Chen Ran picked up his phone. "Clothes? What style do you want custom-made? Food? What do you want to eat? I'll have someone make it for you. Housing? I can have a swimming pool dug out right now. Going to the beach works too, but we'd need to book a flight in advance."
As he spoke, Chen Ran worried that Heart of the Corrupted Skadi would not understand, so he deliberately handed her another small biscuit.
And the facts proved that Heart of the Corrupted Skadi truly did not understand. Otherwise, she would have realized that, in human terms, this was called being kept.
But precisely because she did not understand, all Heart of the Corrupted Skadi felt was the kindness of Lord God.
The problem of continuation that had plagued The Great Swarm, that The Great Swarm had struggled over for so long, had suddenly been solved.
So Heart of the Corrupted Skadi looked at the second small biscuit in her hand, then at Chen Ran. She tossed the biscuit away, swam to Chen Ran's hand, opened her arms, and gently hugged his fingertip.
Heart of the Corrupted Skadi did not actually understand the meaning of this gesture. She was simply copying him.
Chen Ran had teased her with his fingertip and made her feel his kindness, so Heart of the Corrupted Skadi copied his actions and returned that kindness to him.
She was far too innocent and easy to understand.
"Under your sweet talk, Skadi, who had once been full of ambition and ready to accomplish great things, willingly fell into becoming a useless salted fish who had clothes brought to her and food served to her, living lazily and waiting for death."
"You're bad."
"You have gained a new ability: Breathe with Lungs."
Chen Ran: "..."
Could a planet be used as a petri dish?
"Sea Creatures possessed an extremely terrifying capacity for adaptation and evolution. Unlike the neutral theory applied to ordinary organisms during evolution, Sea Creature genes would independently avoid degeneration and lethal mutations."
"Put simply, Sea Creature evolution would always move toward adapting to the environment and retaining a high ecological niche, eventually becoming a threat to the entire ecosystem and even the environment itself."
"Under extremely harsh external conditions, Sea Creature cells would independently degenerate and revert to their most basic form, waiting until the environment became suitable before evolving again."
Chen Ran flipped through the Sea Creature lore, and an idea gradually formed in his mind.
There were currently only two ways to whale through the banner.
The first was to raise Heart of the Corrupted Skadi's favorability. His current two abilities had both come from that.
The second was rerolling starter accounts.
Catch a freshly spawned Sea Creature and toss it into a brand-new planet model that had not yet been wrecked. He did not need it to reenact the Sea Creatures' world-ending destruction; he only needed it to keep evolving through natural selection.
That way, Chen Ran, who possessed the Hive Cluster Mind (Sea Creature Version), could also enjoy any new abilities gained by that Sea Creature through evolution.
The question was, would this method work?
Chen Ran said nothing and merely waited for the translucent pop-up before him.
"You put your clever little brain to work and decided to use an entire planet as a petri dish, sacrificing the flesh and blood of billions of living beings just to help one Sea Creature ascend."
"But ascension is nothing more than a scam! Run, foolish child!"
"The ending will only be that you grab that Sea Creature in one hand and refine it in an instant. What do you mean, your ability? Hand it over!"
"What an evil plan. You're rotten to the core."
"But regrettably, this method is feasible."
Chen Ran: "Oh."
As long as it worked, that was enough. As for everything else on that translucent pop-up, Chen Ran ignored it all.
The first method was to whale through the existing banner.
The second method was to airdrop a new character banner.
But why could Chen Ran not have both?
He immediately got to work.
Chen Ran returned to his desk, opened a drawer, and took out a planet model.
He had bought the thing. It was mass-produced, and he did not know whether it would work.
As he continued waiting for the translucent pop-up to appear, Chen Ran turned his head and glanced at Heart of the Corrupted Skadi, who was hugging a small biscuit and lying against the edge of the fish tank, blinking her little eyes at him.
"Look, Red T." Chen Ran shook the planet model in his hand. "What does this thing look like to you?"
