Chapter 333
by fanqienovelChapter 333: The One Who Contributed the Most Turned Out to Be a Wood-Chomping Fellow!?
“Identify this rare paleo creature.”
The postosuchus Trilobite pinned a strange “lizard-type beast” firmly to the ground.
His new prey retained the primitive archosaur appearance—a lizard-like Large Head, stubby lizard-type limbs, and a short tail.
Yet it bore a short dorsal fin on its back, resembling a Mohawk hairstyle rather than the spectacular sail of a Deinosuchus.
Its build was also far smaller than the Deinosuchus.
“This guy’s called the hidden hunter, lived in the late Devonian. Fossils were found in Germany.”
“Length’s only about two and a half meters—half a Deinosuchus’ size.”
“Weighed just 50 kilograms, like a leopard.”
“Its discovery sheds light on the sail evolution in Dragon-type creatures’ wedge-toothed family.”
“Naturally, bagging this one was easy.”
While hunting Deinosuchus required targeting the “old, weak, or injured,” this creature was trivial prey.
Like a tiger killing a dog.
Against Deinosuchus, Trilobite needed instant saber teeth kills.
Here, he took his time—pressing big claws against the hidden hunter’s belly while calmly dissecting the “reality” before him.
“Right. Standard procedure next.”
“Taste test!”
“Chomp—!”
His maw snapped down viciously.
“Ghk…”
The hidden hunter choked out a dying gasp as saber teeth speared its neck.
Then…
Trilobite wrenched his head sideways!
“Rrriip—!”
Blood-splattered gore flew.
The hidden hunter’s head tore clean off.
Vertebrae shattered, spinal cord dangling wetly beneath the severed head.
“Thud!”
The head hit dirt.
Terror and despair crystallized in its eyes.
None could’ve imagined the Chaos Demon God—Chaos Councilor Shima Pa, 39th Seat—would perish so easily, like a punctured piss bubble.
“Dig in…”
Trilobite gnawed at the headless prey, watching as his Chaos Energy grew at an astonishing speed.
“Hmm…”
“Not bad…”
“The previous one gave me about 800,000 points of Chaos Energy.”
“This one provides roughly 200,000 points of Chaos Energy.”
“But…”
Trilobite opened the “Evolution STEAM Marketplace,” scanning the series of evolutionary process packages before shaking his head helplessly.
“One million Chaos Energy alone is far from enough.”
“What I need is a steady stream—a reliable investment project yielding stable returns!”
“Renting probiotics” and the “Evolution Consultation Room” showed him the potential of sound investments.
Yet he remained unsatisfied with both.
Though the “Evolution Consultation Room” carried low risk and near-zero costs beyond magic consumption, it operated sporadically. Its returns couldn’t match a single big hunt.
“Renting probiotics” was a stable income source.
But the monthly rent capped at 5000 Chaos Energy, half of which covered maintenance fees distributed to his spawn.
Unless the client pool exceeded a hundred, profits stayed negligible.
“So… I must identify the right scenarios, refine existing products, address customer pain points, and build a content ecosystem loop to empower value creation…”
“Hmm…”
“First, I should check which spawns contribute the most Chaos Energy and which contribute the least.”
“Then I can target enhancements.”
The system always had such features, buried under useless buttons.
Any strategy gamer knows this: you finish the game using a few key buttons, while others remain mysteries until you quit.
Trilobite browsed the data and jolted in surprise.
The “Trilobite spawn” hadn’t contributed Chaos Energy for ages.
These original spawns yielded less than the “microorganisms spawn.”
Though each microorganism was tiny, they accumulated over time.
Not that the sum was impressive.
“Still, packaging both microorganism types as sellable probiotics could generate decent income.”
“The Spiny Shark is passable—not abundant but acceptable.”
“The jumping spider? Purely for cuteness, contributing as little as the Trilobite spawn.”
“The carnivorous seed ferns in Themis bring occasional gains—they set traps, after all.”
“But then…”
“Wow!”
While Trilobite was flipping through the pages, he suddenly got startled by the numbers before him.
