Zerg larva

To become a martial artist, one must first pass the Pre-warrior assessment.

Familiar with the plot and having absorbed all of the original body's memories, Qin Mu understood this clearly.

As a member of the Limit Martial Arts School, he could take the Pre-warrior assessment on the first of every month. However, becoming a true martial artist required more than just passing that assessment.

He also needed to pass a practical combat assessment. Only after passing that could he truly become a martial artist.

The Pre-warrior practical combat assessment was held only twice a year: on August 1st and February 1st.

It was now June 16th, meaning if he couldn't become a Pre-warrior by July 1st, he would inevitably miss the August 1st assessment. To become a martial artist, he'd have to wait until February of next year.

That was unacceptable to Qin Mu.

From the Golden Horn Beast's attack on the New York State base in America, he had at most three and a half years.

How could Qin Mu possibly accept wasting half a year?

Though possessing a Zerg larva clone meant he could theoretically skip the martial artist assessment and just wait for the Swarm to grow strong.

Under normal circumstances, with sufficient resources, a single larva could develop into a Swarm in a very short time.

Because every larva's body preserved the entire genetic code of the Swarm, allowing it to hatch various Zerg Units as needed.

But in reality, from the larva's fragmented memories, Qin Mu learned that during its long slumber, its Gene Bank had lost nearly all Zerg Unit genes.

Now, the Gene Bank only retained a single type of Worker Bug, similar to a giant Worker Ant, which could only hatch into the lowest-level Zerg Mother Nest.

This meant the Swarm's development had to rely on plundering genes, analyzing them, and evolving.

That required not only time but also an environment suitable for the Swarm's growth.

Yangzhou City, where he currently was, definitely didn't meet those conditions.

Only the Wilderness Zone could provide an environment for Zerg growth, but that area was swarming with monsters—not a place ordinary people could easily tread.

The problem circled back to the starting point. To develop the Swarm, Qin Mu had to become a martial artist first, or at least a Pre-warrior, because only Pre-warriors could legally and reasonably enter the Wilderness Zone.

Pulling his thoughts back, becoming a martial artist couldn't be rushed. What he needed to do now was feed the Zerg larva, which had been hungry for who knows how long.

Searching around the house, Qin Mu finally found a few pieces of frozen meat in the fridge, of unknown age.

He took the frozen meat out and placed it in front of the Zerg larva.

The larva, already starving and nearly mad with hunger, spotted the food and immediately opened its mouth full of sharp teeth, easily crunching through the frozen meat and gulping it down.

While the larva ate, Qin Mu took a careful look around this familiar yet unfamiliar home, also searching for more food.

It was a small two-bedroom, one-living-room apartment on the eighteenth floor.

One room was his own bedroom; the other was his parents' bedroom.

The original body had never been willing to clean out his parents' room, keeping it exactly as it was when they were alive.

Pushing the door open, he entered their room.

In the center was a double bed, with a wardrobe on the left filled with various clothes.

On the nightstand sat a family photo. To the right was a desk, and beside it a bookshelf.

The bookshelf was packed with books, most of them about biology, genetics, and monsters.

These were all left behind by his mother, a military researcher.

Qin Mu walked to the bookshelf, pulled out a book, flipped through it, found he couldn't understand it, and put it back.

The living room was simply furnished, with just a TV, a sofa, and a coffee table.

After searching around, he found no more food for the Zerg larva.

While Qin Mu was looking, the Zerg larva had already devoured most of the frozen meat, which was larger than its own body.

In Qin Mu's perception, the food entered its body and vanished in an instant under its terrifying digestive power.

With large amounts of food swallowed, centered around the larva's stomach, a faint warmth spread through its entire body.

Under Qin Mu's gaze, the larva's shriveled body visibly grew a full size.

As the larva revived, Qin Mu felt a slight warmth in his own body, though it was too faint to be significant.

"It seems my strength has increased a bit, and the internal injuries in my body feel a little better."

Qin Mu clenched his fist, sensing the changes within.

"There's no more food."

"The energy converted from such a small amount of food isn't enough for the larva to recover its normal body, let alone hatch into a Worker Bug."

The original body had no habit of storing food, so Qin Mu had to figure something out himself.

He opened his phone, entered the password from memory, and fiddled with it for a while.

This phone was a bit more advanced than those from his previous life, but not by much. Qin Mu quickly figured out how to use it.

He opened the banking app, which showed a balance of 523,586.23 yuan.

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

This money came from his parents' savings, their death benefits, and the monthly government subsidies accumulated over time.

As a martyr's descendant, the government subsidy was 3,000 per month, paid out until the age of eighteen.

Over the years, the original body had spent no small amount to become a martial artist. After getting injured and seeking treatment, he had shelled out hundreds of thousands in total.

The remaining money, if he just coasted, would last him a good long while.

But Qin Mu clearly had no such intention.

In his past life, Qin Mu had been mediocre enough. In this life, he wanted to live a different way.

He checked the time.

"Not even nine yet. I'll go out and buy some things."

Qin Mu remembered there was a market not far from the building, with plenty of meat stalls.

Pork, chicken, duck, even monster meat was for sale—though monster meat cost much more than ordinary meat.

The Zerg larva wasn't a carnivore; in fact, it could eat almost anything. In extreme cases, it could survive on dirt alone.

Still, what suited it best was the flesh and blood of living creatures.

Qin Mu tucked the Zerg larva into the inner pocket of his clothes, tidied up a bit, and headed straight out.

The neighborhood Qin Mu lived in was a resettlement area for military families, with good public security.

He took the elevator down from the eighteenth floor and threaded through narrow alleyways.

In this era, aside from certain areas, land utilization efficiency was pushed nearly to its limit.

Every residential building was like a giant square concrete pillar—even the military family resettlement area was no exception.

After passing through several alleys, Qin Mu finally arrived at a narrow street.

It was already night; the streetlights were on, and many people were just getting off work, the streets bustling with crowds.

The aroma of street food wafted from roadside stalls, drawing in passing customers.

Some hawked loudly, others called out to friends—lively and bustling, with not a hint of the apocalypse.

If Qin Mu hadn't noticed the strange menu items written on some of the stalls ahead, he might have thought he was still in his past life's food street in an urban village.

"Unicorn Wild Boar Belly Skewers"

"Clay Pot Braised Tiger Mastiff"

"Longhorn Sheep BBQ Skewers"

Ignoring these, Qin Mu hurried toward his destination—the market at the other end of the street.

Since it was evening, the meat stalls had little stock left, and some had already closed up.

Under the stall owners' astonished gazes, Qin Mu bought all the meat from several stalls.

Over sixty jin of ordinary pork and fifty jin of Unicorn Wild Boar meat.

Ordinary pork was fine—a dozen or so yuan per jin.

But beast meat was different. Even the cheapest H-class monster, Unicorn Wild Boar, cost over a hundred yuan per jin.

That little bit of meat set Qin Mu back over seven thousand yuan—almost two months' wages for an average worker.

He bought monster meat too because he wanted to see if there was any difference between the larva devouring ordinary pork and monster meat.

Carrying a hundred jin of meat, Qin Mu returned home.

This was only possible because Qin Mu's current physical fitness was strong. In his past life, carrying something this heavy would have worn him out.

He set all the meat down in the living room and placed the larva in the middle of it.

With a thought, the larva's body began devouring wildly among the meat chunks. Pieces far larger than its own body vanished into its mouth as if it were a bottomless pit.

Its body grew rapidly at a visible rate, and a faint, warm current flowed through Qin Mu's own body.