Chapter 322: Difficult-to-Accept Research Results
When Zhou Ming returned to the camp, he immediately summoned Su Mei and instructed her to send people to monitor the movements of the Cave Spider Men.
Although the cavern where the other party was located was over a thousand kilometers away from the camp, requiring passage through several underground tunnels to reach this place, it would only take a few hours at most for a Transcendent Expert.
Even with Qinghui Base nearby and Chu Yujie’s group of three able to arrive with reinforcements at any time, the necessary precautions still had to be taken.
Once the other side lowered themselves to launch a sneak attack, the current camp had no means of defending against Transcendent Experts. They could only secretly dispatch people to monitor them.
If the Cave Spider Men truly made any unusual moves, the camp would at least have enough time to react.
After issuing the surveillance mission regarding the Cave Spider Men, Zhou Ming immediately asked Su Mei about the Source Crystal Coins. This had been the task he assigned before heading to the Alliance Headquarters.
“Reporting to my lord, excluding the shares allocated to the Duanmu Family and the three factions of Qinghui Base, our Snake King Fortress currently possesses a total of thirty-five thousand one hundred Source Crystal Coins.”
Hearing the camp’s income over the past half year, Zhou Ming could not help but feel the benefits of possessing an established foundation.
If calculated purely according to the exchange ratio of one gram of Source Crystal for ten thousand Alliance Coins, the camp had earned over three billion Alliance Coins in just half a year.
But in reality, thirty-five thousand one hundred Source Crystal Coins could be exchanged for over ten billion Alliance Coins.
“It’s still somewhat too little.”
After hearing Su Mei’s answer, Zhou Ming let out a slight sigh.
With his current strength, if he used all his methods, he could rival a Mid-level Transcendent Rank expert.
However, if he wanted to steadily defeat a Mid-level Transcendent Rank expert while his strength could not increase in a short period of time, he could only rely on external enhancements.
More than thirty thousand Source Crystal Coins would at most allow him to acquire one excellent Outstanding-grade Transcendent Equipment.
“Please forgive me, my lord.”
Just as Su Mei was about to kneel, Zhou Ming’s Innate Force Field immediately manifested, stopping her movement.
“This matter is not your fault. The camp has only been established for half a year. Being able to accumulate over thirty thousand Source Crystal Coins is already quite good.”
Zhou Ming was not an unreasonable person. As the camp’s general manager, Su Mei had already fulfilled her duties with utmost dedication, so naturally he would not blame her for this.
Afterward, Zhou Ming waved his hand, taking out the resources compensated by the Wind Eagle Yang Family.
He selected the resources he had no use for and directly placed them before Su Mei.
“The camp has been established for so long, yet we still haven’t held an auction. Use these items to exchange for Source Crystal Coins through an auction.”
“This matter must be completed within one month.”
Since there was still one month before the auction at White Bone City, Zhou Ming gave Su Mei a clear deadline.
“Please rest assured, my lord. This subordinate will definitely handle this matter properly.”
Only after Zhou Ming waved for her to withdraw did Su Mei store away the resources before her and leave the third floor of the stone tower.
After she left, Zhou Ming entered the laboratory and took out the Little Pink Mushroom hidden inside his clothes.
Having followed Zhou Ming through two great battles, the Little Pink Mushroom had its eyes tightly shut while its body trembled weakly.
It resembled a lump of rubber constantly shaking, causing rippling wave-like patterns to appear across its body.
“You little fellow, wasn’t your courage quite big before? You even tried to run away.”
Upon hearing Zhou Ming’s teasing, the Little Pink Mushroom quietly opened its mung-bean-sized eyes and glanced around. Once again, a sense of unease surged within its heart.
“Relax, I won’t take your little life.”
Before the Little Pink Mushroom could react, Zhou Ming grabbed its body and restrained it upon the experimental platform.
Instantly, miserable “ying ying” crying sounds rang out.
The bad memories from the Rocky Cave once again surfaced in the Little Pink Mushroom’s mind.
