If you don’t get stronger, and fast, you’ll die just from drinking this stuff.
But no one cared. After all, in the past, they had to carry radiation dosimeters when working in the mines. If the dosage exceeded the specified limit, they had to leave the pit immediately. But now, they lived here full-time. Drinking a little radioactive water was nothing in comparison.
Everyone in the mining pit was hounded by death. Those who couldn’t advance would die...
Returning to his room, Ye Fei took off his clothes and lay down on the bed.
Liu Ru wouldn’t be over to give him a check-up until dinnertime.
Before then, no one would disturb him. He had plenty of time to "go online."
HUMMM~
His vision grew tinged with red as countless tiny, interwoven blood vessels spread across its periphery. Then, his sight began to flicker on and off like a bad connection. Soon, however, everything sharpened into focus. Twelve entirely new sensations flowed into Ye Fei’s brain.
Mushroom activated!
After a night of growth, the Mushroom Community on the trash heap had expanded once more. It had already taken over the entire heap and was beginning to spread to the surrounding decaying leaves and wood.
Due to global mutations, the trees had undergone rampant growth, turning the area into an environment akin to a primeval forest. Sunlight couldn’t reach the ground, providing the perfect shady, damp conditions for mushrooms to thrive.
The thick layer of humus, formed from the surrounding rotten leaves, was an even better growing medium, perfectly suited for decomposer fungi.
SWISH~
Under Ye Fei’s control, a Big Mushroom on the edge of the trash heap strove to absorb nutrients. It swayed its cap slightly, trying to grow taller so the Spores beneath it could drift farther away and land on a rotting log.
CRUNCH~
The next moment, however, the ground began to vibrate, and Ye Fei instantly lost his connection to that mushroom.
However, the mushroom’s Spores diffused into the air. Through them, and through the Fungal Hyphae spreading across the ground, Ye Fei came to a conclusion: an animal had arrived and eaten the mushroom in a single bite.
The creature was quite the picky eater, too, only eating the tallest and best-looking mushrooms.
Four paws stepped on the Fungal Hyphae, hopping cautiously from one spot to the next. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
’It must be a rabbit,’ Ye Fei thought.
Although the mushrooms had no vision, Ye Fei could clearly sense the footsteps through the vast network of Fungal Hyphae spreading beneath the leaves. He could even determine the creature’s general shape from how the Spores, sprayed out with each bite, coated its body...
Ye Fei tried to use the Spores for a parasitic Infection on the rabbit, but the mushroom was chewed to a pulp. Before it could grow new Fungal Hyphae, it slid down the slick esophagus and into the stomach, where corrosive gastric acid made survival impossible.
Some Spores also entered the rabbit’s nasal passages as it breathed, but they were quickly trapped by a layer of mucus and died.
’They’re just mushrooms, after all,’ Ye Fei thought to himself. ’Their Infection Ability is too weak. They can’t breach the rabbit’s immune system...’
’They’re fungi, so why can’t they be like the kind that causes athlete’s foot or ringworm? An infection you can basically never get rid of...’
CRUNCH~
CRUNCH~
Juices splattered as the rabbit feasted, clearly enjoying itself.
The mushrooms under Ye Fei’s control were eaten one after another. The connection was broken so many times that the abrupt loss of sensation became jarring, and he grew increasingly frustrated.
’Hmph. Eat up. Go on, eat until you burst!’
Ye Fei could only grumble in frustration.
At the very bottom of the food chain, there was nothing he could do for now.
Soon, however, a smile spread across his face.
As the rabbit hopped around among the mushrooms, its fur became covered in countless Spores. With every movement, it shook them off, scattering them into many of the areas Ye Fei had planned on reaching.
To Ye Fei’s even greater surprise, the rabbit’s constant hopping and kicking cleared away the thick layer of dry leaves, exposing the rich humus soil beneath.
He could already foresee an unexpected growth spurt for his mushrooms. They would be carried to more and farther places—a rabbit’s burrow, for instance. A place like that would be absolutely perfect for them to grow.
At this thought, Ye Fei’s spirits lifted, and he began to look upon the rabbit with growing fondness.
And so, with the rabbit’s help, Ye Fei’s Spores spread beyond the trash heap in just over ten minutes, spawning two new mushroom clusters nearby.
Each cluster covered about ten square meters. The number of individual mushrooms was too great to count, so Ye Fei had given up, deciding to track his progress by total area instead.
Meanwhile, because the mushrooms were growing so densely, the Fungal Hyphae beneath them began to spread and intertwine within the humus, forming a thin layer between the soil and the fallen leaves.
If someone were to lift the heavy layer of fallen leaves, they would discover a thin, white, thread-like substance slowly writhing and growing beneath, like a carpet.
As this layer of Fungal Hyphae formed, the mushrooms began to absorb nutrients faster and more easily.
The Fungal Hyphae secreted a kind of "salivary enzyme" that caused organic matter to rapidly decay and mold, aiding in its digestion.
Anyone who’s seen fruit get fuzzy at home knows what this means—it’s gone moldy. In reality, that fuzz is a large number of fungi reproducing on the fruit’s surface and secreting digestive enzymes. These enzymes further accelerate the fruit’s decay, turning it into easily absorbable humus, or nutrients.
’I’ll just call this layer of Fungal Hyphae the Creep,’ Ye Fei chuckled.
Of course, it was nothing compared to the kind of Creep used by the Interstellar Insect Race, which could rapidly transform an environment.
Still, it was quite remarkable. After all, wherever the Creep spread, it could slowly decompose fallen leaves and trees. Thanks to this faint "corrosive" property, it possessed a limited ability to reshape its environment!
Through continuous decay, it could cause the root systems of all other plants to rot. The area occupied by the Creep would no longer support any other plant life—only mushrooms could grow there!
This Ability seemed insignificant, but what if... what if it covered 1,000 square meters? Or even an entire forest?
With enough coverage, Ye Fei could change the entire planet’s ecosystem!
Ye Fei estimated that with sufficient nutrients, the entire cycle—from a Spore landing, to a mushroom growing and spreading its own Spores, to the Fungal Hyphae weaving together underground to form Creep—took about a day.
That was incredibly fast, but mushrooms couldn’t grow in just any environment. They were fragile organisms with poor adaptability.
However...
’Since other Superpower Users can get stronger somehow, can I do the same for my mushrooms? Make them evolve into a true Creep? Or enhance their Infection Ability?’