In the early morning, sunlight gently sprinkled over the awakening city. In the urban village at the city center, diligent small business owners had already set up breakfast stalls. Social animals from the residential buildings started coming down one by one, leisurely grabbing fritters and buns from the roadside stalls near the subway.
They placed the fritters in the hot oil. They sizzled and burst with the flavor of the human world.
A phone call woke Tang Xiao, who had just slept in the middle of the night, inside the rental house of the residential building.
Tang Xiao was confused and glanced at the mobile phone beside him. The caller's name was Xiao Li-zi, and it was a video call.
With a stroke of his slender and bony fingers, a handsome face that he had seen since he was a child appeared.
“Dark circles under your eyes are so heavy. Did you stay up late again last night?”
“En. Double gifts last night.” Tang Xiao yawned. The dark circles under his eyes were so heavy that he could compete with the national treasure.
Li Mu snorted on the other end of the phone. “I heard from your classmate that you didn’t go to class yesterday?”
In the interval between opening the game, Tang Xiao said in a hoarse voice because of staying up too late. “Are you very idle? You still have time to inquire about me.”
“Sort of. The laboratory project I was working on recently failed and the boss was upset. Fortunately, there were extra outputs during the experiment, and we recently switched to that direction… Wrong! You haven’t answered me yet!” Li Mu was so close that he wouldn’t let Tang Xiao change the topic.
Tang Xiao changed his hand to hold the mobile phone. “Don’t worry, I know in my heart. Anyway, I don’t rely on this major to eat. I just need to graduate.”
“Ugh. Yeah, anyway, it’s not possible to go back to work for your family’s company…” the other party muttered. Seeing Tang Xiao had his own idea, he didn’t bother to say anything else. After all, this young man wouldn't let himself starve. “If you really want to be a game streamer, why don’t you try playing a game that has recently become popular? It has a particularly high difficulty level, and many professional players have failed. If you can beat it, you might make it big in one fell swoop.”
For a difficult game, Tang Xiao was a bit interested. “What’s it called?”
“<Mushroom Era>”
After he exited the game he had just opened, Tang Xiao clicked on the mailbox, which was full of spam emails, but he managed to capture one of them accurately.
<Mushroom Era> invited you to a beta test.
“They actually sent it.” Tang Xiao muttered as he searched for information about the Mushroom Era on the Internet.
Despite generating a lot of online discussion, there were few shared videos and pictures of the game. Tang Xiao searched for a long time and only found some general information. According to reports, mushrooms invaded the game world, and human beings lived in a survivor base, struggling to survive.
Suddenly, Tang Xiao’s hand holding the mouse lurched, stopping the finger that was just about to swipe over.
It was a rarely circulated picture of an odd little blood-red thing.
A red life form about the size of a plate.
Yes, a life form. The abnormal shape and skin of the life form raised questions about its classification as an animal. It was immediately apparent that it was not something born in nature. Irregular orbs made up of muscle fibers revealed malevolent eyeballs hidden within, casting a horrifying gaze toward the camera.
With just one glance, this strange life form bewitched Tang Xiao.
He had a strange aesthetic, with little interest in all the furry that humans loved. He liked creatures that ordinary people found terrifying, like the newborn long-fingered lemur and the star-nosed mole.
The beauty of that absurdity beyond human conception fascinated him.
Most of the high-definition pictures on his mobile phone were also these kinds of grammatical creatures. He filled out Biology as the third ambition in his form at that time because subconsciously he hoped to pursue these weird creatures that he didn’t know if they existed on Earth or not.
After transferring to this major, he realized that the real biology major was a hundred thousand miles away from what he thought. However, the various monsters that appeared in the game were more in line with his aesthetic.
After staring at the photo for five minutes, Tang Xiao slowly exhaled and clicked save.
He was already looking forward to the game.
……
Three days later, the holographic helmet arrived.
Tang Xiao immediately put on the helmet and started the game.
The first login page he encountered was quite plain: a futuristic techno-blue color, no character creation menu, and no profession selection, just a game statement.
‘This game is in the beta test stage. If there is any discomfort during the game, please exit the game immediately. The game does not have a resurrection function for the time being, so please be careful with the operation.’
‘Please think of this world as a second life.’
Quite an interesting statement.
