Ex-Human Morphus [A Mutant Evolution Apocalypse LitRPG]
Chapter 307

Chapter 307

He summoned its description, and a piece of text emerged in his mind.

Name: Extractor

Description: The Extractor allows you to obtain various resources from living beings. The two most common resources are Brain Matter and Rigidbone. The former is used to increase a creature’s intellect, while the latter is needed to enhance a creature’s natural weapons, like claws, making them tougher and more powerful. Brain Matter and Rigidbone can be obtained from common mutants, while various unique resources can only be extracted from elite ones. The subject cannot survive the resource extraction process and dies. After the extraction is completed, the body dissolves.

So he needed to fetch another walker. Since this kind of mutant was armed with claws, he should be able to obtain both Brain Matter and Rigidbone from it.

Jake left his lair and set off in search of a walker. It didn’t take him long to catch one and bring it back to his lair. With the ex-human slung over his shoulder, he approached the Extractor.

When he lifted the struggling walker off his shoulder and brought it to the transparent section of the structure, it parted like a gigantic eyelid. Once Jake pushed the mutant inside, the two halves of the front section came together again, trapping the ex-human inside.

With a mental command, he activated the Extractor. The tight chamber, where the walker was crammed in an embryo-like position, began to fill with greenish fluid. Once it was completely full, a system message popped up in his mind.

Subject: Ex-Human Walker

Obtainable Resources:

30 Brain Matter 

25 Rigidbone

Extract Resources: Y/N (Cost: 1,000 MP) 

He could obtain only 25 points of Rigidbone from a single walker, which meant he would need to bring two more to gather enough resources for evolving his spider.

Jake thought, “Yes,” and the extraction process began. Through the viewport, he looked inside the chamber to see what was happening. The process was quite slow, so it took him a few minutes to notice the walker’s claws slowly detaching from its hands while its head gradually dissolved. 

Extraction in Progress

Current Status: 3% Complete

Estimated Time Remaining: 56 minutes, 43 seconds

Jake figured there was no point in lingering in his lair for almost an hour while waiting for the process to finish. Instead, he decided to get out and hunt some mutants for XP.

He roamed the streets, slaying each group of ex-humans he encountered. He knew he needed to earn plenty of XP to increase his attributes multiple times to fulfill the requirements for acquiring the remaining skills from the third section of the Genetic Development Interface.

The most effective way to earn XP was by completing challenges. However, before he could locate an anomaly offering a challenge, a system message flashed in his mind.

The Extractor has completed resource gathering from [Ex-Human Walker].

On his way back to his lair, Jake caught another walker. Once he was back, he approached the Extractor and peered inside. The chamber was now empty. The walker must have been completely dissolved, leaving nothing behind as if it had never existed. The greenish liquid had vanished, and the resources he expected to gain from the mutant were nowhere to be found.

With a thought, Jake summoned the description of the Extractor, and a new piece of text emerged in his mind.

Collected Resources:

30 Brain Matter 

25 Rigidbone

So the resources had to be stored in a hidden compartment somewhere within the structure. Deciding to leave them there for now, Jake shoved the fresh walker into the Extractor and activated it once more.

After that, he set off to hunt for more XP. Over the next hour, he killed various ex-humans, gradually gaining experience. He was getting close to leveling up.

Just as he was about to level up, a notification alerted him that the Extractor had successfully processed a fresh batch of resources from the walker. Jake retrieved another walker and took it to his lair. After inserting it into the Extractor, he resumed his hunt for XP.

At some point, he finally leveled up from 134 to 135. He allocated all five skill points to Mind, increasing it from 145 to 150. Once the skill points were distributed, he continued hunting for XP. When he received the message that the Extractor had finished its work, he grabbed another walker and headed back.

Upon returning to his lair, he checked the Extractor. 

Collected Resources:

90 Brain Matter 

75 Rigidbone

Having gathered enough Rigidbone and with 300 Biomass in the Biomass Processor, he had enough resources to begin the spider’s evolution process. He pushed the walker into the Biomass Processor and then focused on the Creation Chamber.

