BXBX NOVEL Chapter 125: 125 Step 73
This guy is round like a snowball and doesn’t resemble the sleek, black Mutators of Wang Tian’er and the others at all.
The character for “dark” in Dark Bird generally means black, but on a deeper level, it can also mean black with hints of red. Fatty is clearly a white bird and seems to have nothing to do with Dark Birds.
“Could it be due to mutation?” Lin Shen was thinking when he suddenly noticed a figure appearing out of thin air at the foot of Gourd Mountain.
“Old Wei, over here,” Lin Shen said with delight when he recognized the person and hurried over.
Wei Wufu saw Lin Shen and approached, dragging a Black Rock Python that was over ten meters long, and his backpack was bulging, indicating a significant haul.
The two briefly exchanged information about their situations, but Lin Shen didn’t mention the underground cave.
It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Old Wei; it was just that the fewer people knew about it, the less dangerous it was, and there was no need to blab.
It took Lin Shen quite a while to understand the encounter Wei Wufu had after he was teleported.
After Lin Shen had been transported into the cave, it suddenly went pitch black, and just like the previous time, Wei Wufu was randomly teleported to the Realm King Planet, with a black watch appearing on his wrist.
Just as Lin Shen had thought, when the three-day limit was up, Wei Wufu came out directly, but he didn’t return to the cave. Instead, he walked through a dark cave and arrived at the foot of the mountain, never seeing Gourd Mountain again when he looked back.
At this point, Wei Wufu turned to look again, and was stunned; he could see Gourd Mountain once more.
“Old Wei, take Fatty towards the canyon, go a bit further,” Lin Shen said as he handed the backpack containing Fatty to Wei Wufu.
Wei Wufu, understanding Lin Shen’s intentions, turned and left without another word.
Not far from Lin Shen, Gourd Mountain, which was close at hand, suddenly disappeared from in front of him.
“It is indeed Fatty,” Lin Shen no longer had any doubts, certain that Fatty was a mutated Dark Bird.
“Could it be that the Dark Birds of the Lin, Qi, and Wang Families originally came from Giant Mountain?” Lin Shen speculated silently.
After calling Wei Wufu back, Wei Wufu could still see Gourd Mountain from the canyon side; he hadn’t witnessed it disappear.
After several tests, both of them understood that they could only see and touch Gourd Mountain when they were close to Fatty.
Otherwise, for them, Gourd Mountain might as well have been in another dimension; they couldn’t see or touch it at all.
With this discovery, they were both very pleased as they no longer needed to freeload off Bai Shenfei’s Dark Birds.
Lin Shen even thought that if Bai Shenfei’s Dark Birds were exposed, they could actually cover for his Fatty.
In Lin Shen’s opinion, it was only a matter of time before Bai Shenfei’s Dark Birds were exposed. She always took the Qi and Wang Families with her, and this time they were lucky not to be discovered, but sooner or later they would be, it was only a matter of time.
As the two chatted, it turned out Wei Wufu hadn’t been lucky enough to encounter the Ultra-Burning Corps, but he was aware of the existence of the Ultra-Burn Tribe. When he saw the Ultraburn Helmets and Battle Clothes, he didn’t find them particularly amazing.
Lin Shen gave Wei Wufu a set and also gifted him a Pet Launcher, and Wei Wufu accepted everything.
“All of them, I’ll buy,” Wei Wufu said, pointing at the remaining Ultraburn Helmets and Battle Clothes, as well as the Battle Axes and Pet Launchers.
“What do you want so many for?” Lin Shen asked, puzzled.
“Tiancheng, needs them,” Wei Wufu replied.
“Fine, but clear debts make clear friends. Consider these items as payment for the Primeval Eggs you gave me before. I want to keep one of the Pet Launchers for myself, but the rest I can give to you. However, you’ll have to trade for these Pet Launchers,” Lin Shen said after some thought.
“What do you want?” Wei Wufu asked.
“Do you have any more Primeval Eggs? Get me another one,” Lin Shen said, wondering whether he should use a Primeval Egg when he advanced to Alloy.
Primeval Eggs would become harder to get over time, as there were only so many of them; every time one was used, there was one less.
And those Mutation Points that hadn’t yet been taken down would probably be even harder to conquer in the future, as the creatures within grew stronger and more numerous.
Wei Wufu didn’t say anything, just transferred the items to his mount.
“Here, this is for you,” Lin Shen then took out a Black Bull Capsule and gave it to Wei Wufu, whose mount was somewhat shabby, still riding an Iron-horned Horse.
Wei Wufu unceremoniously accepted, shifting his belongings onto the Black Bull.
“Tiancheng, goodbye,” Lin Shen wanted to say more, but Wei Wufu left a remark and rode off on the Black Bull.
“Why did he leave just like that!” Lin Shen was speechless, watching Wei Wufu take another road, leaving him to return to Dark Bird Base alone.
Back at Dark Bird Base, Lin Shen went through his recent gains.
Six Mutated Crystal Base pets, one Mutated White Jade Tiger, one Mutated Black Crystal Stoneman, three Mutated Black Armored Centipedes, and one Mutated Big Red Bull.
Seventeen Crystal Base pets, which, for Lin Shen, could come in handy for a mass brawl, were quite a force to reckon with.
The Alloy pets were even more numerous, with over forty of them, mainly Black Bulls. Surprisingly, there were only three mutations, even less than the Mutated Crystal Base pets.
