Chapter 30 Battle of the Five Scrubs
"A watch?" Lin Shen was somewhat surprised.
He had thought that whatever Qi Guan had clutched to in death would be something precious. He hadn't expected it to be a watch, and it looked like a cheap digital one at that.
The strap, the case, and the dial were all black, with only white numbers displayed on the dial.
"Could it be that this watch holds special sentimental value to Qi Guan? If I get the chance, I might return it to his family," Lin Shen picked up the watch and noticed that the time displayed was off.
"00:00:07, is this watch broken?" Lin Shen looked at the sky, it wasn't dark yet, so how could it possibly be midnight?
As Lin Shen observed, the time on the watch continued to tick.
6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... 0...
Soon the time on the watch reset to zero, and suddenly a voice came from inside the watch: "Confirming user's death... New user detected... Binding successful... Teleport countdown beginning 10... 9... 8..."
The time on the watch changed to 00:00:10, and it began counting down by the second.
"What the hell!" Lin Shen hastily threw the watch away.
The watch that hit the ground continued the countdown, and Lin Shen instinctively retreated, distancing himself from it.
But the moment the countdown on the watch hit zero, Lin Shen felt the scenery before his eyes suddenly distort.
The sky, the mountains, the trees, the flowers, the earth—all twisted together in Lin Shen's vision, spinning rapidly, and after a dizzy spell, he felt a sudden heaviness in his body, as if he was bearing the weight of a thousand pounds and uncontrollably fell to the ground.
Lin Shen pressed his hands against the ground and, with great effort, slowly stood up. The sensation of weight made it difficult for him even to stand; the trembling muscles in his legs made him feel as if they would give out at any moment and send him crashing to the ground once again.
"What the hell is this situation?" Lin Shen's gaze froze where it lay.
Where were the mountains and gorges before him? Instead, he was greeted by a white sandy beach and a blue ocean.
On the surrounding beach, there lay dozens of white Steel Body creatures with steel thorns all over their bodies and sizes comparable to grindstones, just lying there on the beach doing who knows what.
The sudden appearance of Lin Shen caused hundreds of Steel Thorn Turtles to turn their heads to look at him, their gazes uniformly focusing on his person.
Lin Shen swallowed hard, instinctively wanting to lift his hand to rub his eyes to make sure he wasn't hallucinating.
But the act of lifting his hand had become many times more difficult than before, and there was a delay between his movement and his thoughts.
Before his hand even touched his eyes, Lin Shen realized that he was wearing that black digital watch on his left wrist.
Lin Shen's first reaction was to reach out to remove the watch. Just as his fingers touched the strap, he heard the cold electronic synthesized voice from the watch again.
"Teleport cooldown not complete. Forcibly removing the teleporter will reactivate the teleportation, and the user will incur irreversible damage during the process."
Lin Shen's hand stopped in an instant, his mind flashing back to the horrific wounds on Qi Guan's body.
"Could Qi Guan's injuries have been caused by this sort of damage?" Fearing similar wounds, Lin Shen dared not touch the watch again.
If an Alloy Level Mutator could be injured like that, what would happen to him, a non-Base Mutator? Would he simply turn into a pile of minced meat?
The time displayed on the watch read 71:59:54, and it was still decreasing.
"Does this mean I'll have to wait 72 hours before I can use this teleportation gear again?" Lin Shen reasoned.
He had no time to think further because the Steel Thorn Turtles, after a moment of stunned hesitation, started crawling angrily towards him. Their demeanors suggested they would tear Lin Shen to pieces, as if he had desecrated their ancestral graves.
Lin Shen wanted to run, but after taking just one step, he stopped; his whole body felt weighed down, and he simply couldn't move.
Lin Shen fumbled for the Pet Key and Pet Capsule on his body, managing to summon the Heavy Armor Beast before the Steel Thorn Turtles charged at him.
Under Lin Shen's control, the Heavy Armor Beast bit into his chain armor, lifted him up, and flung him onto its back.
