Toxin Resistance

Zhang Ming no longer wanted to work hard.

The turtles were far from weak.

Judging by how leisurely they played on the shore every day, this group of turtles was actually quite formidable. If their bellies were flat with hunger, who would still want to crawl ashore to play?

Only after survival was assured did emotional needs arise. That was true for humans and turtles alike.

Then there was their size. The enormous turtle stood two or three stories tall and was much more powerful than an elephant; the little white turtle was smarter than a monkey. By working together, they could even dive to the seabed to find food. Their lives were ten thousand times more comfortable than Zhang Ming's.

A little food casually gifted or traded by these turtles would be a tremendous help to Zhang Ming.

"We've been hanging out for a month. It's about time you let me ride your coattails!"

Of course, the biggest obstacle was communication.

Getting them to understand the concept of "trade" was a headache for Zhang Ming.

Even the cleverest of them, Little White Turtle, the "Turtle King," couldn't actually understand human speech. It could only read expressions and body language.

How can I get them to understand trading? Zhang Ming pondered. Still, there's no rush. The other turtles have barnacles on them too. I can keep eating those for a while.

After finishing all the snacks, the turtles returned to the sea in high spirits. Those distinctive flavors had been an entirely new experience for them as well.

They never spent the night on land, though. With a few "awoo, awoo" cries, they indicated that they would come back to patronize his business next time. For today, they were heading home.

"You lot really have it easy."

Zhang Ming lay resting in his camp. That evening's dinner had earned him two attribute points. He was satisfied.

When he looked again, a mysterious barnacle-shaped symbol had appeared on his attribute panel. It was vividly rendered, in a style similar to the crab symbol.

Delight immediately welled up inside him.

"A new ability?"

Eating mutated creatures didn't necessarily grant him new abilities.

"Things like the giant coconuts, Super Chili Pepper, all those little shellfish, and various plants only gave me attribute points..."

Zhang Ming suspected that some mutated creatures had no abilities at all. They had simply mutated.

Or perhaps certain Superpowers required supporting "hardware," such as chlorophyll or structures like cell walls.

As a human, he lacked those organs, so naturally he couldn't acquire the corresponding abilities.

By that reasoning, animals were more likely to yield new abilities than plants or fungi.

He closed his eyes and visualized the "barnacle" icon.

A vague impression rose into his mind.

[Ability: Toxin Resistance (This ability can eliminate some toxic agents within the body and maintain bodily health. Requires 8 attribute points to activate.)]

"What a great ability!" Zhang Ming drew a sharp breath.

Small as barnacles were, they held a treasure.

The price of eight attribute points wasn't expensive, either. Eating barnacles that evening alone had earned him two.

He immediately put eight attribute points into the "barnacle" icon.

A wondrous insight welled up within him, bringing a wave of drowsiness that left him feeling ready to drift off.

Since he had experienced this once before, he wasn't particularly surprised.

In this miraculous "dream," Zhang Ming felt himself become a barnacle, living parasitically on other marine creatures.

Turtles, whales, sharks, dolphins, and reefs all served as their hosts.

Barnacles had little ability to fight, but they could borrow their hosts' strength to roam this vast, deep sea.

And in this hazy memory, they had attached themselves to an unimaginably enormous creature.

Its body was as hard as rock, its size comparable to a mountain. The slightest movement of its massive frame

sent towering waves surging through the surrounding sea. The terrifying scene inevitably reminded Zhang Ming of a line: "The Kun is so vast that no one knows how many thousands of miles it spans."

He might as well call this behemoth a "Kun."

On the Kun's body, near a dark, black opening, huge amounts of filth spewed out from time to time...

Every creature unable to withstand the toxicity of that filth died.

Over time, only a few barnacles capable of eliminating toxins endured, surviving through their ability to purify themselves.

That was the origin of the "Toxin Resistance" ability.

Zhang Ming gradually emerged from his daze.

His memory of the enormous creature was already becoming indistinct. Only that dark, black opening remained particularly vivid.

As for the opening that sprayed toxic filth, it seemed to have been an...

Anus?

For a moment, Zhang Ming had no idea what to say. So the barnacles' ancestors had been shit-eaters.

And eating shit had somehow made them badass?

"If that memory really happened, the Mysterious Zone is absolutely terrifying. A three-hundred-meter-tall Godzilla would be a baby compared to a deep-sea monster like that."

"Earth couldn't possibly accommodate a creature like that. Its deepest trench is only a little over ten thousand meters deep. Wouldn't that beast beach itself the moment it came to Earth?"

"The Mysterious Zone is actually much bigger than Earth. It's a larger, far more magnificent supernatural world."

As he realized this, Zhang Ming felt both bewildered and awestruck.

He couldn't help worrying about what would happen if human civilization confronted a colossal beast like that.

Hydrogen bombs no longer seemed quite so intimidating.

And getting home seemed to have become even harder.

But he soon pulled himself together and laughed at himself. "You're a nobody. What are you doing worrying about the entire human race? Isn't that just needless fretting?"

"As long as the ability works, who cares where it came from..."

He immediately activated "Toxin Resistance."

Just as when he had activated "Attribute Conversion" and "Strength Burst," a mysterious current of warmth flowed through his body along a unique circuit.

Zhang Ming didn't know what this warm current was, so he simply gave it a name: "Spirit."

It was the flow of spirit through his body that produced his various Superpowers.

But Zhang Ming kept feeling that the flow of spirit wasn't as simple as blood circulation. It might also involve something as intangible and incomprehensible to humans as the "soul."

Spirit was even closely tied to his mental state. If he was in poor condition, his use of Superpowers would suffer too.

As it continued circulating, he suddenly felt a stabbing pain in his lungs!

Something was forcibly torn loose. Pushed along by the mysterious warm current, it slowly traveled up his windpipe,

upward!

At that instant, the intense pain tore a scream from him.

That thing could actually move!

"Cough, cough, cough!"

After a bout of violent coughing.

Zhang Ming discovered, to his horror, that several mushrooms the size of bean sprouts had been coughed out through his nostrils.

They writhed like maggots. Once outside his body, these "mushrooms" quickly lost their strength and began squirming slowly across the ground.

In the flickering firelight, Zhang Ming's face looked grim. A chill shot straight from his tailbone, up his spine, and into the crown of his head.

On this isolated island, where no one would answer his cries for help, one wrong step could reduce every hope to ashes.

Tense and rattled, Zhang Ming racked his brains.

"What... are these things?"

"Nothing feels wrong with my body."

"My mind should still be clear."

He checked his attribute panel and was shocked to discover that his lifespan had decreased by one, becoming [24/29].

In other words, he had just lost a year of his life.