Chapter 280: Worm Ancestor, Sticky Blanket
After setting her major goals, Lin Jiayao controlled the insect chair and left the ash area.
She could leave the specific details to the ash area administrators to discuss among themselves; there was no need for her to micromanage everything. This was the purpose of the ash area, and also the purpose of training subordinates.
As for who would accompany the team, Lin Jiayao had already chosen: Kisaragi Mika and Huayibai’s mycelium clone.
Kisaragi Mika could handle tougher battles, while Huayibai would act as a “supervisor.”
After all, they would be transporting a large quantity of Blood Crystals, and Lin Jiayao needed a trusted and powerful subordinate to oversee the operation.
As Lin Jiayao was preparing to leave the ash area, her sister followed.
Shortly after entering the Oasis Area, Lin Xiwan walked to Lin Jiayao’s side and asked curiously, “Yao, what’s going on in Myanmar? Why are you sending so many people there?”
Lin Xiwan still didn’t know what Lin Jiayao had done in India, so her curiosity was natural.
After organizing her thoughts, Lin Jiayao briefly explained the situation in New Delhi to her sister.
“Another A-rank? The first A-rank on land?” Lin Xiwan was a little surprised, but not overly so.
After all, this wasn’t the first time her sister had mentioned defeating an A-rank. Lin Xiwan was getting used to it.
“Hundreds of Blood Crystals… how can we even use that many…?” Lin Xiwan murmured as she walked.
Her previous goal had been to collect a large amount—at least twenty—Blood Crystals to give to her sister as a surprise.
But now, her sister seemed to be dealing with Blood Crystals in the hundreds…
Having never seen the Blue Serpent transporting Blood Crystals, Lin Xiwan couldn’t imagine what nearly five hundred Blood Crystals piled together would look like. She didn’t even know how to use so many.
Of course, she didn’t know that even if there were five hundred Blood Crystals piled up in front of her sister, they would be gone in a second, all used to upgrade the Control Center.
“Did you encounter any foreign Awakened organizations there? How did you communicate? Are you worried about any blood crystal-sensing zombies ambushing the convoy?” Compared to Lin Jiayao’s calmness, Lin Xiwan was still worried about this transport mission.
“It’s fine, I’ll communicate with them beforehand.” Lin Jiayao’s tone was indifferent, as if it were a trivial matter.
“Oh…” Lin Xiwan nodded, looked at her sister, who was wearing a mask and looking ahead, and whispered, “It all feels a bit surreal…”
“Surreal how?” Lin Jiayao slowed the insect chair and turned to her sister.
“Just think, a few months ago, I was a D-rank Awakened, and you were still that little crybaby who was always depressed… but so much has changed so quickly…” Lin Xiwan sighed.
Lin Jiayao paused, then shook her head. “Just a coincidence… and, by the way, who are you calling a crybaby, me or you?”
“You, of course,” Lin Xiwan said with certainty. “You were always getting scared by zombies and crying, and then you’d worry about being a burden…”
“That was a long time ago.” Lin Jiayao looked away, a hint of defiance in her voice. “What does what I did before have to do with me now?”
“And you’re the one who always clings to me after every mission…”
“Okay, okay, stop—”
Lin Xiwan covered Lin Jiayao’s mask, silencing her. She chuckled awkwardly, “Indeed, what does what I did before have to do with me now?”
Lin Jiayao tilted her head back, freeing herself from her sister’s hand. The mask on her face melted into her skin, wriggling beneath the surface before disappearing.
“So, Sister, what do you really want to ask?” Lin Jiayao looked at her sister again.
She didn’t think her sister would reminisce for no reason; there must be something else she wanted to ask.
“Yao, how many A-rank zombies do you control in your dreams now?” Lin Xiwan asked, a hint of hope in her voice.
“Two.” Lin Jiayao thought for a moment, then added, “And three B-ranks.”
“So strong…”
Lin Xiwan’s eyes lit up, then she asked cautiously, “Then, Yao, now that you control so many powerful zombies, what are you planning to do?”
