Chapter 134: Chapter 134 – The First Fish in the World

Eh?

Why did it take so long for the player level up prompt to appear after uploading the final game results?

However, when Ren Suo opened this information, he found that instead of informing him of his player levelling up, it was a strange system prompt.

[Player, congratulations for receiving 200 merit points. Here is a friendly reminder from Neisser Game Studios: accumulate as many merit points as possible before your promotion to a level 4 player. You have been warned.]

Ren Suo was confused upon seeing the prompt. Why did the company which the Small World game console was licensed under specially prompt him not to spend his merit points after discovering that he had earned a sizable amount of them?

Moreover, it was not just a simple reminder but instead going so far as to say that he had been warned. It was not far from simply saying that “I am the creator, so you should do as I say and not be a fool”.

It was almost like advising people not to enter the palace to be a eunuch in 1911.

But why did the prompt appear only after he accumulated 200 merit points, and not when he previously had 100 merit points?

“It must be that the promotion to a level 4 player is related to accumulating 200 merit points…”

Ren Suo thought about it but figured that the information was not very significant, since he was still a long way from becoming a level 4 player.

Ren Suo opened the savehouse inventory and naturally, the sight of two treasure chests greeted him: the level 2 treasure chest from “Holy Priest: Survival Battle” and the level 3 treasure chest from “The All-Devouring Soul”.

However, Ren Suo did not have a single key. Keys could only be retrieved from real life, and could not be purchased using merit points.

Nonetheless, over the past few days, Ren Suo had been eating his meals with Dong Chengling every day. He discovered that there were six students in the two classes she taught who possessed keys. There were many more of such students who roamed the dining hall.

But of course, they had nothing to do with Ren Suo, no matter how many keys they had.

Similarly, there were many beautiful girls at university and piles of bills stored in the bank, but what did they have got to do with Ren Suo?

As with the past activations of the treasure chests, Ren Suo felt that he was far from being a powerful European emperor, so he decided to let nature take its course and think about activating the treasure chests when he had the opportunity to do so in the future.

On the contrary, it was the specialized reward of “The All-Devouring Soul” which excited him —

“Extraordinary Evolution”!

That reward did not appear on the Equipment page. Instead, like “Enhanced Physique”, it appeared immediately in the savehouse inventory, indicating that it was a consumable reward, and would be used up.

Ren Suo had not put too much thought into it previously, but after playing “The All-Devouring Soul” for over ten days, he had a much better understanding of “Extraordinary Evolution”!

The enchanting nine-tailed fox who could take on a multitude of physical appearances!

The mythical monkey king who had the physique of a king kong!

Ren Suo was not expecting to attain the demon king realm of the third super-evolution. He would be more than satisfied if he was given the option to step into the true human realm of the second super-evolution!

[Do you wish to activate “Extraordinary Evolution”?]

[It has been detected that the player is a human. Please select one of the following three evolution cards –]

Wow, not bad, there are three cards to choose from!

But the next moment, Rensuo was instantly stunned when he saw the three evolution cards —

[Mimic Creature: Cat], [Mimic Creature: Fox], [Mimic Creature: Fish].

Ren Suo put down the game controller and took a deep breath. He proceeded to the washroom and pulled down his pants. After pondering for a long while, he rubbed his hands together slowly with soap and water, then organized his emotions before sitting back down on the couch. He carefully read through the descriptions of the three evolution cards.

While the evolution of animals was to become like humans, it was strange that the evolution of humans was to become like animals. But Ren Suo came to terms with such a game setting, and thought that it was nonetheless interesting.

And even if he could not accept such a game setting… That was not an option for Ren Suo, who observed the ‘three second rule” (food can still be eaten within three seconds of dropping it) and never wasted resources.