Tang Xiao didn’t do nothing in the three days before the game helmet arrived. He looked up various strategy materials on the Internet. It was said that the game adopted AI full monitoring, not bound to any existing gameplay, equivalent to a completely free real sand table game. Even each player’s main task was different.
The game was exceptionally challenging. Participants complained that there was no way to come back to life once they died. Some players were killed by monsters as soon as they entered the game, without even understanding what had happened.
A challenging game undoubtedly poked Tang Xiao’s interest.
The corners of his mouth under the helmet raised. He clicked on the statement he had read and started the game without hesitation.
‘I wish you peace and happiness in your game.’
The cold mechanical sound rang in his ears. Tang Xiao opened his eyes from the darkness…
“Hurry up. Get undressed.”
Is it already that exciting in the beginning?
Tang Xiao looked around and found that his landing spot was a cold-colored room, similar to a changing room or a sterilization room.
“Take off your clothes and sterilize them.” There was also a person in the sterilization room wearing a white coat similar to a researcher, with a sign on his chest. He coldly glanced at Tang Xiao, who had not yet made a move. “Is the quality of the newcomer now like this? How do you want to stay chosen?”
[Ferdinand Babbitt, Third Eye Organization Researcher]
The corner of Tang Xiao’s mouth twitched. He had to follow the others’ process of sterilizing his hands and took off his coat to change into the white lab coat that had been prepared.
After everyone had been sterilized and the guards left, Babbitt began to lead them toward the corridor outside the exit, explaining the background along the way:
“It’s your honor to be selected by the Third Eye to work as a lab assistant. There are a lot of precautions in the laboratory…”
Tang Xiao listened for a while and finally gathered some information.
‘Himself’ played the role of a fledgling minion who had just joined the research institute of this organization, the future scientific research migrant worker of the laboratory.
The Third Eye was a well-known evil research organization in this game, a mad scientist gathering place specialized in messy biological weapons.
He didn’t expect to be put into the boss base camp as soon as he logged into the game. What is this? Is it Hell Difficulty from the beginning?
It seems the main task will take place at this institute. What is it? Is it destroying this institute? Or is he an undercover?
Tang Xiao pondered the question of how to trigger the main task. At this time, Babbitt had already led everyone to the core area of the laboratory. A mysterious smile appeared on his face as he said, “If you’re lucky, you can still take a look at this thing before it’s disposed of.”
“Look closely, newcomers. It’s one of the main research projects of the Third Eye right now. If this project succeeds, the entire world will tremble under his coercion.”
Those present looked up curiously. Tang Xiao was no exception. He looked towards the area separated by bulletproof glass.
With just one glance, his pupils couldn’t help but contract as his heart rate rose on the game’s real-time monitor.
It fit his aesthetic better than he imagined.
After all, there was a difference between taking photos and seeing them in person.
The blood-red little monster slowly squirmed across the bulletproof glass of the laboratory, leaving sticky brushes along the way. With their naked eye, they would realize that the fibers were not muscles, but some kind of mycelium-like filament.
Like delicate blood vessels, peeled from the inside of the body and skin. They presented individually in the air, with vertical pupils faintly visible between the aggregation of the mycelium. It was like Newtonian fluids, which could appear on either side of the irregular sphere.
Weird and treacherous.
Is it a mushroom? An animal? Or a plant? No, it seems to have the characteristics of all three, yet it is completely different. It defies all biological knowledge learned so far, and no pre-existing classification of organisms can constrain it. It seems to be completely outside the realm of science.
There was even a faint fear that flared up from the depths of their genes, screaming to keep them away from this thing. The expressions of those in the room changed, as if they had encountered a natural enemy in the food chain.
Tang Xiao’s face also changed. A blush unconsciously floated on his cheeks, and his eyes muscles trembled unconsciously. His reason and madness pulled each other. Reason told him to run away, but his madness screamed to get closer.
Take a good look… to this beautiful monster.
Tang Xiao subconsciously took a step forward. His figure stood out from the newcomers at the moment. He didn’t even notice the slowly working laboratory ventilation device above his head.
The flow of air changed in an instant.
The monster paused for two seconds.
In everyone’s astonished eyes, the plate-sized mass slammed from the corner of the laboratory onto the bulletproof glass almost instantly.
