Shen Cong concluded that Shrimp Soldier and Crab General were not going to fight anytime soon. The two evolved beasts had locked themselves into a battle of pure intimidation and showed no sign of escalating.
“Fine. The whole area around this lake is steep hillside — only the center pool has any water left. Whether they fight or not, neither of them is going anywhere. I’ll come back tomorrow.”
The sky was dark and he felt uneasy staying out. He headed back to Great Vajra. These two weren’t going to make a break for it — they were aquatic evolved beasts, ill-suited to crossing mountain ridges, and neither had enough brainpower to go searching for a new water source on their own.
Back aboard Great Vajra, the first order of business was testing the three new Activity fruit he’d brought back.
Standard procedure: let Blackhead play guinea pig first.
Blackhead had no complaints about its guinea pig career. It responded to Shen Cong’s summons immediately, abandoning the ant eggs it had been carefully tending, and trotted over to his feet with evident enthusiasm.
Shen Cong tossed it a water chestnut.
Blackhead crunched through shell and all in seconds, finished with visible excitement, and immediately asked for more. No toxic reaction of any kind.
Shen Cong didn’t enjoy raw water chestnuts himself, so he boiled a pot.
He cracked one open and ate it.
A surge of Activity spread through him — that familiar, satisfying wave of physical enhancement he’d come to know well. And the flavor was excellent: soft and slightly flaky, sweet, fragrant.
“Crisp Water Chestnuts.” He decided on the name immediately and recorded it in the Apocalypse Journal along with the relevant details.
The Activity in Crisp Water Chestnuts fell within the normal range. No reproductive capacity.
Next, he fed Blackhead a section of lotus rhizome. Blackhead consumed it without hesitation and showed no adverse reaction.
Raw lotus root — acceptable. Activity within normal parameters.
“Crunchy Lotus Root.” Recorded in the Apocalypse Journal.
The third fruit was the lotus seeds, grown from the same plant as the lotus root. Blackhead ate them without incident. Then Shen Cong tried one himself.
A torrent of Activity surged through him — roiling, almost overwhelming. It reminded him of the first time he’d eaten an Activity Peach: that violent, dizzying flood of Activity that had nearly knocked him off his feet.
This was “more vital” Activity.
The lotus seeds were the fourth “more vital” Activity fruit he’d encountered.
“Plantable.”
He took a moment to steady himself as the Activity settled, then got to work. He set up a large water basin in the greenhouse, filled it with sand and gravel, and planted several lotus seeds directly into it.
For every “more vital” Activity fruit, his approach was the same: sustainable development. Keep some back as seed stock, cultivate them across generations, don’t exhaust the supply chasing short-term gains. Every “more vital” variety was a potential strategic resource of enormous value. He wasn’t going to kill the goose.
He also wanted to run selective breeding — pick the best specimens each generation, gradually improve the strain.
Current greenhouse status: the Life-Saving Yellow Soybeans had already produced one harvest; he’d selected the most robust seeds for the second planting. Activity Sweet Potatoes were into their second batch, the largest specimens reserved for breeding stock, the rest consumed as food. The Activity Peach seedling had reached eighty centimeters but hadn’t yet set flower buds. The Mechanical Vine was still growing at a crawl — forty centimeters.
He named the lotus seeds: Awakening Lotus Seeds.
Gentle Jujubes. Crunchy Lotus Root. Crisp Water Chestnuts. Awakening Lotus Seeds. Four Activity fruit.
Activity Pearls — the special developmental catalyst in a category of its own.
That evening, Shen Cong made his dinner out of this new harvest, and as he ate he could feel, moment by moment, the slow accumulation of strength in his body.
This feeling — power.
His goals had always been simple. Become strong enough to seize fate by the throat. Strong enough that the things beyond his control stopped being beyond his control. Strong enough to be free.
“Four Activity fruit to saturation — I should reach 2.5H. The Activity Pearls will trigger a third round of physical development. A new Lv1 era is genuinely close now. I can feel it. It’s within reach.”
Current readings: Great Vajra at 2.307H, Shen Cong at 2.144H, sixteen-bull strength approaching seventeen. The ceiling of 2.518H was no longer far away.
He finished his fruit and Activity Pearls, read through some materials on magnetic field theory, and went to sleep.
That night he dreamed he had grown to four meters tall and become an NBA player. Standing on the court, he was half a body height above the rim. Every time a teammate passed him the ball, he had to crouch down and carefully thread it through the hoop. He won ten consecutive championships this way and became the greatest player in NBA history — but due to severe sizing incompatibilities, he died alone in old age.
“—hah!”
He jolted awake. His phone alarm went off at the same moment.
He silenced it, climbed out of bed, and measured himself immediately.
“182cm. Two centimeters. The time before it was three centimeters — the effect is diminishing. I’m not going to become a four-meter giant after all.” He exhaled, genuinely relieved. Greater size might mean greater strength, but at heart he still wanted to remain recognizably human.
Breakfast, then back to the barrier lakes.
He arrived at the third lake to find it fully drained overnight. In the center pool, Shrimp Soldier and Crab General were still facing off — one full night of mutual intimidation, unbroken.
The rest of the lake bed told a different story. Evolved fish carcasses were scattered all around them. Apparently the two had reached a tacit agreement to first clear out every other creature in the vicinity before settling in for their prolonged standoff.
“If you won’t fight each other, I’ll settle it for you.”
He had a Mini-Oasis to excavate. He didn’t have time to watch two oversized crustaceans play staring contests.
Seven or eight meters long for the crayfish; roughly five meters across for the crab. Somewhere between the Dog-Croc and the Bull Demon King in terms of scale — at his current level, prey this size was easy work.
He took a Spike King Javelin in hand and sighted on Shrimp Soldier.
The crayfish could rear upright. Of the two, it was the more dangerous.
The moment he raised the javelin, both creatures finally turned to acknowledge him, abandoning their standoff to face this new threat together.
Shen Cong threw anyway.
With his arm strength and core power behind it, the javelin crossed the distance like a bolt of lightning — and at the last instant, Shrimp Soldier’s massive claw snapped shut directly in front of its face.
Crack.
The steel shaft of the javelin snapped in half. The Spike King Activity core tip fell, suddenly inert, into the water.
Reaction speed at the absolute limit.
Apparently Shen Cong had made an enemy. Shrimp Soldier charged — eight legs churning — straight at him.
He had real respect for those claws. No interest in fighting that head-on. He angled sideways and scaled a steep section of the bank, scrambling up the rocky slope until Shrimp Soldier hit the base below and found it couldn’t climb further.
From up here, he could grind it down at his leisure.
But he didn’t.
His eyes had caught something. Crab General — previously fixed in its staring contest with the crayfish — was now quietly, carefully, sidling toward Shrimp Soldier’s unguarded back.
Shen Cong changed plans immediately. He stopped focusing on Shrimp Soldier and started throwing rocks instead — not bone-gold weapons, so no real damage, just enough repeated impacts to keep the crayfish furious and focused on the slope in front of it. Distracted. Off guard.
One minute passed.
Crab General closed the gap.
It moved in from behind — both massive, fur-tipped, dark-silver claws opening wide, striking simultaneously, bearing down on the junction between Shrimp Soldier’s thorax and abdomen.
(End of Chapter 203)