Sickly Girl Doesn’t Die in Zombie Simulator 216

Chapter 216: The Huayibai Network

The yellow spore, the size of a glass bead, looked like a miniature version of the giant yellow follicle she had seen before. Except, compared to the relatively smooth follicle, this large spore was rough and bumpy, somewhat resembling a cooked, yellowish longan fruit.

Lin Jiayao used the vascular network to control a thick root of the building-tree to emerge from the ground. The root was almost as thick as four of Lin Jiayao standing side by side.

She separated a strand of mycelium from her palm and transformed it into a thin, straw-like tube, holding one end and inserting the other into the building-tree’s root.

Although the tree sap within the vascular network could also be absorbed—at least “Little Black,” as Huayibai called it, the white mycelium spread throughout Kun City, lived symbiotically with the vascular network by absorbing tree sap—

Symbiotic Link.

The tree sap within the building-tree was slowly drawn out by Lin Jiayao’s mycelium “straw,” secreting from the end she held and dripping onto the ground.

The dripping sap would be reabsorbed by the building-tree, so there was no waste.

Lin Jiayao extended her hand, held the straw above the Black Stem Fungus spore, and let the tree sap drip onto it.

Initially, the spore didn’t react. Only after it was completely saturated with the sap did its wrinkled outer skin slowly expand.

Good, it was absorbing.

Lin Jiayao fixed the mycelium in place, retracted her right hand, and quietly observed the changes in the Black Stem Fungus spore.

The small spore on the stone pier slowly swelled, and gradually, black mycelium extended from its core.

This black mycelium absorbed the nutrient solution permeating through the outer skin and gradually filled the entire spore.

Until the small spore swelled to the size of a fist, and with a soft “pop,” the spore’s outer skin ruptured, and a slender black stem emerged.

The “hatched” mycelium continuously twisted its black stem, extending towards the dripping tree sap.

Soon, a milky yellow fruiting body began to condense at the tip of a slightly longer black stem in the center.

Now, the overall appearance of the Black Stem Fungus was similar to the one in Wangxi, just smaller and with a smoother, softer-looking surface.

The tree sap continued to drip onto its tip, providing nutrients, and its milky yellow follicle condensed a bright yellow core under the nourishment of the tree sap.

The moment the core appeared, it turned and looked in Lin Jiayao’s direction, happily twisting its slender, black, horsehair worm-like body.

It didn’t choose to take root, but used the tiny mycelium at its base to wriggle, carrying its relatively thick trunk, and moved towards Lin Jiayao.

It seemed unconcerned about leaving the irrigated area and stubbornly moved to the edge of the stone pier.

The small Black Stem Fungus waved its slender black stem and reached the edge of the stone pier, opening wide towards Lin Jiayao.

“Plop—”

Because it wasn’t rooted, the little Black Stem Fungus tumbled off the stone pier, landed on the stone floor, and curled up into a ball, the milky yellow follicle on its top dented from the fall.

Uh…

Loyal, yes, but also incredibly unintelligent.

Lin Jiayao bent down slightly, pinched its thick central stem, and lifted it from the ground.

As she lifted it, the Black Stem Fungus also waved its small, tentacle-like stems and wrapped around Lin Jiayao’s right hand, as if refusing to let go.

Helpless, Lin Jiayao could only place it back on the stone pier and give it a command.

“Stay here.”

Hearing the command, the Black Stem Fungus slowly moved down from Lin Jiayao’s hand little by little, finally standing in the center of the stone pier, obediently standing there and being irrigated.

Lin Jiayao shook the unknown mucus from her hand, wiped it on a nearby vine, and then looked at the Black Stem Fungus again.

Okay, it seemed that it could be directly catalyzed with tree sap, so logically, tree sap could also be used as an energy source for cloning.

Now, she could even save a large amount of Blood Crystals.

But she had to be careful not to drain all the nutrients from the entire vascular network.

The number of follicles didn’t need to be as many as the one in Wangxi City, three or four would be enough.

Lin Jiayao slightly enlarged the fungus straw, increased the amount of sap being extracted, and then, ignoring the Black Stem Fungus, turned to look at the Building-Tree Guardian.