It was one Mutated Big Red Bull, one Mutated Lion-Tiger Beast, and one Mutated Red Scale Snake.
Apart from mutant pets, Lin Shen planned on disposing of the other alloy pets, but these pets were more likely to attract attention, and he hadn’t yet figured out how to get rid of them.
Among the mutant pets, Lin Shen was most satisfied with the Big Red Bull.
Red Crystal God Bull: Mutated Crystal-based Creature (evolvable).
Strength: 41.
Speed: 39.
Hardiness: 40.
Toughness: 37.
Innate Skill: Mutated Savage Charge, Mutated Frenzied Attack, Mutated Tyrant Body.
The stats were already quite strong, and the Strength attribute was beyond the extreme. All three skills were mutated skills, and they were all very practical. It was already considered the strongest mount at this stage.
Not all mutated creatures were as strong as Death Powder. For example, the Black Armored Centipede: only one out of three reached a Speed attribute of 41; the others did not break the limit.
And their skills were not all mutated; most had only one mutated skill, while the others were strengthened or ordinary skills.
One of the Black Armored Centipedes even had only two skills, lacking one to be perfect.
But compared to ordinary crystal-based creatures, the Black Armored Centipede was still very strong and now was Lin Shen’s main combat power.
As for the Pet Launcher, Lin Shen kept the one belonging to the deputy commander of the Ultra-Burning Corps, and the rest were given to Wei Wufu.
Of course, aside from these, Lin Shen’s biggest gain was actually Xiaoye, Xiaona, and the two Evolution Skills.
Taking advantage of the night, Lin Shen returned to Dark Bird Base and after sleeping, woke up to find that his strength had increased again.
It was still 17 when he checked it before, but today it had risen by one point, becoming 18.
He was merely a Steel Mutator, yet his Strength stat was frighteningly high.
“It seems Death Powder is still growing, its weight is still increasing. I wonder how much it can grow,” Lin Shen thought happily, considering whether to feed his mutant pets directly to Death Powder to accelerate its growth.
On second thought, he found that was far too extravagant. He decided to wait until his next visit to Realm King Planet and kill more high-level mutated creatures to feed it.
This creature now only ate mutants; it wouldn’t even give a sniff to regular Base Variant Creature corpses.
As for the physical enhancements from Evolution Theory, they didn’t show up in stats. They were mostly resistances and very practical but didn’t affect the numbers.
Not long after Lin Shen returned, the projection of the sky ended as well.
From others, Lin Shen also learned about many events that had happened on Realm King Planet these days. He was quite interested in the Realm King Tower but didn’t plan to go for the time being.
In the following days, Lin Shen practiced “Stepping on the Immortal Court” at home. Although he hadn’t yielded any results for the time being, Lin Shen felt his body control and reaction abilities had greatly improved; these were not reflected in the numbers.
He also didn’t neglect the thrusting technique taught by Wei Wufu, practicing with Death Powder every day.
While practicing Stepping on the Immortal Court, Lin Shen suddenly had an idea. Would it be more interesting if combined with the Stairway to Heaven?
Unfortunately, he couldn’t even complete the actions of Stepping on the Immortal Court, let alone combining it with the Stairway to Heaven.
During the practice of Stepping on the Immortal Court, Lin Shen wasn’t sure if the stick figure drawings were too abstract, leading to some variations in movement from the original, or if the difficulty was too high. There were some moves he simply couldn’t connect. He could perform them individually, but they didn’t flow into other movements.
So Lin Shen skipped the actions he couldn’t connect for the time being, focusing only on those he could perform.
A few days later, the Realm King Cultivation Device opened again. Lin Shen had no intention of entering for the moment. He had become addicted to practicing and felt uncomfortable if he didn’t. He decided to master all the movements he could perform first, to complete them in full and see if there would be any special effects.
Lin Shen had drawn a total of one hundred and thirty-four stick figures. He could only connect sixty-one movements, but after adjusting the order, regardless of the previous sequence, he finally connected seventy-three movements.
When Lin Shen completed the seventy-three movements in full for the first time, he suddenly felt the Base Mutation power within him begin to stir.
“This works too!” Lin Shen was somewhat surprised.
He hadn’t held much hope and had just treated “Stepping on the Immortal Court” as a method of exercising body control and reaction skills. Yet unexpectedly, it induced his Base Mutation power.
With each step Lin Shen took, the mutation power within him flowed faster. It went from a small stream to a river and then from a river to a roaring torrent, which raged through his body, pushing him faster and faster, almost creating afterimages.
Crack! Crack!
Where Lin Shen’s feet passed, he didn’t feel like he was exerting much strength, but deep footprints were left on the hard stone tiles.
The footprints, as if stamped, had clean edges like knife cuts, with no sign of crumbling in the surrounding tiles.
The surging power within him gave Lin Shen the illusion that with one step, he could shatter the sky and ascend to the ninth heaven.
Lin Shen fought the urge to leap into the sky, for he was within the Lin Family courtyard, where countless eyes might be watching—a spectacle he preferred to avoid.
After Lin Shen stopped and controlled the surging power within him, he looked around at the deep footprints throughout the courtyard, even he was startled.
“This Stepping on the Immortal Court seems to really have something to it,” Lin Shen observed carefully. Despite the many footprints on the ground, their number was exactly seventy-three.