Life Origin

[Survival of the Fittest: Your Life Origin stands above all living things. You can devour the Life Origin of other beings to advance your own evolution.]

The instant he saw this information, the first thought that surfaced in Lin Zichen's mind was: There are distinctions of rank and worth among lives.

It felt as if he had returned to the primitive wilderness.

Natural Selection: the fittest survived.

However, he didn't dwell on that idea. Before long, his attention had settled entirely on the words "Life Origin."

Life Origin?

What did that mean?

Lin Zichen suddenly thought of the Beast Tooth the white-haired girl had given him and Shen Qinghan. He remembered discovering, when he'd examined it before, that it contained a vigorous life force.

So he turned to Shen Qinghan, who was walking beside him and humming a tune, and asked:

"Hanhan, could you take off your Beast Tooth and let me have a look?"

"Why do you suddenly want to see it?"

Shen Qinghan obediently took off the Beast Tooth and handed it to him, asking with some confusion.

Lin Zichen casually made up an excuse. "I think the material is pretty good. I wanted to see if I could turn it into a piece of jewelry for you."

"Huh?" Shen Qinghan looked taken aback, then said with a troubled expression, "Xiao Chen, Bai Xue gave this to us as a gift. It wouldn't be right to change it into something else without asking her, would it?"

"True. Then I won't."

Lin Zichen said it offhandedly, his attention entirely on the Beast Tooth in his hand as he focused on sensing the vigorous life force within it.

The moment he sensed that life force, the palm holding the Beast Tooth suddenly grew hot. In the next instant, the life force inside it surged into him through his palm.

At the same time, several lines of information appeared in the Void.

[You devoured a trace of the Abyssal Giant Butterfly's Life Origin]

[Abyssal Giant Butterfly Atlas: 1%]

[When the atlas progress reaches 100%, you can evolve some attributes or skills of the corresponding Exotic Beast]

Could this really be a butterfly's tooth?

After reading the information, Lin Zichen looked down at the Beast Tooth in his hand, which was as thick as his little finger. He was amazed and found it hard to believe.

All he could say was that the Exotic Beasts on Mutated Earth were bizarre creatures of every kind, impossible to judge by the knowledge he'd brought over from his previous life.

Soon, Lin Zichen's thoughts returned to [Survival of the Fittest].

Put simply, this attribute gave him the ability to grow stronger by devouring other living beings.

A lot of ideas came to mind.

Could he devour the Life Origin of common animals like ants, mosquitoes, flies, and cockroaches, and gain their attributes or skills?

Like... a cockroach's tenacity and refusal to die?

Once he got home, he'd have to find some small animals and test out this [Survival of the Fittest] attribute.

"Xiao Chen, you can see this Beast Tooth every day. How come you're so absorbed in studying it now?"

Seeing Lin Zichen standing stock-still, staring at the Beast Tooth in his hand without moving for ages, Shen Qinghan was baffled.

At the sound of her voice, Lin Zichen pulled his consciousness back from the Void. He didn't explain much, merely gave her a casual answer before returning the Beast Tooth and heading back to the classroom with her.

Although all the life force had drained from the Beast Tooth, it wasn't like flesh and blood; it wouldn't rot as a result and could still be kept for a long time.

Before long, they were back in the classroom.

The moment he walked in, Lin Zichen was stunned by what he saw in his desk.

The drawer, which had been fairly empty before, was now crammed full of love letters—not even a sliver of space remained.

There was no need to guess. Some girl who had a crush on him must have been too shy to give him a love letter in person, so she'd waited until he wasn't in the classroom and stuffed the pile she'd saved up into his desk all at once.

After all, this wasn't the first time this had happened to him.

"So many love letters. What am I supposed to do with them?"

Looking at the letters in his drawer, Lin Zichen felt thoroughly vexed.

Just then, Shen Qinghan handed him another love letter and said with a hint of schadenfreude, "The class representative for studies from the class next door asked me to give this to you on the sports field earlier. She was too embarrassed to approach you herself."

One more... Lin Zichen accepted the letter from Shen Qinghan, feeling even more troubled.

He sighed inwardly and cleared all the letters out of his desk.

As he did, he glanced at the handwriting on their envelopes and was surprised to find that they weren't all from one person. There were letters from more than a dozen girls mixed together.

