Coal Ball’s transformation exceeded Guan Tong’s expectations. As a red glow rippled across its fur, the creature’s body emitted a continuous “crackling” sound, as if its internal skeletal structure were being reorganized.
This made him worry that Coal Ball might be undergoing a brutal metamorphosis, but the cat’s expression looked calm, and it did not utter any wailing, so there probably wasn’t pain or other suffering.
That eased Guan Tong slightly, and he watched Coal Ball’s bodily changes more closely.
First, its bone density increased, evident from the undulating spine and the bony claw growths at the tips of its limb phalanges. Perhaps the dragonblood tree’s woody fibers had fused into its bones, which should make them far tougher.
Its fur changed as well, developing an extra layer of dark brown velvety hide. Guan Tong reached out to touch it; the texture felt very much like tree bark.
That confirmed his suspicion: this was the mutated dragonblood tree’s fibrous outer skin. Thinking of that bark’s incredible tensile defensive strength, he felt a surge of delight.
Even leaving other factors aside, this extra layer of dragonblood tree fiber alone elevated Coal Ball’s physical strength by one or two tiers, like putting on a layer of naturally high-defense armor.
But to Guan Tong’s surprise, an even more exciting change was still to come.
After the red glow on its fur faded, he noticed two red dots—Coal Ball’s pupils had turned dark red, emitting faint light in the dim environment.
Behind the skull where its eyes sat—more precisely, around the chest cavity—several dark red vine-like appendages were burrowing in and out along the ribs.
There was no doubt: those were the lethal long vines spread from the mutated dragonblood tree! Some viscous fluid flowed on them as well, the high-viscosity resin from the mutated dragonblood tree.
Guan Tong had not expected Coal Ball to gain this ability and was pleasantly astonished.
With its dramatically strengthened defenses plus the ability to manipulate these “blood vines,” its combined combat capability would become truly terrifying.
Coal Ball itself was ecstatic, eager to test its changes. It let out a call as several blood vines burst from its ribs, wildly lashing out and slicing through nearby trees with unstoppable force.
At that moment a bird call sounded in the air. Coal Ball suddenly sprang up, its blood vines lashing out like lightning, snaring a passing wild bird midflight and sending it straight into its mouth as a meal.
This creature...
Watching Coal Ball handle its new powers as deftly as if they were its own limbs, Guan Tong thought this was similar to when he first summoned Shadow.
The moment he could summon Shadow, Shadow was as controllable as an extension of his arm. Now Coal Ball manipulated the blood vines with the same natural proficiency.
“Meow!”
Coal Ball jumped back to Guan Tong’s side and affectionately rubbed its head against his chest, as if it knew the thing Guan Tong had fed it had significantly boosted its abilities.
Guan Tong looked at the big cat, which now reached his chest when standing upright, and thought that at this level, Coal Ball could indeed serve as a battle beast and fight alongside him.
Only...
Guan Tong hadn’t forgotten the Dragonblood Tree Heart’s side effect—the aversion to flame.
He thought for a moment, took a lighter from the Storage Ring, and said to Coal Ball, “Let me see how much you hate fire.”
When he lit a flame, Coal Ball blew it out with a single long exhalation as soon as it saw the fire.
Guan Tong lightly instructed it to stay put, then picked up some scrap material and set it alight.
With a smaller blaze, Coal Ball calmed down. It began making a “gurgling” sound from its throat, opening its mouth to bare its fangs and huffing at the burning debris. The blood vines at its ribs swayed and twitched.
If Guan Tong had not told it to remain still, the cat would have already leapt forward and used the blood vines to smother the flames or used the resin on the vines to suffocate the fire.
When the flames grew smaller, Coal Ball obeyed Guan Tong’s command and hopped back to a distance from the fire.
Before Guan Tong reached Coal Ball’s tolerance limit for extinguishing flames, he put the fire out.
Overall, small fires did not bother Coal Ball, but stronger flames triggered anger and stress reactions; when the fire grew larger, it would begin to flee.
Understanding this, Guan Tong realized that if he ever brought Coal Ball into battle against fire-using enemies, he could prepare in advance.
“All right, come back.”
Guan Tong waved to Coal Ball, calling it back to the shelter.
“Meow———”
Coal Ball stretched the sound, tugging at his patience with an unwilling expression, glancing toward the forest depths with every few steps.
Guan Tong knew it had become accustomed to the forests of the Pinglu Gorge and wanted to stay, but the situation was different now: the forest no longer hosted wild animals.
Relying on random luck to snatch a passing bird like before would, given Coal Ball’s current size, only fill a small part of its stomach—not enough to truly feed it.
“Stupid Coal Ball, if I left you here, what would you eat?” Guan Tong patted the cat’s head. “I can’t keep running out here every few days to feed you. I don’t have that kind of free time. Stay in the shelter for a while. If I later find a place where wild animals still exist, I’ll leave you there.”
Coal Ball meowed twice and obediently ran into the shelter.
Guan Tong retracted the shelter into the Wordless Book, then opened to the blank eighth page, which bore a small black dot.
A few days earlier he had tried to make a stroke; the instant he dotted the page, more than fifteen hundred Mind Power drained away.
That made him happy.
Because being able to make a mark without the page ejecting his hand meant he could write.
