Evolution Begins with Elemental Domination

A torch now blazed before him.

The Resonance trait, besides establishing a connection with natural Elements, had another major benefit: it allowed him to roughly perceive the glow of Rune Essence emanating from another person’s Sea of Consciousness.

It was like a candle flame flickering inside a skull.

What was more interesting...

A moment ago, dense bio-currents had flashed between the residual muscle fibers on the opponent’s skeleton. In the next instant, a layer of Shadow instantly wrapped around its body, creating faint spatial ripples.

Startle, Shadow Jumping Skill... it was all very familiar.

A pathetic imitation.

Su Chen found it amusing. He wondered if this zombie, having lost most of its flesh, could even achieve half the effect by forcefully activating Startle. He simply waited for it to walk right into his trap, where he would use Strong Thought Imprisonment to kill it.

Immediately, after cracking open its skull and plundering the contents, he fed the Level 4 Startle and Shadow Jumping Skill to the corresponding Runes as upgrade materials. The progress bar shot up, and it also provided the needed Spiritual Dust Sand.

He didn’t dwell on it. The one before him was just an appetizer.

This strange fungus’s hive mind had discovered him as well—not just through its flesh puppets, but through its underground mycelial network and the airborne spores that served as its eyes and nerve endings.

The next instant, not far away, a grotesque creation of flesh and large fungi opened a maw filled with dense, sharp teeth.

’I’ll kill you...’

A Screaming Skill erupted from it.

The sound spread out like the final wail of a dying person. Where the sound waves passed, visible ripples appeared in the air, and even light itself seemed to twist.

However, just as the sound wave was about to reach Su Chen, ripples appeared on his body as if on the surface of water. The cicada-wing-thin film of water was impossible to penetrate; instead, it precisely captured the sound, focused it into a sonic cone, and accelerated it toward the figure of a Parasite Body leaping toward him in the distance.

With the Elemental Mastery trait, the doubled effect wasn’t limited to just damage.

The sonic cone, like an invisible spear, made the target stiffen. A trickle of blood seeped from its eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.

”Your voice pack could use an update. It’s always the same line.” Su Chen faced the threat with indifference.

Even under the inescapable watch of the hive mind, his figure still leaped forward.

The ground suddenly roared and trembled. The earth where he had stood exploded as more than ten tree-trunk-thick roots burst out. But by the time they closed in to surround him, his figure had already vanished like a phantom.

However, the moment Su Chen appeared, the fungal consciousness responded with extreme speed. A surging wave of water vapor suddenly spread out from around him.

Before the water prison could form, he phased through it, effortlessly passing through the dense mist without a single drop of water touching him.

The next instant, he had leaped above the bizarre mushroom forest, looking down with cold eyes upon the disgusting woodland.

Under a shroud of crimson, blood-red mist, a patch of the forest had been corroded by a purplish-red fungal carpet. The ground had collapsed into a giant pit, its bottom resembling a Flesh Mill. Rotting viscera were piled up like mountains, and severed limbs were scattered about.

In the center of it all stood two gigantic, ovary-shaped flesh cores.

Su Chen’s brow furrowed. His Strong Will pierced through the trembling red membrane. Though it was consciously blocked, he could vaguely make out the silhouette of a half-human, half-beast figure. He wondered what kind of deformed monstrosity needed to be specially incubated within.

”Goodbye.”

Before the words had even left his lips, the red spore mist surged toward him like a tide of blood. The surrounding vines and tendrils thrashed wildly, their tips splitting open to reveal ghastly bone spikes that flew at him.

But it was all a step too slow.

’Core Meltdown!’

A distorted, incandescent white force field descended from the sky. Under the gravitational collapse, before the spore-laden blood mist could even close in, it was completely vaporized by the overwhelming heat.

The vines and tendrils, having only extended halfway, also carbonized and disintegrated.

This terrifying force crashed down unimpeded into the Flesh Mill at the bottom of the pit. The two flesh cores incubating the monstrosities, along with the fungal carpet in a radius of several dozen meters, were all melted and pulverized.

The intense heat sent white steam rising, hissing into the air.

If the flesh-and-blood maw that resembled a man-eating flower hadn’t also been obliterated, Su Chen would have liked to hear its thoughts.

Building on his previous experience, his Strong Will seeped into the scorched earth to search for treasures.

He didn’t find any Rune Essence.

But he did discover a rare treasure.

Several meters down in the pit, countless mycelial strands were frantically wrapping around a jade-green Lingzhi, rapidly dragging it deeper underground. Just touching it with his mind, he could feel a surge of vibrant, powerful life force.

’Good stuff...’

’This thing is destined to be mine.’

Su Chen’s eyes suddenly lit up.

The triple-woven Technique was instantly unbound. With the simple Gravity Skill restored, he combined it with his permeating Telekinesis to lock onto the Lingzhi entangled in the mycelia.

BOOM!

A large slab of scorched rock slowly rose into the air. As the mycelial strands snapped inch by inch, the Jade Lingzhi was gradually and forcibly stripped away by his will.

While the two forces were locked in battle, the sturdy Parasite Body that had been stunned by the sonic scream charged forward like a flesh-and-blood chariot.

At the same time, a two-headed monstrosity appeared from the shadows of the distant canopy. Its left head unleashed linked Wood Element snares, while the right specialized in Water Element Magic, creating a surging wave of water vapor.

The Water Mist Skill was activated, obscuring all vision.