Ignoring the Little Pink Mushroom’s reaction, Zhou Ming directly sliced off tissue as thin as cicada wings from its body and began observing it beneath the electron microscope.
Adhering to the principle of not wasting anything, he conveniently collected the bodily fluid dripping from the Little Pink Mushroom as well, thereby avoiding subjecting it to a second injury.
One could say that, to a certain extent, Zhou Ming still possessed a tiny bit of kindness.
Under the electron microscope, Zhou Ming discovered that the Little Pink Mushroom’s body tissues showed absolutely no traces of cellular structure.
In other words, it was neither a plant nor an animal, but rather a purely aggregated energy entity.
However, once the body of an elemental energy lifeform was severed, unless special preservation methods were used, the severed portion would generally dissipate into energy particles.
Unless it contained spiritual will and still remained under control, allowing it to reintegrate into itself and restore its normal form.
This situation generally appeared in completely elementalized Phantasmal Beasts. Their severed limbs could be reassembled within a short time.
As long as the core origin was not damaged, ordinary injuries had no effect whatsoever on completely elementalized Phantasmal Beasts.
Zhou Ming pondered slightly before immediately searching through the fourth-floor laboratory of the stone tower and retrieving several sheets of special testing paper.
Ordinary test paper generally examined acidity and alkalinity, while the special test papers in his hands could detect the attributes of elemental energy particles contained within substances.
He dripped the previously collected bodily fluid onto the testing paper. After observing for a moment, however, he discovered there was no reaction whatsoever.
“So it’s already no longer a common type of energy particle?”
The test paper in his possession could not detect all energy particle attributes, because certain extremely rare energy particles manifested in various special forms.
Just as Zhou Ming sat back before the electron microscope, he discovered that the body tissue from the Little Pink Mushroom had faded considerably.
Zhou Ming found it difficult to describe. It was as though an object had suddenly become somewhat illusory.
Sensing the abnormal change, Zhou Ming immediately used Spiritual Power to assist his observation this time, wanting to determine exactly what substance composed the Little Pink Mushroom’s body.
An hour later, the body tissue placed beneath the electron microscope completely disappeared before Zhou Ming’s eyes.
During the observation process, Zhou Ming had even used methods to completely seal the tissue from the Little Pink Mushroom, yet he had not detected any substance dissipating outward.
Regarding this strange phenomenon, a flash of inspiration suddenly appeared within Zhou Ming’s mind.
“Could it be a materialized form similar to spiritual consciousness power?”
Thinking of the environment where the Little Pink Mushroom had been born, Zhou Ming’s brows instantly furrowed like ravines.
Because if he could not provide a similar environment, whether the Little Pink Mushroom could continue surviving became an unknown question.
Zhou Ming shifted his attention to the test paper from earlier and discovered that the liquid within both the test paper and the dropper had already vanished.
This further confirmed his theory.
The Little Pink Mushroom, still crying “ying ying” beside him, noticed that Zhou Ming’s gaze had finally landed upon it. Suddenly, it became too frightened to continue crying.
However, Zhou Ming did not continue slicing apart the Little Pink Mushroom’s body this time, because every bit of its body that was lost would correspondingly reduce the amount of time it could continue existing.
This time, Zhou Ming fully activated his Spiritual Power and even used the Heart Seal to calm his distracting thoughts as he carefully observed whether the Little Pink Mushroom displayed any minute changes.
At this moment, there still remained a trace of luck within his heart.
Half an hour later, an unfavorable result was laid before Zhou Ming.
The Little Pink Mushroom’s body truly was dissipating. Based on the observed rate of dissipation, it would probably only continue existing for one more year.
Faced with such a result, Zhou Ming’s expression immediately darkened like still water.
Watching a treasure slowly disappear before his very eyes was a result no one wished to accept.
Unable to think of any countermeasure, Zhou Ming could only temporarily abandon his research on the Little Pink Mushroom.