Brood Mother

Two days passed in the blink of an eye. After a long period of IV fluids replenished his lost nutrients, Tang Shizhe slowly came to on the bed.

"Water... water..." Tang Shizhe rasped. Tang Si hurriedly brought a cup of freshly cooled warm water to his lips.

Tang Shizhe took a couple of sips and let out a long breath. Though he had been unconscious for the past few days, his mind had actually remained clear. He had simply been trapped inside his own head.

He never expected his body to run into danger while evolving. If Tang Yi and the others hadn't acted quickly, he might have been drained dry. Just thinking about it now was terrifying.

His next round of research had to focus more on nutrient solution. If his next evolution required such an enormous amount of energy, the existing supply might not be able to keep up with his rate of consumption.

But fortunately, he had made it through this evolution. The special Splitter that required a great deal of energy had fallen dormant and wouldn't wake again until it had enough energy.

That was right. The thing that had nearly drained him dry was a by-product of his evolution: a Splitter known as the Brood Mother.

Once the Brood Mother absorbed enough energy, it could extract an organism's genes and alter its appearance to resemble that organism.

And when Tang Shizhe needed it, the Brood Mother could also take root in the soil and become a massive incubator, splitting off new individuals in his place.

That would free Tang Shizhe from having to lie in the Splitter Chamber to produce Splitters.

Unfortunately, although the Brood Mother could change its appearance to resemble any organism, its physical capabilities would match those of the organism whose genes it had extracted. In other words, whatever organism's genes it took, it could only attain that organism's physical strength.

The Brood Mother itself had no emotions. It knew no joy or anger, had no sense of pain, touch, or taste.

Its intelligence was on par with that of an ordinary eighteen-year-old, enough to get by in daily life, but it couldn't become an expert in anything.

For now, it would just have to follow Tang Shizhe around and help him produce new Splitters.

This time, Tang Shizhe also discovered that he could decide which of his memories the Splitters were allowed to share, and which they weren't.

In other words, he could keep some things private from the Splitters. Even though they were all another version of him, it still felt wrong to let them know certain personal things.

It didn't matter while he was single. But if he got a girlfriend someday, was he supposed to let the Splitters share memories of what happened in bed?

Of course not! Tang Shizhe didn't have that kind of fetish.

Besides choosing which memories the Splitters could share, Tang Shizhe also discovered he could now decide what a new Splitter would specialize in.

For example, by increasing the energy spent on a Splitter's physical capabilities, he could create a strengthened Splitter whose physical abilities and strength far surpassed those of a normal one.

But their intelligence wouldn't be as high as that of a normal Splitter. Their memory and comprehension would only be on par with an ordinary person's.

Likewise, Tang Shizhe could focus on developing a Splitter's brain. Its abilities wouldn't improve by much, but it would have better memory and creativity.

Besides these two types, Tang Shizhe had discovered a completely new kind of Splitter: a defective Splitter.

These defective Splitters were created by cutting off their energy supply during the final stage of formation. Deprived of energy, their brains failed to develop fully.

Their physical capabilities were no different from those of other Splitters, but their intelligence was only on par with that of a six-year-old child. They could understand only simple commands.

The advantage of these Splitters was that they used very little of Tang Shizhe's Mental Network capacity. Five defective Splitters took up as much capacity as one normal Splitter!

Now that Tang Shizhe's body had finished evolving, his Mental Network capacity had reached one hundred units.

That meant he could now have one hundred Splitters at once.

If he used all ninety new slots to create defective Splitters, he could have four hundred and sixty Splitters at once, even if four hundred and fifty of them were idiots.

At present, these defective Splitters seemed completely useless. But Tang Shizhe felt that sooner or later, he would find a use for these defective Splitters, who lacked thoughts of their own.

After getting out of bed and moving around to loosen his stiff body, Tang Shizhe went over to the glass tank. Inside, the Brood Mother lay flat, pulsing rhythmically.

Although the Brood Mother looked frightening, with fleshy tendrils writhing inside its cocoon-like shell like worms, Tang Shizhe felt no fear at all.

"Give the Brood Mother some nutrient solution!" Tang Shizhe ordered Tang Si beside him.

He had just shared information about the Brood Mother with the other Splitters through the Mental Network. They now knew that this cocoon Tang Shizhe had shed might eventually become one of them.

As nutrient solution poured into the glass tank, the Brood Mother began writhing faster, like a fish that had finally found water. In an instant, it had absorbed most of the solution in the tank.

"By the way, boss, Yin Qi asked you out to lunch today," Tang Yi suddenly remembered and said from behind Tang Shizhe.

"What? Yin Qi asked me to lunch? How come I didn't know?" Tang Shizhe was dumbfounded. He couldn't remember when he and Yin Qi had ever talked about going out to eat.

"Well, while you were unconscious during your evolution, Yin Qi came to see you. You hadn't finished evolving yet, so I had to accept on your behalf." Tang Yi rubbed his hands together. He felt so guilty that he even used the respectful form of address, "you," which he had long since stopped using.

"Why would I go out to eat with her?" Tang Shizhe frowned, unable to figure out what he and Yin Qi had to do with each other.

"Boss, she said you stole her first place and ruined all the years she spent keeping a low profile," Tang Yi hastily explained.

"It's just a meal, no problem!" Tang Shizhe waved his hand casually. He was worth tens of millions now. Surely he could afford to treat someone to a meal. Fine, he'd go! He could be as generous as he wanted!

"Thanks, boss. I've already booked a room for you at Thousand-Face Cuisine—Room 11," Tang Yi said ingratiatingly.

"Um, boss..." Tang Er beside him suddenly shrank his neck and timidly raised his hand to speak.

"Yeah? What is it?" Tang Shizhe glared at Tang Er, wondering what he was dawdling about.

"Well, boss, I also arranged for you to meet Yan Yanran at lunch today!" Tang Er looked ready to cry. He'd never imagined Tang Yi had already arranged for Yin Qi to meet him first.

"Wait, when did you—" Tang Shizhe caught the key phrase in what he'd said.