Chapter 50: The Jianghu Road Is Long; Farewell From Here

If it wasn't clever enough, then dying was just dying.

In any case, he had at least offered help, so facing himself he could hold his head high with a clear conscience.

Having weighed the abilities, Baichuan silently browsed through various escape-related abilities.

His final choice—

Minjie LV2.

The reason he chose this was that when he had observed that Zhang Dadan earlier, he had noticed his speed didn't seem fast—he walked the path of strength.

And mice themselves were famous for their agility; although speed wasn't their strong suit, against ordinary humans their speed could easily leave them in the dust.

If it then evolved a speed-related ability, wouldn't its speed simply take off?

It was already extremely agile to begin with, and its intelligence and spirit weren't lacking either; if a sudden surge in speed were added on top of that—

Presumably its chances of survival would greatly increase.

By then, even if it ran into that Zhang Dadan, as long as it was a little clever, it could easily leave him far behind.

If it still couldn't survive like this, then that would prove it was nothing special—dead was dead.

Along with the consumption of 2 points, Baichuan's points also dropped from 8 back to 6.

And at this moment, before his eyes.

The rat that had been staying in his claws slowly stopped squirming, gradually wrapped in a strong wave of drowsiness, sinking into the deepest slumber.

Instinctively, Baichuan set it down gently.

An extremely viscous liquid began slowly seeping out from between its disheveled fur, like a gel slowly corroding it bit by bit.

"So this is what it was like when I evolved before?"

Baichuan nodded his snake head in understanding, flicking out his tongue to try and catch whether there were any strange odor molecules in the air.

Unfortunately he caught nothing, as if this liquid had no smell.

And not only was there no smell at all, he even stared at this liquid with full concentration, trying to scan it with his panel.

Unfortunately that was useless too.

Then he extended a claw again, trying to hook up a strand of this liquid to examine it.

But unexpectedly, the moment he had just extended one claw and the claw tip touched it—

He saw that where the mysterious liquid stained his claw tip, a strange burning sensation appeared.

Along with this burning sensation, his claw tip actually rotted inch by inch into ash, slowly scattering with the flow of air.

And it was still spreading toward the claw, but fortunately the liquid that had stained it was limited, so this burning sensation quickly faded.

"This is?!"

This scene shocked Baichuan; he stared wide-eyed at it, hardly daring to believe it.

What on earth was this liquid? Why was it so terrifying?

Could this really be secreted from inside a living creature? He had been wrapped in this stuff all along before? And he was completely fine? Did it have some kind of recognition function?

In an instant, a whole pile of questions surfaced again in Baichuan's mind.

If this stuff was always like this, wouldn't his safety during evolution be off the charts?

No, that's not right.

Perhaps it was only like this in the earliest stage; Baichuan recalled the scene of him breaking through that hard shell every time he woke up.

The shell back then was completely a harmless hard shell.

Because he had once used it to hold food he hadn't finished eating.

It was also because there was nothing unusual about it back then that he had overlooked it.

But what on earth was this stuff?

After a long while, Baichuan shook his head.

Having truly just come into contact with it for the first time, how could he possibly understand?

At the same time, while Baichuan was lost in thought.

This rat was also about to be completely covered by this viscous mysterious liquid.

At this moment, he happened to think of the Ice Silkworm lying discarded on the ground, ignored by anyone… oh, perhaps it wasn't an Ice Silkworm anymore now.

What should be done with this thing?

He didn't dare eat it carelessly, after all his ability to gain the power of Ice Frost was largely thanks to its contribution.

But the ability he had strengthened, "Symbiosis," was on the same level as it—meaning he could steal its power, so did that also mean it could steal it back?

Eating it would just be asking for trouble for himself, wouldn't it?

Even if that possibility was only a sliver, he had to eliminate it.

In that case, he could only silence it by killing it.

Thinking of this, Baichuan extended his guilty big claw toward the Ice Silkworm.

Halfway there, he suddenly thought—what if he made contact and got his power stolen back, what would he do?

He still shouldn't make contact with it himself.

Then what should he do with it?

He looked around; the cave could basically be said to be nearly empty.

But fortunately the flesh and blood he had brought back earlier still had a large chunk left, which could completely wrap up this worm.

Then he grabbed the flesh with one claw and wrapped the Ice Silkworm up; throughout the whole process the Ice Silkworm didn't resist at all—perhaps it had long since lost the strength to resist.

As for afterwards?

Baichuan first unleashed a series of intense electric currents at this ball of flesh, and only stopped his actions when even his own claws began to turn red.

After that, he thought again that group of humans might come searching, and they seemed able to make use of corpses, so it couldn't be left behind.

Only grinding the bones and scattering the ashes is the safest bet.

It just so happened that there was a kind of liquid here that could destroy a corpse and erase all traces. Thinking of this, Baichuan directly grabbed the somewhat charred, foul-smelling flesh and placed it on the viscous liquid.

Instantly, as the liquid disappeared, that clump of flesh also slowly began to rot and turn to dust.

"This stuff is pretty good. In the future, if I want to destroy a corpse and erase all traces, I just find an animal, casually strengthen it a bit — wouldn't that make the best body-dissolving fluid?"

Watching such an astonishing effect, Baichuan could not help but praise it a few times.

Although the other functions aren't obvious, this body-destroying function is pretty good.

After taking care of everything, Baichuan took one last look at the little thing, then turned his head and left directly.

The rivers and lakes are vast; let us part ways here. Mountains are high and waters long; if fate allows, we shall meet again.

If you can survive, and become strong enough, there will naturally come a day we meet again, and when that time comes, you won't escape being fleeced by him once more.

……

After leaving the cave.

Baichuan oriented himself, then once again headed toward the direction of the river.

Now that he had obtained what he wanted, it was time to run, and the farther the better — preferably somewhere with no human presence at all.

From the matter of the Ice Silkworm, he understood just how much those humans craved strange insects and Strange Beasts like him that were unlike ordinary wild beasts.

Although he wasn't sure whether he counted as one, just based on his appearance, he would surely be targeted and coveted.

On this point, he didn't think he was being narcissistic or suffering from persecution delusion — it was simply the truth.

He even suspected that when he had stolen the treasure earlier, he might have already been exposed to those humans' eyes. After all, no one knew what kind of methods they possessed.

So, perhaps this place was about to become the center of a vortex.

Then, knowing the severity of the problem, he couldn't fight the entire human group right now.

Moreover, what he needed most right now was stability — stability, and more stability.

Only a stable environment could let him continue accumulating points to evolve, and his environment would best contain a wide variety of living creatures.

Then the only choice left to him was one — run!

Run into the sea!

Uh, there won't be any cliché scenario where a rat mutates first, right? The protagonist hasn't even mutated yet, so how could it be arranged for a rat?

As for the previous mistake… uh, let's just say the abilities strengthened by the panel mutated according to the host……

Regarding the question of low martial arts, everyone has their own understanding. The low martial arts mentioned here doesn't refer to the traditional wuxia kind of low martial arts, but rather in terms of destructive power. My personal understanding is: unable to blow up mountains, can take on a hundred or a thousand alone. But if it can't withstand the charge of an army, it counts as low martial arts.

(End of this chapter)