The crystal was opaque, and countless tiny, dark blue flocculent substances seemed to flow and rotate slowly within it, like a captive galaxy. Its surface was covered in viscous bloodstains, yet it could not conceal the strange luster and the faintly emanating, heart-pounding energy fluctuations.
After the Rat King's crystal was excavated, the students successively found several more crystals from the corpses of other mutated rats.
"What... what is this?" Chen Xue covered her mouth, both disgusted and curious.
"Kidney stones?" a boy whispered.
"Doesn't look like it..." Wu Tao leaned closer to examine it, "How could kidney stones glow? And... I feel like... there's something moving inside?"
Everyone's gaze focused on those small crystals, and the atmosphere in the classroom became somewhat eerie. Amidst the fear and exhaustion, there was also an indescribable glimmer of hope, like seeing an oasis in a desert.
Just then, Ling Chen let out a suppressed groan, as if enduring immense pain, his body slightly curled up. He clutched his left arm and spoke intermittently, "I... I seem to have... seen something similar in Mu's internal biological data..."
Everyone's gaze instantly turned to him.
"Mu's?" Li Mingyu frowned, "Are they behind this?"
Ling Chen nodded with difficulty, fine cold sweat seeping from his forehead, his voice intermittent, as if every word exhausted his strength: "They... call it 'Hetero-Crystal'... it's a... highly condensed product of biological energy... it's... the core of mutated creatures'... power..."
He took a breath, his eyes somewhat unfocused, as if trying hard to recall: "The data said... this crystal can help Ability Users cultivate, and ordinary people... if their physique is compatible... can try... to guide the energy within it... perhaps... it can stimulate potential... or even... gain powers similar to abilities..."
"Cultivate? Stimulate potential? Gain abilities?!"
Sun Qiang cried out, his metallic voice filled with incredible excitement, "You mean... this thing can make us stronger?!"
"Possibly..." Ling Chen closed his eyes wearily, as if he was running out of strength to even speak, "But... it's very dangerous... the data recorded... the failure rate is very high... minor cases result in severe injury... severe cases... in self-destruction..."
This was naturally not something the Mu Corporation could research; the Mu family was just a medical company focused on making money, how could they research such a thing?
Moreover, this thing was fundamentally caused by the resurgence of spiritual energy and was completely irreplicable, but Ling Chen really had no good excuse, so the Mu Corporation was caught in the crossfire...
But his words were like a drop of water in a hot oil pan, instantly igniting everyone's emotions!
Becoming stronger! In this monster-ridden apocalypse, nothing was more tempting than these two words!
Fear and despair were temporarily suppressed by a strong desire. A fervent light ignited in everyone's eyes, staring intently at the few glowing blue Hetero-Crystals in Li Mingyu's palm.
"Damn it! Let's do it!" Li Mingyu was the first to roar, his face filled with a desperate resolve, "If we don't fight, we'll die sooner or later! I'd rather be blown up by this thing than be torn apart by those ghosts!"
"Right! Let's fight!" Sun Qiang also growled, his metallic fists clenching with a creaking sound.
Zhou Yunguang looked at the still hot light tube in his hand, then at the glowing blue crystal, his eyes flickering. That light just now, that destructive power... if he could become stronger...
Even the usually calm Wu Tao's breathing grew heavy.
Only Lin Wei, her gaze remained on Ling Chen.
His weak appearance was impeccable, but when he mentioned "Mu's internal data" just now, the overly fluent narration, and the slight trembling of his eyelashes beneath his seemingly painfully closed eyelids... all deepened the cloud of doubt in her heart instead of dispelling it.
How could he know so much? Was Mu's internal data something an eighteen-year-old boy, orphaned and betrayed by the Mu family, could easily access?
"Ling Chen, you..." Lin Wei was about to ask for details.
"Cough, cough, cough..." Ling Chen suddenly coughed violently, his body painfully arching as if trying to cough out his lungs, a trace of blood oozing from the corner of his mouth, staining his pale lower lip.
