Technological practice: leading the human race to the stars

Chapter 61 The Essence of Survival (IV)
"It's disgusting. None of it is edible."

Ji Xuefeng sat down on the ground, panting and holding the sledgehammer beside him.

I don't know if it was because the soil was too soft or the sledgehammer was too heavy, but the hammer head was deeply embedded in the soil.

"We have to hurry. There should be a small red flag hidden in this area. As long as we find it, the assessment task for the three of us will be almost halfway completed."

Yuanze and Rick reached out to help Ji Xuefeng up.

The three of them continued to explore along the hillside into the increasingly dense fog. Yuanze used the "flow" and spiritual perception to the extreme, without worrying about the consumption of source power.

This is all because Rick brought a large number of his own secret source power sugar pills, which can quickly replenish the source power for the body-tempering level source warriors.

When the outline of the small red flag became faintly visible in the mist, Yuanze suddenly signaled everyone to stop.

The three of them immediately entered a state of combat alert. Although the extraordinary source beast had not yet appeared, they knew that being able to cross the level boundary and kill the extraordinary source beast with the strength of the body tempering level was definitely not something that could be achieved by poison alone.

However, Rick suddenly fell to the ground and lost consciousness. Fortunately, he still had strong vital signs.

"When did this attack start?!"

Yuan Ze and Ji Xuefeng were so shocked that their scalps went numb. This strange attack method was completely beyond their cognition. Yuan Ze immediately ordered Astra to analyze this silent attack.

The two men stood back to back, protecting the unconscious Rick in the middle, and looked ahead vigilantly to prevent him from being attacked again.

But all these were in vain. Yuanze felt Ji Xuefeng's body soften and began to slide. He turned around quickly, stabilized Ji Xuefeng, and placed him and Rick in a safe place. The fear in his heart surged like a tide. Facing this invisible enemy, it was really difficult to target him.

"Astra, is the analysis done?"

"The analysis is almost done. Immediately remove the source power protection around you and suppress the source power's aura."

Yuanze did as he was told, holding his breath and concentrating, even stopping the flow of source energy in his body.

This invisible enemy seemed to be lost because it had lost its target. In this way, time passed slowly in the tense and long wait.

After Astra's in-depth analysis, the true identity of the mysterious enemy finally surfaced.

"This is not a misty floating spirit, but an extremely rare mutant creature - a phantom spirit. The strength of a single individual has reached the high-level body tempering level. It has a unique dark matter phase synchronization ability, which can penetrate dark matter in the phase state, thus launching an attack that is hard to defend against."

"What's even more troublesome is that it has inherited the special abilities it had before the mutation. There is a special quantum field around its body, which is entangled with the tiny particles in the fog. This entanglement gives it the ability to travel through the fog instantly, without being restricted by physical distance. Therefore, it can appear in any place with dense fog in an instant and launch an attack."

Yuan Ze frowned as he listened to the information. He knew that source power was also a kind of dark matter. So it could instantly penetrate the body defense of a body-tempering source warrior or source beast, coupled with its superb mobility.

The combination of the two skills means that they have the ability to ignore defense and move without being caught. No wonder it can kill extraordinary-level source beasts above its level.

Moreover, after killing powerful source beasts, it can also use neurotoxins to manipulate these corpses.

In this foggy jungle, this is simply an invincible ability!

Yuan Ze calmed down. Since it relied on the source force to identify the target, all the means of the source force could not be released close to the target. Otherwise, at that moment, he would also collapse on the ground like Rick and Ji Xuefeng.

Yuanze suddenly remembered something. He took out the phase gun that could dispel the fog from Rick's body. Although it was the lowest model, it also had the effect of slightly changing the phase.

Yuanze continued shooting in the air until the gun became hot, but the mist was quickly restored by the illusory source power.

At this moment, Yuan Ze seized the weakness of the phantom spirits and used ancient boxing to attack them. The phantom spirits that used the source power to restore the mist, those jellyfish-like phantom spirits fell to the ground one after another, and then melted and disappeared.

This is the first weakness of the phantoms. Their living environment must be firmly maintained by them. Once the home advantage is destroyed, they will become visible.

Yuan Ze pursued the victory, he moved forward and smashed the mark points recorded by Astra one by one with physical methods. As the phantoms disappeared one by one, the battle situation gradually became clear.

Due to their low intelligence, they instinctively pursue the dark matter of source force. The source force emitted by Yuan Ze was activated by him into a viscous fluid, which adhered to the surrounding trees and rocks, which were the points marked by Astra. This made the phantoms fall into Yuan Ze's trap unknowingly.

More importantly, these phantoms have a fatal weakness. They are physically fragile, weak, and have low defense. This allows Yuan Ze to crush them with just physical force, even though they are higher in level than Yuan Ze.

The phantom did not continue to sit there and wait for death, it used its gathering ability.