Several closer newcomers were startled, nearly crashing into the lab table behind them. Tang Xiao broke free from that fascinated state. On the transparent glass wall, the blood-red fibers squirmed, the eyeballs glued to the glass wall, gurgling and turning, like wolves sniffing out meat, capturing every molecule of scent that filled the air with olfactory receptors they didn't know existed.
The hair on the back of Tang Xiao’s neck stood up. His heart rate rose at this moment, almost popping up a game warning.
What did it… sniff?
Tang Xiao unconsciously retreated into the crowd. However, he didn’t feel any sense of security, even being surrounded by the whispers of the newcomers.
Because of the strange orange-yellow vertical pupils, staring straight toward his side.
Tang Xiao’s palms couldn’t help but soak with sweat. His entire body got goosebumps when being stared at by this blood-red monster. There was a powerful emotion in that single eye that humans could easily interpret. It was so evil that Tang Xiao’s heart gradually sank.
That was beyond all… greed and appetite.
At this moment, it was clear that the monster was locked up in the laboratory, but he didn’t feel safe at all. There was a feeling that he was the prey inside the cage and was about to be cleaned, put on the table, and become the monster’s meal.
Everyone present was so frightened that they were puffing. The blonde man asked curiously, “Dr. Babbitt, is this bulletproof glass hard?”
“It can’t see us,” Babbit muttered. “Don’t worry. This experimental area is constructed with the toughest materials. Even the air vents are made of PESA material… making it impossible to detect any odors.”
“PESA material…” The blonde man breathed a sigh of relief after hearing this.
Babbitt strode to the edge of the console, pressed a button, and the inner test glass suddenly released a strong electric current. The monster attached to the glass wall, instantly scalded by the high temperature, and left the glass wall.
“I don’t know what is so exciting today when it’s always half-dead on weekdays. Okay, don’t worry. 428 won’t be able to break through this cage. It’s just a failure. It will be disposed of in a few days.”
[Main Story Open]
The game panel suddenly popped up as Tang Xiao’s vision locked eyes with those eyeballs in the air.
[Main task: Cultivate 428 into the King of Mushroom and gain a full favorability of 428.
Reward: Title ‘Breeder of the King of Fungus’ (Note: Holding this title will grant you partial control over mushroom-like creatures)]
Tang Xiao froze for a moment. What is it? Who is 428? Is it this monster?
Wait, are you kidding me? Is this a love game? Is the love target not even a human? Has the game industry now been too much?
“Did you just say failures? Isn’t it a main research project?”
Just as Tang Xiao was shocked by the game’s main task that had suddenly popped up, the blonde man from before once again questioned.
“I also said ‘if’. Unfortunately, the experiment has failed. We have been delayed for too long and the higher-ups have run out of patience. This experimental subject will be disposed of,” said Babbit, with no pity on his face. “The main project is our common goal, and they are still ongoing in other laboratories. This is just one of them. You don’t have to worry about it, as your laboratory assignments are not yet determined.”
Hearing this, the others relaxed instantly. No one wanted to waste their lives in a laboratory that was destined to be abolished. They were under the delusion that they would be able to get a promotion and a raise.
But Tang Xiao furrowed his brows. Will be disposed of? If it’s disposed of, what will happen to his task?
He didn’t have time to think about this. After this minor episode, Babbitt no longer wanted to stay here and led the newcomers to visit other places. “Let’s go. I’ll take you to see other places.”
Others couldn’t wait to follow Babbitt’s steps to get out of here. Tang Xiao fell at the end, and an inexplicable sense of traction made him turn around at the last moment when the door closed.
The monster with blood-red mycelium was lifting most of its body from the cold floor. The high temperature had baked its orange-yellow pupils because of being too close to the glass wall, appearing as a charred black color. The structure of the eyeballs was submerged in the fibers, but the tips were still wriggling in the air, moving toward the door, to where Tang Xiao was.
Tang Xiao felt the back of his head tingling slightly as he hurriedly turned around and followed the large group away.
Because of this, he missed it. After everyone left, the blood-red monster slowly climbed up the ventilation duct.
The fitting material, which was suppossed to be incomparably strong, began to slowly dissolve under the acidic substance released by the monster.
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