After leaving the activity room, Chen Chu proceeded to the cultivation room to practice his saber art and the Dragon Elephant Art. He continued until the school bell rang at four in the afternoon.
Today, he didn't go to the reading room, but left the school early instead, taking a taxi to the Animal Market.
It was the same pet store he had visited for the last two insects. Chen Chu walked in and greeted the owner with familiarity. "Boss Li, do you have the bugs I ordered?"
Seeing a familiar face, the owner smiled. "Here, I've put them in a box, and to account for any of them dying on the way, I've added a few more for you."
Boss Li led Chen Chu to a shelf where a small box, twenty centimeters in length and width, lay. The inside was stuffed with some rotten leaves.
Four insects, each about three centimeters in length with slender bodies and a metallic luster, crawled around inside. Their most distinctive features were their prominent compound eyes and six unusually long legs.
"These bugs are quite common, but catching them can be tricky, since the creatures in the wild are starting to become more aggressive and show signs of mutation.
"Since we're acquaintances, I'll only charge you four hundred this time."
"Sure. Thanks, Boss."
Chen Chu didn't haggle, simply paying the four hundred yuan. Carrying the box and a carton of food called Powder Bugs, he walked out of the store.
This was what Chen Chu had prepared for the avatar’s next evolution. It was an insect called the Tiger Armor Beetle, a carnivorous species.
Its most famous trait was its speed, in which it was claimed to be number one in the insect world. It could move a distance three hundred times its body length in an instant.
After deciding to enhance speed for the next evolution, Chen Chu had done a lot of research on speedy animals. He had even considered mutated beasts; those, however, excelled only in strength and defense. None of them were as formidable as the armored beast in its current form if they were in the same weight class; he had briefly looked at ones with special abilities, but even if he could afford one of them, he wouldn’t be able to defeat and devour it.
He had also considered some special organisms, such as the Water Bear. While it was categorized an insect, it looked more similar to a microorganism, and was famous for being a supposedly immortal creature. Its vitality was terrifying, allowing it to survive in extremely high and low temperatures and adapting to all types of environments; it could even survive in outer space.
But, after carefully reading the information about this creature, Chen Chu ultimately decided against it. The adaptation that allowed it to live for up to hundreds of years had turned out to only be an ability to go into a dehydrated dormant state to wait out unfavorable conditions. Immobile and incapable of doing anything, this state might as well be death, since it would be completely helpless against an enemy attack.
Coupled with its life cycle naturally being only a few weeks long, calling it “immortal” was a very large stretch.
Eventually, he had settled on the Tiger Armor Beetle. Once the avatar absorbed these genes, it wouldn’t even need a speed of three hundred body lengths; just ten would be an amazing boost.
It was past five, and Chen Hu, returning from school, was surprised to see Chen Chu already at home. “Bro, you’re back so early today.”
"Yeah, I had something to do today and left early." Chen Chu called Chen Hu over, pointing at the box on the table. "While I’m gone for the trial, remember to feed these for me."
Chen Hu curiously looked at the beetles on the table and asked, "Bro, what are these bugs?"
Chen Chu casually found an excuse. "Tiger Armor Beetles, I bought these to be my new pets. Just throw a few Powder Bugs down there every day while I’m gone."
Considering the current growth rate of the armored beast, it would likely reach its third evolution by the end of the month. By that time, Chen Chu might still be in Kyrola, so he would need to entrust someone with the task of feeding one of the beetles to the armored beast.
Once his avatar was ready to evolve, he would call Chen Hu to go out at night and simply throw the box containing the beetles into the river. He just needed to think of a good excuse to do so.
After arranging everything, Chen Hu took the initiative to cook; this kid had become increasingly diligent lately. Seeing this, Chen Chu took the beetles upstairs, supposedly to cultivate.
In reality, he leaned back in his chair, as his consciousness shifted.
A lizard-like black head emerged from beneath the muddy waters of the roaring river. The silt rolled as the crocodile-like armored beast pushed up from the riverbed. With three pairs of red-feathered horns, it looked extremely ferocious.
Lately, regardless of whether it was day or night, once Chen Chu felt that the armored beast had digested enough, he would direct it to continue hunting. However, this was the estuary of a deep, wide river. There were fierce fish, originally from the sea, that had adapted to the freshwater, and could grow to sizes exceeding eight meters, such as the mutated White Sharks covered in scales or the Tiger Whales with horns on their heads.
Unsure of the strength of these huge mutated fish, Chen Chu didn’t feel it necessary to fight them, instead opting to turn away or burrow into the riverbed to hide. It would be wise to not get injured and slow down the growth process.
Thirty meters below the river surface, the water was murky, and the armored beast could only vaguely see in a range of ten or so meters.
As the armored beast roamed around, a shadow over three meters long entered its field of vision in the distance. Instantly, the armored beast's eyes lit up.
Unlike with humans, it was easier to judge the strength of mutated beasts underwater. Generally, the larger the body size, the stronger they were, with only a few exceptions, such as that two-meter-long mutated fish it had encountered before.
The fish had a body like a sword, and had been terrifyingly fast. It had swooped by in an instant, tearing a three-meter-long mutated fish into two halves. It had then encountered the armored beast, meeting its fate of being devoured.
The armored beast had also paid a price, however; the sword-shaped fish had slashed a half-meter long wound on its abdomen.
It had only been a few millimeters deep, but this was the first time the armored beast had been injured after evolving, which had been startling to it. After all, its exoskeleton was only two centimeters thick. If that fish had been a few times stronger, it would have posed a serious threat. Chen Chu had become much more cautious after that.
By now, the mutated fish currently in the armored beast’s vision had spotted it in turn. Due to the size difference, instead of running away, it actively approached.
It was a small mutated shark, covered in gray scales, with a mouth full of sharp teeth. Seeing the ferocity of the armored beast and its robust and sharp limbs, the fish didn't immediately attack. Instead, it circled around cautiously.
Observing the fish, the armored beast seemed to be afraid and defensive, shrinking its limbs to its sides with slow and clumsy movements as it stayed on the riverbed.
After circling the armored beast a few times without sensing any danger, the shark wagged its tail and suddenly rushed at the armored beast from behind, opening its sharp jaws wide to fiercely bite down on the back of the armored beast's head.
The seemingly clumsy armored beast suddenly sank its body, turning around onto its back beneath the shark. Its four claws firmly grabbed onto the fish's body.
The armored beast's sharp claws tore through the shark's scales. As the shark struggled frantically, the armored beast bit down in turn, tearing a huge hole in the fish's abdomen.
Instantly, blood sprayed out, turning the surrounding river water red.
Against the four-limbed armored beast, these fish had no chance of escape once caught. With just a few bites, the armored beast could tear through their bellies.
In the blood-stained water, the black-colored beast began to feast, tearing off large chunks of fish flesh with every bite.