After she stingily spent a single point, Wen Jing felt the meat lodged at the back of her throat go down a little.
"Add one point."
It went down another little bit.
"Add one point."
And another little bit.
Wen Jing ate and added points, feeling as though her body were a progress bar caught in a tug-of-war. The lizard meat she swallowed constantly hovered on the verge of clogging her throat.
And to finish the entire section of lizard meat before time ran out, she could only cut back on tearing apart the meat fibers with her mouthparts and speed up her eating as much as possible.
A moment later, she could not help stopping.
"No good... it's really sticking in my throat!"
Although little bug Wen Jing technically had no neck, food sticking in her throat was a sensation. She felt as though she were constantly stuffing dry, chokingly thick yogurt into her mouth.
But looking at the Wilderness Beast meat right in front of her, giving off its enticing aura of energy, she could not bear to give up.
"Add one point."
"Add one point."
"One more point..."
As her skill points dwindled one by one, Wen Jing was like a player caught up in a gacha spree. After repeatedly upping her investment without pulling a gold, she finally came to her senses, looked at the few pulls remaining before pity, and laughed speechlessly.
"Saving skill points for emergencies can wait until next time... right now, go all in on digestion!"
[Evolution direction confirmed...] [Consuming points to evolve...] [5 → 0] [Evolution complete] [Digestion I] [Trait: Basic Rapid Digestion (meat, fluids)]
The panel briefly blurred. By the time it cleared again, Wen Jing felt the food lodged at the back of her throat vanishing at incredible speed.
She instinctively tore off a bite of lizard meat and stuffed it into her mouth with barely any grinding.
"Wow!"
The next instant, tears of gratitude glistened in the little bug's compound eyes.
The meat that had been like tough tendon to her a moment ago now melted in her mouth!
As expected of an umbrella trait! It even had its own separate "Digestion I" entry.
After several evolutions, Wen Jing had discovered that when an evolution only produced a trait, it was merely a minor ability. Anything listed as a separate evolution entry was a powerful, useful ability.
Besides, digestion had been her evolution goal for this stage in the first place. Although she was broke again, it could not be considered a loss.
"Chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp..."
The blue-purple bug feasted on the lizard meat dozens of times her own size. This time, flesh vanished wherever her mouthparts reached, and even the bones were not spared.
Although biting through bones with her mouthparts was troublesome, Wen Jing did not bite them at all. She simply stuffed them into her mouth... don't ask. If you did, the answer was that they melted in her mouth.
The "meat" in the trait's description did not refer only to flesh. It seemed to encompass an organism's entire body.
After a storm of frenzied devouring, the half-lizard in front of Wen Jing had completely disappeared, as though it had never existed.
"That hit the spot!"
Wen Jing let out a breath. Without her noticing, her body had grown another size larger.
Drinking nectar had made her bigger, and eating lizard meat had made her bigger again. She was now one and a half times her former size.
Her base attributes had all increased again as well.
Health: 6 Strength: 6 Speed: 0.5 Spirit: 3
Gravity Silk could compensate for her speed for now, and the changes brought by her increased health and strength were very apparent. For instance, she distinctly knew that her Wilderness Body now weighed over ten times what it used to. Her limbs and exoskeleton had become very hard, and sharp spikes had even grown on vulnerable areas such as her abdomen and head.
Of course, the most obvious change was the energy contained within her body, which was now hundreds of times what it had been when she first evolved!
A tiny body, enormous energy-all concentrated essence.
"Hm?"
Suddenly, in the midst of her excitement, Wen Jing sensed something else. With a thought, her body spontaneously began secreting a certain chemical substance.
The next instant, through her compound eyes, she saw her blue-purple shell begin changing color little by little. The purple pigment faded, then turned the same blue-gray as the surrounding vines.
At the same time, a notification sounded from the panel.
[Trait acquired: Basic Mimicry]
Wen Jing froze, then was delighted. Was this an ability she had gained from digesting the lizard?
Although the mimetic transformation took some time, it was still a trait!
She just did not know whether the lizard's meat and energy inherently possessed this property, or whether it was an effect of Digestion I, which had cost her thirteen skill points.
If it was the latter, would she be able to gain the abilities of whatever she ate from now on?
In any case, whichever the reason, it was good news!
Wen Jing hurried all the way to the edge of the vine area. The ant army, which had gained little from this trip, had already dispersed, leaving only the upper half of the lizard's body where it lay.
The energy in this section of its body had already been transferred away, and large quantities of toxins remained. In this extremely short time, it had actually begun showing clear signs of decay.
