That fleeting window of opportunity — Shen Cong had seized it and delivered the critical blow.
But the Spike King’s vitality was extraordinary. Mortally wounded, it still refused to die. Its body curled in on itself, forming a quill-covered ball, and rolled directly toward him — careening forward, trailing blood.
“Just a death spasm.” Shen Cong stepped back immediately, keeping clear of its path.
He’d already read the first arrow’s result with confidence. The modified hand crossbow had driven the Ape King Arrow with force equivalent to his own direct punch — half a ton of impact, minimum. That shot had hit brain matter. The Spike King wasn’t recovering from that. It was outputting the last of what it had.
To accelerate the process, he fired a few more shots at range. No penetration through the quill coverage, but the shallow wounds added up. Three minutes later, the Spike King stopped rolling. Its body uncurled and went slack.
Near-Heavyweight or not — a headshot was a headshot.
“Though honestly, it’s weaker than I expected.” Shen Cong approached the carcass carefully, Condor Arrow nocked and ready, watching for any response. “I thought even an ambush would get me a few exchanges. It just died.”
Something didn’t add up. If the Spike King was genuinely this manageable, a coordinated group of ordinary evolved people could theoretically take one down.
That’s inconsistent with the near-Heavyweight classification.
The Condor Arrow went into the skull as a final confirmation. No reaction. Actually dead.
He relaxed and moved to check the Activity core data.
The numbers made his brow furrow.
The Spike King wasn’t truly near-Heavyweight by strict measure — Lv0.811, Activity Value 1.101H, Talent 1.358H.
Metamorphosis Stage. Activity Value over 1H, yes. But the Talent ceiling barely clears 1.358H — not even past 1.5H. Only marginally above the Dog-Croc’s 1.264H ceiling. At this Talent level, this combat output, the honest classification is Lightweight. A Dog-Croc with Activity Value above 1H would probably be stronger.
The Spike King’s advantage was its stage — Lv0.811, the highest stage level of any evolved beast they’d confirmed in the field. But even at Lv1, its ceiling made near-Heavyweight the optimistic ceiling, not the floor.
Still — The Huoxue had listed it as near-Heavyweight, and Shen Cong was absolutely going to claim the 200-point near-Heavyweight reward without reopening that classification discussion.
“The cores are good though — six along the central dorsal spine, all viable. Even with the downgraded tier assessment, these will yield a solid batch of 1H-plus bone-gold weapons.”
Before loading the carcass, he went to look at what the Spike King had been digging for.
It did look like a sweet potato — or perhaps a taro, the same category of tuberous root vegetable. Grey-yellow outer skin. White-yellow flesh inside. He dug up one intact specimen, roughly the size of a washbasin, and brought it with him. He’d let the Antgod and Blackhead test it first.
Edible seemed likely, given what had been eating them.
The field test confirmed it immediately. Both Blackhead and the Antgod went for it without hesitation. Shen Cong tried a bite himself.
The moment it went down, a vigorous surge of Activity spread through his body — stimulating, warming, the unmistakable sensation of physical enhancement.
Excellent. Just like the first time I ate an Activity Peach. This is exceptional material.
Exceptional material didn’t get left in the field for evolved beasts to consume.
He went back immediately, pulled out the Condor Spade, and began digging. The spade moved through earth at a pace that made the work almost meditative — washbasin-sized tubers, smaller ones, up and out and loaded. Half an hour, half the field cleared, Great Vajra’s cargo hold packed.
Come back for the rest later.
He tied the Spike King carcass to the rear of the vehicle and drove back to the Mingfa Camp.
The Spike King’s body drew the usual crowd. Enormous carcass, near-Heavyweight classification, killed solo — the camp’s survivors had grown accustomed to these deliveries, but the scale still landed.
What came next surprised them more.
The cargo door opened. Large lumpy tubers rolled out onto the ground one after another.
“Squad Leader, you got the Spike King, impressive as always. Any injuries? And what are these — they look like taro?”
