In the spare bedroom, Ding Yun locked the door and drew the curtains before immediately taking out the randomly assigned new golden finger for this time, the low-level grass and wood creation furnace.
She began to meticulously figure out how to use it.
The basic principles of exploration were:
First, look, second, touch, third, fiddle.
Looking meant examining the text and patterns, touching meant feeling all the raised and recessed parts, and fiddling, of course, meant knocking, tapping, dripping blood, or even stimulating it with mental energy.
However, none of it worked.
Not the slightest change occurred.
The item was just like an ordinary lump of iron, solid and resistant to damage when knocked and tapped. No matter how Ding Yun fiddled with it, there was no change, not even a flicker of light.
After going through a full set of conventional methods and still not figuring out how to use it, Ding Yun had no choice but to try other approaches. For example, based on its name, she wondered if introducing grass, wood, or other plants could activate it.
However, there were no seeds readily available at home.
And the potted plants were few, and digging them up wasn't ideal.
So, after some thought, Ding Yun decided to open the bedroom door, go to the kitchen refrigerator, and get two apples, a handful of satsumas, and a small bunch of grapes. She carried them back to the bedroom, relocked the door, and started eating.
She planned to get some seeds to throw into the furnace.
The first thing she ate was grapes, and wow, they were seedless. Then she peeled a satsuma, and it was also seedless.
Fortunately, apples couldn't be seedless, so after taking a few more bites of an apple, Ding Yun finally got some apple seeds. She then threw all the dozen or so seeds into the low-level grass and wood creation furnace.
Immediately after, she watched with great anticipation.
She waited to see if there would be any changes.
This time, there was finally some change. Although the change was very subtle, because Ding Yun was staring intently at the few seeds in the furnace, she saw a flash of bluish-purple light within the furnace. The dozen or so apple seeds also flashed.
Then, there were no more changes.
"Does the bluish-purple light that just flashed count as creation, and the result of this creation is that the apple seeds have undergone some modification? But what kind of modification did they get? Why wasn't there any notification?
Do I have to plant the seeds, let them grow, mature, and bear fruit before I can know what the changes are?"
After staring for a few more minutes and finding no new changes or information appearing, Ding Yun's heart sank. This golden finger seemed a bit unreliable.
Even if the purpose of this golden finger was indeed to modify plant seeds, the overall trial would be a troublesome matter, and she might even have trouble going to work.
After all, if she wanted to try out the golden finger and figure out its specific function, she would definitely need to plant the seeds modified by the low-level grass and wood creation furnace. But to get accurate and reliable trial data, planting a few in the balcony or flower pots wouldn't be enough.
This meant Ding Yun would have to rent land to plant them.
She might even have to rent enough land and plant enough different varieties. How could she possibly have time to work normally?
She wouldn't be able to manage even if she were exhausted.
Despite feeling very depressed and her mind in a mess, unsure of what to do next, Ding Yun still dug out the seeds from the low-level grass and wood creation furnace and put them in a small box for safekeeping.
Then, she poured the washed grapes into the empty creation furnace. The bowl that originally held the grapes was used for the grape skins. She ate while contemplating her next steps.
There were no problems with the first two grapes, but when she ate the third one, Ding Yun was immediately stunned by the rich grape aroma that burst into her mouth. Compared to the grape she was currently eating, the previous ones were like chewing wax, completely dwarfed.
They were all grapes from the same bunch, so even if there were differences in sourness and sweetness, the disparity shouldn't be this significant.
In an instant, Ding Yun seemed to have an idea.
She quickly continued to eat the remaining grapes from the bunch.
As expected, the grapes she took out afterward all tasted exceptionally delicious, as she had anticipated. It wasn't that the grapes had become purely sweet or gained other aromas, but simply that the grape flavor had become incredibly rich.
The originally less refreshing, and even slightly tooth-aching common sweetness and sourness of grapes that lingered after eating too many.
It had abruptly become very pleasant and palatable.
Sweet with a hint of sourness, still predominantly sweet with sourness as a secondary note, but that sourness seemed to have integrated into the sweetness, no longer the kind that made her gums ache, but the kind that made her mouth water. Most importantly, the subtle, almost imperceptible astringency that was inevitably present on some grape skins when eating grapes.
It had also disappeared.
These were ordinary grapes, costing only three or four yuan a jin.
Their current texture was better than those selling for thirty or forty yuan.
Ding Yun ate more than a dozen in a row. Seeing that only a handful were left, she curbed her appetite and quickly poured out the remaining grapes. She then put a few satsumas into the furnace.
This time, she stared intently at the low-level grass and wood creation furnace, just as she had when examining the seeds, to see if there were any changes. After a few seconds, changes indeed appeared inside, the same kind of changes as with the seeds.
This showed that the creation furnace could not only create seeds.
Mature fruits could also be placed inside for creation.
Extrapolating further, it was possible that fruit-bearing trees could also be placed inside for creation.
However, other matters couldn't be verified for now, so Ding Yun could only taste what flavor the satsumas modified by the grass and wood creation furnace would have.
The satsuma peel was still as easy to peel as before. After peeling, it was noticeable that the flesh of the satsuma looked more crystalline, and there were fewer fibrous strands.
And when she popped one into her mouth.
A more obvious change immediately became apparent.
The overall texture was significantly more tender than the satsuma Ding Yun had eaten earlier, almost comparable to the texture of the top-grade Xiangshan Red Beauties. It was an ultimate pleasure of melting in the mouth, smoother than drinkable jelly.
The sweetness was slightly reduced.
It leaned more towards a refreshing sweetness.
It wasn't overly sweet, which could lead to a cloying sensation after eating too much.
Furthermore, the orange flavor was rich. Although satsumas were sweet enough, compared to the most original oranges, they had lost some of their unique orange flavor. After being created by the low-level grass and wood creation furnace.
This aspect seemed to have been restored.
It was truly something she couldn't stop eating. In no time, Ding Yun finished all the satsumas created by the low-level grass and wood creation furnace. After finishing, she even went out to pack the remaining satsumas from the refrigerator back into the room.
She continued to create and eat them.
Her depressed and irritable mood had eased considerably.
Indeed, delicious food could make people happier.