Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Zerg Larva

To become a fighter, one must first pass the prospective fighter exam. As a member of the Limit Dojo, he could participate in the prospective fighter exam on the first day of every month. However, to become a true fighter, one needed more than just passing the exam. A practical combat exam was also required, and only after passing this could one truly become a fighter. 

The practical combat exam for prospective fighters was held only twice a year, on August 1st and February 1st. It was already June 16th, which meant that if Qin Mu couldn't become a prospective fighter before July 1st, he would miss the August 1st exam and would have to wait until February of the following year to become a fighter.

This was unacceptable to Qin Mu. The time until the Golden Horned Beast's attack on the New York Base in the United States was just over three and a half years. How could Qin Mu accept wasting half a year?

Because he possessed the Zerg clone, theoretically, Qin Mu could ignore the fighter exam and wait for the Zerg swarm to grow strong. Under normal circumstances, given sufficient resources, a single larva could develop into a Zerg swarm in a short time. Because each larva contained the entire swarm's genetic information, it could hatch various Zerg units according to need.

However, in reality, Qin Mu learned from the larva's fragmented memories that during its long slumber, its gene pool had lost almost all the genes. The current gene pool only retained a species similar to a giant worker ant, which could only hatch into the lowest-level Zerg nest.

This meant that the development of the Zerg swarm would have to rely on plundering genes, analyzing them, and then evolving. This not only required time but also an environment suitable for the Zerg swarm's growth.

The City he was in now certainly did not meet the conditions. Only the wilderness area could satisfy the environment for the Zerg race to grow, but the wilderness was teeming with monsters and was not a region that ordinary people could easily enter.

The problem circled back to the starting point: to develop the Zerg swarm, Qin Mu had to first become a fighter, at least a prospective fighter, because only then could he legally and reasonably enter the wilderness area.

Pulling his thoughts back, Qin Mu knew that becoming a fighter couldn't be rushed. What he needed to do now was to feed the Zerg larva, which had been starving for who knows how long. After searching the house, Qin Mu finally found some frozen meat in the refrigerator that had been there for who knows how long. Qin Mu took out the frozen meat and placed it in front of the Zerg larva. The larva, which had been starving and on the verge of madness, discovered the food and immediately opened its mouth full of sharp teeth, easily crushing the frozen meat and swallowing it in large bites.

While the larva was eating, Qin Mu carefully examined the familiar yet strange home. This was an eighteenth-floor, two-bedroom, one-living-room apartment. One room was his bedroom, and the other was his parents'. The original Qin Mu had never had the heart to clean out his parents' room, which remained as it was when they were alive. 

Pushing open the door, Qin Mu entered his parents' room. In the center of the room was a double bed, with a wardrobe on the left filled with various clothes. On the bedside table was a family portrait, and next to it was a desk with a bookshelf. The bookshelf was filled with books, most of which were about biology, genetics, and monsters. These books were left behind by his mother, who was a military researcher. Qin Mu walked to the bookshelf, took out a book, flipped through it, found it incomprehensible, and put it back. The living room was simply furnished with only a television, a sofa, and a coffee table.

After searching for a while, Qin Mu didn't find any food suitable for the Zerg larva. By the time Qin Mu was looking for food, the Zerg larva had already eaten most of the frozen meat, which was several times larger than its body. In Qin Mu's perception, the food entered its body and disappeared in the blink of an eye under its terrifying digestive ability. A large amount of food was swallowed, and with the larva's stomach as the center, a warm feeling spread throughout its body.

Under Qin Mu's gaze, the larva's shriveled body visibly grew in size. As the larva recovered, Qin Mu felt a faint warmth in his body, but it was too weak.

"My strength seems to have increased a bit, and the internal injuries feel better." Qin Mu clenched his fist, feeling the changes within his body.

"There's no more food. The energy converted from such a small amount of food is not enough for the larva to recover its normal body, let alone hatch into a worker unit."

The original Qin Mu didn't have the habit of storing food, so Qin Mu had to find a way himself.

He turned on his phone, entered the password according to his memory. This phone was more advanced than the one from his previous life, but not by much, and Qin Mu quickly figured out how to use it. He opened the banking app, which showed a balance of 523,586.23 yuan. (T/N: I always found the term Chinese dollar a bit weird, so I will use yuan instead.)

"Good, there's still quite a bit of money."

This money was the savings of his parents, the pension, and the monthly government subsidy accumulated over time. As the descendant of martyrs, the government subsidy was 3,000 yuan per month, paid until he turned 18.

Over the years, the original Qin Mu had spent a considerable amount of money trying to become a fighter. After getting injured, he also spent a lot on treatment. The remaining sum of money, if he lived frugally, would last for a long time.

But Qin Mu obviously didn't have that intention. In his previous life, Qin Mu had been mediocre enough. In this life, he wanted to live differently.

He checked the time. "It's not even nine o'clock yet. I'll go out and buy some things."

Qin Mu remembered that there was a market not far from his building, where many meat stalls were located. Pork, chicken, duck, and even monster meat were sold there, although monster meat was much more expensive than ordinary meat.

The Zerg larva was not a carnivore; on the contrary, it could eat almost anything. In extreme cases, it could even survive on soil. However, what was most suitable for it was the flesh and blood of living beings.

Qin Mu put the Zerg larva into the inside pocket of his clothes, tidied up a bit, and went out. The residential area Qin Mu lived in was a military family relocation area with excellent security. He took the elevator down and walked through the narrow alleys.

In this era, except for certain areas, the efficiency of land use was almost at its limit. Each residential building was like a huge square cement pillar, and even the military family relocation area was no exception.

After passing through several alleys, Qin Mu finally arrived at a narrow street. It was already night, and the street lights were on. Many people had just gotten off work, and the street was bustling with people coming and going. The smell of food from the roadside stalls wafted out, attracting passing customers. Someone was shouting loudly to sell their goods, others were calling friends, and the lively atmosphere showed no signs of an apocalypse.

If it weren't for Qin Mu seeing some strange names written on the menus of the stalls ahead, he would have thought he was still in the snack street from his previous life.

"Grilled Five-Flavor Pork from a Single-Horned Wild Boar"

"Braised Tiger Hound in a Sand Pot"

"Grilled Meat Skewers from a Long-Horned Sheep"

Ignoring these, Qin Mu quickly walked towards his destination, the other end of the market. Because it was night, there wasn't much meat on the few meat stalls, and some stalls had already closed. Under the surprised gaze of the stall owners, Qin Mu bought all the meat from several stalls. He bought over sixty pounds of ordinary pork and fifty pounds of single-horned wild boar meat.

Ordinary pork was fine, costing about ten yuan per pound. Monster meat was different. Even the cheapest H-grade monster meat, the single-horned wild boar, cost over a hundred yuan per pound. Such a small amount of meat cost Qin Mu over 7,000 yuan, which was roughly two months' salary for an average worker. The reason Qin Mu also bought monster meat was that he wanted to see if there was any difference between the larva devouring ordinary pork and monster meat.

Carrying a hundred pounds of meat, Qin Mu returned home. This was only possible because Qin Mu's current physical fitness was strong. In his previous life, carrying such a heavy load would have exhausted him.

He placed all the meat in the living room and put the Zerg larva in the middle of the meat. With a thought, the larva's body frantically devoured the meat, and chunks of meat much larger than its body disappeared into its mouth, as if it were a bottomless pit.

Its body also grew rapidly at a visible speed, and streams of faint warmth circulated within Qin Mu's body.