Yuan Ze felt the air around him begin to flow in one direction. Countless phantoms formed a huge aggregate. With its huge body, it also had the kind of defense that a body-tempered source beast should have. The price of this power was heavy. Those tiny phantom individuals disappeared forever during the gathering process. Their sacrifice was for the survival and reproduction of the race, in order to create a more powerful existence.

"Be careful, it's more difficult to deal with. It can't break through the defense directly now, but its strength and mobility are better than yours. Moreover, its prototype is a dohrnii jellyfish, which has super strong recovery ability." Astra immediately asked Yuanze to make tactical adjustments.

As soon as he finished speaking, a tentacle fiercely knocked Yuanze away. Fortunately, Yuanze crossed his hands in front of him in time and used the defensive force field to take the powerful whip. With this force, if it was a little stronger, it could directly penetrate the force field.

Yuanze changed his fighting style. He also used his mental power mixed with source power to extend countless tentacles and fought with the tentacles of the Lighthouse Phantom Jellyfish. The emotional powers of "fear", "temptation" and "ridicule" were also attached to them, trying to interfere with the opponent's nerves.

However, the Turritopsis dohrnii recovers at an astonishing speed, with its nervous system quickly developing resistance to these emotions.

Yuan Ze's "Flow" once again saw through the essence of its repair ability and defense power. This is a genetic programming ability similar to that of a gene chip, and it incorporates quantum systems and phase synchronization, and its speed is far superior to Yuan Ze's gene chip.

This is undoubtedly an enhanced skill that can only be obtained at the Rongtong level.

"Ji Xuefeng carries some source force disruptors on him. You can use these to set up an array and crack its abilities."

Astra provided key advice to Yuan Ze in time. This formation was designed as an interference array that can communicate dark matter and quantum fields, and it is expected to break the phase synchronization state and quantum entanglement state of the whole body source force of the jellyfish.

Yuanze took the jammers and, according to Astra's request, installed and arranged them on the ground while continuing to harass the immortal jellyfish with his mental power.

"Right next to it, that's the center of the formation."

Yuan Ze placed the last jammer at the designated location without hesitation, then withdrew all his mental power and sent different forms of source power to each jammer. In an instant, all the jammers lit up at the same time, and the light intertwined into a cage, tightly wrapping Yuan Ze and the lighthouse jellyfish.

Yuanze could see with his naked eyes that the source power in its transparent body was gradually losing its activity and blocking the normal flow of source power in its body.

"Kill it quickly, this array can't last long."

"歘 (chuā)."

Yuanze's arm muscles tensed, and his arm shook violently, and the sharp blade of light flashed again. Then he jumped up, jumped on it, cut open its body, and crawled into it.

Inside the jellyfish, Yuan Ze felt the sticky touch and weak pulsation around him and found the vital point. He aimed at the source of power in the jellyfish, which was similar to the heart of a higher animal, and stabbed the two light blades into it without hesitation.

The death of the Turritopsis dohrnii is silent.

Its tentacles drooped weakly, as if bidding farewell to the world. Its body trembled slightly, as if trying to crawl upwards to escape from this fatal injury, but it was unable to move. Finally, its huge body hesitated between drooping and standing upright for a moment, and then fell to the ground bit by bit.

It continued to shrink, its life slowly faded away, and it gradually lost its original shape. The source of energy was also expelled from its body by this force.

He stood by, silently watching this once powerful creature gradually transform into an immature polyp larva wrapped in a transparent shell.

"To survive is to live regardless of everything. Although the power of the group is strong, it is doomed to not last long without the prominence of individuals. Therefore, the group chooses to sacrifice some individuals to cultivate a more powerful existence."

"However, when this powerful individual is dying, it will still try to survive with the last, almost impossible hope of the entire clan."

Astra's voice slowly echoed through the air, seemingly interpreting Genze's current mood.

Yuanze picked it up in his hand and gained a deeper understanding of life. It is the best explanation of the will to survive.

The will to survive is dark and bright. Darkness is the end of life, while brightness is the beginning of new life.

Just as Li Haisheng said, survival is the most basic need, the starting point and destination of everything.

Yuan Ze put it back into his four-dimensional pocket, and suddenly felt dizzy. His energy was overdrawn again, and his body had reached its limit. He knew that Rick had energy pills, and that was his only way at the moment. He tried to move his body and get closer to Rick. Every step seemed so difficult, but he couldn't fall here yet.

My vision gradually blurred and my steps became more and more unsteady.

Finally, he could no longer hold on and fell headfirst onto Ji Xuefeng's broad belly.

A soft light descended from the sky, tightly enveloping the three people. As the light slowly faded, their figures also disappeared from the spot.

Only the jungle shrouded in mist remained, quietly witnessing all this that had nothing to do with it.

(End of this chapter)