief. "That's it?!"
Fu Zhu walked over, picked up the Nether Star, and shrugged at them nonchalantly.
"What else?"
The four of them stood there stunned, unable to speak for a long moment. They had thought the boss of the Nether would be incredibly powerful!
Silver Wolf said with a look of disdain, "What a weak boss… Fu Zhu, are you sure that was the boss of the Nether? Other than looking a bit intimidating, it didn't seem particularly strong."
"Weak?"
Hearing Silver Wolf call the Wither weak, Fu Zhu couldn't help but laugh. Although he had killed it with ease, that absolutely did not mean the Wither was weak.
The only reason it was so easy was because of the excellent mechanics of the SlashBlade, which completely countered every aspect of the Wither's attacks.
Now that Silver Wolf was calling the Wither weak, he felt he had to speak up for it.
"You think it's weak only because I'm very familiar with its attack patterns and I have a way to counter it. If it were you guys fighting it, the result would be completely different."
Hearing this, Silver Wolf and the others were a bit unconvinced. Although they were often startled in this Simulated Universe, they still had their pride.
Even the weakest among them, Silver Wolf, was a force to be reckoned with in the outside world!
Silver Wolf immediately stepped forward, unconvinced.
"I don't believe you! Let me try!"