The Ultimate Evolution

The three cyborgs were currently leaning against the wall quietly with a deadpan expression. From a distance, they looked exactly like sculptures. Their principle was never to waste energy, because their master would be the one who had to pay for the nutrient solution to supplement their energy.

Sheyan gazed into the distance through the entrance of the cave and watched as the thunderstorm connected into a web, wantonly streaking across the sky. A ray of lightning would bolt down from time to time, striking fear into the heart of the creatures on the plain. When a stray lightning struck the ground about twenty meters away from him, Sheyan could clearly see the soil and plants being blasted away mercilessly. All that was left afterwards was a deep brown pit about 8 meters in circumference.

Some of the trees would also be also struck by lightning. Despite the wind and rain, the trees would still be set ablaze. The stubborn fire simply refused to be extinguished, turning the trees into lighthouses in the darkness.

Sheyan could not even imagine such a spectacle on Earth. His thought suddenly shifted to the various bizarre creatures on this planet — if only Sanzi was here!!!

Currently, Sanzi had encountered an awkward problem for a summoner — his power was more than enough, but….but there weren’t any creatures strong enough to establish a contract! What a depressing matter that was! That had now become his biggest bottleneck.

Sanzi, too, probably understood that Sheyan must have withstood tremendous pressure to pull him into Party Ace and give him the set of top-quality equipments. Even if the others did not say anything, it did not mean that they did not mind in the slightest. Sure, the equipments were useless to them, but they could be sold for utility points! In addition, Sanzi had been playing a minor role in all the party’s operations so far without making much contribution to the team, so he was understandably anxious.

Fortunately, Reef and Zi both used to be party leaders, so they knew that summoner was a profession which needed opportunities and luck to flourish. Summoners may remain unimpressive for a long time, but once their chances came, they would display their true worth.

Take the Metal Professor’s no. 1 fan, Fanu, for example. He had always been at the bottom rung of his party, but when he obtained the trust of a powerful stegosaurus, he immediately became the second-in-command!

Therefore, everyone in Party Ace still took good care of Sanzi, and they did so without complaint. But Sheyan knew that as the leader of this team, he could not let this situation persist for too long, or it would hurt the team greatly.

Now that Sheyan had successfully landed on planet Uplos and would likely encounter many powerful and terrifying creatures, this would be Sanzi’s greatest opportunity!

As long as Sheyan used the Ukiyo-e to record the creature he took a fancy to, he could summon the creature later in front of Sanzi. After that, there would only be two possibilities: either they embraced it with open arms, or they embraced it with their skills and weapons. Either way, they would not lose out.

Sheyan now fully understood why the Ukiyo-e was a unique reward for the Golden Side Mission! It may not seem useful at first, but when he started using it, he found that he needed it everywhere. Because with the Ukiyo-e, there would always be one more way to solve a problem.

Sheyan now felt the biggest shortcoming of the Ukiyo-e was that it had only three uses. Well, there were only two uses left now.

***

Sheyan contemplated Sanzi’s matter for a while, then recalled an important mission he had to perform on this trip. According to the miner, he had a good chance of completing “Silver Mission Series hidden branch, Chapter 2: Injection” on this planet. If he could do so, then he would not have to separate from his party for the next world.

When he checked the mission details, he found that, unbeknownst to him, the information on the Silver Mission Series had changed.

[ Silver Mission Series hidden branch, Chapter 2: Injection ]

[ Mission Briefing: You must inject energy into the liquid metal enhanced life-form within 30 days. There is a unique mineral on this planet called the lacrimal stone. The non-metallic component of lacrimal stones are very helpful for the division and increase in count of metal cells. You must obtain enough lacrimal stones to feed the liquid metal enhanced life-form. The more lacrimal stones you feed it, the higher your mission completion rate. ]

[ Hint: The liquid metal enhanced life-form is very sensitive to lacrimal stones, so when you get close to this strange mineral, you will feel the liquid metal enhanced life-form heating up. The closer you get, the higher the temperature. ]

Sheyan was shocked when he read the information.

“Didn’t the miner say spotted crystals? How did it become lacrimal stones?”

Well, reality had always been a cruel mistress. Sheyan could only accept it.

On a positive note, at least his wish had been fulfilled, in that he would not have to be separated from his party for the next world. Besides, as long as he did not mind being a bit unscrupulous, he could even make use of other human resources to help achieve his objective here, such as Aldaris…. The other worlds may not have such powerful contestants that he could use….