Having just eaten her fill, Wen Jing naturally did not go over for another couple of bites. Instead, she picked up the corpse of an ant that had been poisoned to death, found a safe spot nearby, and spun a cocoon to return.
Living creatures from the Ancient Wilderness could not be brought into the material universe, even if they had been completely subdued and captured. Awakeners were the only living beings capable of traveling between the two worlds.
As for not taking the lizard corpse, that was because it was too large and did not fit the "bug persona" of her small Wilderness Body. Without any energy in it, it would not fetch much money either. She might as well take an ant to Xie Ming to fill out the insect catalog and lay the groundwork for a future funding-swindling project...
Ancient Wilderness Exploration Registration Center.
The staff member on duty glanced at Wen Jing's registration information, then at the clock creeping closer to six. He could not help opening the surveillance footage and watching it once to confirm that he had told her to return before dark.
If Wen Jing failed to return on time or went missing as a result, his performance pay would be docked.
With three minutes left until six, the familiar announcement rang out in the square outside.
The staff member immediately let out a long sigh of relief. Whatever the case, having the Awakener return was naturally the best outcome.
Just as he was about to leave the lobby to check on the situation, Wen Jing came through the entrance toward him. She appeared completely unharmed, just like last time, and even greeted him with practiced familiarity.
"Burp... give me a ten-credit takeaway box!"
She had actually brought back resources again?
The staff member was stunned for the second time. He had witnessed Wen Jing's first crossing last time, and now he had witnessed another while on duty.
What exactly was so special about this F-rank freshman's Wilderness Body? Twice in a row, she had accomplished something the vast majority of newly awakened people could not, without suffering so much as a scratch!
"Y-yes, of course. Here's your containment box."
Coming back to his senses, he watched Wen Jing place a black-and-red ant in the box. Perhaps because the scene was the same as last time, he inexplicably felt that this was only to be expected.
"Oh, by the way, miss..."
While Wen Jing was putting the ant into the containment box, the staff member, who had already hesitated over speaking before her crossing, finally seized his chance.
"What is it?" Wen Jing looked up in confusion.
The staff member gave her a salesperson's signature smile. "Well, would you be interested in learning about our free algorithm version upgrade service?"
Chapter 31
"A free algorithm version upgrade service?" Wen Jing's expression turned odd.
"Yes, exactly." Seeing her reaction, the staff member hurriedly launched into a practiced introduction. "Our service covers every algorithm on the market. You've surely already learned your school's algorithm, right?"
Wen Jing nodded. Apart from the Introduction to the Ancient Wilderness taught by Xie Ming, the academy's required general courses included one that taught the free "Academy General Algorithm."
The course only consisted of ten class periods, and she had already learned it in the first lesson.
Even after she evolved Gravity Silk, algorithms were still very useful. The former provided precise positioning, while learning a new algorithm, combined with the military algorithm she had previously learned aboard the spaceship, had shortened her return time by around three percent.
The improvement was not large, but it was free, after all.
Algorithms were not difficult to learn for Awakeners who had been through the unified examination. The issue was that copyright restrictions were extremely tight. Outside the academy and the points shop, there was nowhere to learn them.
Rather than a course, the academy's algorithm class was more of a "license," just as Tainuo had needed emergency authorization to teach the freshmen an algorithm during the Empire's raid.
In the academy's algorithm class, the instructor had repeatedly told them that they absolutely must not teach algorithms to others privately.
The probability of being caught distributing pirated algorithms was one hundred percent. Once it happened, both the distributor and the illicit learner would have points deducted from their accounts equal to the algorithm's price, effectively paying twice for one algorithm.
What? You said there were no points in your account?
Then they would deduct them into the negatives first, and you could slowly bring the balance back up when you earned points in the future.
Unless an Awakener never participated in society again, privately distributing pirated algorithms was a costly, thankless business no matter how you looked at it.
By the same logic, upgrading algorithms cost points too. How could there possibly be a free upgrade service?
"For instance, the algorithm you learned at the academy is the basic version. Through our service, a basic version can be upgraded to the enhanced-power version, and a youth version can be upgraded to the flagship version..."
Faced with the staff member's practiced introduction, Wen Jing wore an expression that said, "You've got to be kidding me."
As though he had expected this, he gestured to the side with a hand, presenting something.
"Rest assured, it already has fifty years of history. In its second year of operation, it made a hugely successful listing on the Federation's A-share market. This is an entirely compliant, legal, and legitimate service!"
Following his gesture, Wen Jing looked toward the prominently displayed advertising materials behind the counter-she had seen them during her previous registration, but ever since coming to this world, her skill at "blocking ads" had reached perfection, and she had never paid them any attention.