War Truck in the Apocalypse - Chapter 57

Evolution, or rather, mutation.

To Shen Cong, it was an unknown, brand new scientific system that surpassed what the current scientific world knew. He, just like everyone else, had to begin traveling down this system at the starting point itself and fumble about to understand all that was brought about by Activity. There were no systems that they could use as a reference, and neither was there any experience from their predecessors regarding this field. They had to trudge carefully forward for everything.

He had progressed smoothly until he gained the strength of four bulls, and now, he had gained power that was greater than five bulls.

But he had also suffered setbacks. There were a few times where he nearly died.

Yet Shen Cong did not give up. The adventures and stimulation in the new world made his life much more interesting compared to the time he lived alone. He also had the goal of becoming a superhuman, causing his life to seem to have gained color. The setbacks and hardships were nothing when he had a goal set far ahead of himself.

To suppress the siphon effect, he had to continue making his body stronger so that he reached the same level as Titan.

At the same time, he intended to test Titan’s limits and see just how many things it could perform Alloying for. He wanted to know whether Titan could perform Alloying without any limits.

Right from the bottom of his heart, Shen Cong did not think that Titan’s Alloying ability was limitless. It was just like how a person’s weight could reach 50 kg, 90 kg, 150 kg, 350 kg, and even 650 kg, but it would never reach 1,000 kg. The human organs could not bear with flesh that weighed a ton.

He needed to verify whether Titan’s Activity had that sort of “weight” limit as well.

But that involved a very dangerous territory: Titan might begin absorbing Activity quickly again. As of current, Titan was already at Level 1. Shen Cong had to carefully mobilize its Activity to complete Alloying, or else, if anything went wrong and the siphon effect appeared, its Activity would go out of control once more.

Right now, his injuries had not healed yet. As of right now, he did not test it. He could only focus on nursing himself back to health. At the same time, read up on information related to IT.

The dried sashimi was enough to last him for some time.

One day, two days, three days.

Time passed by quietly, and it was now the 16th of August. It was the hottest day of the year. It was 45.6 degrees Celsius outside, and it was practically a food steamer out there. While Shen Cong was nursing himself to health, he could only watch the water in the river bend reach the very bottom of the river bed. Now, only a small and shallow water puddle was left.

When he went to retrieve water, he was no longer able to get any clean water. He could only get murky water. Then, he used Activity-laced charcoal to purify it and boil it.

Deep cracks had already appeared on the stone and sand covered ground. Those cracks were as wide as fists, and Shen Cong could practically put his entire foot in.

This drought came fiercely.

He did not know how long it would last. Shen Cong did not have any good hopes for the weather in the post-apocalypse world. First, it delivered a storm that lasted for around a month. Then, a flood that was five to six meters deep arrived. Now, it was a drought that caused cracks as wide as fists on the ground. Aside from the few days of cloudy days, there was practically no day that had normal weather.

When Shen Cong was tired of studying in Titan, he played some games or polished as well as create bonemetal weapons.

Right now, he had quite a lot of bonemetal weapons. His long-distance bonemetal weapons consisted mainly of javelins and arrows. The maxillae of the brachyponera ants were great materials for creating arrowheads. Even though their power could not compare to the fang arrows, they were still much stronger than normal arrows created through Alloying. Shen Cong had already switched most of his arrows and arrowheads to maxillae arrows that had already been ground.

There were a total of fifty of them. Ten of them were made of brachyponera soldier ant maxillae. Shen Cong named them soldier maxillae arrows. The rest were naturally called worker maxillae arrows.

The arrows that were best in quality were the fang arrows created using fanged wolf fangs. There were a total of eight of them. The second best was the arrow made by the fang from the unspayed poodle, and there was only one of them. It was practically as good as the arrows made of the fanged wolf fangs, just slightly inferior.

It was the same for the fang javelins. Eight of them were made of fanged wolf fangs, and one of them was made from the unspayed poodle’s fang.

Aside from that, he also had blow darts and slingshot balls serving as his bonemetal weapons. Shen Cong just kept a blowgun for fun, and it was not strong. Since he had nothing to do, he was bored, so Shen Cong brought out the seven stinger Activity cores from the brachyponera ants. He could not use them for anything else, so he decided to grind them into blow darts. They might not be strong, but they were still very accurate in hitting the small targets at close distance.

The slingshot balls were ground from the antennae from the brachyponera ants. The antennae were in sections. Each section could be ground into a slingshot ball, and with Activity inside, when they were fired from a slingshot, their power was great. Shen Cong could get three slingshot balls from the three frontmost sections of an antenna alone. Shen Cong ground all the antennae, and he managed to get one hundred and forty-one slingshot balls.

He made thirty-five soldier antenna slingshot balls from soldier ant antennae, and another one hundred and six worker antenna slingshot balls from worker ant antennae.

After creating his bonemetal weapons, he was left with a pile of waste left behind by the Activity cores. He no longer had any use for them, but Shen Cong was reluctant to throw them away. In the end, he thought of something. The ant larvae ate metal. Activity cores were similar to metal. He did not know whether the ant larvae ate them. Still, he decided to throw them all into the plastic box.