"Deathly still."
Heart of the Corrupted Skadi looked at Lord God casually holding a planet in his hand as though showing her a tiny collectible, and answered honestly.
In Heart of the Corrupted Skadi's eyes, the planet in Chen Ran's hand seemed to have reached the end of its life. The earth was split apart, the oceans had evaporated, and all things had perished.
"Fair enough. This thing is only made of foam and cardboard, after all. It isn't even solid."
Chen Ran was not surprised by her answer.
He casually tossed the planet model into the trash can beside him, then began looking for tools, intending to make a planet model himself.
But this sight made Heart of the Corrupted Skadi part her small lips slightly.
A world... a planet... thrown away like trash...
Heart of the Corrupted Skadi gently floated up from the fish tank. With a soft patter, her bare little feet, still wet and dotted with clear, glistening droplets, stepped onto the desk.
Leaving a tiny wet footprint with every step, Heart of the Corrupted Skadi walked to the edge of the desk, lowered her head, and looked into the trash can.
Wailing. Screaming.
The planet model, discarded like garbage, lay amid a pile of wastepaper and sang its final swan song.
"What's wrong?"
Chen Ran looked at Heart of the Corrupted Skadi, who resembled a curious child, and asked.
After all, this Heart of the Corrupted Skadi had gone pattering past him in full view. It would have been hard for Chen Ran not to notice her.
"If you want it, I'll let you have that planet model to play with."
What kind of rich-guy line was that? Just casually giving someone a planet to play with?
But Heart of the Corrupted Skadi did not understand the joke. Hearing this, she simply shook her head. "It has already been annihilated."
Even if its life had reached its end, the planet model had still been barely clinging on.
But the instant Lord God discarded it, its end had been declared.
Chen Ran: "..."
Honestly, Chen Ran kind of wanted to mute Heart of the Corrupted Skadi in the Hive Cluster Mind (Sea Creature Version) right now.
Chen Ran knew that what Heart of the Corrupted Skadi saw was different from what he saw.
But...
Was that not a little too cringe? It made his whole body feel uncomfortable, like W was crawling all over him.
But Heart of the Corrupted Skadi had no idea what Chen Ran was thinking. After shaking her head, she simply turned to look at him.
Then she saw Chen Ran using a tissue to wipe away the wet little footprints Heart of the Corrupted Skadi had left across the desk.
Though she did not know what that action looked like through Heart of the Corrupted Skadi's eyes, Heart of the Corrupted Skadi did indeed lower her head afterward, look at her bare little feet, then look at her clothes, soaked from swimming in the fish tank and still dripping steadily.
"Lord God," Heart of the Corrupted Skadi said. "Do you dislike water?"
"I like it. Water is the source of life. Who doesn't like having plenty of water?"
Chen Ran replied casually, "I just don't like water getting on my equipment. Isn't there a saying? If you want to wake yourself up, just make a cup of coffee and accidentally spill it on your laptop."
As his words fell, Chen Ran saw Heart of the Corrupted Skadi patter over to him on her little feet.
Then Heart of the Corrupted Skadi extended one of her little feet toward Chen Ran.
Chen Ran: "?"
Honestly, Chen Ran did not understand what Heart of the Corrupted Skadi wanted at first.
Until Heart of the Corrupted Skadi held out her little foot for quite a while and, seeing no reaction from Chen Ran, took the initiative to rub her foot against the tissue in his hand, wiping the water from it dry.
"There's no water now." After drying one foot, Heart of the Corrupted Skadi raised the other.
Once Chen Ran understood, he could not help raising an eyebrow. "No, what I said was that I don't like water on my equipment. My equipment, understand?"
Heart of the Corrupted Skadi: "?"
But regrettably, Heart of the Corrupted Skadi seemed even more confused than Chen Ran.
Seeing this, Chen Ran had just been about to explain further when he seemed to recall something. He raised his head and looked at the Sea Creature lore and descriptions displayed on his computer screen.