Evolve the spider: Y/N (Chances of Success: 78%)

He thought “Yes”. Bulging emerged on the Corruption as two tubes formed, linking the Biomass Storage and the Extractor to the Creation Chamber. Although Jake couldn’t see it, he knew the collected resources were being transferred to the Creation Chamber.

Once all of them reached the structure, the tubes flattened, and the evolution process commenced. For a few moments, he observed the spider floating inside the chamber as the three various resources merged with it, slowly transforming the spider into the form he had designed it in creation mode earlier.

The process was taking longer than he anticipated, though.

Spider (Evolution in Progress) 

Current Status: 2% Complete

Estimated Time Remaining: 2 hours, 54 minutes

Jake left his lair and continued hunting for XP. At some point, he encountered an anomaly with a linked challenge. It was a usual wave-survival challenge. The difficulty was set to very hard, and completing it within sixty minutes granted an additional reward of 50 SP. Jake couldn’t miss out on such a great opportunity to earn so many skill points, so he accepted the challenge.

He fought through ten waves of various mutants, with each wave becoming increasingly harder than the last. The final three waves were the toughest, but he still managed to finish the challenge just in time to receive the extra reward. He defeated so many tough monsters during the challenge that he leveled up from 135 to 136, earning a total of 55 SP. He allocated all of them to his attributes.

Body: 168 → 210

Mind: 150 → 160

Magick: 240 → 243

He was getting there. Soon, he would be able to purchase the remaining skills from the third section of the Genetic Development Interface. He still had some time, so he continued to hunt for more XP.

At some point, a system message flashed through his mind.

Success! [Rank I Spider] has evolved into another form!

It was time to return to his lair. On his way back, he grabbed another walker to convert into Biomass. When he made his way back, he shoved the mutant into the Biomass Processor and then shifted his attention to the Creation Chamber. The spider was still inside, motionlessly hovering in the green liquid.

When he summoned the structure’s description, a system message emerged in his mind.

You successfully created your first creature! The genetic code of the creature has been memorized, so you can now create this creature via the Hive Nexus any time you want. You can also give your creature a unique name.

It was a good idea to give it a unique name to differentiate it from his basic spiders. Jake gave it some thought and decided to call the spider “Ten-Legged Crawler”. After that, he issued the mental command for the Creation Chamber to release the crawler.

Once released, it ran across the floor before scaling one of the corrupted walls to the ceiling, where it halted in one of the corners. He then shifted his focus to the Hive Nexus and summoned its main functions.

Generate a Basic Creature: Roach, Fly, or Spider (Cost: 40 Biomass, 1,500 MP, Larvae (x1))

Generate a Unique Creature: Ten-legged Crawler (Cost: 150 Biomass, 3,500 MP, Larvae (x1))

So he could indeed create a ten-legged crawler through the Hive Nexus just like any of the basic types of creatures. However, unlike the latter, the crawler had higher resource demands.

The silver lining was that he didn’t need to gather Brain Matter and Rigidbone to create a ten-legged crawler with the Hive Nexus. Those two types of resources were clearly needed only for the evolution process, but now that the genetic code for the creature had been created, only the basic resources were necessary for the creation of ten-legged crawlers.

He then issued a mental command for the crawler to climb down and approach him. The spider scuttled down the wall, moving noticeably faster than any of the other creatures in his lair.

The crawler halted at his side, patiently waiting for further commands. Jake gave the creature a quick look-over. It looked exactly as he had designed in the creation mode. It was approximately twenty percent larger than his regular spiders, possessing ten legs instead of eight, which were longer than those of typical spiders. Its legs were curved and blade-like, and the creature featured a menacing mouth filled with sharp teeth.

The crawler was supposedly smarter than his other creatures. It was now time to release the spider from his lair to observe its behavior in the wild. He was intrigued to evaluate its improved stats in action, keen to see how the crawler would navigate its environment on its own and adapt to various scenarios, especially during combat.