Evolution Begins with Elemental Domination

The Telekinesis Rune would go to one person.

The best of what remained would go to the other.

As for him, he was dead set on getting their Flame Burst Rune!

...

”Level 6!”

In a deathly still and dark, deserted clearing.

Not only did Su Chen’s mind tremble, but his body also swayed slightly from the disturbance in his Sea of Consciousness.

The air around him suddenly grew hotter. Wisps of scorching heat radiated outward as if to burn through space itself, releasing a scalding heat and bursting with a dazzling, fiery light.

VMMM!

While these strange phenomena occurred outwardly, the internal structure of his Flame Burst Rune had already finished its reconstruction. A moment later, the brand-new Rune was fully formed, and an increasingly dense aura of Annihilation emanated from its mysterious, complex core.

[Flame Burst] has successfully advanced from Lv. 5 to Lv. 6!

Enhanced Traits: Damage Amplification, Cleaving, Soul Burning

New Trait: True Flame

(True Flame: The fire constituting the Flame Burst Skill will be difficult to extinguish. It ignores a degree of conventional resistance and environmental suppression. While a target is burning, all healing and cleansing effects upon it are halved.)

...

[Flame Burst] (Lv. 6): Imbues all of the Spellcaster’s attacks with 320% True Flame damage and causes area-of-effect splash, cleaving, and Soul Burning effects.

Upgrade Requirements: Flame Burst Rune 0/32, Spiritual Dust Sand 0/8, Spirit Marrow Crystal 0/3

’So the flames have evolved.’

Once his excitement settled, Su Chen immediately understood the implications of the information.

As he allowed the power of the Flame Burst to bloom in his palm, it manifested as a deep, crimson glow with a nearly pure-white core.

Compared to before, the True Flame seemed more contained, its power more condensed and compressed, adding a tangible sense of weight to it.

A True Flame that was difficult to extinguish also meant that the mind-scorching Soul Burning effect would be even more troublesome. Even the cleaving trait itself was indirectly boosted by the increase in damage and power.

’Excellent!’

Now, he was much more confident about facing the cavemen.

If he had to fight the giant hippo from that afternoon again, a critical hit to its head would have been a guaranteed one-shot kill; he wouldn’t have needed to bother with a second attack.

With this sudden surge in strength, Su Chen couldn’t help but feel a stirring of bloodlust, and he considered heading into the forest to test his newfound power.

’It seems a little too quiet.’

Unexpectedly, as his gaze swept past the vehicle barricade toward the forest’s edge, he realized the entire woods had fallen silent.

That wasn’t normal.

The first night had been a veritable carnival of nocturnal monsters, attacking one after another.

The second night, amidst a torrential downpour, had seen a massive tide of monsters passing through, making for a chaotic scene.

But tonight, everything was quiet, almost eerily tranquil and peaceful.

’Even the chirping of insects has lessened significantly.’

To avoid attracting swarms of light-drawn pests, especially the dreaded Iron-Eating Insects, the campground didn’t keep any electric lights on outside, but more than a few bonfires were lit at night.

In the firelight, everything seemed desolate. Even the usually raucous Night Owls and cicadas had gone quiet.

This was not a good sign.

Life was flourishing in the forest after the rain, allowing the mysterious fungi to experience a massive outbreak. Mushrooms were growing like weeds, and the dim woods even began to give off a strange phosphorescence, as if some of the mushrooms were glowing to lure people forward.

Just then, his gaze fell upon a particular tent, and he began to walk toward it.

It was the place where the two addicts had been staying. As he drew near, he could no longer perceive any life force from them.

However...

He sensed a strange, subtle tremor.

An invisible force lifted a corner of the tent flap.

Inside, the two people were lying on their backs in their sleeping bags. In the glow of the distant fire, their skin had an unnatural, grayish-white pallor. What made Su Chen’s brow furrow in disgust was the cluster of inky-black hyphae sprouting from their lips.

It didn’t stop there. Wisps of hyphae were also slowly emerging from their nostrils, ears, and even the seams of their eyelids. After sensing the fluctuations of life in the air, they began to sway gently.

In the next instant, the hyphae lunged!

The hyphae in each of their mouths twisted together, forming two thumb-thick, tentacle-like cords. Like twin vipers, they shot toward Su Chen’s face, moving so fast that they whistled through the air.

But just a meter in front of him, they stopped dead.

An invisible wave of Telekinesis suddenly constricted, locking the two hyphal tentacles in mid-air, suppressing even the faintest tremor on their surface.

With a mere thought, Su Chen forced his Telekinesis into their heads and immediately discovered countless hyphae entrenched within their skulls. Their brains and blood seemed to have already been greedily drained dry.

What was even more sickening was that the hyphae seemed to have fused deeply with the brain’s nerve endings, acting like countless tiny puppet strings to precisely pull the body’s muscle fibers.

Just then, one of the puppets before him began to move with a slightly mechanical motion.

The woman clawed desperately at the ground, trying to stand up, but she didn’t even flinch as her fingernails broke and split.

Before they could move any further, Su Chen’s Telekinesis compressed the air. Two torrents of blazing crimson True Flame ignited from nothing, instantly incinerating the corpses before him. The vast network of hyphae coiled within was consumed by the terrifying heat without a hint of resistance, swallowed by the fire along with the tent itself.

Su Chen waited in silence, patiently making sure every last trace of the fungal mass was burned to ash.

’Now things have gotten worse.’

The scenario he had dreaded most had finally come to pass: the bizarre fungus, capable of parasitizing warm-blooded animals, had not spared humans.

Of course, those two had it coming; the Hallucinogenic Mushrooms they ingested had cost them their lives.

The question was, how many other addicts in the campground had already been silently transformed?

And were there other methods of transmission?

The thought that the fungus could also spread via spores made the situation feel all the more troublesome.

Tonight would be a sleepless night.

...

「At that moment.」

In a partitioned storeroom in the basement of the main hotel, three figures pried their way in after disabling the security camera.

”I heard them say that to control that kid Qian Biao, they fed him Hallucinogenic Mushrooms to keep him completely dazed,” one of them whispered.

This wasn’t some kind of reward. They did it because they knew he had the power of a Rune, so simple restraints wouldn’t be enough. Since they couldn’t find any sleeping pills, someone forced the Hallucinogenic Mushrooms down his throat and then clubbed him on the head, completely knocking him out.

”Damn it, Biaozi’s really been through hell. It’s fine, we’ll settle the score with that bastard. He won’t live to see the morning,” a man with a scar on his face snarled.

To get rid of him once and for all, someone in their group had even brought a homemade shotgun. If a stealthy assassination at night failed, they’d just drop the act and storm the RV to kill him in the open.

For his trouble, the gunman had already laid claim to their target’s Telekinesis Rune.

”Huh?”

As the three of them crept closer to the bound figure in the storeroom, they realized the scene before them was wrong.

In the beam of a flashlight, they saw that the person’s skin was covered in grayish-blue mold spots and gave off a foul stench. A visible carpet of fungus grew on the floor around him, and dust-like spores drifted in the air.

”Biaozi, are you okay...?”

In the next instant, just as one of them carefully lifted the figure’s drooping head, a dark purple hyphal tentacle shot out from deep within its throat, instantly piercing the scar-faced man’s skull.