Chapter Eighty-Nine: Since We’ve Come This Far, Let’s Go Have a Look

The people present were struck by a certain astonishment and unease, but fortunately Ji Cheng stepped forward in time to calm the group’s nerves.

They proceeded cautiously for a little while longer, hardly anyone speaking, the atmosphere heavy and stifling.

Only when they discovered that the power supply in this secondary hive chamber had been cut off for the most part, making even the magnetic cabinet doors feel flimsy and weightless, did Ji Cheng suddenly think of a possibility and ask, “Do you think the door to the main hive chamber has also lost power?”

“This...”

Breathing around them turned quick and tight.

Aside from the first five gene progenitors, they had found only three more so far, and in truth most of them had been anxious for some time.

“Why don’t we go take a look?” Ji Cheng suggested, his tone full of coaxing and temptation.

He was still very interested in the main hive chamber. Under normal circumstances, it should contain the most complete data archive in the entire hive, along with the largest stock of second-tier gene progenitors. If they could truly get in, the gains would certainly be substantial.

“I think that works.” Tian Gang immediately took his stand.

He was supporting Ji Cheng, yes, but also hoping to bring back a few more second-tier progenitors for Red Eagle.

Fu Ting said, “I agree too. Whatever is happening now, at the very least this secondary hive chamber shows that the power supply has definitely gone wrong.”

The Centipede also voiced his opinion: “I suspect it’s because of the mineralization zone. The Brain in the Sands destroyed the hive’s original structure. I think a laboratory complex left behind by the empire must have been very delicate. If something went wrong in one part, it could easily affect everything else.”

“There is that possibility...” Ji Cheng stopped short there.

He sharply realized that this turn of events might well be man-made.

No advanced energy crystal ore had been found on Pang Weiwei. Could that mean there had actually been two people ahead of the others at the time?

Whether those two were in cahoots or not, there was a very high probability that one of them was still alive and somewhere nearby.

Had that person triggered some kind of switch?

“But if the main hive chamber has been affected by the mineralization zone, could it become terrifying?” Yu Yin said with a furrowed brow. “If there’s mental contamination...”

The team from Blackwater Hanging City had been almost entirely wiped out by mental contamination; he alone had survived, and thus he was extremely sensitive to it. If they encountered mental contamination again, he did not even dare to imagine the consequences.

At once, Ji Cheng understood what he was worried about.

“No. The Brain in the Sands’ mental contamination is mainly concentrated in the frontal, parietal, occipital, and temporal regions. The entire central area belongs to the insula, where brainwave activity is very weak. Even if it has mineralized, it shouldn’t be too dangerous.”

He brought up the map on his wrist computer. “The main hive chamber isn’t far from here. Let’s go have a look. We’re here already, after all.”

“True. We’re here already.”

...

Although they had hurried the entire way with deliberate urgency, and many passages stood open so they could avoid many detours, it still took considerable time to reach the entrance of the main hive chamber.

“The door is actually open!”

The group erupted into noise.

“Don’t get too excited. Keep formation.” Ji Cheng reminded them, drawing the Black Rock K-90 pistol from his holster and moving several paces ahead.

“Prepare to breach.”

Still led by the few strongest ability users, Ji Cheng stood in the second row and slowly stepped inside.

The main hive chamber was very warm, even stiflingly hot. The air felt sticky and damp. The smooth walls would occasionally bead with a few droplets, only for the rising heat to dry them at once, the cycle repeating endlessly.

“Still no danger for now.” This time Liu Fangjian was the one at the front. He quickly swept his gaze around and gave a brief report.

“Stay alert. Do not relax.”

A strip of concealed lighting ran along the wall base, now extinguished, but visibility was still good—the simulated sunlight streamed down through crystal panels overhead.

The group walked cautiously through the mottled sunlight and shadow, and Ji Cheng in the second row raised a hand to check the time on his computer.

Six thirty-five in the morning. Daylight had indeed already broken.

This simulated sunlight must have been produced through biotechnology, requiring no additional energy.

They continued onward, and around them rose towering glass columns, each large enough for four or five people to encircle with their arms, filled with all kinds of plants.

Several of the colossal columns had already cracked open. Liquid seeped out from within, and the plants spread and grew outward, seizing territory across the column bases, the experiment tables, the test tube racks. Their strange leaves and corollas were dusted with sand and grime.

“This place looks like some huge botanical garden. It’d be even better if there were a few small animals too,” Yuan Feng joked awkwardly, forcing himself to ease the tension.

“If there were animals, they’d be mutated ones. Have you figured out how you want to die?” Lei Junming shot back, and Yuan Feng promptly shut his mouth. Encountering mutated beasts would be disastrous.

