Chapter 150: Chapter 97: The Power of the Grand Elemental Master

’Lingzhi is essentially a type of fungus. Whether it’s harmful or not doesn’t matter; I’ll just feed it to the Jade Pendant in the end.’

Without giving it much thought, Su Chen remotely incinerated the fleshy remains before beginning a thorough sweep of the area. As a sub-base for the bizarre fungus, it had suffered extensive destruction, but many purplish Hallucinogenic Mushrooms still lingered in the vicinity.

After wiping out a controlled ant nest along the way, he led Xiaoye and Xiaolin onward.

It was worth noting...

With Xiaolin’s Ice Physique, it was impossible for the spores to invade her body; they would freeze and become inert the moment they got close.

As for Xiaoye, her sturdy physique made her highly resistant to the airborne spores, provided she had no open wounds.

But Su Chen, ever cautious, still took out his Pure White Short Staff to cast the Purification Skill on everyone.

He didn’t even spare himself.

’According to my estimates, the Physique limit for a normal human on the old Earth was probably about 15 attribute points. Even the strongest athletes would have found it difficult to break through that physiological barrier.’

’As for the corporate drones who worked constant overtime with no time to exercise, who knows if they even had a Physique Attribute of 10.’

’And now, my Physique Attribute has reached 21, far surpassing the theoretical human limit. But I can’t let my guard down because of it. Who knows if some fungal spores have specifically invested their points into being more infectious.’

’I can feed it the Lingzhi this afternoon. Hopefully, there’ll be a pleasant surprise.’

...

「Nearly twenty minutes later.」

A fissure zone, like a giant scar upon the earth, stretched out before them. The soaring Ice Bird’s gaze sharpened—it had finally found a hidden cave for its master.

Receiving the news through their Spiritual Link, Su Chen set off as well.

「A short while later.」

He finally located the entrance to a pit. It was half-hidden by a collapsed rock formation, but its location was betrayed by the surrounding carpet of purplish-black fungus.

That wasn’t all. The area also bore the signs of a recent battle. More than a dozen nearby trees were mangled, and unnatural cracks and gullies in the ground revealed traces of terrain modification.

Though no bodies remained, the lingering scent of blood still hung faintly in the air.

’A broken earthen spear?’

Su Chen glanced over. It looked familiar. His enhanced Intelligence Attribute didn’t allow him to recall past details with the precision of a video playback, but seeing certain objects often prompted his subconscious to accurately latch onto clues.

’I’m not mistaken.’ This had to be the team of thirty-plus people he’d seen clearing out the right-hand fork of the cave entrance yesterday. They weren’t from the camping base but were an elite exploration team from a border town. They had killed a good number of cave dwellers themselves.

’But now... I don’t know if the entire team was wiped out, but it looks like most of them died right here.’

The bad news was that the bizarre fungus had definitely gotten a huge meal out of this, gorging itself to its heart’s content.

The good news was that he might be able to snatch the spoils.

Su Chen focused his mind, and his Resonance ability instantly unfolded.

An invisible force seeped into the rock like a root system, spreading down through the geological layers. A dry, underground riverbed began to form in his mind’s eye, and following it, he located a natural cavern hidden deep beneath the surface.

A scene from Hell then unfolded in his mind.

The stalactites hanging from the high ceiling were bathed in a bloody light. The rock walls everywhere were embedded with dangling, fleshy tendrils and throbbing sacs.

Gradually, as he listened to the pulse of the earth, a low, heavy heartbeat throbbed from within the cavern.

’Another hatchery.’

Four giant, fleshy eggs rested at the bottom of the pit. Through the translucent, scarlet membranes, he could sense three faint heartbeats, but the fourth was abnormally strong.

Clearly, sensing the arrival of this nemesis on the surface, the fungal consciousness had acted before his Resonance had even penetrated the cavern. A crack had already appeared on the surface of one egg. Under forced maturation, thick, purplish-red amniotic fluid gushed out.

A figure staggered out, and within moments, it was already walking with faltering steps. A few seconds later, it had mastered the act of running.

Unlike the zombie-like Parasite Bodies from before, or the cruder, stitched-together monsters of the early days, this figure—built like an iron tower—showed no obvious signs of mutation.

If one were to ignore the mucous fluid coating it, its skin was an earthy brown, with the cold, hard sheen of rock. It stood 2.3 meters tall and was completely naked. Aside from its reproductive organs, it retained most of its human features.

Through his Perception of the earth’s pulse, Su Chen’s Resonance keenly detected dense fluctuations of Earth Element Runes emanating from its body.

And not just from its skull.

It was as if it were driven by three cores.

Its heart and its lower abdomen both radiated powerful waves of Earth Element energy. They were so densely packed that he roughly estimated at least eleven Earth Element Runes in total.

’Still a freak.’

Su Chen could sense that all three locations were functioning as a Sea of Consciousness, each faintly emitting Spiritual Fluctuations.

A chilling fact dawned on him.

This was a deformed monstrosity.

When the creature emerged from the cave, he could clearly see a distorted human face on the outside of its chest and another on its lower abdomen. Their eyes were wide, as if frozen in a silent scream.

’What kind of desecration is this.’

Although Su Chen’s expression remained indifferent, he couldn’t help but feel a spark of nameless rage. It was the primal grief of seeing one’s own kind so horribly defiled.

In a sense, these were two living human brains, torn from their owners and embedded in the creature’s flesh. The fungal consciousness, unable to solve the problem of a soul’s carrying capacity, had simply found a workaround.

The two-headed freak he had encountered before operated on the same principle, controlling two human brains to cast Rune Magic of different specializations.

This one, however, was a step beyond that.

As soon as he realized his opponent had stacked its defenses as high as possible, the shotgun from Su Chen’s canvas backpack was already in his hand.

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