Super Gene

A black-bodied, red-headed big cricket came out of the gap in the stone. It battled the big, dark green gecko. The cricket was only the size of a fist. It was much smaller than the big gecko, but it was very fast. It was not at a disadvantage while it fought. The black and green, the two shadows, battled on the banks of the pool. The fight was intense to watch.

Han Sen found it a fun spectacle to view. The levels of the two gene races were not very high. They were viscounts at the most, but their methodology of battle was brutally intense. It was like watching crickets fight.

“Even though sparrows are small, they’re still meat. I will wait until they’re almost finished, then I will turn them into eggs. I should be able to earn a bit of money when I bring them back with me. I will at least be able to sort out my rent problem.”

Han Sen was having fun watching this. Suddenly, the toxic lump on the gecko exploded. Green juice squirted everywhere. It was like a blossoming flower spraying all over the cricket.

The shell on the cricket’s body looked as if it had been sprayed with acid. It emitted white smoke. It looked as if it was being corroded.

The cricket went “tzi-tzi” and fell to the ground. The gecko saw that its attack had worked, so it approached its enemy. The cricket struggled, trying to make its way back to the stone gap.

The gecko’s juice was far too toxic. Before the cricket was able to climb into the stone gap, the shell on its body was already being corroded. The blighter turned blurry and disgusting. It was not going to last.

The cricket suddenly looked like it came back to life. Its back legs used some hidden power to make its bloody body leap and avoid the gecko’s tongue. It entered the stone gap.

“It was injured badly, so it is useless for it to go back inside the cave. The gecko does not have to do anything. It will turn into bloody water soon enough.” Han Sen knew now was the time for him to act, but his pupils suddenly got small.

The gecko was in front of the stone gap. Suddenly, a cold light beamed out of it. Before the big, dark green gecko reacted, it was turned into a stone. “Huh? Does that cricket have the ability to petrify? Why did it not use it earlier?” Han Sen was very confused.

Before he thought any more about it, Han Sen worried that the cricket was heavily injured. If it had turned into blood water, no matter how strong his Xuan Yellow Sutra was, he could not turn a pile of mush into an egg.

Han Sen flashed and came before the elusive stone gap. He cast his Xuan Yellow Sutra to kick up a red light that struck the petrified, dark green, big gecko.

Although his body was petrified, under the power of the Xuan Yellow Sutra, it still devolved. It quickly turned into a dark green egg that was the size of a pigeon egg.

He held onto that gecko egg. Han Sen reached out his hand to punch the rock. He wanted to blow up the stone gap and see what the cricket was doing inside.

After Han Sen unleashed his punch, only a few cracks manifested in the stone. He was unable to break it.

“Huh? What is going on?” Han Sen was shocked. His punching power was scary. Forget about stone, but he was able to break an ingot of pure platinum into mini pieces with the strength he put into his punches. Now, all he had managed to do was leave a few measly marks on the stone. Clearly, there was something funky about the stone.

Han Sen saw the stone gap had no movement. No petrified light came out of it either. So, he kept on punching. When he unleashed his fourth punch, the rock broke. The gap was now the size of a human head.

Han Sen looked into the cave and was quite surprised. It was a cave about the size of a bathtub. There was no cricket. There was only a pool of blood. There was an 80% to 90% chance it was the body of the cricket.

“What is that?” Han Sen looked at the bloody water.

The stone cave was very humid and had a heavy layer of moss. The blood water seemed to be corrosive. It had started to corrode the moss, revealing the stone underneath.

The rock looked very flat. It looked as if it had been made by someone. There were also some carvings there. Underneath the blood and the moss, it was not very clear.

Han Sen wiped away the moss. He quickly discovered that beneath the stone cave there was a stone board that had special symbols on it. Han Sen broke the rocks around to get the stone board out, but the stone board was around four-feet long and one-foot wide. He did not know how long it was and could not get it out.

Han Sen needed to be patient. He broke the stone board around and noticed the stone board was only half-a-foot thick. It was grey in color. It did not look like the granite around. After being busy for a while, Han Sen finally got the stone board out of the ground. When he pulled out the whole stone board, he noticed it was not a stone board. It was a stone box.

Han Sen tried to open the stone box, but there was no reaction from the box’s keyhole. He used his hands like a knife to strike it. He left a few white marks on the stone box.

“This stone box is so weird.” Han Sen thought it was still early enough that the eight sound bugs were not yet ready to appear, so he took the stone box out and went to check out the cave again. He found nothing else. He used the stones to rebuild and hide the cave he had just discovered. Han Sen thought, “That petrifying light probably did not come from the cricket. After all, it did not look like a stone-element gene race. If that was not it, then it has to be this stone box. When I dug up the stone box, after all this time, why hasn’t the stone box done anything?”

Although Han Sen thought he was very handsome, he did not think he was handsome enough for the stone box to treat him differently. “What is the reason?” Han Sen looked at the top of the stone box. There was still blood water the cricket had left behind. It had already dried up.

Han Sen’s heart suddenly jumped. “This thing is not going to react after seeing blood, is it?”.

Although Han Sen thought that way, he was not going to use his own blood for the testing. He looked around, planning to kill a gene race and see if he could use the gene race’s blood to activate the stone box.

Ding! Han Sen suddenly heard a sound that was like a harp’s string being plucked. It came from inside a bush. Han Sen looked into the sky. It was dark. A moon was now above the mountain.

Not long later, Han Sen heard a harp sound in the vicinity. It was like someone was playing an old instrument. It sounded very nice. Under the night sky of the valley, it sounded very mysterious.

Han Sen held his breath. His body was like it was petrified and unmoving.

The eight sound bugs could not see anything, but they were very sensitive to sound. Insects that were a few miles away could not hide from them. If people wanted to catch an eight sound bug, they could not make a sound. Even the jump of a shocked heart would alert them.

He needed to wait until they emerged from the ground and hit them when they were nearby. He could not claim another if they escaped underground.

Han Sen controlled his body. He sat where he was like a stone. Not long later, from out of the bush, he saw a white light emerge from the leaves. In the nighttime, it looked like a firefly.