“Eliminate all the other zombies? Or…?”
This was the question Lin Xiwan wanted to ask the most.
It wasn’t that she was deliberately trying to pry, but her sister’s unusual behavior had made her uneasy.
Take Lin Xiwan herself, for example, like any ordinary Awakened.
If she had obtained such powerful A-rank strength, she would immediately assemble a logistics team, start clearing out all the surrounding zombies, try to quickly kill all the high-level zombies in China, and slowly rebuild their home.
Other Awakened might have different ideas, but the overall goal of eliminating zombies was the same.
But her sister seemed different.
Her sister had been able to control B-rank zombies in her dreams for a long time, but she had always been busy with something Lin Xiwan couldn’t understand.
It seemed like her sister was always methodically working on something, and her strength was also steadily increasing, but even when everyone thought she was invincible, her sister still didn’t stop, still pursuing a clear goal that only she knew.
Although Lin Xiwan didn’t know what this goal was, she always had a bad feeling.
Her sister’s goal might be even grander than rebuilding their home, so grand that Lin Xiwan couldn’t even imagine what it could be.
Her question just now was to ask her sister why she was working so hard, why she couldn’t even stop after having two A-rank zombies helping her.
Lin Xiwan was very worried about her sister’s mental state.
And Lin Jiayao, after hearing Lin Xiwan’s question, didn’t think too much, but said matter-of-factly: “Of course it’s to get Blood Crystals.”
“Get Blood Crystals?”
“Continue killing zombies, get Blood Crystals, and then call on the Awakened to live in the ash area, so they don’t waste Blood Crystals…” Lin Jiayao paused slightly, then summarized what she wanted to do in one word, “Increase income and reduce expenditure.”
“Uh…” Her sister’s words stunned Lin Xiwan.
She had thought of many possible goals for her sister, but she never expected it to be so simple.
Her sister just wanted to get Blood Crystals, prevent others from wasting Blood Crystals, and then continue to get Blood Crystals, that’s all.
This mission also seemed to be for the purpose of getting Blood Crystals…
So she was just a little money-grubber?
For some reason, looking at her sister’s slightly flushed cheeks, Lin Xiwan’s heart was slightly relieved.
Maybe she was just being too sensitive and overthinking.
“Okay~ then I’ll also help you get Blood Crystals~” Lin Xiwan smiled and pinched her sister’s cheek. Her sister’s slightly flushed cheeks seemed even cuter than usual.
“By the way, Yao, have you thought about what rewards to give them for going on this mission?” Lin Xiwan looked at her sister and asked, “After all, the journey to Myanmar, although not too dangerous with B-rank support, is still very bumpy.”
“Rewards?” After hearing this, Lin Jiayao looked back at her sister, blinked, and asked, “What rewards?”
“Mission rewards!” Lin Xiwan’s eyes widened, and she looked at her sister in disbelief. “For going on a mission! Rewards!”
As Lin Xiwan explained, she suddenly realized something.
Looking at her sister’s slightly confused and innocent eyes, Lin Xiwan more or less guessed.
Yao seemed to be focused on giving missions, but hadn’t thought about what rewards to give.
“Then what kind of rewards should be given? For this kind of mission.” Lin Jiayao humbly asked her sister for advice.
When it came to the experience of going on missions from a camp, Lin Jiayao was definitely not as experienced as her sister.
“Before, when I went on missions from the camp, I would get extra food and water rations when I came back, and some Blood Crystal fragments, but very few, not as much as what I kept for myself during the mission.”
After thinking for a while, Lin Xiwan continued: “For such a long-distance, cross-province… no, cross-border mission to Myanmar, 200g of Blood Crystals for the team leader, 100g for other Awakened, and about 30g per ordinary combatant should be about right.”
After Lin Xiwan finished speaking, she found that her sister had already lowered her head, looking at her own knees, as if she was thinking about something.
Without her sister even speaking, Lin Xiwan had already roughly guessed what her sister was thinking.
Most likely, her sister thought it was too expensive.
