Reborn with a Space: Hoarding Food and Raising My Kid

"Flora."

Flora Bloom looked at Lex Cross’s increasingly deep eyes. The heat from his palm on her wrist was terrifyingly hot.

"Um, I was just curious what a man’s chest muscles feel like. I... I didn’t mean anything by it!"

As she spoke, she tried to pull her wrist away.

After hearing Lex Cross’s soft chuckle, her hand was pressed against a certain someone’s chest again. And that certain someone’s gaze swept over her own chest.

"Hm, it does seem like you’re curious about how others feel."

When Flora Bloom realized what Lex Cross meant, her face flushed red in an instant. She glared at his faint smile, annoyed. "What do you mean by that! Are you saying I’m small?"

The smile on Lex Cross’s lips widened. "It’s fine. It’s enough that I have them."

"You!"

Flora Bloom pressed her lips together and snatched her hand back, staring at the chest muscles wrapped in the combat vest. ’So what if you have a chest? Am I proud of my A-cup?’ Just before standing up, she mischievously gave his chest a hard squeeze.

Amused, Lex Cross stood up and smoothly caught Flora Bloom’s restless little hand, giving it a squeeze. "Don’t mess around."

"Hmph." Flora Bloom grunted softly. "Is your injury serious? Should we keep going deeper?"

Lex Cross sighed. "Let’s go. The Fire Element Energy here is getting stronger and stronger. When Crystal Stones are close to each other, they resonate. Can you sense the location of the Fire Element Crystal Stone?"

’This woman... She just rejected me a few days ago, and now she’s teasing me in a situation like this. And after teasing me, she puts on an ’I didn’t do it on purpose’ act.’ He felt an urge to pull her into his arms right then and there, to crush her against him and teach her a lesson she’d never forget. But alas, his reason forced him to temporarily abandon that wicked thought.

Flora Bloom opened her space and released her spiritual power to sense her surroundings. Sure enough, about a kilometer away, she felt a familiar sensation. It was the same feeling she’d had when she found the blue Crystal Stone in her past life.

A smile appeared on her face, and she very naturally took Lex Cross’s large hand, leading him off in that direction.

Lex Cross’s lips hadn’t stopped smiling since they entered the cavern. His normally cold and aloof appearance was now, for the first time ever, replaced by the faint outline of a smile on his cheeks.

"Lex Cross, look! In such a hot place, so many flowers and plants are actually able to grow. I’ve seen this purplish-black flower in the sea outside, too. It smells so good!"

Flora Bloom reached out to pick the flower, but Lex Cross nervously pulled her back.

"Don’t touch that flower! It’s called the Black Widow, named after the highly venomous spider, which means it’s also extremely poisonous. See the thorns on it? If an ordinary person is pricked, the poison is instantly fatal. If a powerful superpower user is pricked, in a mild case their superpower will be destroyed. In a severe case, they won’t survive either." 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Flora Bloom withdrew her hand, her heart still pounding with fear. "Whew, good thing I didn’t pick it."

"In the apocalypse, the more beautiful a plant looks on the surface, the more likely it’s poisonous, like this flower. It smells fragrant, but it’s deadly. However, if your swarm of bees were here, they could collect its pollen. The honey made from this flower is not only sweet and thirst-quenching, but it can also cure all poisons."

Flora Bloom sighed regretfully. "Sigh, if I’d known, I would’ve collected some to raise in my space. What a shame!"

"After you get the Fire Element Crystal Stone this time, we’ll come back in a few days."

Flora Bloom’s eyes lit up. She turned to see Lex Cross’s smiling eyes, then immediately looked away to hide her delight.

"Ahem, we’ll see when the time comes!"

The paths in the cavern could only be described as riddled with holes! It was like a maze full of pits. They would choose a path and walk down it, only to soon discover it was a dead end. After backtracking from the dead end, several more cave openings would appear, completely disorienting them.

Flora Bloom knew the general location of the Crystal Stone, but the two of them had been wandering in the cavern for ages and still couldn’t find the path leading to it. This was starting to frustrate her.