She controlled the mycelium flesh-person to push her towards the deep pit created by the Building-Tree Guardian, watching as it continuously dug downwards like a shield machine. (TN: A shield machine is a large tunneling machine used in construction.)

In fact, its millstone-like round mouth could really continuously dig downwards like a shield machine, directly grinding and transporting out any ordinary rocks that entered its mouth.

But this tunnel was straight up and down, which wasn’t very good for storing the brain-computer towers…

Lin Jiayao looked up at the edge of the giant pit, glancing around, and quickly decided on a target.

Vines.

She could have the vines form layered grids below to facilitate the transportation of the brain-computer towers, directly hanging them on the vines and letting the vines fix them in the pit.

Lin Jiayao commanded another Building-Tree Guardian to join the digging. Just then, a light rain began to fall over Kun City.

Lin Jiayao sat quietly by the giant pit and directed, while the bloody mycelium person behind her held a red mycelium umbrella, shielding Lin Jiayao from the drizzle.

Just like this, under Lin Jiayao’s supervision, in just half an hour, a huge pit about fifty meters wide was dug, bypassing the tree roots. The dark pit seemed bottomless.

Fortunately, they didn’t dig up any ancient tombs or underground rivers.

Looking back, during this time, the Black Stem Fungus had already absorbed the tree sap and grown to almost three meters tall, with two basketball-sized follicles on its top.

The original small stone pier had been completely buried by it. Although it was still there, a thin black stem had quietly moved to the lakeside and was “splashing” the clear lake water.

If you ignored its terrifying appearance, its temperament and behavior were actually similar to a child’s.

Lin Jiayao added two more thicker mycelium tubes, increasing the amount of sap being transported.

After about another twenty minutes, the thick tree root had been completely drained into dry wood, and the Black Stem Fungus finally grew a third follicle.

The amount of nutrient solution needed for each additional follicle would increase exponentially, so there was no need to force it to grow into a B-rank. It was enough as long as it was usable.

Lin Jiayao stopped the energy transmission and let the mycelium tubes crawl back to her and drill into her body.

“Go over there.” Lin Jiayao pointed to the lake and signaled the Black Stem Fungus to move over.

Then, Lin Jiayao took out the blood crystal liquid exchanged with Blood Crystals, connected her mycelium to the flesh-person beside her, and began to hatch insect eggs on her mycelium.

For the rest of the time, she ordered the Black Stem Fungus to actively absorb the tree roots at the bottom of the lake to create brains. After confirming that the tree sap could indeed be used by it, Lin Jiayao began to create brain towers just like in Wangxi City.

While creating the brain-computer towers, Lin Jiayao also opened the system interface and received the [Spirit Lv.5] being researched in the [Research Lab Lv.1].

Unlike Lv.4 Spirit, after upgrading to Lv.5, the quality of Spirit had been upgraded from white to blue, and the description had also changed slightly.

[Spirit Lv.5 (Blue): Greatly increases your mental power; makes you immune to most negative mental states and mind control.]

After receiving this evolution, Lin Jiayao felt a great improvement in her mental power, and even the slight fatigue from continuously logging into B-rank before was swept away.

It seemed that mental fatigue was also directly cleared as a negative mental state.

This was undoubtedly good news for Lin Jiayao. It meant that she could even forcibly overdraw her mental power to log in without fainting when her mental power was insufficient.

Although this was still far from enough for logging into A-rank zombies, it was still a considerable improvement.

While creating brain-computer towers and hanging them with vines into the deep pit, Lin Jiayao checked the remaining evolutions in the Research Lab.

[[Spirit Lv.5 (Blue)]]
[Blood Crystals required for upgrade: 10000g]
[Research time: 12h]

Huh?

Why was it suddenly so expensive?

And the time was even longer than upgrading a golden evolution?

The upgrade of Blood Rage, which was also blue, only required 500g of Blood Crystals, but here, it was directly ten times the previous 1000g?

Was it because of the increase in rank?

[Please do not question the system’s flexible pricing. The value far exceeds the price.]