After organising his thoughts, Sheyan suddenly remembered that he had to pay a visit to the Cockatrice nest. The nest was actually on the other side of the mound. By the look of it, it probably used to be the lair of a large beast like a wild boar or a bear that had been abandoned. Who knew if the original owner had left or had fallen prey to the Cockatrices.

There were dense shrubs at the entrance of the cave, cleverly hiding the cave from the sights of those with ill intentions and shielding the cave from rain. Following behind the cyborgs, Sheyan crouched down and went in. Contrary to his expectations, the inside actually did not smell too bad. Several nests made of hay and feathers were inside.

The cyborgs found five eggs the size of a fist in the nests. The eggs were brownish-red in colour with rusty-brown spots on them. The cyborgs checked the off-line database and found that these eggs were not that valuable, so they suggested keeping them as dessert for Mr. Ramtas.

However, Sheyan rejected this suggestion. He believed that the petrification power of the Cockatrices had its merit. It would not be a bad choice to hatch them and give them to Sanzi to let him improve the breed, then tame them.

The west side of the cave should be the living room or entertainment area for the Cockatrices. Sheyan found many insects and small animals that had turned to stone here; it seemed that the Cockatrices had a hobby of collecting the petrified corpses of their victims. There were no gemstones or other such things. The only valuable object they discovered was a piece of ore, and it was not even a Pi ore. According to Cyborg No. 1, this ore was also a type of rare mineral. If he submitted the ore to the Empire, he could exchange them for 3 achievement points, which were quite considerable.

***

There was no doubt that going out hunting or walking in this thunderstorm would be an extremely dangerous thing to do, and it seemed that all the life-forms on Uplos knew this very well. Thanks to that, Sheyan and his group spent their first night on planet Uplos safely amidst the non-stop rumbling of thunder.

In order to express his satisfaction with the work of the three cyborgs, Sheyan rewarded each of them with an additional 250 grams of nutrient solution. For the cyborgs, this was comparable to the reward of an extra month’s pay for a normal employee. The morale of the whole team remained high as a result.

Sheyan had a lot of faith in Ramtas’ ability, so he went to sleep with a light heart. The next morning was a rare sunny day on planet Uplos. Two suns made their appearances in the sky, one in the south and one in the north. They spared no effort to pour heat and light onto the planet. With plenty of water, fertile soil and ample light on the planet, Sheyan was able to witness a miraculous sight.

A large number of plants were growing and thriving at a speed visible to the naked eye. They sprouted, budded, and finally bloomed, turning into brilliant golden sunflowers about half a meter high. They faced towards the suns to greedily take in the light and heat!

Imagine the spectacle of a sea of thousands of golden sunflowers, rapidly covering the vast plain as far as one’s eyes could see. It really was a breathtakingly beautiful sight!

Just as Sheyan was about to give the order to depart, Cyborg No. 1 stepped forward and said, “Master, I don’t recommend that we depart now. This kind of sunflower is the most dangerous when it blossoms. When it’s disturbed, it’ll spray a poisonous mist. When it fructifies, it can shoot hard seeds from its disc floret at a high speed, and the seeds are no less lethal than rubber bullets. More importantly, its flowering period is only half a day, so we can afford to wait.”

After hearing Cyborg No. 1’s words, Sheyan decided to see it for himself. He approach a sunflower and tried to touch it. As expected, the sunflower sprayed a white mist from the holes in its rootstalks. Even someone as robust as Sheyan felt a slight dizziness after he inhaled the mist.

It must be noted that the atmosphere here was not suitable for humans to live in to begin with. Sheyan needed to take in pure oxygen from time to time to alleviate his bodily needs. Coupled with this poisonous mist, the harm caused to the body would be quite severe. So, there was naught for them to do but to wait patiently.

Since it was a rare sunny day and he happened to be on a relatively tall mound, Sheyan decided to climb to the top to take a look. He found the unique-looking mushroom rock in the distance with little effort. It was about 20 kilometers away. Even at a normal human’s walking speed of 5 kilometers per hour, he could get there in four hours.

While Sheyan was staring at the mushroom rock from afar, he suddenly saw the flare of fire from a few spots on top of the mushroom rock. After that, a fierce explosion occurred. The power of the explosion was so strong that it made the top part of the mushroom rock collapse and fall off. Even from this distance, Sheyan could feel the impact when millions of tons of stone and dust crashed down to the ground!!