Evolution Begins with Elemental Domination

[Jingzhe] Lv3 → Lv4 Successful Advancement!

Properties Enhanced: Activation Time, Body Amplification.

New Property: Super Armor State

...

[Jingzhe] (Lv4): Drive the breath of life with thunder, awakening latent potential. For 2 seconds, gain a 170% boost to physical functions and immunity to most control effects.

Advancement Requirement: Jingzhe Rune 0/8, Spiritual Dust Sand 0/3

Mastered Runes: Water Mirror Refraction Lv3, Flame Burst Lv5, Jingzhe Lv4, Shadow Leap Lv3, Shadow Summoning Lv4, Telekinesis Lv4.

’Now I even have crowd control removal.’

Not bad.

Beyond the numerical increase, unlocking a new mechanic was quite helpful.

After the official Rune Formulas were made open-source, most teams made sure to assign at least one member a control skill. The Wood Element’s Entangling Rune was the top choice, especially when used in conjunction with a Growth Rune. The effect was incredibly potent.

Su Chen was sure he wasn’t the only one who could figure that out.

A little over ten minutes later, the trading session came to an end. Having each gotten what they needed, everyone wore a smile of satisfaction.

The topic of conversation then returned to the torrential rain.

"One thing’s for sure: the campsite is on high ground relative to the surrounding area. No matter how hard it rains, it’s the forest on the lower slopes that will end up flooded."

Everyone understood this point. Less than half a day after their arrival, the river inside the base had failed to retain any water and had already run dry.

"Quick, look at the sky outside the window!"

Someone on the third floor suddenly shouted down to them.

At this reminder, some people rushed to the windows while others charged onto the terrace. Even Su Chen slowly stood up, casting his gaze toward the pitch-black sky from under the eaves of the courtyard.

"Holy hell!"

High above in the pouring night, countless colossal shadows floated silently. It was a swarm of giant, airborne jellyfish.

Their bells glowed with a faint blue light, wreathed in abundant water ripples and electric arcs. Thousands of crystalline tentacles cascaded down like waterfalls as they passed silently overhead.

"If you seriously expect me to fight that thing? I’d rather just die."

Anyone with megalophobia would have been breathless at the sight.

Fortunately, the swarm of jellyfish was just passing by high in the sky and showed no intention of attacking.

"It looks like they might be the ones causing this downpour."

Yan Ruoruo, her expression as cold as frost, held up a pair of high-powered binoculars. Her tone was perfectly calm, without a hint of fluctuation. "The inner cavities of their bells are constantly expelling air, seemingly to create an updraft."

If one were to extrapolate from that conclusion, it all made sense.

Yan Ziqian pondered this seriously. "If we assume that a mass migration of these ’floating cloud jellies’ is causing a severe storm that’s about to flood the low-lying forest areas, it would indeed trigger a mass panic and flight among the ground-dwelling monsters."

Just the fact that monsters and their lairs would have to move to higher ground would be enough to cause a series of beast tides.

Although it wasn’t intentionally aimed at human settlements, they were suffering the consequences all the same.

The question was, where did these giant floating jellies come from, and why were they migrating in a swarm?

No one could give a definitive answer.

After everyone returned to the living room, Yan Ziqian pushed up the black-framed glasses on his nose, his gaze calm behind the lenses. He looked at Su Chen and said in a level tone, "In the West Forest, we discovered a building, an ’altar,’ that has a timed bounty. If you complete the kill mission within a certain time, you get a corresponding reward.

The text for the highest-difficulty mission was very interesting. It sent us to the Forest Rift to kill... cave-dwelling humanoids.

Not long after we tried to enter the caves, we found something interesting."

With that, he handed a rust-spotted, dark-red spearhead to Su Chen.

He didn’t hide this major discovery from the others, and many of them leaned in for a closer look.

"That’s an obvious antique at a glance. A genuine old artifact," someone marveled.

As Su Chen held and examined it, he grew thoughtful. It reminded him of what happened when he killed the Demon Dogs; his act of bending down and squatting had triggered their fear, curbing their eager, arrogant postures.