At this time, the system popped up a prompt box, clearly anticipating Lin Jiayao’s questioning of the price.

Hehe… flexible pricing, huh?

After complaining about the system in her heart, Lin Jiayao began to consider whether this price was worth it.

Twenty Blood Crystals… Adding a little more would be even more expensive than upgrading a golden evolution…

Was it because it was a mental evolution, so it was more expensive?

Lin Jiayao glanced at her remaining one hundred and ten Blood Crystals and compared the consumption and improvement of using Blood Crystals to create brain-computers.

Actually, the consumption and improvement ratio of the two were similar, but unlike creating brain-computers, the mental power enhancement provided by the system would have additional effects.

This time, the research price was so expensive, there was an eighty or ninety percent chance that there would be a qualitative change.

Lin Jiayao gritted her teeth and took out twenty Blood Crystals, directly putting them into the Research Lab.

Let’s go!

Let’s see if it was really worth these twenty Blood Crystals as the system said.

Lin Jiayao’s Blood Crystals instantly decreased by twenty, her savings becoming ninety Blood Crystals and more than twenty bags of Blood Crystal Serum.

Creating mycelium and insects would probably consume a few more bags of Blood Crystal Serum, and she should have just twenty bags left.

It’s okay… Blood Crystal Serum and Blood Crystals added up to more than one hundred, it hadn’t dropped below yet…

After comforting herself, Lin Jiayao habitually opened the Hideout again, but still didn’t see any new creations appearing.

If there were still no new creations after this twenty Blood Crystal mental upgrade, Lin Jiayao would really have to have a good talk with the system.

Anyway, she still had many empty login slots. Even if she didn’t log into a good zombie, she could directly control the zombie to attract a large wave of high-level zombies and then extract, ensuring that the system would spit out everything it ate.

For the rest of the time, Lin Jiayao kept repeating the action of creating mycelium, connecting brains, and breeding brain worms.

Fortunately, she could feel a substantial increase in her mental power with each parasitism, otherwise, ordinary people really couldn’t have persisted for so long.

About an hour passed, the sky was completely dark, and the light rain had stopped. Lin Jiayao used the few remaining Blood Crystal Serums to create a smaller flesh-person to push her wheelchair and prepared to leave first.

Now the bottom of this big pit was covered with layers of brain-computer towers, and the layers of vines could well prevent anyone from accidentally falling in and damaging the brains.

Finally, after controlling a giant Building-Tree Guardian to spread its limbs and guard the entrance of the pit, Lin Jiayao left Waterfall Park and prepared to go back and check on Huayibai.

Waiting for the Black Stem Fungus to create brains while connecting them herself was too inefficient. It was better to wait for the Black Stem Fungus to slowly create them, and when the brains almost filled the lake, she would come and collect them all at once, which would be faster.

It was like harvesting cranberries in water, efficient and labor-saving.

The flesh-person pushed Lin Jiayao through a large number of blocks and returned to the villa area.

She returned to the house through the main entrance, opened the door in the darkness, and looked inside. She saw Huayibai, who had kicked off the quilt at some point, lying on the bed, hugging a pillow and giggling with her hands and feet, seemingly showing no signs of waking up.

Um… nothing went wrong, good.

Lin Jiayao pushed the wheelchair to the bedside, supported herself and sat on the bed, and reached out to gently poke Huayibai’s cheek.

“Huayibai?”
“Wake up…”

After poking several times, Huayibai drowsily opened her eyes and looked at Lin Jiayao.

“Mo…mmy?” Huayibai’s mind seemed to be elsewhere, and even answering Lin Jiayao’s questions seemed very difficult. She spoke with a dialectal accent.

“How do you feel now? Are you uncomfortable?” Looking at Huayibai, Lin Jiayao showed a worried expression.

The thing Lin Jiayao was most worried about still happened, which was Huayibai’s mental power.

Fungal blood crystals weren’t like humans, who had brains. They could think mostly because of their abilities and the empowerment of blood crystals.

Huayibai’s ability made her smarter than ordinary little mushrooms, but the mental power empowered by blood crystals was far from enough to bring her mental power to the level of a normal B-rank human.

