Chapter 130: Chapter 118: Pearls with Attributes

Irvin Holden brought a rectangular wooden table out onto the deck and laid out all the knives from the kitchen.

Amused to see Sherman Lynch and her father, Caleb Bloom, eagerly rubbing their hands, Flora Bloom took out three more large pearl oysters. She gave two to them and tossed the last one to Irvin Holden.

Sherman Lynch took the paring knife Irvin Holden handed him and jammed it into the gap between the two halves of the shell. The blade went in halfway, but the oyster’s clamping force was astonishing. It gripped the knife so tightly that no matter how Sherman Lynch struggled, he couldn’t budge the blade an inch.

Flora Bloom cringed inwardly at the sight. ’Sherman Lynch is a superpower user, for crying out loud. He’s way stronger than a normal person, but he can’t even pry open this giant oyster?’

She glanced over at her mother, who was probing the edge of her own shell with a dagger, trying to find a gap, but was completely unable to pierce it.

Flora Bloom took the dagger from her mother and handed it to her father. "Dad, can you enhance this for me?"

Caleb Bloom took the dagger. After a flash of golden light, the once-ordinary blade became tougher, sharper, and took on a chilling, dangerous glint.

Flora Bloom took the dagger and the giant oyster meant for her mother. She plunged the blade into the seam, slid it back and forth a few times, and then ran the blade along the entire length of the crack. Finally, she angled the dagger down to pry it open, swiftly shoved her hands into the gap, and wrenched the two halves apart.

Seeing everyone staring at her, transfixed, Flora Bloom said, "Don’t just stare at me. These are giant pearl oysters, which means there are pearls inside. What are you waiting for? Open them up and dig out the pearls!" 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

At the mention of pearls, Cynthia Grant’s eyes lit up. She handed her paring knife to Sherman Lynch. "Uncle, hurry and enhance my knife! I’m going to get the biggest pearl!"

Sherman Lynch tossed the enhanced paring knife back to her, enhanced his and Irvin Holden’s tools as well, then eagerly got to work on his own oyster.

While pearls may be a woman’s best friend, that didn’t stop the men from being just as enthusiastic and curious about shucking oysters to find them.

With a loud CRACK, Flora Bloom pulled the giant oyster open. A mass of pinkish flesh rested against the iridescent, pearly-white interior of one shell, while a fist-sized adductor muscle clung to the top of the other.

She handed the dagger to Jade, who was watching intently at her side. "Here, Mom. The grip on this thing was too strong, so I opened it for you. You go ahead and get the pearls."

Jade took the dagger, her eyes wide with excitement as she stared at the thick, plump oyster meat. It was a huge piece of flesh, perfectly pink and tender-looking, with large, distinct bulges visible just beneath the surface.

"Here, here, here! Mom, make a cut right here," Flora said, pointing. "Look, this bulge is huge!"

Following Flora’s instructions, Jade made an incision next to the large bulge her daughter had indicated. The flesh parted easily. Jade then pressed on the bulge, pushing it toward the cut. A ping-pong-ball-sized pearl suddenly popped out of the meat and went rolling and clattering inside the iridescent white shell.

Jade’s expression shifted from initial nervousness to pure astonishment. Even as a simple country woman, she knew good pearls were incredibly valuable. The biggest ones she’d ever seen—the kind sold for astronomical prices in department stores—were only about the size of her thumbnail.

This pearl, in terms of color, luster, and size, was a hundred, even a thousand times better than those so-called "priceless" gems. In fact, they weren’t even in the same league. There was simply no comparison.

It was the size of a ping-pong ball, perfectly round and utterly flawless. It radiated a pure, immaculate luster that was at once brilliant and yet possessed a gentle, warm delicacy.

But that wasn’t all. Jade excitedly pushed the other bulges toward the incision, and one by one, more plump, round pearls were squeezed out, gathering around the largest one.

Though none were as big as the first, there were two the size of quail eggs, and the rest were about the size of marbles. Even the smallest was as big as a fingernail.

And that wasn’t all.

Everyone else saw a collection of incredibly large, flawless, top-quality pearls, leaving them so stunned they were at a loss for words. But Flora Bloom saw something more.

Thanks to her unique Sea of Consciousness Vortex, she could sense that each pearl was suffused with the Water Element. The smaller pearls had less of it, while the larger ones were rich with it.

The amount of the Water Element inside that silvery-white, ping-pong-ball-sized pearl was nearly equal to the total amount Flora Bloom used to conjure a head-sized water shield.

After seeing Jade’s haul, everyone else sprang into excited action. Cynthia Grant, in particular, pried her giant oyster open in a flash and began pushing the pearls out from the flesh one by one.

The pearls she extracted weren’t silvery-white like Jade’s. Cynthia Grant gazed at a pile of large and small pearls with a pinkish luster, unable to resist picking them up one by one, caressing them and holding them up to the sunlight.

Her largest one was even a size bigger than a ping-pong ball, making it the biggest pearl on the table. The pearls from the various oysters came in different colors—some silvery-white, some a rosy pink, and some even had a shimmering, blue-green glow. And every single pearl, she noted, contained some amount of Water Energy.

Flora Bloom tried taking a pearl and communicating with it as she would to absorb a Zombie Crystal Core. She discovered that not only could she not absorb the pearl’s innate Water Energy, but the pearl actually emitted a faint halo of light to protect itself.

However, the halo didn’t last long in Flora’s hand. Once it vanished, the previously radiant, plump pearl suddenly grew dull and lusterless. With a gentle squeeze from Flora, it crumbled into fine powder.

Once it was powder, Flora Bloom inspected it again. The dust in her palm no longer contained any Water Energy. It had become ordinary pearl powder, its only likely use now being for a face mask.

She picked up another pearl, this one the size of a quail’s egg, to try something else. This time, she didn’t attempt to communicate with it as she would a Crystal Core. She felt she was onto a secret about these pearls and their Water Energy.

"Mr. Wallace, try hitting this pearl with your flames."

Flora Bloom’s words left everyone bewildered. Cynthia Grant was especially aghast. "Flora, are you crazy? It’s such a perfect pearl. What if you ruin it?"

Jade nodded in agreement. She’d never seen such a beautiful pearl; it would be a terrible shame to destroy it.

Flora Bloom thought for a moment. ’Neal Wallace is a level-two superpower user right now. This quail-egg-sized pearl probably can’t take the heat.’ So, she put the pearl back on the table.

Just as everyone breathed a sigh of relief, Flora Bloom picked up the largest pearl—the one Cynthia Grant had found—and held it out to Neal Wallace. "That one was too small," she said. "Hit this one."

Her words left everyone completely baffled. Cynthia Grant watched, her heart aching for the pearl in Flora’s hand, but Flora just looked at her and said, "Don’t worry. If it breaks, I’ll get you an even bigger one."

Neal Wallace was also curious about Flora’s intentions. A jet of flame shot from his hand, heading straight for the pearl.