Chapter 33: Extraction Failed
Faced with this situation, Lin Jiayao calmed down.
I see… so this is what a Mimic is.
And after absorbing the 10g of blood crystals, Lin Jiayao felt her body evolve.
Now, she could slightly control her “main body” and make small movements.
First, she had to get out of Kumiko’s body.
She didn’t want to harm an innocent person because of her experiment.
“Let’s go, to Haiming District. We have a lot of work today~” Kumiko naturally linked arms with Kuriyama Chizuru.
But soon, Kumiko felt an itch in her nose and sneezed loudly.
“Achoo—”
Neither Kumiko, with her eyes closed, nor Chizuru, who was watching the road, noticed.
A 1cm diameter blob of viscous red pus was expelled from Kumiko’s mouth with the sneeze, landing silently on the ground.
They walked past the strange blob as if nothing had happened. Kumiko didn’t even realize she had expelled something so grotesque.
With that 1cm blob out of Kumiko’s body, Lin Jiayao was finally free from the intrusion of her memories.
Quickly, Lin Jiayao made Chizuru expel her main body as well.
“Strange, did I give you my cold?”
“Let’s get some medicine from the medical department after work.”
“Okay…”
The two walked away, neither noticing the two blobs of mucus on the ground, now sprouting blood-red tendrils and slowly crawling along.
About five minutes later, the two blobs merged.
Now, Lin Jiayao was completely blind.
She couldn’t see, couldn’t hear; she could only sense faint light sources, using the location of the other half of her body to guide the two halves towards each other.
Lin Jiayao felt that her current mode of movement was rather peculiar.
She could sense herself moving, but it felt like she was propelling a part of herself forward and then retracting the rest – a more advanced version of a slime mold.
Deprived of all her senses, including sight and hearing, guided only by faint light sources and the marker for the extraction point, Lin Jiayao slowly inched forward.
But when she was about 500m from the extraction point, the light source she sensed suddenly dimmed.
Two minutes later, everything went black, and she was back in the consciousness space.
「Extraction Failed」
Had she been discovered? Or had she been the victim of some unforeseen accident?
Stepped on, perhaps?
Lin Jiayao stared blankly at the safehouse and its illusory projection.
She finally saw what she looked like.
A blood-red, viscous blob, its veins clearly visible, floated in the air.
In this space, Lin Jiayao could see the blob’s details more clearly – it was actually composed of a vast network of blood-red tendrils.
The blob continuously extended tendrils in all directions, as if probing its surroundings.
If the tendrils didn’t encounter a living being, it would continue to spread until it was a thin film of interconnected filaments.
But the process stopped there, and the blob reformed into a ball, repeating the spreading motion.
Beside the blob were the stark system words: [Deceased].
What… what was this thing?
It looked 99% like a fungus from before the apocalypse.
Were the things expelled from Chizuru’s sneeze after the fungus in her body absorbed the blood crystals… spores?
It seemed the slime-like zombie Lin Jiayao had been controlling was a mutated fungus that had absorbed blood crystals.
No wonder she hadn’t been able to access any memories about abilities.
Perhaps such knowledge only appeared in the mature form.
But… what would a mature fungal zombie be like?
One thing was certain: it would completely take over the host’s body.
There were so many types of zombies, their evolutions varying greatly depending on the region.
Even Survivor’s Light couldn’t claim to have cataloged every type of zombie; they hadn’t even finished exploring the surrounding cities.
Almost every different environment had its own unique zombie variants.
Now, there was likely a new category to add to the zombie catalog – fungal type.
Lin Jiayao decided to call it the Blood Orb Fungus for now; it was a descriptive name.
She hadn’t yet figured out how to detect early signs of Blood Orb Fungus infection, nor did she know what the later stages were like.
Most importantly—where was the mother entity?
It seemed that Survivor’s Light was facing a rather tricky problem…
According to the information revealed on the radio, the Blood Orb Fungus had already erupted in a high-ranking ordinary human at least two years ago. Back then, it was simply considered a type of zombie that could mimic humans.
Presumably, the mature form of the Blood Orb Fungus would have an appearance and abilities similar to zombies. Otherwise, a large organization like Survivor’s Light wouldn’t have mistaken it for a regular zombie.
So, the process from Blood Orb Fungus to zombie… was it a form of metamorphosis?
Survivor’s Light still hadn’t released the results of their Mimic dissections. Could it be that the bodies hadn’t been preserved?
Or had everyone involved in the dissection become infected?
The more Lin Jiayao thought about it, the more uneasy she felt.
She had a feeling that Survivor’s Light might be in serious trouble before she and her sister even got there.
This wouldn’t do. Her sister was so hopeful. She had to find a way to save Survivor’s Light…
Thinking this, Lin Jiayao left the consciousness space.
There was still a long time before they reached Survivor’s Light. Lin Jiayao could use this time to understand the Blood Orb Fungus.
The easiest way was to gain its abilities.
Back in reality, Lin Jiayao looked at the system interface.
「Please retain your evolution」
「1、【Symbiotic Link Lv.1 (Blue): The split fungal tendrils can connect to other hosts, absorbing or transmitting small amounts of nutrients】」
「2、【Tendril Proliferation Lv.1 (Purple): Consume blood crystals to proliferate a large number of Blood Orb fungal tendrils, creating a fungal mat suitable for rapid tendril growth】」
「3、【Mimic Fruiting Body Lv.1 (Gold): Your fungal tendrils can transform the parasitized host’s body into a fruiting body, directly entering the mature stage】」
Looking at the evolution options, Lin Jiayao’s eyelids twitched.
Why did they all sound so disgusting…?
Could she choose none of them?
But she had to choose one, and she could only choose the second one.
The other two required existing fungal tendrils. Only by choosing the second evolution could she use blood crystals to proliferate them.
Even though the third option was gold, she could only choose it next time.
Lin Jiayao had a feeling that the third evolution was the key to how the fungal zombie transformed into a Mimic.
But she could only choose the second one for now; otherwise, even if she chose the third, she couldn’t study it.
The moment the evolution was complete, a sense of understanding washed over Lin Jiayao, and she was relieved.
Fortunately, this evolution didn’t require her to… expel fungal tendrils.
She simply gained the ability to create invisible spores.
If she attached the spores to blood crystals, they would absorb the energy and develop on their own.
She wouldn’t become increasingly monstrous.
Lin Jiayao breathed a sigh of relief. It was good to still be normal.
If she continued evolving, accumulating the abilities of all kinds of zombies, she couldn’t imagine what she would become.
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