Shen Cong’s answer bypassed the question. “The Spike King is a 200-point submission, handle that in the usual way. These are Activity sweet potatoes — classify them as Activity fruit, have the Research Institute assess them, then calculate the point value. I’m heading back out.”
He was back in the cab before Li Aiping could follow up.
An hour and a half later, a second load of Activity sweet potatoes arrived.
By that point the Research Institute had already produced preliminary findings. The plant was a leguminous species of the Pachyrhizus genus — in plain terms, the jicama family, a vine-growing root vegetable common across southern China. The Activity sweet potato variant had accumulated exceptional Activity density. Evolved people who consumed it experienced measurable level enhancement; ordinary survivors experienced significant physical strengthening.
“The effect profile exceeds every Activity fruit currently in our catalog.” Zhang Kan held a washbasin-sized tuber with both hands, looking slightly overwhelmed. “The enhancement to both physical capability and level development is remarkable. And Colonel Hu — the tuber itself doesn’t leak Activity. The stored energy is stable. Which means it can be planted like a seed.”
He was smiling in a way that suggested he’d been awake for the past several hours on this problem.
“If cultivation is successful, this becomes an enormously important food source. We’ve set the standard unit at 50 points. Your first load was twenty standard units — 1,000 points. Will this second load be submitted to the camp as well?”
“Half of it.” Shen Cong divided the load with a gesture. Ten standard units: 500 points.
Running total: 4,123 points.
He held back the other half to test how the tubers affected him personally before deciding on further sales. His current physical development had been built up through Great Vajra’s Activity Exchange and steady consumption of Activity fruits over weeks. He wanted to see where the sweet potato’s ceiling was before handing the rest over.
The Dragon Hornet tension had been slowly releasing.
No further sightings since the six that had surrounded the Antgod. Prevailing assessment: those six had been tracking the Antgod specifically, not ranging into Hefei as part of a broader foraging expansion. The camp was probably not within Dragon Hornet territory after all.
The anxiety faded.
And the Activity sweet potato kept delivering.
For several days, Shen Cong ate sweet potato porridge as his primary meal. His Activity Value climbed — from 1.531H to 1.642H over the period, a gain of approximately 0.1H in his body alone, with additional feedback going into Great Vajra through the Exchange process. The effect substantially exceeded what the Activity Peach had produced in its time.
And the sweet potatoes were abundant.
He felt himself move from twelve-bull to fourteen-bull strength.
Even with diminishing returns, eating through the remaining stock should push me to 2H. But wait — he recalculated — 50 points a unit is too cheap. The camp owes me a rate adjustment. At least 80 points per unit.
A perfectly consistent application of double standards: when the Spike King’s classification was downgraded, he didn’t accept a point reduction. When his sweet potatoes turned out to be more valuable than initial pricing suggested, he immediately pushed for renegotiation.
The sweet potatoes’ effect on the camp’s evolved people was substantial — a measurable jump in collective capability across the board, with ordinary survivors noticeably stronger as well.
The People’s Defense Department head conferred briefly with Zhang Kan and agreed without resistance. “No objection — 80 points per unit. Thirty standard units total, supplementary payment of 30 points per unit — 900 additional points. Congratulations, Colonel Hu. Your total has crossed 5,000 points. You are the camp’s first Gold-tier evolved person.”
Shen Cong had the point figure confirmed and immediately decided 80 points was still too low.
Because three days after the Research Institute planted a test field of Activity sweet potato stock, the vines were already establishing as small plants. Three days. The root nodes were already swelling with new tuber growth.
Against the evolved fruit tree seeds that had been planted weeks earlier without producing a single sprout, the contrast was stark.
Zhang Kan was visiting the test field more than ten times a day.
“At this growth rate — two weeks to maturity, possibly less. Sufficient yield to meet the camp’s food needs without question. This is a heaven-sent treasure.”
(End of Chapter 172)