“Not necessarily.” Meinhard Janek shook his head, the corners of his mouth curving upward into a subtle smirk.
“Perhaps…
he intends to use this crude method to harvest the source of evolution and ascend into a true evolutionary!”
His eyes remained fixed on Reed Newt, who was currently elbow-deep in a messy autopsy.
An unmistakable glint of anticipation flashed in Meinhard’s eyes.
Sure, Reed Newt had always been an academic deadbeat, someone completely incapable of identifying a source of evolution out in the wild.
But every single sea monster carried an evolution core within its flesh, and a single core was worth three whole sources of evolution!
If Reed Newt could somehow slaughter just two more beasts using this bizarre technique, he would possess enough energy to trigger a full evolution.
On that foundation, maybe, just maybe, he could bridge the gap and catch up to the academy’s elite.
However, the words had barely left Meinhard’s lips before the scene unfolded.
Reed Newt finished cracking open the sea monster’s massive skull and pinched a glowing red crystal out from between its brows.
Then, without a second thought and in full view of the entire audience, he casually tossed the shimmering gem onto the dirt.
“Is this beast sick or something?” Reed muttered aloud, dusting off his hands.
“Why does it have a stone stuck in its brain?”
He abandoned the prized core like a piece of worthless rubbish, completely dismissive, without so much as a second backward glance.
The sight sent Meinhard Janek’s blood pressure soaring.
His body twitched violently in sheer outrage, coughing as he nearly choked on his own breath.
Spinning around on his heel, he glared at the terrified faculty gathered behind him.
“Which class is he in?!” Meinhard roared, his voice trembling with fury.
“Have his head teacher step forward right now!”
A stone?
A goddamn stone?! This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
It was bad enough that the kid couldn’t recognize a source of evolution, but to toss away an actual monster core?
That wasn’t just being an academic slacker anymore; that was complete, unadulterated ignorance.
Years of compulsory education, and the boy clearly hadn’t processed a single word!
Faced with the principal’s explosive wrath, the instructors shrank back, exchanging nervous, fleeting glances.
Nobody dared to raise a hand and claim ownership of such a hopeless student.
Meanwhile, back on the isolated shores, Reed Newt held his makeshift bone knife, staring thoughtfully down at the half-dissected corpse.
He was locked in a deep internal debate.
If this beast were harboring weird calcified growths in its head, eating it as a winter ration might be a terrible idea.
What if he caught some strange aquatic parasite and dropped dead in the middle of his survival run?
Right on cue, a cold mechanical ping echoed in his mind.
“Ding!
Unknown energy signature detected within range.
Eligible for system exchange.
Current value: 10 survival points.”
Reed’s eyes instantly lit up.
He swept his gaze across the clearing until it locked onto the discarded stone lying in the dirt.
“That thing…
is worth survival points?” he murmured, stunned.
Ten full points!
Up until now, passively idling only netted him a single point a day.
Survival points were notoriously scarce.
With a windfall of ten points, his exchange options would no longer be restricted to rudimentary Prehistoric Era primitive crafts; he could finally unlock true Neolithic Era technologies!
“Exchange!” he commanded without a moment’s hesitation.
In a flash, the red crystal vanished, and his balance ticked up by ten.
Regripping his bone knife, Reed turned back to the three-meter-tall carcass and systematically tore it apart, searching for another hidden gem.
Sadly, after picking the entire beast clean, no second stone appeared.
“If the system classifies it as an energy body, it definitely isn’t a kidney stone,” Reed pondered aloud.
“Which means…
other sea monsters must carry them too.”
The sheer temptation of gaining ten points per kill was impossible to ignore.
If he could harvest every beast that washed ashore, it wouldn’t take long to propel his base past the Neolithic Era and straight into the industrial age.
At that point, building an ocean-worthy flagship to escape this island wouldn’t just be a pipe dream.
“Sea monsters are far too dangerous to fight head-on, and setting vine snares is way too slow,” Reed muttered, his eyes narrowing with newfound determination.
“I need an upgrade in firepower.”
He immediately opened the system store and began browsing the expanded library.
While a single point bought basic Prehistoric Era survival tricks, ten points unlocked monumental mid-tier knowledge: Grandmaster Iron Smelting, Grandmaster Carpentry, Grandmaster Beast Taming, Grandmaster Agriculture, Grandmaster Steelworking, and Black Powder Formula.
His eyes locked onto one specific entry: Black Powder Formula.
To hunt giant marine predators efficiently, he didn’t need farming; he needed mass destruction.
“Ding!
Exchange successful!”
A flood of detailed chemical ratios, granulating techniques, and explosive optimization methods surged directly into Reed’s consciousness.
Stepping back into the wilderness, Reed Newt immediately began scouting the island for sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter.
The raw power of black powder was nothing short of divine intervention, a force capable of leveling mountains.
Properly refined and granulated, a single blast would be more than enough to blow any sea monster sky-high.