Sheila's ability originates from her Nen Beast.
The Aura Ball separated from her body fell to the ground, slowly twisting, and did not conjure immediately.
This phenomenon is usually because the Nen User's proficiency is too low to freely retract or summon items or Nen Beasts.
However, Law and Ging, familiar with Sheila's ability, knew clearly that the delayed conjuration of the Aura Ball wasn't due to Sheila's low proficiency.
As for the reason, even Sheila herself wasn't entirely sure.
Law and Ging speculated it might be due to a subconscious concept Sheila held, leading to this phenomenon.
For example, 'good things take time', or 'fruit ripens when the time is right'.
Perhaps she believed that every good outcome or remarkable thing requires time to develop.
This kind of mental condition, while not necessarily benefiting her ability much, could make it extremely stable.
Everyone watched the twisting, unformed Aura Ball. After sixty-nine seconds, it finally began to materialize, transforming in a brief instant into a round Nen Beast, less than a meter tall, slightly chubby.
"A mouse?"
Kuro, who had jumped out of the emblem, looked at the Nen Beast Sheila conjured in surprise.
The Nen Beast was entirely pink, with only a large belly area being white.
Its head had two heart-shaped ears, no nose, only round eyes and a big mouth.
From the bottom of its round back extended a hairless tail, with a light bulb tied at the end.
"You can't eat her!"
Hearing Kuro, Sheila looked slightly nervous at him.
Kuro said speechlessly, "I'm not interested in her."
Sheila breathed a sigh of relief. She thought of Kuro as a real cat, and cats eating mice was natural, right? So she belatedly worried.
The Nen Beast she conjured seemed not to understand the conversation, ignoring Kuro, just quietly watching Sheila as if awaiting orders.
"This is my Nen beast. You can call her Ai-chan. Although I've explained the ability to you, I haven't had the chance to demonstrate it to you in practice," Sheila introduced the Nen beast named Ai-chan to everyone.
Law looked at Sheila and said, "Alright, start the appraisal."
Saying this, he handed the ice insect corpse, which still emitted cold, to Sheila.
Sheila nodded slightly, took the ice insect corpse, then handed it to Ai-chan, smiling, "Sorry for the trouble, Ai-chan."
"Okay," The Nen Beast named Ai-chan wagged her tail, stretched out her chubby hands, and took the ice insect corpse.
Then, a seam suddenly appeared on her belly covered in white fur. Like a kangaroo, she stuffed the ice insect corpse, larger than herself, into her belly pouch.
Instantly, her belly swelled up like that of a woman ten months pregnant, but the volume shown by the swollen belly clearly didn't match the ice insect's size. It seemed the belly pouch had some spatial properties.
At the same time, the light bulb on Ai-chan's hairless tail began to flicker on and off.
"Analysis beginning. Please wait."
"Mm."
Sheila nodded seriously towards Ai-chan.
Around them, everyone quietly watched Ai-chan.
They all knew Sheila's Nen Beast possessed an [Appraisal] ability. According to Sheila, she always had Ai-chan appraise animals and plants discovered in various environments.
Although she hadn't widely tried appraising other things, so far, she hadn't found anything that couldn't be appraised.
Moreover, appraising items consumes Nen, and using too much Nen tires the body, so Sheila didn't have time to idly appraise trivial things.
Law's White Smoke Font also had appraisal ability. The drawback was being picky… some things could be appraised in detail, some couldn't be appraised at all, and some, after appraisal, had very brief information, sometimes just a name.
Like now, his White Smoke Font weren't being cooperative, failing to appraise the ice insect's information.
Due to the similar abilities, Law didn't have much reaction when he first heard about Sheila's ability. However, he believed such abilities were the more the better in the team.
In contrast, Ging also understood the importance of [Appraisal] ability in an environment like the Dark Continent, which was why he valued Sheila so much.
Everyone waited quietly for the result… the scene was silent.
After about three minutes, the light bulb on Ai-chan's tail stopped flickering and lit up with a white light.
"Analysis complete..."
"Name: Ice Silkworm."
"Category: Creature, non-toxic."
"Possesses [Flash Freeze] ability, but ineffective against plants."
"Adult ice silkworms cultivate a silkworm pearl internally, and the cold originates from this. Hence, ice silkworms continue to release cold after death."
Ai-chan recited the analyzed appraisal information briefly in a mechanical tone, like a repeater.
"Silkworm pearl?"
Everyone curiously looked at Ai-chan's belly, wanting to see what the so-called silkworm pearl looked like.
After finishing the analysis, Ai-chan promptly took out the ice insect corpse from her belly pouch and returned it to Sheila.
"Thank you," Although it was her own Nen Beast, Sheila still thanked Ai-chan.
Ai-chan wagged her tail with the lit light bulb, then stretched out a chubby hand towards Sheila.
Sheila smiled and placed her hand on Ai-chan's palm. Then, Ai-chan pulled a ball of Aura from Sheila, stuffed it into her mouth, chewed, swallowed, and then disappeared.
"A very good ability," Law couldn't help but praise. His White Smoke Font temporarily dropped the ball, but Sheila's Nen Beast, Ai-chan, successfully appraised the relevant information.
"Indeed, this ability seems tailor-made for explorers," Ging said sincerely.
"With Ai-chan around, we can easily tell what's edible and what's not in the future."
Buhara thought in terms of food, but what he said wasn't wrong.
Praised like this, Sheila smiled shyly, a bit embarrassed.
Her Nen Beast was similar in nature to Cookie, purely support-type, offering no help in combat.
Ai-chan's prototype came from a fantasy creature in the book [D. Hunter], also one of the protagonist's loyal companions.
Before mastering Nen, Sheila greatly admired the protagonist in the book for having such an amazing close companion. So after learning Nen, Ai-chan came into being.
Afterwards, Law cut open the ice silkworm's corpse and retrieved an egg-sized silkworm pearl emitting cold.
Touching it with his hand, even with a layer of Domain applied, the overflowing cold instantly formed a layer of frost on his palm. Holding it for long would obviously cause frostbite.
"Knov, I think your apartment is missing a cold storage room," Law said, holding the extremely cold silkworm pearl and gently shaking it towards Knov.
"Hmm, I will gradually verify the freezing range and effect of the silkworm pearl during my spare time, then select a room of the most suitable size to serve as a cold storage for preserving ingredients."
Knov adjusted his glasses, understanding the slightly teasing tone in Law's words.
Law smiled and had Kuro first store the silkworm pearl and ice silkworm corpse.
The characteristic of being able to freeze even gases was something even his domain struggled to handle.
With the silkworm pearl, preserving ingredients would become much easier in the future.
The welcoming ceremony from the Dark Continent ended, and everyone had finished resting, proceeding deeper into the forest.
The goal of this trip was the longevity food, Nitro Rice, located in the southeastern swampland, where one of the five known Calamities existed: Hellbell, the Twin-Tailed Snake.