[Mimic Creature: Cat] was a colorless card. Its effect was: enables the player to acquire the abilities of cats, including napping, night vision, and agility, as well as obtain the “aura of cats”, which allows the player to be favored by other felines easily;

[Mimic Creature: Fox] was a colorless card. Its effect was: enables the player to acquire the abilities of foxes, including an enhanced sense of smell and a body scent, as well as obtain the “aura of canids”, which allows the player to be favored by other canids easily;

[Mimic Creature: Fish] was a colorless card. Its effect was: enables the player to acquire the abilities of fishes, including the ability to breathe and swim in water, as well as obtain the “aura of fishes”, which allows the player to be favored by other fishes easily.

“Oh well, I knew it, there is still a limit to the power of specialized rewards from games with a 3-star difficulty…”

——————

Somewhere across the Pacific Ocean, in the underground research institute on Prison Island over 400 nautical miles away from Los Angeles, the 751th experiment was being conducted.

Prison Islands were not uncommon in the Federation, with the natural barriers of the ocean proving to be more effective than all other physical barriers. Located far away from the mainland, the prison island was naturally an excellent location for conducting scientific research, with no possibility of information leakage unless a satellite phone could be accessed.

Furthermore, the Kebalian prison island was privately managed. It was originally established by a medical-based multinational consortium of the Federation, but over the past six months, other consortiums began to inject funds to make the prison island a common investment amongst the top-tier consortiums of the Federation. At the same time, many researchers and prisoners on death row, were brought onto the prison island.

At present, the prison only held prisoners on death sentence with reprieve. When those prisoners arrived, they would no longer have the opportunity to communicate with the outside world, and only electromagnetic prison shoes which slowed their movement would be worn. Additionally, the entire floor surface of the prison island was made of matching metal materials. When the prisoners entered an area which “did not belong to them”, the electrical circuit between the ground and their shoes would be closed and an immense magnetic force would form, forcing them to be stuck at that position.

That was a prison where people could always be ‘planted’ inside forever.

Two fit jailers escorted Case, a prisoner, to an underground research room. Not only was Case wearing the electromagnetic prison shoes, both of his hands were also bound together with lead handcuffs. His face was covered with an elastic mask that completely forced opened his mouth and only had two openings which revealed a pair of eyes constantly darting in fear and panic.

When Case entered, it was also the end of the 751th experiment.

“Clean up the area over here quickly.”

A white middle-aged researcher instructed the staff to clean up the “person” on the metal seat who had already “melted” like ice cream. The researcher fixed his gaze at the curve on the display screen as he asked: “How many more people are there?”

“Three more people, professor,” said the female researcher next to him. She continued, “Subject No. 752 is here.”

“Well, next up is the fatigue test for the next five test subjects… Begin immediately after 30 seconds,” said the middle-aged researcher.

Case watched as the experiment assistants cleaned up the flesh and internal organs on the seat in a whirl, and then several stronger assistants removed the lead handcuffs and electromagnetic prison shoes on him.

Case knelt down on the ground in fear, making muffled noises in protest, but the group of assistants held him up and into the seat. They fixed his hands and feet together in position. A black assistant slapped his face and scorned: “All of you scums on death row are going to die anyway. Don’t wet your pants later or it would be troublesome for us to clean up.”

Ah, ah, ah —

It’s not me, I have been wronged!

But no one was interested in listening to his story. Perhaps he landed in such a position because his business partners plotted against him when he had been the CEO of the company;

Perhaps he was a banker, and caught his wife committing adultery with another man in the middle of the night, although he did not make any rash decisions but the bank robbers who passed by did, resulting in the blame being shifted onto him;

Or perhaps he was an undercover of the police, but no one could prove his identity after his superior’s “staged” suicide…

Regardless, in the research center, he was merely the 752nd test subject.

While he rebuked the injustice of fate in his heart, he had never thought about the fact that, if fate took his side, would that not be unfair to the 751 test subjects in front – who could be sure that the 751 others had not been wronged too?

“The experiment will now begin.”

Case tensed up as he waited for the electrical current or sharp blade to be felt.

But instead, his seat turned around 180°.

