Chapter 394: The Technological Singularity

Kraft spent a nearly perfect half-month, as if everything had returned to its beginning—no endless trivial duties disturbed him, no gloomy overseer crossed his path; only the furnace, books, and rare silence accompanied him.

There was also nothing to worry about on the medical front; after briefly handing over the wound-dressing duties, Kraft moved half the laboratory to a secluded corner at the very edge of the basin.

It was a building far from water and habitation, part of the estate yet detached from it, its main structure hidden by a hollow in the hills, nearly invisible from afar unless pointed out.

It had originally been an abandoned granary; its high foundation and mixed brick-stone construction preserved the structure well, greatly accelerating repairs, but it had only recently been put into use.

Burned fields left behind vast stretches of black-gray charred earth, with no crops replanted, yet fences had already been erected, woven with transplanted hawthorn and wild berry bushes filling the gaps between wooden stakes.

Autumn rains stripped away the charred leaves, exposing bare brown-black branches thick with sharp thorns. Sour red fruits dripped like blood beads, decaying and rotting.

The thorny courtyard rejected all visitors. Of course, no sane person would ever wish to visit anyway.

He hadn't come here for himself, but because the expected accident had finally occurred.

Despite every bandage change being cleaned as thoroughly as possible, infection arrived on the seventh day post-surgery, just as predicted.

The cause was now unknown—perhaps the hasty suturing introduced pathogens, or the extensive debridement and dressing changes inevitably missed something; the outcome was the same.

One morning during rounds, the old priest suddenly complained of abnormal swelling and pain in his arm crease. When the bandages were removed, the redness and pus extinguished the last flicker of hope; chills and a sudden spike in body temperature followed immediately.

It seemed even the Heavenly Father had too much to attend to—his gaze couldn't linger long on any one person.

He had survived trauma and blood loss, yet a second trial now awaited him. This battle was internal, not external; its danger might not be less than the invisible entanglements he'd faced before.

He had seen many such cases; not everyone succumbed to the disease, but most survivors were young sailors and laborers, their "vitality" reserves ample enough to sustain the drain.

For an elderly man who had recently suffered massive blood loss, the chance of survival approached zero.

Kraft performed a futile cleaning and sent Yvonne to the laboratory to deliver the news.

Less than two hours later, she returned with a look as if she'd seen a ghost, relaying a brief message:

【Come. Get the medicine.】

Nothing could have been more reassuring. As he set off toward his destination, his mood rivaled that of a saint receiving a divine revelation, going to claim his destined mission.

Yet when he finally stood before the door and unlocked the damp, icy iron latch, unease crept in.

Inside the courtyard, it wasn't as desolate as it appeared from outside; besides the renewed wild grass, there were things growing in the charred earth that clearly didn't belong.

Layers of faint circular rings spread outward from the building, like giant targets, the outermost ring less than twenty paces from the front gate.

He stopped at the edge of the rings, crouched low, and examined them closely—discovering dense, uniform white dots scattered across the distinctly colored peat soil.

Lowering his gaze further, he saw the slender stalks supporting the white dots. They were one of the most common local fungi—wax caps—named for their glossy, oily surfaces, commonly seen after autumn rains, tolerant of cold.

But wax caps typically grew in undisturbed forest meadows; composting or tilling soil drove them to extinction, let alone growing in ash.

A troubling memory surged up—he vaguely recalled this location wasn't far from Westmin.

After briefly weighing risks, he forced himself past his discomfort and stepped into the mushroom ring. Since Yvonne hadn't said anything alarming, the situation must be under control—no need to panic.

Crossing several "target rings," his experience with fungi revealed the source of the color contrast.

These rings were clearly not formed simultaneously; the outer rings consisted mostly of new caps, their pinhead-like domes slightly sparse but vividly bright as congealed fat, still glistening with translucent mucus.

The closer he moved inward, the more he saw mature caps, gradually unfolding and flattening, their color lightening and gloss fading into a standard pale-white, waxy texture.

Further inward, grayish-white decaying specimens grew more numerous—their edges cracked and collapsed, losing their waxy sheen; some had already softened and sunk into the soil.

There was no obvious odor of decay, only a gentle blend of fruitiness and earthy musk.

Their growth resembled being pushed by an invisible tide, spreading outward in several waves from within.

As he puzzled over the origin of this fungal tide, something suddenly "leapt" from the building before him.

It was an instinctive sensation—like a whale breaching the ocean surface during a voyage; you needn't see it to feel the crushing weight of its sheer mass from the waves pounding the hull.

The rising mass hadn't returned empty-handed. Something brought up from "below" was crushed the instant it crossed the threshold; its desperate remnants erupted into a silent shriek, sweeping across the barren, charred earth without stirring a single blade of grass.

White dots erupted from the soil at visible speed; the fungal ring advanced another step toward the fence.

Kraft pulled his neck into his collar and hurried inside—the autumn chill was too biting.

But the fireplace wasn't lit; Kraft stood before a fully assembled set of instruments, dressed for travel, as if he'd just returned from a hike.

"Perfect. We have enough material. Let's make it now."

Petri dishes piled up on the shelves, some even placed directly on the table.

Lush greenish growth filled every inch of the containers, leaving no gaps—like thriving moss, yet far denser, with a fuzzy, velvety surface.

Recognizing what it was brought even greater shock than the mushroom rings outside.

The laboratory had become Tian Ye's fungal field—and this was unquestionably a bountiful harvest.

"Don't be surprised," Kraft said, tightening his mask, then lifting a special glass dish like a winemaker admiring his masterpiece. "Thanks to some conceptual shifts and technical improvements, fungal screening and cultivation have accelerated dramatically."

Inside wasn't green mold, but a dense pattern of bright yellow spots—except in several circular zones, where the yellow seemed to avoid something, curving around it.

"The extraction's inhibition zone test worked—the substance is correct, but it's still slightly off."

Following his gaze to the corner, he saw a cage of rabbits; two were motionless, the rest in poor condition.

"The barrier of purity can't be crossed by magic or miracle—but… it doesn't have to be injected. Topical application is better than nothing."

"Now, get to work."