Sea Creatures... really had been used as tools by the humans of Pre-Civilization, had they not? They were cleaning robots, after all.
So it was not difficult to understand why Heart of the Corrupted Skadi had reacted this way.
Thinking this, Chen Ran lowered his head again.
Then, with a rustle, the clothes Heart of the Corrupted Skadi wore slipped from her fragrant shoulders and fell with a soft patter beside her feet.
Chen Ran: I'm Going to Capture Your Mother
Chen Ran knew that the innocent young man—or perhaps puppy-boy—persona was quite popular.
But he truly could not pull off something like, "Ah! What are you doing? Put your clothes back on!" That sort of... well... virgin-boy reaction.
On the contrary, when he saw Heart of the Corrupted Skadi make that move, Chen Ran stopped what he was doing, rested one hand against his cheek, and watched the striptease with great interest.
Only after she was completely bare did Chen Ran click his tongue twice.
"This reminds me of a passage from One Hundred Years of Solitude."
Chen Ran said, "West of the great swamp lies a boundless stretch of water. In it live cetaceans with delicate skin and the heads and bodies of women. They often use their enormous breasts to seduce sailors, causing them to lose their bearings."
How did a body with no excess fat whatsoever end up having such a slim waist and voluptuous hips, like delicate branches bearing heavy fruit?
And, as expected of a pioneer who carried a sword between her thighs—powerful indeed, very powerful.
But why was she completely bare? Was she worried that clothing would create resistance in the water?
Unfortunately, Heart of the Corrupted Skadi did not seem to understand Chen Ran's words. She merely tilted her little head, tossed her clothes aside, and walked toward Chen Ran.
"There's too much water on the clothes. After my feet are dried, they'll soon get wet again, so unnecessary clothes should be thrown away."
Heart of the Corrupted Skadi gave that explanation.
In essence, she could no longer truly be considered Skadi. Isabella was the consciousness controlling this body.
As the god of the Sea Creatures, Isabella had no human way of thinking and could not understand human shame.
To her, clothes were merely pieces of fabric. Other than looking good, they were simply unnecessary.
If she wished, she could easily turn her limbs into tentacles, transform her mouth into that of a lamprey, or even split her entire head into three parts for easier feeding.
The only reason she maintained a human appearance was because this body belonged to Skadi, and Skadi looked like this.
So, in order to adapt to the environment, it should also be feasible to alter certain parts of herself... such as expanding her stomach and maximizing its malleability, right?
Heart of the Corrupted Skadi walked up to him and rubbed her body against the tissue in his hand.
Then Chen Ran simply reached out and grabbed Heart of the Corrupted Skadi in his hand again. As though wiping down a figurine, he used the tissue to dry her body. At the same time, he compared their sizes and discovered that the thickness of just his little finger matched one of Heart of the Corrupted Skadi's thighs—
Chen Ran thought this to himself.
Forget it. That's a little too grotesque.
A person could not—or at least, should not.
He might as well think about whether he could unlock an ability to grow and shrink at will.
So, after drying Heart of the Corrupted Skadi's body, and after she gently floated out of his palm and landed to one side, Chen Ran picked up his tools again and began making a planet model by hand.
Heart of the Corrupted Skadi sat obediently nearby, watching with her own eyes as a planet, a world, came into being from nothing in Lord God's hands.
But too many things had already shocked her earlier, so she was much calmer this time.
Until Chen Ran picked up the newly completed planet model, stood up, walked to the center of the living room, and set it on the floor.
"Hmm... it hasn't come alive."
Chen Ran stroked his chin as he looked at the planet model lying motionless on the ground like a dead object. "How did that solar system model come alive before? I think I turned my head for a moment?"
Chen Ran repeated the process, turning his head away and then back.
Sure enough, the planet model that had just been a dead object was now floating in midair, rotating on its axis.
"So what exactly is the principle behind this...?"
Before you continue