Lin Shen lay atop the Heavy Armor Beast, clutching its neck for dear life.
The Heavy Armor Beast let out a roar, its alloy thighs, thicker than an elephant's legs, directly stomped down on the Steel Thorn Turtle that was charging at it.
Crack! Crunch!
The sound of steel fracturing echoed as the Steel Thorn Turtle's steel spikes and shell were directly crushed underfoot, with a liquid resembling mercury splashing out.
Lin Shen could clearly feel that the Heavy Armor Beast was much slower than before, and those Steel Thorn Turtles seemed to also not be as fast as the steel creatures Lin Shen had seen in the past.
"Is it a gravity issue?" Lin Shen guessed, but then he felt his watch vibrating on his wrist.
Glancing at his watch, he noticed that it no longer displayed the time but flowing text instead.
"Killed Steel Creature Steel Thorn Turtle... Killed Steel Creature Steel Thorn Turtle..."
As the Heavy Armor Beast continued to stampede, streaks of information kept flowing across the watch face.
Within a group of Steel Level Steel Thorn Turtles, the Alloy Level Heavy Armor Beast was like a tiger entering a flock of sheep, embarking on a one-sided slaughter.
Knowing they were no match, those Steel Thorn Turtles still desperately charged at the Heavy Armor Beast, each one fearlessly rushing to its death as if in a hurry to be reborn, getting stomped to death one by one by the Heavy Armor Beast—within a short while, twenty or thirty were dead.
Lin Shen was initially puzzled as to why these Steel Thorn Turtles didn't run away. Base Variant Creatures weren't stupid; even normal animals knew to flee, and the intelligence of Base Variant Creatures was no less than that of normal animals, some were even smarter. It seemed impossible that they would not know to escape.
But when his gaze fell upon the ground where the Steel Thorn Turtles had been prostrating, he instantly understood.
There were pits in the sand, and in the partly exposed pits, Lin Shen saw eggs the size of ping-pong balls.
"So these Steel Thorn Turtles were laying eggs! I've stumbled into a communal nesting ground!" Lin Shen realized.
Looking at the Base Mutation Eggs in those sand pits, Lin Shen suddenly thought that if he could take all these eggs back with him, that would be quite a significant income.
The egg-laying capability of the Steel Thorn Turtles seemed very strong; just from a quick glance, there were at least seven or eight Base Mutation Eggs per pit. With so many pits, there could be over a thousand eggs, couldn't there?
It was uncertain whether the teleporter could take them all back, and there were also materials from the bodies of these Steel Thorn Turtles. Although they were not tremendously valuable, the sheer quantity meant they could still make some money.
As Lin Shen was thinking this, he suddenly heard the Heavy Armor Beast let out a dreadful scream.
Looking down, Lin Shen was shocked to see one of the Heavy Armor Beast's feet had been impaled by a spike on the back of a Steel Thorn Turtle. Unlike the others, this particular Steel Thorn Turtle hadn't been crushed at all; instead, it was the Heavy Armor Beast's foot that had been pierced by the turtle's steel spike.
"What's going on?" Lin Shen looked at the trapped Steel Thorn Turtle, which in size and appearance seemed no different from the ordinary ones, appearing to be just another normal turtle.
But how could a steel creature's spike possibly pierce through an alloy creature?
Lin Shen involuntarily checked his watch, hoping to see information about this particular Steel Thorn Turtle, but he didn't find any. Instead, he saw other information.
User: Unmutated lower life form.
Strength: 5.
Speed: 5.
Hardness: 5.
Toughness: 5.
Theoretical lifespan limit of the living entity: 100 years.
Base Change Talent: None.
Lin Shen couldn't help but stare blankly. "This unmutated lower life form, could it be referring to me?"
But on second thought, it made sense; all fives, truly a quintessential weakling.
Even such a weakling was already at the human limit, achieved through years of consuming a large amount of Base Mutation Fluid to enhance physical attributes.