There’s an old saying, "Dogs fear a bend, wolves fear a squat." It was as if an instinctual fear of the "terrifying upright ape" had been ingrained in them, though this was just a loose guess.

But this rusty spearhead was solid proof of one thing.

"There were indeed humans like us in this region before."

Su Chen said in a steady voice, "To be more precise, there was an intelligent species that could use tools, smelt metal, and hunt."

Nearby, Pang Peng rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "That doesn’t sound good, but it does align with our previous speculations."

"Could they be the subterranean cave dwellers mentioned in the mission text?" someone asked, confused.

That sounded a bit strange.

"If we’re really talking about ’cave dwellers,’ then from an evolutionary standpoint, traits useless for survival and reproduction would gradually degenerate. Their sense of sight might have disappeared entirely. Are you telling me they can throw things by pinpointing location with their hearing? That’s a bit of a stretch."

"You have a point, but you can’t ignore Elemental Power. Magic is not so inconvenient a thing."

"But the cave environment is so cramped and narrow. It doesn’t seem possible to throw anything, no matter how you look at it."

The two of them were now deadlocked on this point.

Speaking of cave dwellers, someone took the idea and ran with it, comparing them to goblins who might drag people into their lairs to breed. This earned him a smack on the head from one of the women present.

All this speculation was quickly brought to a halt, because Yan Ziqian’s group had already fought them.

According to his description, they were humanoid creatures that walked on all fours. Their eyes were just a pair of slits, and their knees and elbows had a reverse-joint structure, allowing them to climb silently on rock walls.

Interestingly, these cave-dwelling humanoids possessed powerful physiques and had evolved vastly different flesh-and-blood traits. They did not have any Elemental Power, nor did they drop refined Runes. If not for the mission reward, they would have had no reason to go through the trouble of killing them.

"So far, we’ve only encountered three. One had Bone Blades growing from its claws that could cut with an extremely sharp vibration. Another could fire a Wind Cannon from its mouth. The last one’s lower jaw was full of holes, and it sprayed a putrid slurry." Yan Ziqian’s words were restrained, with no exaggeration.

His team only managed to take care of two of them. In the end, they were forced out of the cave by the one that sprayed the slurry.

What was interesting was that the creature seemed to be extremely afraid of natural light, to the point where it wouldn’t dare take a single step outside the cave.

"That does sound a little interesting."

Su Chen was lost in thought. No matter how he looked at it, these monsters seemed to belong to another evolutionary system.

"High-frequency Bone Blades, a compressed air cannon in the chest, glandular spray..." The biologist from before muttered to himself, "Putting aside how they achieved this biological evolution, none of these seem like evolutionary paths that a cave-dwelling creature would develop."

The person who had been arguing earlier also fell silent.

At the very least, an explanation like ’Magic, it’s amazing, isn’t it?’ didn’t seem to apply to these cave dwellers.

Yan Ziqian offered his own theory. "My initial judgment is that they might have been forced to degenerate into cave dwellers due to some kind of curse."

At that moment, Yan Ruoruo, who had been silent for a long time, fixed her gaze on Su Chen and asked, "Are you interested in teaming up to go into the caves?"

In that cramped, dim environment, the effectiveness of an Archer like her was greatly diminished. If they wanted to continue exploring, bringing in powerful reinforcements was their only option.

But as soon as she said this, the expressions of the members from Capital City University visibly changed. Some looked like they wanted to speak but held back. Clearly, exploring the caves again was not part of their plan; the risk was too high.

"If I can get the hidden mission, I’ll go with you." Su Chen’s stern face showed deep interest. Thanks to his family’s Jade Pendant, he had long known that this world contained another system of biological evolution.

He just hadn’t been able to find any trace of it until now. He never expected that one of the world’s greatest secrets was hidden away, hunkered down in subterranean caves.

"Count us in."

A club from a university of science and technology also expressed their interest.

As for the other members, they clearly needed to deliberate further. They didn’t let their excitement get the better of them and jump on the bandwagon immediately.

The people from Capital City University were already divided on the issue. But seeing the possibility of Su Chen joining, with the sheer weight of his authoritative power settling the matter, they could only look at each other and offer no rebuttal.