"Ling Chen!" Chen Xue exclaimed, rushing over to support him, frantically wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth with her sleeve, her eyes filled with distress and worry, "Don't talk anymore! Get some good rest!"
Lin Wei's words were cut off. Looking at Ling Chen's miserable state, as if he could faint at any moment, and then at the almost burning desire for the Hetero-Crystals in the eyes of the surrounding students, she could only temporarily suppress her myriad questions.
"Then... then how exactly do we do it?" Li Mingyu asked impatiently, carefully holding the few Hetero-Crystals as if they were priceless treasures.
Supported by Chen Xue, Ling Chen managed to steady his breathing with difficulty, then spoke intermittently: "The data... recorded... that one needs... to calm the mind and focus... hold the Hetero-Crystal... in the palm... try... to use intent... to guide the energy within it... to flow into... the Dantian... or... the heart... specifically... it varies from person to person... the process... is extremely painful... those with... weak will... must not... attempt it..."
His voice was weak, yet it clearly reached everyone's ears.
"Dantian? Heart?" Li Mingyu scratched his head, a bit confused, "How... how do I do that?"
"Concentrate! Feel it!" Ling Chen's voice rose slightly, carrying an undeniable guiding force, "It's like... like when you desperately try to lift a heavy object... that feeling of complete immersion... try to feel... the energy in the Hetero-Crystal... imagine... it's a warm current... or... an electric current... flowing up your arm... towards your body's core..."
As he spoke, he struggled to sit upright, extending his uninjured right hand, signaling Li Mingyu to place a Hetero-Crystal in his palm.
Everyone's gaze was fixed on Ling Chen's hand.
He slowly closed his hand, enveloping the glowing blue Hetero-Crystal in his palm. He closed his eyes, his brows tightly furrowed, as if enduring immense pain, his body trembling slightly. A few seconds later, an extremely faint, almost imperceptible pale blue halo, like a breath, flashed from between his tightly clenched fingers!
Immediately after, Ling Chen suddenly opened his eyes, a sharp glint seeming to flash within them. Although his face was still pale, his whole spirit seemed to instantly invigorate a little!
Ling Chen naturally couldn't cultivate abilities, but spiritual energy, in essence, was interconnected. The Hetero-Crystal merely contained spiritual energy, and when it flowed into Ling Chen's body, it was naturally converted into blood energy.
"Did you feel it?" He released his hand, the Hetero-Crystal still resting in his palm, but its surface luster seemed to have dimmed by an extremely tiny amount, "That's... that feeling... guide it... absorb it..."
This miraculous scene completely ignited everyone's hope!
"I'll try!" Li Mingyu eagerly grabbed the largest Hetero-Crystal, mimicking Ling Chen, clenching it tightly in his palm. Then he sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, his face flushed, muscles bulging, as if wrestling with some invisible force.
Sun Qiang and Zhou Yunguang each took a crystal, found a spot to sit, and began to try.
Wu Tao hesitated for a moment, then also picked up a smaller one.
The other students who didn't have Hetero-Crystals watched eagerly, or went to search the corpses of other mutated rats, hoping to find any overlooked crystals.
Lin Wei didn't move. She looked at Ling Chen, then at the few people who had started "cultivating," and the unease in her heart grew stronger.
She walked to a relatively intact mutated rat corpse, squatted down, and carefully dissected its chest cavity with tweezers found in the chemistry lab. Sure enough, on the heart, she found a rice-sized, much duller Hetero-Crystal.
She picked one up, and a cold sensation came through. She tried to concentrate and feel it, as Ling Chen had described. However, besides the cold touch of the crystal, she felt nothing. No warm current, no electric current, only dead silence.
She looked up at Li Mingyu and the others.
Li Mingyu's muscles were taut, veins bulging on his forehead, sweat streaming like a small creek, and the fist holding the Hetero-Crystal even trembled slightly, as if he was enduring immense pain.
The Hetero-Crystal in his palm was visibly dimming at a speed perceptible to the naked eye, and faint wisps of pale red air, like smoke, escaped from between his fingers, slowly seeping into his skin.
