Zerg Larva

To become a martial artist, one first had to take the Pre-warrior assessment.

Qin Mu, who knew the plot and had inherited all of the original owner's memories, 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. But becoming a true martial artist required more than simply passing the Pre-warrior assessment.

He also had to take a practical combat assessment. Only after passing it could he truly become a martial artist.

The practical combat assessment for Pre-warriors was held only twice a year: August 1 and February 1.

It was already June 16. This meant that if he could not become a Pre-warrior before July 1, he would inevitably miss the August 1 assessment. If he wanted to become a martial artist, he would have to wait until February next year.

Qin Mu could not accept that.

There were, at most, only three and a half years until the Golden Horn Beast attacked the base in New York State, America.

How could Qin Mu accept wasting half a year?

Although he possessed a Zerg larva clone, theoretically, Qin Mu did not need to worry about the martial artist assessments. He could simply wait for the Swarm to grow stronger.

Under normal circumstances, as long as there were sufficient resources, a single larva could develop into a Swarm in a very short time.

That was because every larva contained the genes of every Zerg Unit in the entire Swarm and could hatch various Zerg Units as needed.

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

The current Gene Bank retained only one type of Worker Bug resembling a giant Worker Ant. Even that Worker Bug could only hatch into the lowest-level Zerg Mother Nest.

This meant that the Swarm's development had to rely on Qin Mu himself to seize genes, analyze them, and then evolve.

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

Yangzhou City, where he currently was, definitely did not meet those conditions.

Only the Wilderness Zone could provide an environment suitable for Zerg growth. But the Wilderness Zone was filled with monsters and was not a place ordinary people could casually enter.

The problem circled back to the beginning. To develop the Swarm, Qin Mu had to become a martial artist—or at the very least, a Pre-warrior. Only Pre-warriors could legally enter the Wilderness Zone.

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

After searching through the house, Qin Mu finally found several chunks of frozen meat that had been sitting in the refrigerator for an unknown amount of time.

Qin Mu took out the frozen meat and placed it before the Zerg larva.

The larva, already starving to the point of madness, discovered the food. It immediately opened its large mouth full of sharp teeth, effortlessly bit through the frozen meat, and began swallowing huge mouthfuls.

While the larva ate, Qin Mu carefully examined this familiar yet unfamiliar home, looking for more food along the way.

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

One room was his bedroom, while the other was his parents' bedroom.

The original owner had never had the heart to clear out his parents' room, leaving it exactly as it had been when they were alive.

He pushed open the door and entered his parents' room.

A double bed stood in the middle of the room. To the left was a wardrobe filled with all kinds of clothes.

A family portrait sat on the bedside table. To the right was a desk, with a bookshelf beside it.

The bookshelf was packed with books, most of them about biology, genes, monsters, and similar subjects.

These books had all been left behind by his mother, a military researcher.

Qin Mu walked over to the bookshelf, pulled out a book, and flipped through it. When he realized he could not understand it, he put it back.

The living room was simply furnished, with only a television, a sofa, and a coffee table.

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

By the time Qin Mu finished looking, the Zerg larva had already eaten more than half of several chunks of frozen meat larger than its own body.

In Qin Mu's perception, the food vanished in an instant after entering its body, consumed by its terrifying digestive ability.

As it swallowed massive amounts of food, a faint warmth spread throughout the larva's body from its stomach.

Before Qin Mu's eyes, the larva's shriveled body visibly grew larger by a full circle.

As the larva revived, Qin Mu felt faint traces of warmth within his own body, though they were far too weak.

"My strength seems to have improved a little, and the old injuries in my body feel better too."

Qin Mu clenched his fist, sensing the changes within himself.

"There's no food left."

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

The original owner had never been in the habit of storing food, so Qin Mu could only think of a solution himself.

He took out his phone, entered the password from his memories, and fiddled with it for a while.

This phone was somewhat 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 and saw a balance of 523,586.23 yuan.

"Good. There's still quite a bit of money."

This money consisted of his parents' savings, compensation payments, and accumulated monthly government subsidies.

As the descendant of martyrs, he received a monthly government subsidy of 3,000 yuan until he turned eighteen.

Over the years, the original owner had spent quite a lot pursuing the path of a martial artist. After getting injured, he had also spent hundreds of thousands on treating his body.

If he chose to lie low, the remaining money would be enough to last him quite a while.

But Qin Mu clearly had no such intention.

He had been ordinary for long enough in his previous life. In this life, he wanted to live differently.

He checked the time.

"It's not even nine yet. I'll go buy some things."

Qin Mu remembered there was a market not far downstairs, with many stalls selling meat.

They sold pork, chicken, duck, and even Monster meat, though Monster meat was far more expensive than ordinary meat.

The Zerg larva was not a carnivore. On the contrary, it could eat almost anything. In extreme situations, it could survive even on dirt.

However, biological flesh and blood were still most suitable for it.

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

The residential complex where Qin Mu lived was a resettlement area for military families, and public security was excellent.

He took the elevator down from the eighteenth floor and made his way through the narrow alleyways.

In this era, apart from certain regions, land-use efficiency in most places had been pushed nearly to its limit.

Every residential building resembled a massive square concrete pillar, even in military family resettlement areas.

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

It was already nighttime. The streetlights had all come on, and many people had just gotten off work, filling the street with foot traffic.

The scent of snacks drifted from the roadside stalls, drawing in passing customers.

Some vendors shouted their wares, while others called out to friends. The street was lively, with not the slightest hint of an apocalypse.

If Qin Mu had not seen the strange lines written on the menus of several stalls ahead, he would have thought he was still on a snack street in an urban village from his previous life.

"Unicorn Wild Boar pork belly skewers"

"Tiger Mastiff stew in clay pot"

"Longhorn Sheep barbecue skewers"

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

Since it was nighttime, the few meat stalls did not have much meat left, and some had already closed up.

Under the stunned gazes of the stall owners, Qin Mu bought all the meat from several stalls.

There were more than sixty pounds of ordinary pork and fifty pounds of Unicorn Wild Boar meat.

Ordinary pork was fine, costing only a little over ten yuan per pound.

Monster meat was different. Even Unicorn Wild Boar meat, from the cheapest H-class monsters, cost over a hundred yuan per pound.

That small amount of meat cost Qin Mu more than 7,000 yuan, roughly two months' wages for an ordinary worker.

The reason he had bought Monster meat as well was because Qin Mu wanted to know whether there was any difference between the larva devouring ordinary pork and Monster meat.

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

His current physical fitness was the only reason he could manage it. In his previous life, carrying something that heavy would have exhausted him completely.

After placing all the meat in the living room, Qin Mu set the larva down in the middle of it.

With a thought, the larva began devouring frantically amid the chunks of meat. Pieces far larger than its own body vanished into its mouth one after another, as though it were a bottomless pit.

Its body also grew rapidly at a visible rate, while streams of faint warmth circulated through Qin Mu's body.