"These girls are pretty decent. They didn't throw away their rivals' letters."

Lin Zichen laughed ruefully.

Then he stacked all the letters together and held them in his hand, planning to find somewhere empty to throw them away.

Seeing this, Shen Qinghan immediately stopped him. "Don't, Xiao Chen. If you throw these letters away and the girls find out, they'll be heartbroken. If you don't want them, I can keep them for you. Whenever you feel like reading them, you can come ask me for them."

With that, she took all the letters from Lin Zichen and stuffed them into her little backpack.

Lin Zichen was more than happy to let her. It saved him the trouble.

Just then, he remembered that there was another Beast Tooth from the white-haired girl in his backpack. He took it out and devoured it without a second thought.

[You devoured a trace of the Abyssal Giant Butterfly's Life Origin]

[Abyssal Giant Butterfly Atlas: 2%]

Now that he knew the Exotic Beast's name, he wondered if he could find any information about it online.

Right, he'd search and see.

Thinking this, Lin Zichen immediately pulled out his phone and searched the web for "Abyssal Giant Butterfly."

Back in elementary school, he'd taken a photo of the Abyssal Giant Butterfly's tooth and uploaded it to an online image-recognition database, but he hadn't found anything.

Now that he knew its exact name, there should be a good chance he could find information about it.

However, the results disappointed him.

There was nothing online about the "Abyssal Giant Butterfly," confirming beyond doubt that it was an unknown Exotic Beast, one humanity had yet to discover and catalog.

Well, then the Abyssal Giant Butterfly Atlas was as good as dead. There wasn't a single scrap of information about it, so there was no way to fill its progress bar.

Unless he ran into the white-haired girl's mother and got information about the Abyssal Giant Butterfly from her.

After leaving the classroom.

Lin Zichen and Shen Qinghan went together to the school's bike shed and wheeled out a brand-new bicycle.

They'd bought it six months ago, but it still looked as good as new.

That was mainly because Shen Qinghan took good care of it, wiping it down every day or two.

Soon, the two of them pushed the bike toward the school gate.

As they passed the school shop, Shen Qinghan suddenly said she wanted a lollipop, so Lin Zichen went and bought her one.

"Here, eat up. You're old enough to feed yourself, you know."

Lin Zichen unwrapped the lollipop and held it to Shen Qinghan's lips.

Shen Qinghan was already used to this kind of closeness. She opened her mouth and took the lollipop between her lips. As its sweetness spread through her mouth, her beautiful eyes curved with her smile.

"Can't help it. It just tastes sweeter when you feed it to me."

"That's just in your head."

As he spoke, Lin Zichen saw Shen Qinghan's cheeks puffed out around the lollipop and couldn't resist poking them.

Shen Qinghan pulled out the lollipop and pouted her rosy lips in protest. "Don't poke my cheeks."

"Can't help it when your face is so soft. It feels nice to poke."

"If it feels nice, you can pinch it. Or rub it. Just don't poke—it feels uncomfortable."

"Fine, then I'll pinch it from now on."

"No, rubbing is better. It feels nice."

"..."

After fooling around for a few more moments, the two continued pushing the bike toward the school gate.

As they passed along the path beside the sports field,

Lin Zichen saw the students from the school's Martial Arts Team exercising on the field. Among them, he spotted a familiar face.

It was none other than the hapless guy who'd followed him around and tearfully taken home three silver medals.

At that moment, the unfortunate fellow was sprinting hard across the grass. A cloth belt was tied around his waist, attached to a rope. At the other end of the rope was a tire lying flat on the ground, adding friction.

This was one of the common training methods for building explosive strength in the legs.

"Xiao Chen, that boy on the grass is training so hard. Did you motivate him at the school sports meet?" Shen Qinghan whispered around her lollipop.

Lin Zichen said, "Maybe."

The moment he'd finished speaking, the Martial Arts Team coach, who was pushing the team to train on the field, turned his head and looked over at them.

Then he turned around and walked straight over.

Shen Qinghan panicked, her face tense. "We're doomed, Xiao Chen. Were we talking too loudly just now? Did he hear us?"

"It's fine. We didn't insult anyone." Lin Zichen reassured the timid Shen Qinghan.