70: Chapter 70 The Primal Saliva (Upgrading)

Xinhuo Stronghold.

After the fourth Assessment began, most human cities were subjected to large-scale invasions and attacks. Under the first wave of offensive, most of them were reduced to ruins.

This was also the reason why Gu Changming had stayed away from the cities and headed to the wilderness from the very beginning.

After the cities were reduced to ruins, some new strongholds formed spontaneously.

Some still relied on the original cities, some were established based on advantageous terrain, and others were temporary gatherings based on resource points.

In short, during this Assessment, humanity was scattered once again and then reconvened, forming new gathering grounds belonging to this era.

Moreover, Gu Changming knew that many of these temporary strongholds would continue to grow and expand with subsequent developments, eventually forming the new cities of true human civilization.

The "Xinhuo Stronghold" he had come to now was one of the major gathering areas in the mid-term; it was conveniently located, and survivors from several nearby cities had gathered here.

After more than a month of development, it had already reached a considerable scale, and the functions a human gathering area should have were beginning to take shape.

For example, right now.

Gu Changming was haggling with a stall owner in the trading area.

He held a dusty gray egg in his hand. The shell was rough, about the size of two fists, and felt heavy.

"One hundred points, I can't go any lower." The stall owner was a middle-aged man with a scruffy beard, squatting behind the stall with his eyelids drooping.

"Do you even know what this is?" Gu Changming bargained, "Thirty points at most."

"Thirty?!" The stall owner almost jumped up. "Are you robbing me? At least eighty!"

"Fifty." Gu Changming interrupted him, his tone flat.

The excitement on the stall owner's face vanished instantly, replaced by a look of pained hesitation. His mouth twitched as if he were making a monumental decision, and he let out a heavy sigh.

Although he had only bought this beast egg for twenty-five points, he still had to provide the necessary emotional performance.

"Fine... alright! Consider it a favor to a friend, I'm selling it to you at a loss!" He slapped his thigh and pushed the egg toward Gu Changming. "Fifty points, transfer them."

Gu Changming said no more and directly transferred fifty points to him.

He didn't know what kind of egg it was, and he hadn't bought it to hatch and then form a contract.

Rather...

Gu Changming picked up the beast egg, weighed it in his hand, and then casually tossed it behind him.

The dusty egg traced a short arc in the air.

Almost simultaneously, the little thing that had been quietly perched on Gu Changming's shoulder like an unremarkable clump of black sludge suddenly moved.

Its jelly-like body instantly elongated and transformed, opening a "mouth" disproportionate to its size. It precisely caught the falling beast egg and swallowed it with a gulp.

The stall owner watched in astonishment, tilting his head in confusion. "Is that a Slime?"

Ignoring the stall owner's shock—nowadays, all sorts of strange abilities and opportunities existed—so letting the Mimic Beast swallow an egg wouldn't cause much of a stir.

After the Mimic Beast swallowed the egg, Gu Changming opened its status panel.

[Name: Primal Saliva]

[Current Status: Upgrading]

[Core Skill: Mimic Symbiosis]

[Current Mimic Library: Storm Hawk, Rock-Core Colossal Rhino, Red Crystal Earthworm...]

Yes, he bought this egg because the Mimic Beast wanted to eat it.

After the Assessment began, in order to increase his strength, Gu Changming had also started hunting unique creatures from other dimensions that had descended upon Earth. He obtained materials from them and gave their remains to the Mimic Beast to enrich its Mimic Library.

The process went smoothly, and before long, his level had broken through to D-rank.

But as the number of creatures he killed increased, and the number of remains he let the Mimic Beast swallow grew...

At a certain point, the Mimic Beast's data box changed.

An [Upgrading] tag had appeared.

At the same time, Gu Changming also sensed the emotions the Mimic Beast was conveying to him: it wanted to swallow more and stronger creatures, as that would be of immense benefit to it.

After eating the egg, the Mimic Beast conveyed a sense of satisfaction, but no other changes occurred.

"Still not enough?" Gu Changming pursed his lips and stood up, bracing his hands on his legs.

"Boss," Gu Changming looked over and asked, "Are there any relatively strong monsters nearby?"

The stall owner looked over curiously and replied, "There are. Recently, a boss-level beast king appeared nearby. Several squads that encountered it have already been wiped out."

"Boss-level" wasn't an official rating on the panel, but a rank summarized by humans themselves.

A boss-level creature was a standard of strength where encountering it required several elite squads to team up for a raid, and even then, success wasn't guaranteed.

"What kind of creature?" Gu Changming became interested.

"A spider, I think, from what I've heard." The stall owner wasn't very interested in things outside of business.

"Oh." Gu Changming nodded, lost in thought.

...

Not far away.

A shopfront with a simple wooden sign reading "High Price Material Buyback."

Su Wan and Lin Jianqiu walked out from inside together.

"I really didn't expect the price of that Venom Giant Toad's Poison Sac to be so high." Lin Jianqiu's voice was light. "After deducting supplies and equipment maintenance this time, our net income is over eight hundred points, which is enough for us to get some better gear."

After the newbie rewards from the third Assessment, secondary professions like Blacksmiths and Apothecaries gradually became more common.

Consequently, squads like theirs were now fully equipped, and their combat power far exceeded what it had been before.

"Yeah, good luck." Su Wan nodded. With over eight hundred points, she would get over two hundred. Combined with her previous savings, she could purchase a decent Archer ability or customize some special arrows.

After walking a certain distance, Lin Jianqiu suddenly remembered something and turned to Su Wan. "Su Wan, that Zhang Yuanfan... he always tends to panic at critical moments."

"It's only his second time out since joining us," Su Wan said slowly. "Let's wait and see. He's a newcomer; we have to give him some time to fit in. If it really doesn't work out, we'll explain it to him clearly later..."

She remembered that when she first started, she had been even more pathetic. She didn't even dare to stay home alone, squatting at the stairwell listening to the sounds below.

Whenever that person went out or came back, she would quickly move to pretend it was a chance encounter... and he hadn't looked down on her.

"Mm-hmm." Lin Jianqiu nodded, switching the topic to casual chatter. "You got five hundred points in the first Assessment, right? How did you do it? I only dared to huddle at home, not moving an inch."

At the mention of this, Su Wan's footsteps paused for a split second before she continued forward.

"That's naturally because I'm gifted and clever, unlike most people. At a glance, I saw through..." Su Wan said with a smile.

But before she could finish, her peripheral vision caught sight of a familiar figure.

...

The novel's rating is out, 5.9. I'm feeling discouraged; I'm not gonna make it.