Lacking Mind Power wasn’t a problem—if he really needed to finish writing, he could fill it with a large reserve of Mind Power.
He hadn’t done that because, based on his prior attempts, he had arrived at an optimal Wordless Book usage strategy: only write when a Rule challenge needed completion.
That way, at the very least, the writing would likely help fulfill a Rule challenge, and it might even help others in the process.
For example, when he wrote an “anchor” on the seventh page to counter a Rule, the derived “Mental Stability Anchor Totem” had continued to protect Guan Tong and those around him with mental defense.
After finishing the Dragonblood Tree Heart test, Guan Tong planned to set out for Xisiya.
He had been in Sakura Prayer Country these past days, partly to collect Flowable Mind Power and partly to help Uenoshi accomplish the Serpent Hair Society’s official functions in Sakura Prayer Country.
In truth, he hadn’t done much; the whole replacement process proceeded surprisingly smoothly, with little internal or external resistance.
Sakura Prayer’s official internal institutions had already collapsed, nearly vegetative; the only department still functioning was the Peace Office.
Faced with the dominant Serpent Hair Society, the Director could only yield outwardly, despite any private misgivings. After the Antu defense battle, most of the Sakura Prayer populace chose to support the Serpent Hair Society.
From the outside, the Beixing Ascendants sent to assist Antu earlier had shown a conciliatory stance, so they did not intervene.
Other Human Consortium countries were either unable or too occupied with Super City construction to get involved; Xisiya certainly would not interfere.
Only Suroma objected. The moment the Serpent Hair Society announced its takeover in Bandzhen, Suroma’s official spokespeople publicly denounced it as an armed rebellion, suggesting they had plenty of spies embedded in Sakura Prayer.
But because Sakura Prayer had little presence in the world and Suroma’s global image had already suffered from previous incidents, their protests amounted to little.
With things stabilized here, Guan Tong planned to head to Xisiya.
He needed to collect the Flowable Mind Power that Black Star and White Star had been purchasing for him these past days, in preparation for the imminent release of the twenty-third Doomsday Rule. After all, the half-month Interval Period was not long.
Inside Suroma’s secret laboratory.
From multiple rooms, hundreds of thick, complex cables converged and were converted into a rectangular metal black box.
The black box bore no marking; its back held hundreds of power ports, while the front had data transmission cables as thick as water pipes. These cables connected to a specially made helmet that lay quietly on a metal chair.
If someone only looked at the helmet, they might think it was a simple, ordinary VR device.
But a glance at the metal black box and the dense array of power ports on its back would reveal that astronomical amounts of electricity and computational power were supporting it.
Before long, the laboratory door opened and two people entered.
Leading them was Dr. Haisen, who spoke as he walked: “Everything is ready. We only await Your Majesty’s personal witness of the experiment.”
The other man was Bruce. Unlike his usual solemn demeanor, a trace of excitement and expectation lit his features, as if a distant, impossible dream were finally about to come true.
They approached the chair. Bruce looked at the heavy helmet on it and knew this device served as the data-transfer equipment for memory backup.
He asked, “Where is the subject?”
Dr. Haisen picked up a walkie-talkie: “Bring in Subject Zero.”
Half a minute later, four assistants in white coats led a middle-aged man into the lab.
The man looked around with a mature face yet displayed the curious expressions of a child—an incongruous sight.
“This place is so big, so fun. I want to bring Mom and Dad to play here!”
The middle-aged man spoke at once, causing Bruce to frown.
Dr. Haisen hurried to explain: “Your Majesty, Subject Zero was arranged temporarily to save on energy consumption. He recently lost a fight and suffered a heavy blow to the head, which damaged part of his brain, causing cognitive decline and memory loss... his intelligence and memory have regressed to that of a six-year-old.”
Bruce understood: “Using him as the test subject saves energy during data transmission.”
“Yes!” Dr. Haisen nodded. “It’s like uploading files to the cloud. A 1 MB file requires far less space, time, and resources than a 1 GB file. Memory uploads follow the same logic. An ordinary adult’s memory is too large; uploading it consumes excessive energy. A subject like Zero, with only memories up to age six, saves a great deal of loss during upload.”
Having said that, Dr. Haisen signaled his assistants to secure the man into the metal chair. Once seated, the chair’s clamps sprang out and fixed him rigidly in place; he could not move.
“I can’t move. This isn’t fun. I want to go home, wah—” The man, with a child’s mind, began to cry and thrash.
“Administer the drug,” Dr. Haisen ordered.
An assistant retrieved a small metal box from his pocket, opened it, and revealed a single blue capsule.
After the capsule was placed in the man’s mouth and swallowed, he immediately calmed down, though his eyes rolled about wildly, appearing both placid and excited.
“This drug was specially developed to cooperate with the experiment; I call it Cerebral Wake Number One,” Dr. Haisen said. “After ingestion, the body falls into a numb state while the brain becomes unusually alert. This facilitates continuous, stable memory uploads and prevents mid-upload ‘disconnections.’”
Bruce nodded. “Begin the upload.”
Dr. Haisen took a remote with a single red button.
He respectfully offered the remote to Bruce with both hands.
“Your Majesty, this is a memorable dawn of a new era. Please, allow you yourself to unveil it personally.”