The metal seat was so big that Case had not noticed anything behind the seat, but now he finally saw it – it was a fish tank.

In the fish tank, there was a blue-green fish about the size of a thumb.

The 751 prisoners in front of him who underwent the experiment had not recognized the fish, and at best, they thought that the fish was too small to do any harm.

But things were not the same for Case. He majored in biology when he was in university and was once obsessed with the Cambrian outbreak of multicellular life. He used to look at various ancient fossils in museums around the world with his classmates.

Now, the fish in front of him quickly brought back his memories of university —

“This is… a Haikouichthys fish?”

Haikouichthys was a prehistoric fish-like organism, belonging to the Agnatha superclass. Its fossils were found in Yunnan in Xuan Nation, and its origins were traced back to the Cambrian period. It became the oldest known vertebrate, coming into existence 530 million years ago.

Even the trilobites that many people were familiar with were much more complicated than the Haikouichthys fish. They were termed the “first fish of the world” and it was presently known to only exist in fossils.

However, Case believed at first glance that the thumb-sized fish in the fish tank in front of him was a Haikouichthys fish!

That was an absurdly confident belief for no reason – even if it looked exactly the same as the fossils, it was still not impossible to have fish which appeared similar to the Haikouichthys after so many years.

But when Case looked at the fish, the acetylcholine hormone was rapidly secreted by his body, which even made him forget about his current predicament. Only pilgrimage-like happiness remained in his mind.

Yet, the next second, the table on which the fish tank was placed on quickly moved towards him, and it was only then when Case saw that there was a guide tube under the fish tank.

Very quickly, the staff inserted the guide tube into his opened mouth, and a machine in the fish tank was activated. Water from the fish tank began flowing into his mouth continuously.

Case recalled the miserable state of the metal chair when he first entered the room.

Did those people turn into that state just by drinking this water?

His consciousness and thoughts quickly faded as Case felt the blood in his body start to boil, and pain spread from the depths of his bone marrow. Despair moaned as his soul crumbled…

God, as long as I can be saved… whether you are Jehovah, Satan, noodles, bugs, black goats, computers, game consoles, whatever, I am willing to worship you until the end of the world!

——————

Kebelian Archive 752 (SECRET)

Subject: Keith Troy, age 34, Male, Florida

Experimental background: No. 3 (DATA EXPUNGED) first appeared in the stomach of a 45-year-old middle-aged male in New Jersey. Three close contacts also died from physically melting within three days. The cause of death was excessive cell proliferation resulting in collapse of body functions and subsequent explosion of the physical body. It has been found that the effects can be avoided as long as there is no physical contact.

Experimental situation: No. 3 (DATA EXPUNGED) was passed through a (DATA EXPUNGED) wide guide tube into the body of the test subject. Afterwards, the physical abilities of the subject was greatly enhanced and even the anesthesia needle prepared on the experiment chair was rendered useless. The subject dug a hole through the metal floor with his head and crawled into the ground. Only a round hole with a width of 40cm was left behind. According to investigations, the underground tunnel led out of the island and it is predicted that the subject entered the Pacific Ocean.

——————

At night, on a beach somewhere in Los Angeles, a naked man with a bald patch right on the center of his head crawled ashore quietly. After much effort, he managed to steal a set of clothes to wear and some cash. He flagged down a taxi on the road, and told the driver his destination – a safehouse that he had acquired under someone else’s identity.

The driver, who had a beard and was wearing a Manchester United hat, first looked at the bald spot on his passenger’s head, then looked at his face. He asked, “Your neck is hurt, don’t you need to get it fixed?”

“Eh?” said the man.

Case touched his neck, and from the rear mirror of the car, he saw a thumb-sized wound in the shape of a fish on his neck.

“It’s all right,” said Case.

Then, Case could not help but start laughing, the blood of fish and the bits of fish stuck in his teeth scaring the driver.

He said, “This is a mark left behind by my savior.”