World 5588, Jinke System, Dayang System, Pond Sphere.69🅂🄷🅄🅇.🄲🄾🄼
In the Shrub District, Cheng Jie listlessly smeared swamp mud over himself, mending the cracks in his body.
He had been beaten up at Swamp Academy. A few classmates had decided his swamp mud smelled too fragrant, so they had thrashed him. They had even threatened to do it again tomorrow if his mud still smelled that way.
But the mud on him was perfectly ordinary. Its stench was thoroughly uniform; there was nothing fragrant about it.
Those rotten kids had only picked on him because he did not look strong enough.
"If only I could get stronger too."
Just then, a burly Swamp Person walked slowly past the district. Cheng Jie watched his sturdy figure and thought enviously to himself.
The Swamp People were a subspecies of humanity.
Because of Pond Sphere's natural environment, every living thing there dwelled in swamps. After hundreds of millions of years of evolution, they had formed a perfect symbiotic relationship with them.
Swamp People had no sweat glands in their skin, so they did not sweat. Instead, they had a kind of body hair that absorbed nutrients from swamp mud.
The more nutritious the mud, the higher its price. Many Swamp People could only get the nutrients they needed for training through mud, making it difficult for those without money to grow strong.
Cheng Jie's family was not well-off, so he was scrawnier than many of his peers. Ever since the juvenile swamp pool, his classmates had made him the target of their pranks and bullying.
"You need revenge."
A voice suddenly sounded beside Cheng Jie's ear.
Cheng Jie started and sprang to his feet, looking around. Trying to sound fierce despite his fear, he demanded, "Who's there? Come out!"
In the next instant, he