“My head is dizzy… and I feel so hot…” Huayibai said, narrowing her eyes and hugging the chibi Lin Jiayao pillow tightly.

She didn’t even realize that what she was holding was not Lin Jiayao’s main body at all.

Lin Jiayao reached out and brushed aside the hair on Huayibai’s forehead, touching her forehead.

Cold, about ten degrees lower than a normal human’s body temperature.

Then it must be a mental problem.

“Huayibai, give up your body in America.” Lin Jiayao said decisively.

Compared to letting Huayibai continue to work with her on the “Blood Crystal Farm” in America, Huayibai’s own safety was more important.

“Huh…?” Huayibai turned her neck, rubbing against Lin Jiayao’s palm, slightly opening her eyes, with a confused look on her face.

It seemed that she didn’t understand what Lin Jiayao was saying.

“The body with the golden mommy, just give it up.” Lin Jiayao changed her wording and said softly in words that Huayibai could understand better.

“Um…” Huayibai blinked, looked at Lin Jiayao in front of her, and whispered, “But… Huayibai is hugging golden Mommy… it’s so soft…”

This child seemed to be delirious.

Huayibai’s mental power couldn’t support her controlling so many bodies with B-rank blood crystal capacity. Just like the “Malphite Network,” everyone shared one brain. If someone used more, the brain capacity of others would be smaller. (TN: Referring to a meme about sharing a single brain cell)

In the “Huayibai Network”, Huayibai, who was absorbing the Living Weapon, was constantly growing, occupying more of the network, which caused Huayibai’s brain in other places to directly shut down.

This was almost unsolvable before Huayibai had a breakthrough.

Lin Jiayao moved to Huayibai’s side, gently pulled the chibi version of herself from her hand, and put her arms around Huayibai.

“You’re hugging Mommy now too, it doesn’t matter if you let go of that one…” Lin Jiayao patiently persuaded her.

After all, Huayibai’s brain capacity wasn’t enough now, so she could be a little more tolerant. It was her fault that Huayibai was like this.

“Um…” Huayibai huddled in Lin Jiayao’s arms, her two small fists clenched like a baby’s against Lin Jiayao’s chest, and after frowning for a long time, she slowly said, “Okay…”

Huayibai closed her eyes, and after a while, slowly opened her eyes again, looking in Lin Jiayao’s direction.

Compared to just now, Huayibai’s eyes were much more lively.

“Mommy~” After opening her eyes, Huayibai opened her arms and directly hugged Lin Jiayao, seemingly having recovered mentally.

With one less Huayibai sub-brain, the mental power of the other Huayibais increased.

It seemed that soon, if the absorption hadn’t finished yet, even Huayibai in Chongyu City and here would have to be abandoned…

She hoped that Huayibai could complete the last step of devouring before then…

But she had to keep part of Huayibai’s body to avoid accidents.

“Open your mouth, Huayibai.”

“Ahh—”

Lin Jiayao extended two fingers, put them into Huayibai’s slightly warm mouth, turned them around, and then pulled them out.

In Lin Jiayao’s vision, she could not only see the translucent nutrient solution, but also some spores emitting red light.

Lin Jiayao took out a Blood Crystal, smeared Huayibai’s spores and nutrient solution on it, and then put it into the Item Storage Box.

This way, even if something unexpected happened, Lin Jiayao could let Huayibai quickly abandon that body in Japan, and then use the spores to cultivate a new one for her.

If devouring an A-rank would threaten Huayibai’s life, Lin Jiayao would absolutely not accept it.

It was just a pity that she hadn’t seen the complete form of that blue giant serpent and couldn’t simulate the result of Huayibai devouring it, so there might be some deviations in the result.

For Huayibai’s sake, she had to re-login No. 5 later, repair the body, clean up the mess, and dive into the seabed to see the complete form of that blue giant serpent.

“Huh?”

Huayibai sat in Lin Jiayao’s arms, looked up at Mommy’s strange actions, and after seeing Mommy look at her again, she thought Mommy was going to continue, so she obediently opened her small mouth wide.

“Ahh—”