Sun Qiang's situation was similar; an abnormal flush appeared on his metallic skin, and the arm holding the Hetero-Crystal emitted a faint "humming" sound, as if the metal was undergoing some high-frequency vibration.
Zhou Yunguang, however, appeared much calmer. He closed his eyes, his brows slightly furrowed, and the Hetero-Crystal in his hand emitted a soft white light. That light, as if alive, spread in threads along the meridians of his arm, finally converging on the hand holding the light tube.
The old projector light tube even emitted an extremely faint hum as the white light infused it, and the residual scorch marks on the lamp head seemed to fade slightly.
Wu Tao, on the other hand, looked very strained. His face was flushed, his breathing rapid, and the hand holding the Hetero-Crystal trembled violently. The crystal's light flickered erratically but showed almost no sign of weakening. Instead, wisps of white mist seemed to be drawn from his body by the Hetero-Crystal, making his face grow even paler.
Among the other students who found Hetero-Crystals, some struggled painfully like Li Mingyu, while others, like Wu Tao, showed no reaction, or even worse; one boy suddenly screamed, the Hetero-Crystal in his hand shattered with a "crack," and he himself collapsed, bleeding from his nose and mouth, falling unconscious.
"Did he fail?" Someone whispered in horror.
"Don't touch him!" Ling Chen weakly warned, "Energy backlash... let him... recover on his own..."
The atmosphere in the classroom became somewhat eerie. Some people were growing stronger through pain, some were struggling in vain, and others could only watch in fear.
Ling Chen leaned against the cold wall, eyes closed in rest, as if all his strength was spent. Only he knew that his consciousness, like a cold viper, silently roamed in the darkness.
His mental power, like invisible tentacles, quietly enveloped the entire classroom, focusing on those who were "cultivating."
For Li Mingyu and Sun Qiang, the awakened strength-type and defense-type Ability Users, he not only did not stop them but secretly guided them.
His spiritual power was like a lubricant, helping them sort out the violent and complex energy within the mutated crystals, guiding this energy to more smoothly scour and strengthen their muscle fibers and metallized tissues.
He could “see” Li Mingyu's muscle density increasing, and his bones emitting subtle sounds of strengthening; Sun Qiang's metallized skin's defense and toughness were also slowly growing.
These two were the “enforcers” he currently needed to rely on; the stronger, the better.
As for Zhou Yunguang, the unexpected Awakener with Guangren (Light Blade) ability, Ling Chen's attitude was much more complex.
Light naturally restrained low-tier ghouls.
Zhou Yunguang had immense potential, but that also meant he was a threat.
Ling Chen's spiritual power carefully entwined itself, not to guide, but to… pollute. He subtly mixed a trace of extremely faint, ghoul-like cold death energy, like ink dripping into clear water, into the light energy Zhou Yunguang was channeling.
This trace of death energy would not immediately harm Zhou Yunguang, nor would it even be easily detectable, but it was like a seed, lurking deep within Zhou Yunguang's energy core, slowly growing as his power increased. In the future, when Zhou Yunguang tried to break through to a higher level, or unleashed his full power, this trace of death energy could become the fuse for his energy to spiral out of control and backfire on him.
This was a hidden trap Ling Chen had laid.
As for Wu Tao and the other ordinary classmates who attempted, Ling Chen mercilessly suppressed them! His spiritual power was like a cold needle, precisely piercing the mental nodes they tried to connect with the mutated crystals, roughly interrupting their senses, and even creating the illusion of energy disorder within their bodies.
The “pulling force” Wu Tao felt was Ling Chen's secret mischief, making him mistakenly believe that the mutated crystal was absorbing his life force, thus instilling fear and causing him to voluntarily give up. The boy who fainted with blood overflowing from his nose and mouth was the result of Ling Chen “applying a bit more force”—a warning to make others retreat in the face of difficulty.
As for Lin Wei, it was simply because the mutated crystal she held was of too poor quality.
Blood energy not only enhances the physical body but also a certain degree of spiritual power. Logically, at such a low level as a ghoul, using spiritual power would be a fantasy. But Ling Chen was different; he possessed the Soul Jade Physique.
