While the shroom finished up with the purification process, Lucius inspected the needles that he had gotten from the lizard beings. They seemed to have been the appendages of an animal, as he could see tiny bits of flesh still stuck to the blunt ends.
The needles had an odd color, if he was asked to describe it perhaps obsidian purple. They were a little longer than him, making them the perfect length for a spear. And they felt glassy cold to the touch, making him wonder exactly what material they were composed of.
He carefully picked one out and inspected its tip. Its sharpness was beyond compare, well at least compared to anything Lucius had ever seen. And though it had groves around its shaft, it was surprisingly smooth, as if the groves themselves did not add any friction whatsoever.
~Hmm, I might be able to do some needlework on the arachnid skin with this,~ Lucius thought to himself, hoping that the needles would be both strong enough and sharp enough to puncture through the stone-like hide.
By the time the shroom had finished purifying the meat, all the other creatures had left and it was close to late afternoon.
The shroom quickly ran over the process, showing Lucius step by step the different things he would need to do if he ever decided to purify meat himself. Most of it seemed fairly simple and was more a matter of sitting and waiting than actually working.
"So this is safe to eat now?" Lucius asked once the shroom was done explaining.
"Should be, yes," the shroom replied, standing up.
"Then you won't mind eating some of it?"
"Of course," the shroom said with a wicked grin, before taking a large chomp out of one of the pieces of flesh.
Drool fountained out of its mouth with that bite, and the shroom took a moment to process what exactly it had just tasted. A moment later it began munching down on the remaining meat, not even taking a moment to breathe as it swallowed bite after bite, its mouth juices dripping to the floor at a disturbing rate.
"Oi, not all of it!" Lucius shouted, but his tail was already ahead of him and it grabbed the piece that the shroom was about to munch on out of its hand.
"This, I've never tasted anything like it," the shroom said after a moment, as if just only regaining its sanity.
"The two pieces you just ate are coming out of your share," Lucius said, before using catalyst absorption to test the quality of the meat as a catalyst.
[Catalyst absorbed.]
[Growth efficiency increased by 35%]
[Photosynthesis efficiency increased by 35%]
[Stats increased by 5%]
[Slight resistance to poison.]
[Quest complete.]
[+200 exp]
~Amazing,~ Lucius thought to himself as he read over the system notifications.
"Lighted One," Pagan whispered in warning.
As Lucius read over the system notifications, his tail was consuming chunk after chunk of meat at an incredible rate. It wasn't even four seconds before it had finished two pieces and was midway through its third.
"Ugh, Pagan grab the pieces," Lucius ordered quickly, trying to hold his tail back. ~Was I that hungry?~ he thought to himself.
Though his body did not seem to hunger, he felt a sense of satiation whenever his tail absorbed something. Sort of like a high from doing drugs.
"Pagan, have you ever tried catalyst absorption?" Lucius asked once his tail had calmed down.
"Catkyst, what?"
Lucius quickly explained to him the theory behind catalyst absorption and asked him if he could replicate it. But after several tries, it was clear that this wasn't a skill available to him.
~Makes sense though. Catalyst absorption is a system skill. And when I bought the sobriquet it never mentioned anything about sharing of skills~ Lucius thought to himself.
"Okay, then just eat it," he said after some thought.
"Wait, you want him to eat that?" the shroom interjected, shocked at the command.
"Yeah, is it a problem?"
"He is a prey creature. Prey creatures can't eat meat," the shroom replied as if stating the obvious.
"And who told you that?" Lucius retorted. However deep down he also felt that the shroom was right. The leaflings never ate anything, so he doubted they had the capability to absorb food, however, leaf beings were a new evolution, so perhaps.
"Hmm, I'll test it then," Lucius was about to say before Pagan abruptly bit into a piece of meat.
For a moment he kept still, however, another moment later his body began shivering and he regurgitated it. His body seemed to be rejecting the meat.
~Not possible, then,~ Lucius noted down.
"Anyway, let's get going, it's getting late," he said as he picked up the needles. The others picked up the meat and the remaining herbs before setting off on their journey back home.
They reached the 'normal' section of the forest in the late afternoon, and Lucius was more than happy to be back.
All the different creatures and weird plant life in the other section made him feel like he had to be constantly on high alert, like at any second some weird unknown creature might jump out and kill him. At times it felt like even the trees were in on it as well, like they would sprout from the ground and devour him whole.
However if there was one thing he missed about that part of the forest, it was his warm link to the ground. It was perhaps the only thing that gave him any semblance of safety.
Once they arrived at the area where the shroom had been imprisoned, Lucius put it back in its cage. However, did not bind it in ropes.
In part, this was a test to see whether or not the shroom would try to escape given the chance. However what it did not know, was that Lucius used a bigger pebble this time, one which pushed even the sticks that held the cage up to their limits.
After getting to the camp and bringing everyone down, Pagan began the photosynthesis session. Altogether the efficiency had been scaled up by 40% and Lucius was almost certain that Ghost would evolve today.
The session carried on like any other, the leaflings fell unconscious at different rates, with the largest chunk dropping out at around the 30-minute mark.
By the 35-minute mark, only three leaflings were left. This was the point at which Lucius began to feel the 'evolution' sensation emanating from Ghost. And in addition to this, he could feel a slight tingle emanating from the other two leaflings who remained as well.
By the 45-minute mark the other two leaflings had dropped out, and only Ghost remained. The 'evolution' sensation had become stronger and came in powerful waves.
Though evolution felt distant, from past experience Lucius could tell that it would only take a few more minutes for it to happen.
Slowly but surely Lucius's senses became duller, and his tie to the physical world felt weak. By the 50-minute mark, the feeling had become a burning sensation, threatening to melt his head, and that's when it happened.
Lucius was abruptly pulled out of the 'white' void.
Already he knew that this space wasn't his own. Just like with the Pagan's and the others, there was no burning ball, and though the area seemed to go off into infinity, he couldn't shake the feeling that this place was way too small to contain him.
~Seems I'm getting used to doing this. I remember exactly when I got here,~ he thought to himself as the system fed information into his mind.
[Evolution of secondary creatures has commenced.]
[Rewriting creatures' genomes...]
[ A new gene has recently been added to the Genome library.]
[Use new gene in creature's evolution process?]
~Huh? Was it the arachnid meat? But how come nothing happened after I ate the worms?~ Lucius wondered to himself.
After some careful thought, he accepted. Though he wasn't certain where exactly the new genes had come from, he wasn't very well going to miss out on the chance to see a new variation.
To be honest, he felt kind of excited. Before he had just been doing this for the sake of survival, but now he was looking forward to every evolution. To see what new thing he would turn into, to see how his children would turn out.
This world was beginning to become... exciting.
[Genome has been successfully rewritten to accommodate for the evolution process.]
And with that Lucius was ejected from that realm.
"Interesting," Lucius whispered, staring at the ominous pod that stood in front of him.