They went on, more than ten firearms pointing and probing in all directions.

Bang.

A pale mark appeared on the side of a giant glass column, then quickly split into a small fissure. Fine droplets of water burst and scattered, flashing in rainbow colors under the simulated sunlight.

A threadlike plume of smoke bounced rhythmically as it emerged from the crack and floated before them. Within the smoke was a dark filament nearly a foot long.

“What is that!” Zhang Lingfei cried, jumping in fright. “A parasite?”

The filament sucked back all the smoke at once. If one looked carefully, one would see that it was not a thread at all, but simply a strange, slender branch.

Smoke-thorn amaranth!

Ji Cheng crossed the distance in a few strides, instantly reaching her side. His left hand swept across the tactical belt, and the Kunsteel dagger was in his palm. With a sharp hiss, he slashed through the middle of the branch.

A fierce cry rang out in the air. Smoke-thorn amaranth rapidly released smoke again, and soon its diameter had doubled. It then whipped sharply through the air and stabbed viciously toward Zhang Lingfei.

This aggressive plant was famous throughout the cosmos, but the ability users of White Mountain Star did not know it.

A point of light secretly lit in his palm, and he focused his will as much as possible.

A blade formed by air-cutting, invisible and razor-sharp, struck together with the dagger against the smoke-thorn amaranth. Smoke and sparks flared up, and the already stifling heat around them became even more searing.

To mask the vibration sound emitted by Regret, Ji Cheng deliberately roared:

“Move!”

Before anyone could react, he had already delivered a second blow.

Smoke burst out like splashed sap, and in the end the branches split apart at a point close to the ground and flew off into the distance.

Only a piercing hiss remained echoing through the room.

Smoke-thorn amaranth had a small attack range and was not especially dangerous; it was simply easy to fall for if one did not know its habits.

The key was to strike perpendicular to the direction of the branch’s thrust, and to deliver two cuts within a short span, or else it was difficult to sever.

“Probably because the power supply was cut off, these glass columns lost the defensive force they should have had.”

Ji Cheng pulled the frightened, death-pale Zhang Lingfei over and said with a smile, “Be careful. Many of the plants here are aggressive.”

“Are these mutated plants?” she asked, recalling the ordeal in the synapse hall.

“No.”

Ji Cheng’s tone carried a faint excitement. “These plants are all raw materials used to produce second-tier gene progenitors.”

“So many?” Everyone was startled, then overwhelmed with delight.

The ability users of White Mountain Star actually knew very little about gene progenitors.

They only knew that first-tier ones were extracted from animals, second-tier ones from plants, and third-tier ones from microorganisms. But which plants could specifically be used to make second-tier gene progenitors, none of them had any real idea.

Fu Ting hurriedly said, “By your logic, doesn’t that mean there are quite a lot of second-tier progenitors here?”

“Indeed. There should be quite a few.”

Ji Cheng swept the surroundings with his gun, like a rustic landlord inspecting his own mountain of gold.

Not merely quite a few—there should be a great many!

Only after observing carefully just now had he recognized that all the plants here were materials for second-tier progenitors.

Clinging to the lid of the gene vault over there was a carnivorous magnolia. The second-tier progenitor produced from it had formidable potential.

Its life resonance effect could split open fanged, bleeding mouths anywhere on the body, carrying intense corrosiveness.

In the left corner, a dense mass of black dodder covered the area, along with blazing vines bearing fruit like sparks.

These were all relatively common plants in the cosmos, and likewise common materials for second-tier gene progenitors.

The golden-veined branches of leopard-tail flowers grew wildly and thickly. Beside them, a patch of rockified ground had sunk in, and sharp needle-like leaves were faintly protruding from within—it should have been thorn grass.

One giant column was tangled root over root, filled with floating root duckweed. Its appearance was grotesque and ugly, like some foul knot of rotten fishing net, waterweed, and sludge.

It had no real aggression, but once lifted, it would drip a poisonous, fetid liquid.

At the bottom of the giant column, the humus culture medium was packed with unknown fungi and algae, food for the root duckweed.

Ji Cheng also saw leaf fragments of sand fern scattered within another giant column, along with the dark green arrow-shaped leaves of corpse-finger flower. In yet another, clinging to the glass surface, was nine-point cloud.

But they still fell far short of drawing Ji Cheng’s attention.

The group continued with heavy footsteps until Ji Cheng’s gaze touched upon a rather不起眼 existence buried in the sand.

A patch of dark yellow moss.

It was mixed and buried within the mineralized sand, like a spread of dry hay. Its dull color blended into the mottled sunlight like gravel, and without looking closely it was impossible to make it out.

“Withered moss,” he murmured under his breath.

They were actually cultivating withered moss here.