Coincidentally, the sole purpose of the Soul Jade Physique was to enhance and stabilize spiritual power.
And Ling Chen, having experienced such a long time in his previous life, would certainly know some minor uses of spiritual power.
Time slowly passed amidst painful growls, suppressed gasps, and sighs of failure.
Outside the window, the sky, from the thick, inky blackness of deep night, gradually revealed an unsettling, rust-like dark red, signaling the imminent rise of the blood moon. The first day after the apocalypse was about to arrive.
When Li Mingyu suddenly opened his eyes and let out a low roar like a wild beast, his entire body's muscles swelled up as if inflated, and the blue veins beneath his skin writhed like coiling dragons, brimming with explosive power! He spread his palm, and the mutated crystal had completely turned into grayish-white powder.
“Awesome!” he roared, slamming a fist onto a overturned iron desk nearby!
“Clang!”
With a dull thud, the heavy iron tabletop was actually dented with a clear fist print! The edges were twisted and deformed!
“My strength… it's grown! So much stronger!” Li Mingyu looked at his fist ecstatically, his eyes filled with disbelief.
Ling Chen's eyes flickered; he had indeed grown stronger. The lowest tier of the Awakener cultivation system was the Spirit Awakening Stage, divided into ten levels. Each level up required roughly three of the lowest-tier mutated crystals, which was essentially similar to the energy demands of ghouls. However, ghouls gained an additional blood lines at the corner of their eye with each level, a characteristic that was too obvious, so the ghoul stage adopted a 30-level system.
Judging by Li Mingyu's current condition, the Rat King's mutated crystal had given him half a level of gain, which was already quite rare at this stage.
Immediately after, Sun Qiang also let out a long breath and opened his eyes.
The metallic luster on his body seemed more subdued and profound. He moved his arm, and his metal joints made smooth “clack-clack” sounds, indicating that his defense had clearly improved.
Zhou Yunguang, after suffering one backlash, persisted in cultivating. At this moment, the mutated crystal in his hand also turned to dust. He opened his eyes, his gaze brighter and sharper.
With a thought, the old flashlight in his hand once again emitted a faint white light. Although far less intense than during the previous battle, the light was stable and concentrated.
“They succeeded! They succeeded!” Chen Xue cried out excitedly, her gaze towards Ling Chen filled with gratitude and admiration, “Ling Chen! Thank you! If it weren't for you…”
The other classmates who had failed the attempt looked at the changes in the three of them, their eyes filled with envy and disappointment.
Wu Tao pale-facedly released his hand; the mutated crystal in his palm had consumed less than a tenth of its light. He smiled bitterly and shook his head: “It seems… my talent isn't enough.”
Ling Chen smiled weakly, his voice still hoarse: “No need… to force it… Abilities… are inherently… a chance… for the few…”
He struggled to stand up but stumbled, almost falling, fortunately caught by Chen Xue beside him.
“How are you?” Chen Xue asked worriedly.
“I'm fine…” Ling Chen waved his hand, his gaze sweeping over the messy classroom and Wang Lei, who was tied up in the corner and whose aura was growing weaker (due to excessive blood loss and mutation consumption). He frowned tightly, “It's just… food and water… are almost gone…”
Upon hearing this, everyone's hearts sank. The fierce battle and cultivation had consumed immense physical strength, and the feelings of hunger and thirst surged like a tide.
“I'll go find some!” Li Mingyu immediately thumped his chest and stood up, his newly acquired strength making him burst with confidence, “I'm incredibly strong now! Any monster that comes, I'll flatten it!”
“No!” Wu Tao immediately objected, “We don't know what the situation is like outside! It's too dangerous!”
“Then what? Wait to die?” Sun Qiang said in a muffled voice.
“I'll go,” Ling Chen's voice sounded, not loud, but it instantly stopped the argument.
Everyone looked at him.
His face was pale, new blood stains were seeping through the bandage on his left arm, and his body was so weak that it seemed a gust of wind could blow him over.