"This cavern is just like a maze. We keep walking into dead ends. We can’t keep going on like this!"

"The reason people get lost is because they rely on their vision to navigate. Animals with vision also get lost frequently, especially in a maze-like place like this."

"You’re saying people and animals get lost because they have vision?"

"Mhm."

"What about insects?"

"Insects have vision too, but their compound eyes can perceive ultraviolet light and subtle changes in airborne particles that humans can’t see. Evolved creatures are even more capable."

"In that case, I have an idea!"

Flora Bloom used her spiritual link to contact Vert. The next second, Vert’s body suddenly materialized out of thin air.

The little pets in her space were all branded with a special mark from it. They could also sense the location of the Crystal Stone that Flora Bloom could feel.

"Go. Head toward the Crystal Stone’s location. Whether we can get out of here is all up to you, Vert."

The cavern was huge—even the octopus monster had been able to enter with ease. In comparison, Vert’s body was just a slightly larger flying bug in this vast space.

So Vert flew ahead of the two of them, with Flora Bloom and Lex Cross following closely behind.

Strangely enough, with Vert leading the way, the two never hit a dead end again. Vert didn’t seem to need to scout for directions at all; it chose the correct path every single time.

In less than half an hour, the surrounding temperature had been steadily rising, and now the two of them could barely stand the humid heat. They were both drenched in sweat.

Although Vert was a powerful evolved creature, insects have a natural fear of fire, so Flora Bloom recalled it to her space.

The place where they now stood was like a vertical cliff edge. Behind them was one of the cavern’s connecting passages. Before them, at the bottom of a bottomless abyss, was a pool of fiery red lava that looked like boiling water, bubbling up with red-hot, high-temperature bubbles. It even made a "SPLASHING" sound like the turbulent flow of a magma river.

Flora Bloom kicked a small pebble over the edge. It melted completely before it even hit the bottom.

"GASP! This is bad. I can sense the Crystal Stone is right down there." Flora Bloom sucked in a sharp breath. Looking down at the bottomless abyss, her legs began to tremble.

’If I accidentally fell down there, I’d melt until not even a bone fragment was left, wouldn’t I?’

Lex Cross was also frowning at the lava below, his face glowing red from its reflection.

"I’ll go get it for you!"

Flora Bloom grabbed Lex Cross’s arm tightly. "Are you crazy? You’ll die if you go down there! If it’s really impossible, let’s just forget it! We can come back when we’re stronger!"

While the two fretted over how to retrieve the Fire Element Crystal Stone from the lava below—especially Flora Bloom, who could only stare longingly at the Crystal Stone that could strengthen her space, helpless against the high-temperature magma...

She was completely unaware that in her spiritual link, Monkey Two, Monkey Three, and the Golden Cicada were in a heated exchange with the newly arrived octopus monster.

"Treasure, there’s treasure!" The octopus monster’s mind was buzzing with excitement.

It had roamed the seabed far and wide, unrivaled, and relying on its keen instinct for treasure, it had arrived at a dark, damp cavern, sealed off from the heat of the outside world.

Its huge body, with its seventeen tentacles, crawled rapidly along the ground and into the depths of a cave. Deep inside, there was a nest built from piled-up rocks.

The bottom of the nest was lined with fiery red, crystal-like beads, and on top of them were two eggs.

One red, and one blue.

The outer layer of the red one was covered in scale-like, fiery rock fragments. Every single one of these fiery red fragments was filled with intense Fire Element Energy.

The blue one looked like a conductor charged with high-voltage electricity, with tendrils of lightning CRACKLING across its surface.

"Treasure!"

Hearing the octopus monster’s spiritual message, Monkey Two, Monkey Three, and the Golden Cicada immediately asked.

"What kind of treasure?"

"There are two eggs, and lots of Energy Crystal Balls!"

The octopus monster’s seventeen tentacles bypassed the two eggs and went straight for the red crystal balls underneath them.

"Hey, Big Octopus, are you stupid? What’s the use of taking that stuff? You should obviously bring the eggs back for Master! Master will definitely be happy!"