Enhancing His Genes

There were thirteen writhing roots in total, and Chen Ao undoubtedly intended to take every last one.

Unfortunately, he was being far too optimistic.

The speed of an Undying was beyond his imagination. Just as he severed the ninth writhing root, the serpent closest to Chen Ao seemed to cross layer after layer of space and lunge straight at him.

Chen Ao's expression changed drastically as he felt the pressure bearing down on him.

This serpent was definitely among the weakest Undying beings. It used no secret technique to attack, merely relying on its cultivation level to ram its body into Chen Ao.

But an Undying was still an Undying. Its superior cultivation level and divine body utterly overwhelmed Chen Ao.

"Shit, this thing hits hard!"

If it struck him, even with the slightest glancing blow, Chen Ao would never be able to withstand it.

It would be enough to blow his physical body apart.

Strangulation!

With no other choice, Chen Ao collected the Creeping Rootlets while slashing his sword at the Undying serpent.

This sword strike bore a resemblance to the Water Vine Clone's Innate Secret Technique, Strangulation!

Although his cultivation level was far too low to use Strangulation, his foundation in the Water, Wood, and Space Laws, combined with his insights into Strangulation, had allowed him to create an extremely weakened version of the secret technique.

As he unleashed it, a streak of sword light slammed into the serpent's head.

The serpent was nothing more than a beast, completely devoid of intelligence and acting entirely on instinct, so the strike quickly checked its charge.

Boom! Boom!

Even though the Undying serpent's body veered slightly off course, Chen Ao still felt as though every bone in his body was about to fall apart.

"Just as I thought. Even the weakest Undying is more than I can withstand with its body alone!"

Chen Ao looked at his right hand. It was already a mangled, bloody mess.

"Go!"

The Undying serpent's shift in position caused its enormous body to block off the little clearing where Chen Ao stood.

Instead, it obstructed the other Undying serpents' attacks.

Seizing that brief opening, Chen Ao slipped straight into space.

"That was close! Strangulation may be powerful, but my base strength is still too weak!"

Every major cultivation level represented a hundredfold difference, which meant the gap in base strength between him and the Undying serpent was roughly four thousandfold.

For an ordinary person, the gap would have been a millionfold. However, his base genetic multiplier was five, and Highlander's Blood multiplied that by fifty, giving him an effective genetic multiplier of two hundred and fifty.

Thus, the gap between him and the Undying serpent was four thousandfold.

With such an enormous gap, he was no match for it, however powerful his secret technique might be.

"If I were a Domain Lord, my strength would increase another hundredfold, narrowing the gap to fortyfold!"

With his secret technique added to that, he should be able to kill this Undying serpent.

Of course, that was mainly because the serpent knew no secret techniques and could only attack using its body's instincts.

If his opponent were also an intelligent life-form, even an Undying from a world like Blood Luo World, he would undoubtedly die.

"Once I finish learning the Fusion Secret Technique and truly cross the threshold of the fusion laws, my strength will skyrocket!"

A fusion secret technique was roughly a hundred times more powerful than a single-law secret technique, essentially equivalent to the gap of one major cultivation level.

And a three-law fusion secret technique was another hundred times more powerful than a two-law one.

Unfortunately, his Strangulation was a three-law fusion in name only. It was a false fusion that could unleash very little power, falling far short of a genuinely fused two-law secret technique.

When traversing space, he could choose where he emerged.

These serpents had nothing but their physical strength. Their understanding of the laws was too shallow for them to locate his destination from the spatial fluctuations in time.

Thus, whenever a serpent discovered where he had emerged, Chen Ao could already enter space again and make another jump.

After repeating this several times, Chen Ao successfully escaped.

Along the way, countless World Lord and Undying serpents went berserk.

But these serpents were already rather weak, leaving them even less capable of tracking Chen Ao.

They could only watch as Chen Ao swiftly left the cavern.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Chen Ao made more than a dozen consecutive spatial jumps. Even his body had begun trembling by the time he finally returned to the surface.

"Heh, I got lucky. Thank goodness I had my Q Skill and the Strangulation secret technique!"

Without either one, he would have died in there.

"I finally understand why life-forms throughout the universe love adventuring. Chasing thrills and then reaping huge rewards feels incredible!"

Still, as satisfying as it was, keeping a low profile mattered most.

"Most people who chase thrills are already dead. Staying alive is the greatest pleasure of all. A brief thrill is like a glorious death, but even a miserable life beats a glorious death!"

Settling his emotions, Chen Ao completely wiped away that unwelcome desire for excitement and returned to his laid-back state.

"This is the mindset that'll let me last. Nothing matters more than living a long life!"

Then Chen Ao eagerly took out his haul.

Nine enormous Creeping Rootlets.

Even after leaving the Blood Tree, these blood-red roots continued to pulse.

Each root was seven or eight times larger than Chen Ao.

Gulp!

Looking at the roots, Chen Ao couldn't help swallowing. This was an instinctive need of life itself. Life instinctively sought to evolve, and when faced with something that could aid its evolution, it naturally felt joy.

He stuffed one straight into his mouth. It melted on contact-or rather, the instant it touched him, it merged directly into his body.

There was no need to put it in his mouth at all. Wherever it touched his body, it could melt straight into his cells.

"Just as I thought. This thing enhances genes, and it has no side effects!"

It was excellent stuff, almost equivalent to a drop of Beast God's Blood.

A drop of Beast God's Blood was worth a hundred times as much as a Blood Luo Crystal. The purchase price for a Blood Luo Crystal was six hundred points, but its actual value was at least a million points.

By that calculation, a single writhing root was worth a hundred million points!

However, it seemed unlikely that the Virtual Universe would give Chen Ao an opportunity to trade these things.

"Chances to enhance my genes are incredibly rare. Keep eating!"

In theory, his human body's genetic multiplier could be raised to a hundred. These mere nine Creeping Rootlets were nowhere near enough.

He ate them one after another.

Until he reached the sixth root.

When his body touched the root, he no longer felt that same excitement.

"What's going on? Can I only eat five?"

Genetic enhancement wasn't limitless, but only being able to eat five was far too little, wasn't it?

"No, it's not that I can only eat five. It's that this thing can only raise my genetic multiplier to ten!"

Chen Ao felt this guess was fairly plausible.

But if that was the case, these things were worth far less.

Even on Earth, he had encountered a small stroke of fortune that raised his genetic multiplier to five, not far from ten.

Clearly, other people's genetic multipliers couldn't truly all be just one, either. Leaving everyone else aside, Wuka's genetic multiplier should be around ten.

"What a shame, what a shame. I thought it would be worth at least as much as a drop of Beast God's Blood. Looks like its value isn't all that outrageous!"

Beast God's Blood could raise one's genetic multiplier to a hundred, making it far better than something that could only raise it to ten.