“Ling Chen! What are you talking about!” Chen Xue was so anxious that tears were almost coming out, “You're so seriously injured! How can you go out?”
“That's right, Ling Shao! You stay! I'll go!” Li Mingyu also became anxious.
Ling Chen shook his head, his eyes calm and firm: “Here… only I… am most familiar with the school… I know… where there might be… stored emergency supplies… and…”
He paused, his gaze sweeping over everyone, carrying a hint of imperceptible profound meaning: “My ability is ‘Beast Taming’… it seems… to have some effect… on low-tier mutated creatures… If I encounter danger… I can… maneuver a bit…”
He was referring to the two previous “coincidental” intimidations of mutated creatures.
Li Mingyu and Sun Qiang wanted to say something more, but Ling Chen raised his hand to stop them.
“Don't worry… I'll… be careful…” He forced a smile, “You… guard this place… and wait for me… to come back…”
His gaze finally fell on Lin Wei. Lin Wei was also looking at him, and deep within her amber pupils, that trace of doubt still surged like an undercurrent beneath ice. Ling Chen met her gaze calmly, his eyes clear and tired, like an injured person willing to face danger for everyone.
Lin Wei's lips moved, but in the end, she said nothing, only nodded silently.
“Ling Chen…” Chen Xue still wanted to stop him, but Ling Chen gently pushed her away.
“Help me… treat my wound… change to a… clean bandage…” Ling Chen whispered to Chen Xue.
While Chen Xue carefully unraveled the blood-soaked bandage and re-bandaged it, Ling Chen closed his eyes, his consciousness sinking deep into his body.
In his stomach, the ethereal blue crystal core (mutated crystal) from Mu Xi was being slowly and steadily refined and absorbed under the suppression of the Soul Jade Physique.
Pure flesh and blood energy, like sweet spring water, nourished every hungry cell, repairing the real penetrating wound (torn by Rat King's claw), and also pushing the perfectly suppressed bloody lines deep in the corner of his eye towards the second one.
However, this was not enough! Far from enough!
The early stage of the Ghoul tier was a critical foundational period. The quality of the “flesh and blood” consumed directly determined the upper limit of future potential! The energy contained in ordinary mutated rat's mutated crystals was complex and thin, barely enough to satiate hunger. Although Mu Xi's crystal core was pure, the quantity was too small.
He needed more powerful “blood food”! He needed a more perfect “transformation”!
Deep in his consciousness, a scene emerged—
Deep within the Ling Family Villa, that constant-temperature cultivation room.
More than a dozen specially made reinforced glass tanks were neatly arranged, filled with icy blue nutrient solution. In each tank, a massive bat, far larger than usual, with a wingspan approaching half a meter, hung upside down!
Their fur was not the common grayish-black, but a bizarre dark purple, shimmering with a metallic luster under the faint glow of the nutrient solution. What was most chilling was their heads—their snouts were abnormally protruding, with fangs exposed like poisoned daggers, and around their tightly closed eyes, a layer of fine, dark golden patterns, like circuit boards, covered them!
These bats were the “Purple Lightning Bat” he had meticulously cultivated using Ling Corporation's biological laboratory resources, combined with his memories from his previous life! These were the perfect consumption materials he had chosen for himself.
They and their mutated crystals were the most perfect catalysts for “secondary mutation”!
Secondary mutation!
This thought, like a poisonous fire, scorched Ling Chen's soul.
This was a forbidden path belonging only to the mutated faction!
In the brief window after the initial mutation, before genes were fully solidified, it involved forcibly plundering the advantageous traits of another powerful creature (usually its core mutated crystal or highly active tissues) and integrating them into oneself! Like grafting, like possession!
The risks were immense! Gene collapse, consciousness annihilation, becoming a monster neither human nor beast… failures were countless.
But the gains were equally astonishing!
The frail human body was inherently far inferior to many fierce beasts and birds of prey in terms of strength, speed, defense, and even special abilities. Secondary mutation was a shortcut to break through racial shackles and obtain power beyond limits!
A subtle glint flashed in Ling Chen's eyes.