Chapter 428

Chapter 428: Provocation

"Wuhu~"

Behind Wang Xiao, Fresnel poked his head out of the sunroof and shouted loudly.

This superpowered individual, who rarely faced challenges during the day, had been honing his abilities recently. Considering that their exploration was also going to be during the day, Fresnel ultimately replaced Puppet Master and Beacon, who were assigned to the same group, to join the exploration team.

His task was not complicated: to burn everything along the way.

The sun’s rays gathered into dazzling beams, igniting countless tall grasses.

Within Fresnel’s range of ability, the flames were even brighter than the sunlight above.

He hadn’t burned things with such satisfaction in a long time; now that he had the opportunity, Fresnel cranked his output power to the maximum.

The burning of the tall grass served two main purposes. The first was to assess this unknown organism; although it resembled a plant, no one could make hasty judgments until the professionals at the research institutes spoke.

The second purpose was merely to annoy the Mycelium Ecology, to see if this method would provoke a counterattack from the entire mycelial system—after all, they had driven here and could retreat at any time if needed.

It is well known that plants, or most organisms, have a property: they can be ignited by flames.

If they cannot, it means the firepower is insufficient.

Thus, the strongest firepower belonged to Fresnel, making him the key to this plan.

Before the operation began, Arthur, who understood the spaceship’s energy system, personally charged the specially modified all-terrain vehicles; at that moment, the battery gauge was in the explosive zone.

With everything that could be considered taken into account, the exploration team finally set off.

After all, Arthur was no fool; he had to ensure that no superpowered individual fell into the hands of the mycelium.

Every lost team member would mean an additional advantage for the mycelium in future confrontations, something no one wanted to see.

In Hope City, Ji Yongxing took over communication with the outside exploration team. Although the transmitted images were lagging due to unknown interference, at least the communication remained functional.

For the exploration team, this also provided a new side mission: to search for possible mineral traces in the tall grass area.

According to the Old Era database, some minerals could significantly affect the plants growing above them.

Though this was a pattern summarized by scientists of the Old Era, no one could say for certain if it still applied to those things that had been assimilated by the mycelium.

—

In the will space of the Mycelium Ecology, three separate consciousnesses reunited once more.

"They are burning my body."

One formless consciousness stated; it was the consciousness responsible for the erosion, that is, the tall grass.

"We can feel the same pain."

The other two consciousnesses responded in unison:

"But in terms of our entirety, this doesn’t even count as one ten-millionth or one hundred-millionth. Why do you experience emotions like humans?"

"It is not an emotional fluctuation; it is about not allowing humans to trample us at will. As a more advanced existence, shouldn’t we eliminate these humans when our lives are threatened?"

"Your understanding has gone awry."

The Will of Evolution rebutted:

"I have seen a saying from many human memories: ‘The master should not act in anger.’ Need I explain its meaning? We are the will from which all mycelium is born; in other words, we are the masters of the mycelium."

"That’s right, the last battle resulted in even greater losses due to our previous defeats. We must learn from our failures to continuously overcome our weaknesses."

The consciousness responsible for nurturing also opposed this plan, especially since it had suffered the most during the last catastrophic beast tide.

Despite receiving nourishment from the other two personalities and the material flow from the bodies of extraordinary beasts that had fled the battlefield, it still endured heavy losses in that beast tide.

"Oh, it seems both of you share the same view."

"That’s correct."

"Then what if I told you that my tall grasses have informed me there are exactly twenty special individuals who have entered my body?"

"How many?"

The Will of Evolution instantly perked up.

"Twenty. We three are originally one entity, so I cannot deceive you."

The consciousness responsible for erosion spoke. As the words fell, it opened its perceiving mycelium to the other two personalities, revealing twenty glowing dots from the three all-terrain vehicles before the three consciousnesses.

These twenty special individuals, or twenty superpowered individuals, represented twenty entirely new superpowers.

Humans might envy the mycelium’s ability to assimilate everything, but the mycelium equally envied the infinite possibilities born from human individuals.

Over the past few decades, humans had sent out no fewer than two hundred superpowered individuals for exploration.

That should have been a valuable treasure, but at that time, the will of the mycelium was still in a state of ignorance and missed such a great opportunity.

It wasn’t until they analyzed part of the abilities from members of the Nian team and reproduced them that their thinking ability became indistinguishable from humans, allowing them to realize what they had truly missed.

The mycelium, which permeated the entire ecosystem, had found the remains of some superpowered individuals and had begun attempting to analyze their abilities.

However, without bodies and brains, this process would inevitably be complex and lengthy, making fresh humans—especially fresh superpowered individuals—a significant temptation for the mycelium.

If they could capture these special individuals, the first to gain substantial enhancement would undoubtedly be the personality of the Will of Evolution, followed by the consciousness of nurturing; ultimately, the mycelium as a whole would receive a massive boost.

For the mycelium, they were merely personality splits of the same individual, so there were no true hostilities or conflicts.

After confirming that there were indeed twenty special individuals, the three consciousnesses finally reached a consensus—

Let’s go for it!

With their opinions unified, the next step was to determine how to proceed.

There was no doubt they could not provoke a great beast tide for the sake of just twenty humans; both the cost and the current biomass reserves made it highly unrealistic.

However, the new type of self-detonating extraordinary beasts, produced by the Will of Evolution, could already be mass-produced by another consciousness.

Along with it, two new hybrid extraordinary beasts were also delivered.

Thinking of these disposable, low-cost extraordinary beasts, the mycelium consciousnesses reached an agreement.

So, the first step to starting the battle would be—a great migration.

Within the area of mycelium that governed evolution and nurturing, one thousand big trees withdrew their roots from the ground and began to crawl northward.