Evolving infinitely from ground zero

As Lin Zichen was listening to Liu Chuanwu's voice message, the Shen Qinghan sleeping in his arms awoke.

She wasn't woken by the noise, she woke up naturally.

"I'm not sleepy yet, I'll go to bed later."

"Then I won't sleep either."

Shen Qinghan got up to turn on the light and picked up her phone to stay up late with Lin Zichen.

Lin Zichen said to her gently, "If you're sleepy, go to sleep first. There's no need to stay up late with me."

"It's okay, it's the holiday now, I can sleep till whatever time I want tomorrow."

As Shen Qinghan spoke, she opened a video app to watch a drama online.

It was a genuine online drama.

Not an anime educational video from Sakura Sea Country.

Lin Zichen glanced over.

Seeing that Shen Qinghan wasn't watching anime educational videos but was instead watching a genuine ancient palace drama from Jiuzhou, he couldn't help but lament, "My little dirty girl has actually stopped watching educational films, my youth is over."

"You're the dirty one!"

Shen Qinghan gave Lin Zichen a glare, took her earphones, and put them on, ignoring the annoying ghost.

Lin Zichen sidled up to her to watch the drama together.

After a while, he felt that the show had too much of a female fanbase flavor and didn't really suit his taste, so he stopped watching.

Instead, he opened the school app and browsed the Exotic Beasts section of the credit store to see if there were any new Exotic Beast Meat listed.

As he browsed, he noticed that the supply of Nine-Turned Soul Worm Meat, which had been in short supply since its recent listing, had become much more plentiful, and the price had dropped significantly.

The last time he checked, the price was 50 credits per pound.

Now the price had dropped to 40 credits per pound.

A 20% discount.

If nothing unexpected happened, it probably meant they found the habitat of the Nine-Turned Soul Worm, and the production had greatly increased.

Looking at the Nine-Turned Soul Worm Meat in the marketplace, Lin Zichen suddenly thought of a problem.

The product details of the Nine-Turned Soul Worm Meat showed that the Nine-Turned Soul Worm was a new type of Exotic Beast from the Origin Land that had only been discovered not long ago, and was extremely rare.

However, when he devoured the bodies of the Divine Plant Cult's masked men and the hunchbacked masked men during the day, he ingested a large amount of the life essence of the Nine-Turned Soul Worms.

Merging a large amount of Exotic Beast Gene from an external source internally was not something that could be accomplished overnight.

It was a huge project with an extremely long timespan.

At the shortest a few years, at the longest a decade or more, or even up to a hundred years.

The higher the grade of the merged Exotic Beast Gene, the longer the timespan required.

And with the Nine-Turned Soul Worm being an exceedingly rare Exotic Beast with strong spiritual power, its genes must certainly be advanced.

To massively merge the genes of the Nine-Turned Soul Worm, it would probably be difficult without at least a decade.

From this perspective, the masked men of the Divine Plant Cult and the hunchbacked masked men must have started merging the genes of the Nine-Turned Soul Worm at least ten years ago.

This suggested that the Divine Plant Cult's understanding of the Origin Land far surpassed any Earthly power.

The Nine-Turned Soul Worm, just recently discovered by Earth's forces, had already been utilized by the Divine Plant Cult long ago.

Essentially, any member with a bit of power in the cult had fused with the Nine-Turned Soul Worm Gene, using it to enhance their spiritual power.

In summary, in terms of awareness, resources, and heritage, Earth's forces were far from matching the Heretical Sect that was the Divine Plant Cult.

This was a rather despairing fact.

Because if Earth's forces couldn't even compare to a Heretical Sect affiliated with the Origin Land, it meant there was even less comparison with the Origin Land itself.

If it weren't for the world-protection force, Earth would've likely been completely occupied by the creatures of the Origin Land long ago.

The most fatal issue was that for some unknown reason, the suppression of the Origin Land creatures by Earth's protective force was weakening year by year.

In such an unfavorable situation for Earth's forces, it was only natural that there would be plenty of traitors.

The traitors all believed that Earth's forces had no future, and that rather than perishing alongside Earth's forces, they would choose to embrace the forces of the Origin Land and betray their own for a chance at survival.

To say "survival" might not be quite right.

According to the traitors, what they did was stepping out of darkness into light, living a more splendid life.

After all, embracing the Origin Land could gain them better resources for evolution, giving them a chance to break the limits imposed by Earth and evolve into higher forms of life.

After pondering these issues for a while,

Lin Zichen tapped a few times on his phone screen.

He spent a total of 800 credits.

And ordered 20 pounds of Nine-Turned Soul Worm Meat.

He had unlocked the Nine-Turned Soul Worm album back when he was in the coastal forest, and after unlocking it, he obtained the Biometric Attribute of "Advanced Spirit."

The reason he still bought the Nine-Turned Soul Worm Meat was to further enhance the strength of his "Advanced Spirit."

The mechanism of the Biometric Attribute "Survival of the Fittest" works like this:

Devouring the life essence of a certain Exotic Beast can unlock the album of that beast, allowing one to gain the most prominent Biometric Attribute of that Exotic Beast.

If one devours more of that beast's life essence in the future, it will enhance the strength of the corresponding Biometric Attribute.

After his battle with the fox-eared girl, Lin Zichen deeply realized one thing:

Having physical strength but lacking in spiritual strength can be very disadvantageous when facing opponents with psychic powers.

To eliminate this weakness, it was crucial to focus on strengthening his spiritual power.

Not necessarily to turn a weakness into a strength but at least not to let it hold him back.

After purchasing the Nine-Turned Soul Worm Meat,

Lin Zichen continued browsing the credit store.

After a few minutes, meat from an Exotic Beast he had never seen before successfully caught his attention.

Product: Dimensional Rat Meat.

Price: 100 credits/pound.

100 credits a pound.

Translated into money, that's equivalent to over a million per pound.

That's expensive...

Lin Zichen felt the price was a bit discouraging.

However, expensive items naturally have their reasons and value for being expensive.

As to whether it's worth it or not, he would know after reading the product details.

Thinking this, Lin Zichen clicked to view the product details.