Chapter 22 Sacrifice to Heaven

Lin Shen plopped down on the chair, his hands still shaking uncontrollably from the pain. He tried to pick up the water cup from the nearby table to calm his nerves, but his hands couldn't grip it. Just touching the cup made him grit his teeth and cry out in pain.

In contrast, once the monster calmed down, it quickly regained its mobility without Lin Shen attacking its acupoints.

The enlarged front end slowly returned to normal, resembling a dark red snake-skin rope, which slithered toward Lin Shen. It slowly raised its head and opened its mouthparts.

This time, its mouthparts didn't enlarge but merely opened slightly, revealing an inner cavity that seemed to contain countless blood crystal gears spinning. It then lowered its head and spat out a small, ruby-like key.

Ignoring the pain, Lin Shen reached out with his blood-covered, trembling fingers, grasping the ruby key as if he had Parkinson's.

With the key in hand, Lin Shen finally let go of his worries. With this key, the peculiar Base Mutation Creature would no longer pose any threat to him.

He looked at the key and then at its mouthparts, contemplating where the keyhole might be—whether he had to insert his arm to find it—when the Base Mutation Creature's body began changing rapidly. Its several-meter-long body quickly shrank into a dark red pet capsule the size of a peanut.

"This thing's intelligence is much higher than that of an average Base Mutation Creature. It can even enter the pet capsule state by itself. I wonder if it can revert back to its creature form without the key?" Lin Shen muttered to himself, doubting whether the pet key still had absolute control over it.

Mutant Death Shredder: Mutant Alloy Creature (evolvable).

Strength: 21.

Speed: 21.

Hardness: 21.

Toughness: 21.

Base Mutation Talents: Mutant Devour, Mutant Evolution, Strengthened Armor Piercing Stab, Strengthened Instant Speed, Strengthened Hundred Refinements.

After seeing its information, Lin Shen was stupefied, and shock could no longer convey his feelings at the moment.

The term "Mutant Alloy Creature" was something Lin Shen had only heard of. There were rumors that someone had acquired such a creature, but Lin Shen had never seen it himself, nor was there solid information about who possessed a mutant pet.

Moreover, why did this Alloy Creature have attributes of 21 points? The attribute limit for Alloy Creatures should be 20. How did it reach 21? Even with mutations, he had never heard of attributes exceeding 20.

What made Lin Shen feel even more unusual was that this creature had five Base Mutation Talents, some of which looked familiar.

Lin Shen didn't have the mind to dwell on these thoughts any longer. He took several vials of medicine from the cabinet and poured them into a basin.

He poured a small basinful of the purple-red liquid and soaked both hands in it. Instantly, he felt heart-wrenching pain, a sensation only slightly better than sticking his hands in a frying pan.

Enduring the urge to withdraw his hands from the liquid, he remembered that these medicines were expensive; his elder sister had bought them for a significant price, and they were essentially meant to save his life.

It was said that the medicine was made from the Base Mutation Fluid of several special Base Mutation Creatures. Its manufacturing process and formula were strictly confidential to Sea Corn Base, and no one outside could produce this medicine, which was priced in the five figures.

Lin Shen poured out five bottles; that was tens of thousands gone in an instant.

However, the high cost was justified by the results, as after the initial agony, Lin Shen felt the wounds on his hand healing at an astonishing rate, and the bleeding had already stopped.

Soaking like this, he estimated that the bones that had split would mostly heal in a few days.

"No!" Lin Shen suddenly realized something, ran to check, and sure enough, the Mutant Steel Tail Scorpion's Pet Capsule and the Base Mutation Eggs of the Dark Iron Swallow and Hundred-Refined Steel Beast were gone.

After a closer examination of Death Shredder's information, Lin Shen had a hunch, those items must have been consumed by it.

"The Mutation and Evolution abilities of Death Powder should have the capability to plunder other creatures' Base Mutation Talents; those other three enhanced skills must have been pilfered from them," Lin Shen quickly reasoned out the cause and effect.

Because the full name of the Mutant Death Shredder was too long, Lin Shen decided to simplify it and just call it Death Powder.

What Lin Shen couldn't understand was why Death Powder hadn't consumed the Supersonic Gunman's capsule, given that it and the Mutant Steel Tail Scorpion's capsule were together at the time.

"Is it because the Supersonic Gunman's level is high, making it not so easy for its devouring ability to affect it, or does it only consume creatures that contain Fire Seed?" Lin Shen couldn't immediately figure out which reason it was.

"Losing three premium pets with evolutionary potential is indeed a bit of a loss, but directly transforming it into Death Powder's combat capabilities is more useful given my current situation," Lin Shen let Death Powder revert to its biological state to closely study its various abilities.

The enhanced Armor-Piercing Stab allowed its spike-like tail to possess powerful armor-piercing capabilities; coupled with its perverse Attribute, it posed a threat even to Crystal-based Creatures, not to mention Alloy Creatures—one strike, one kill.

The enhanced Instantaneous Speed was the ability to increase speed in a short period, an equally practical innate talent.

Lin Shen still hadn't figured out what the enhanced Hundred Refinements ability was; it seemed to be a passive skill, and Death Powder couldn't demonstrate it.

The Mutated Devouring and Mutated Evolution also couldn't be demonstrated—he only knew they were related to devouring and evolving abilities. Lin Shen could only guess they played a key role in plundering Base Mutation Talents as to whether there were other effects, only future battle could reveal.

However, even without those three talents, relying only on the enhanced Armor-Piercing Stab and Instantaneous Speed, along with Death Powder's abnormal Attribute, was enough to place it at the pinnacle of combat power among Alloy Creatures.

With Death Powder's combat strength, Lin Shen felt that there might be a slim chance of turning the tables on his visit to Gourd Mountain.

The reason there was only a slim chance was that both the Qi and Wang families had Crystal Base Level combat power, and Death Powder barely qualified as pseudo Crystal Base. Against real Crystal Base Creatures, it might not have the upper hand.

A slim chance was still a chance, which was better than none, and Lin Shen, trapped in a dilemma, remained quite optimistic.

Continuing to soak his hands in the medicinal solution, he didn't have much time. If his hands didn't heal by the time he departed for Gourd Mountain, it would present a major inconvenience.

Only then did Lin Shen have the time to attend to the Fire Seed information that had emerged in his mind.

Lin Shen was also curious about what kind of Fire Seed Death Powder would carry.

[Imperfect Super-Base Evolutionary Fire Seed—Sacrifice to Heaven: Teammates offer a Sacrifice to Heaven, mana boundless; the dead abound, strength compounds; amidst mountains of corpses and seas of blood, turn the tide, blindsiding Immortals.]

Lin Shen's mouth fell open and he was speechless for a long moment.