“What’s going on!?”
“So far, the top source of Chaos Energy for me has been… the fungal spawn!?”
—-
Just as Trilobite was amazed by his new find, Valaharl felt surprised too.
“I… must have joined myself with these… um… the Giant God’s Tower or the ‘large mushroom’.”
“I’ve become their will.”
“That little girl Themis, who knows nothing, did the same thing.”
“But it feels different from what I thought.”
“It’s more… well…”
“Vast!”
“And deeper.”
Valaharl gently shut her blood-red eyes, sensing her “Divine Body.”
It was the place making up the “Sacred Ground of Dantalin” with the “Giant God’s Tower” and “Divine Hills.”
She could feel the huge, surging life force in this Dantalin. The balls of “Holy Light from the Sun” and the tall “Dantalin” were just signs of this life force.
The real powerful life force was deep underground in Valaharl!
“Are these roots?”
“No, they aren’t that special.”
“It should be mycelium.”
“It had grown this far!”
She saw that the “Sacred Ground of Dantalin” was only like “hair,” while the mycelium below had spread to every part of Valaharl.
They linked the “God’s Dantalin” in different spots and covered all of Valaharl!
The mycelium at the bottom had even broken through many layers, reaching the Crystal Walls.
In some places, they covered the Crystal Walls thickly, like a web, making them stronger.
“Now I get it.”
“No wonder spots packed with mycelium weren’t broken by the Fantasy Tree of Subspace.”
“That’s why!”
“This helps!”
“And also…”
“Ah… um…”
Valaharl softly covered her mouth to stop a more awkward sound.
She felt a kind of pleasure building up and flowing into her body from far away, endlessly.
“What… is this feeling!”
“I’ve never felt anything like this before!”
“This warm stream rushing into my body… ah…”
“I feel like my body is swelling up.”
Actually, this showed that Valaharl was out of touch.
Although she aimed to protect the world and her people, she only cared about the survival and growth of her whole group.
As for how any single person in the group was doing, she didn’t know.
As a goddess born from the Will of the World, she had never felt “full” and didn’t understand how taking in energy could be so joyful.
The feeling she had was actually the “happiness of being full” from eating constantly.
Valaharl took some time to realize what this feeling really was.
But…
“What about the source?”
“Even though the kind Giant God put some demon god remains in the ground, the energy from them isn’t enough to cause this.”
“Plus, I can tell that this ‘pleasure’ doesn’t come from Valaharl, but from somewhere much farther away!”
“It even takes a long time to get here.”
“What could it be…”
Curiosity made Valaharl want to find the source.
She started searching bit by bit.
Soon, she noticed countless very thin threads of fungus stretching through cracks in the Crystal Walls, out to the “Primal Mud” and beyond!
Following a trace, she finally found the source.
“This is… the Fantasy Tree of Subspace!?”
“How could this be…”
—-
Trilobite understood what Valaharl didn’t.
“Hmm…”
“After all, fungi eat dead things, and they really like rotten wood.”
“Spores spreading in the wet swamp is perfect for them to live.”
“And this swamp is special too.”
“It’s a ‘Devonian—Carboniferous’ jungle full of water-loving seed ferns, so new spores have plenty of food.”
“That’s why the fungi give me a never-ending supply of Chaos Energy.”
“I see.”
Everything made sense now.
But Trilobite hadn’t thought that chewing on trees could add Chaos Energy!
“In the system vision, those trees look totally colorless, just like rocks.”
In the system vision, colors from deep red to light yellow show Chaos Energy, but they’re only for animals.
Plants in the system vision look like rocks, no color at all.
So Trilobite ignored the trees growing here.
But now, it wasn’t like that.
“Actually, that makes sense.”
“I’m a predator, a meat-eater, so I can’t use energy from plants.”
“To me, plants and rocks are the same.”
“So, getting some spawn that can eat wood well is really needed!”
“Now…”
Trilobite opened the spawn list.
He already knew what to do next!
“Ke ke ke, all for you!”
“When you’re investing, who worries about the cost?”