“Why don’t we go back,” Lin Jiayao looked up at her sister and suggested, “Brainwashing only consumes about 100g of Blood Crystals.”
Lin Xiwan: “?”
“Just kidding.” Lin Jiayao smiled, took out three Blood Crystals from the warehouse, and handed them to her sister, “These should be enough.”
After taking out these three Blood Crystals, Lin Jiayao only had fifteen Blood Crystals left.
She hated that the descended body couldn’t use the system’s Safehouse, otherwise, Lin Jiayao wouldn’t have so few Blood Crystals left and have to be so stingy.
Fortunately, her flapping-wing insect was about to reach the Myanmar border. If nothing unexpected happened, the convoy could go over and bring the things back within 24 hours.
After all, the distance between Kun City and the Myanmar border was only about five hundred kilometers. At highway speeds without any speed limit, it would only take a few hours to arrive.
Even including the time to clear roadblocks and such, 24 hours was enough for a round trip.
Actually, Lin Jiayao had another option, which was to let the flapping-wing insect swallow part of the blood crystals and directly airlift the Blood Crystals over.
But creating a large flapping-wing insect for flight consumed too much, and it wasn’t just for this one transport, this kind of transportation had to be carried out long-term.
India’s territory was too large, and the blood crystal “mines” Lin Jiayao opened weren’t enough. It was impossible to collect and transport all the Blood Crystals at once.
Since there was cheaper manpower available, then use cheaper manpower to avoid unnecessary blood crystal consumption.
After all, compared to things like gasoline, Blood Crystals were much more valuable, after all, they were a non-renewable resource.
If it weren’t for her sister, Lin Jiayao might have chosen to directly use Worm’s Eye for brainwashing, and wouldn’t even give out those three Blood Crystals.
Actually, Lin Jiayao had another way to transport Blood Crystals, but that method would take up her login time, which was a bit of a loss.
It was better to use the login time to log into Goldie or A4 and speed up the efficiency of harvesting Blood Crystals, working on multiple fronts, than to rely on logging into zombies for transportation.
“No need,” Lin Xiwan pushed away the Blood Crystals Lin Jiayao handed her and said with a smile, “Didn’t you say that the ash area is under my control? Of course, the salary is paid by me.”
Lin Xiwan said, reached out and pinched her sister’s cheek, and smiled: “Don’t look at me like this, I’ve actually saved quite a lot of Blood Crystals~”
At the same time, Lin Xiwan also decided that in the future, if it wasn’t too important, she wouldn’t tell her sister about the places where she needed to spend Blood Crystals.
“Okay.” Lin Jiayao nodded and didn’t insist, putting the Blood Crystals back into the Safehouse.
Her sister’s Blood Crystals were mostly dug out from the ashes of the ash area, plus some that she had given her before. There were some, but not many.
She would find an opportunity to compensate her sister, there was no need to worry too much about these things, after all, hers was her sister’s.
On the way back, her sister didn’t continue walking with Lin Jiayao, but after saying goodbye, returned to the ash area again.
She had to go and discuss the specific Blood Crystal distribution with those teams.
And Lin Jiayao returned to the vine arena, closed her eyes under the sun, entered the training ground, and trained while waiting for the Worm Ancestor’s extraction.
She was still looking forward to the Worm Ancestor’s abilities.
Although it was difficult for the Worm Ancestor to cooperate with Goldie in reality, their evolutions could be retained by Lin Jiayao, and then fused and released by Lin Jiayao herself, forming a combo-like effect.
It had been a long time since Lin Jiayao had engaged in actual combat, but she believed that her main body’s combat effectiveness would not be any worse than any of her logged-in B-rank zombies.
No matter what kind of blood crystal or Awakened the opponent was, Lin Jiayao definitely had an evolutionary ability in her body that could counter it.
She was an all-rounder.
Fortunately, most of the abilities retained by the system didn’t cause much change to her body. Now, the only changes to Lin Jiayao’s body were the Bone Crystal Threads tied in her hair and the Turbine Heart Pump hidden in her heart.