Who would have known that the ant larvae would immediately cast aside the scrapped metal and start to gobble down on the scrapped Activity cores?

‘Activity cores can be used to feed the ant larvae…’ Shen Cong did not think that he was just reusing waste. Perhaps he could be able to understand something through the ant larvae.

The long-distance bonemetal weapons listed above were all the long-distance bonemetal weapons he had. He had fewer close-distance weapons. He had one extra fang dagger created from a fanged wolf’s fang, which meant that he now had two daggers. He made two picks he called rat picks with the incisors from the large-toothed rat. There were also two scythes he called earth-digging scythes made from the scythe-like chelicerae from the earth-digging insect.

Next were the crescent-moon like husks from the tumor pig. Shen Cong ground them casually and fixed a saber handle to them, made a saber sheath for it, turned it into a decoration, and hung it in the driver cab.

Hence, the Activity cores that Shen Cong had left were a pile of brachyponera ants’ maxillae, antennae, and sclerotin wings.

*****

Three days was enough for Revenge Seeker to grow to the size of two fists by feasting on the demonic bull king’s rotten flesh.

Mutated Green-headed Fly 1, which had eaten a few second generation green-headed flies, slowly became the size of a fist as well.

The two mutated flies had basically reached the limits of their evolution. So Shen Cong chose to organize a fight with revenge as its theme during the evening.

For that, he deliberately welded a metal cage using steel wire to form an arena.

The fight happened in an instant. Shen Cong, who had almost recovered at this point, sat on a box made of metal and munched on sashimi, serving as a silent spectator.

The fight was incredibly brutal. When the two mutated flies were placed in the metal cage, he basically did not even have to wait. The two mutated flies just started fighting.

The metal cage was incredibly huge, and the mutated flies could bring out their strength to their hearts’ core.

Mutated Green-headed Fly 1’s wing had long since grown back. Its recovery abilities were incredibly great. Its personality was much fiercer than Revenge Seeker. It was the one who took all the initiative in attacking. In the beginning, Revenge Seeker seemed to be a little afraid of Mutated Green-headed Fly 1. It would always fly in circles and avoid Mutated Green-headed Fly 1. But after exchanging a few blows, Revenge Seeker became familiar with fighting in the air and gained control over its skills. Then, the curtains to its counterattack were drawn.

A bloody aerial battle in the world of flies accompanied by the buzzing sound of wings appeared. All sorts of dodging, moving, and flips in the air were displayed before Shen Cong’s eyes, and they were also captured by the camera on his phone.

There was no way he could miss a scene of this level.

Slap!

No matter what, Revenge Seeker was not an experienced fighter. Mutated Green-headed Fly 1 had its Activity core—its proboscis—pierce through its stomach, and in an instant, some grayish-white liquid spilled out.

That was fly blood, so it was not red.

But Revenge Seeker was strong. Even when it was stabbed and bled, not only did this not cause it to be fearful, it just became angry. It used its body to knock into Mutated Green-headed Fly 1’s body. In terms of speed and strength, it was better than Mutated Green-headed Fly 1, who was only the size of one and a half fists. Since all those with herculean strength would always win against those with normal strength, even when he had to fight against ten people alone, Revenge Seeker was able to immediately turn the tides.

The fight turned incredibly exciting. Mutated Green-headed Fly 1 had great experience, and its experience in aerial battles was great. Revenge Seeker possessed herculean strength and was fast, and it also improved very quickly. These two mutated flies were locked in a fierce struggle.

Even Shen Cong cheered for them.

When the use of firearms and bonemetal weapons were not included, in truth, the fighting instinct within animals was much better than humans. For example, every time these two mutated flies dodged and moved, they would do so with movements filled with the beauty of primitive combat.

Five minutes passed by, but only one second seemed to have gone by.

A victor was decided from this fierce battle. Mutated Green-headed Fly 1 had originally had the upper hand during the beginning of the battle, but the further the battle progressed, the more its stamina was unable to support its body. Its flying speed slowed down, and in the end, Revenge Seeker, who had greater stamina, pierced through its brain with its proboscis. Red pigmentation filled Mutated Green-headed Fly 1’s compound eyes, and it looked as if there was red blood gushing in it.

It died on the spot and fell on the floor.

Revenge Seeker landed on Mutated Green-headed Fly 1’s carcass. It flapped its wings and puffed out its chest, as if to announce that it had successfully sought revenge and ended the life of the murderer who killed its brothers and sisters.

Shick!

A blow dart shot over and hit Revenge Seeker’s body. It was pierced through, along with Mutated Green-headed Fly 1’s body.

Shen Cong put down the black blowgun at his lips and began tidying up the area with great satisfaction in his heart. He had already obtained the experiment results he wanted. The mutation of those from the second generation possessed greater potential compared to those from the first generation. It surpassed those of the first generation in all aspects.

He originally intended to use the fly carcasses as bait for fishing, but now, the river bend had dried up, and there were no fish for him to catch. But Shen Cong did not care about this bit of fly flesh either. He just tossed it outside, into a bear trap in the distance. Who knew? He might be able to lure an evolved beast over.

[Report of the results obtained from the experiment comparing the strength of the second generation green-headed fly and Mutated Green-headed 1.]