If other zombies had Lin Jiayao’s abilities, Lin Jiayao couldn’t imagine what kind of fusion monster it would be.
Anyway, it definitely wouldn’t be normal, the kind that she wouldn’t even dream of.
After practicing for a while in the training ground, Lin Jiayao saw a prompt pop up.
[Extracting: 7.9]
Seeing this extraction sign in the upper left corner, Lin Jiayao immediately stopped training, switched her consciousness, and regained control of the Worm Ancestor, slightly moving it back.
The Worm Ancestor’s movement speed was really too slow, and it was quite torturous to move. Lin Jiayao didn’t want to have to run such a long distance to extract next time she logged in.
After so many extractions, Lin Jiayao had basically figured out the logic of the Extraction Point and extraction time settings.
They were all determined by the system based on the zombie’s last state before extraction.
For example, if a Sprinter’s extraction time was half an hour, and the Extraction Point was 10 kilometers away.
If she controlled the Sprinter to run to the Extraction Point ten kilometers away and cut off its legs before extracting, then next time she logged in, the extraction time would be greatly increased, and the extraction distance would be reduced to only a few tens or hundreds of meters.
For a zombie like the Worm Ancestor that could easily change its form, during extraction, she only needed to remove any means of movement.
Under Lin Jiayao’s control, a large amount of sticky blanket surged from the side, and the purple-red sticky blanket quickly wrapped her whole body into a two-meter-tall ball.
After a while, as the egg ball ruptured, the Worm Ancestor’s body reappeared, but this time, its long, thin tail with bone spur armor was gone.
Lin Jiayao raised her arms, tried her best to crawl forward, entered the Extraction Point, wrapped herself in the sticky blanket before extracting, and then quietly waited for the countdown to end.
Soon, after the classic eight-second countdown, Lin Jiayao skipped the settlement space, and her consciousness directly returned to her main body.
After her consciousness returned to her main body, Lin Jiayao directly opened the retain evolution interface.
[Please retain your evolution.]
[1. [Reproductive Pheromones Lv.1 (Gold): Makes you secrete a single pheromone that can induce reproductive desires in surrounding creatures, cannot be resisted by any other evolution.]]
[2. [Zerg Creep Lv.1 (Gold): Grants you the ability to release Zerg Creep.]]
[3. [Source Infection Lv.Max (Gold): Infects all your blood and released creep with Source Infection, allowing you to issue the vague commands “stop” and “attack” to infected lifeforms, but the infection will not disappear.]]
The first ability could barely be considered a control evolution.
The third ability was very powerful, and it was also the ability that gave Lin Jiayao the biggest headache before.
Of course, Lin Jiayao definitely wouldn’t choose the third evolution for herself.
If she chose Source Infection, then Lin Jiayao’s blood would be passively infected with the super infection, and it couldn’t be canceled by herself. After a long time, the people around her would all be infected with Source Infection.
Although it was very powerful, it was an uncontrollable ability that was destined to destroy everything around her.
From this perspective, it seemed that she could only choose the second evolutionary ability.
But the description of the second ability was too brief, so brief that Lin Jiayao couldn’t understand all its effects from the text.
Fortunately, Lin Jiayao had controlled the Worm Ancestor for a long time and roughly knew what the creep’s abilities were.
It was actually a nutrient substance converted from flesh and blood and blood crystals, and it was also the breeding ground for those egg sacs.
And standing on the creep, the creep would enhance the host’s body and mind, and even greatly increase mental recovery speed. This was something Lin Jiayao only realized after repeatedly leaving and entering the creep.
It was the most basic ability for the Worm Ancestor. Many abilities, such as laying eggs, required creep as a base, just like the Blood Orb Fungus had to retain the fungus at the beginning.
No matter what, just for the greatly increased mental recovery speed, Lin Jiayao had to choose this ability.
Lin Jiayao ignored 1 and 3 and directly chose the second ability, leaning back on the insect chair and waiting for the system evolution to begin.
