Chapter 13: Ascension to Tier Two

  After the battle, the interior of the hut looked as if a tornado had swept through it. The once orderly furnishings were completely destroyed.

  Although the outer walls had managed to maintain their structure thanks to the self-repair ability, the furniture inside lay shattered on the floor, with blood stains and wood chips scattered everywhere.

  The hut's eye stared warily at the dull mass of flesh on the ground. After confirming that it had completely lost its threat, it quickly moved to Lan Chi's side.

  Lan Chi had already fallen into a deep coma. He had lost too much blood from his severed arm. His delicate features were as pale as paper, his lips completely drained of color. His breathing was shallow and rapid, his chest rising and falling weakly. His heartbeat was so faint it seemed like it might stop at any moment.

  "Chi! Lan Chi! Don't die!" The hut's voice cried out through their mental link.

  It had never been so panicked before—if Lan Chi died, it, as his symbiotic partner, would also wither away.

  "First aid... save him..." The hut frantically searched through the memories it had absorbed from Lan Chi, quickly scanning through scenes from TV dramas and novels.

  First, stop the bleeding!

  Several tentacles stabbed up from the floor, tightly cinching the area above Lan Chi's stump like a tourniquet. The gushing blood finally began to slow.

  Next was bandaging.

  But there was no gauze in the room, and the hut's current level couldn't produce fine fabric. It could only forcibly compress its own wood fibers, creating a somewhat rough tree-fiber cloth, and tightly wrapped it around the wound.

  Only after sensing that Lan Chi's life force had stopped declining did the hut breathe a sigh of relief.

  It undulated the floor, lifting Lan Chi and gently carrying him into the bedroom's soft bed. Then, it began cleaning up the "battlefield."

  The cracks in the walls closed up as they undulated. The shattered cabinets were dissolved and reassembled into new furniture. The nauseating mass of flesh and the eerie book emitting black mist were roughly thrown into a newly generated folding space.

  After inspecting the two nearly wrecked tool monsters, the hut swallowed them into the walls. Dark red filaments wound around the two tool monsters, repairing the mechanisms within their bodies.

  Just then, the hut's movement suddenly stopped.

  Its eye stared intently at the severed arm lying on the floor. That had once been part of Lan Chi's body, but now it emitted a fatal allure to the hut.

  "Should I... leave it for Lan Chi to handle?" The hut hesitated, but then realized there were no surgeons here; reattachment surgery was impossible.

  Eat it! Lan Chi wouldn't blame it for wasting. The floor opened its maw and swallowed the severed arm in one bite.

  Boom!

  A surge of vast life energy exploded within the hut's body. It was not just flesh and blood, but also carried the unique "abomination" vitality that belonged to Lan Chi.

  Lan Chi's system display flashed a notification:

  [Growth Progress: 100%...]

  [Conspecific life sequence detected. Evolution initiated.]

  [Mutated Shelter: Successfully advanced to Tier 2.]

  The moment it evolved, the hut felt as if its consciousness had been washed clean. It discovered that it could now extract genetic fragments and use them to reconstruct and build new life forms!

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  It could "grow" a new arm for Lan Chi!

  The hut immediately took out the accumulated Phosphorus Crystals and swallowed them. With sufficient energy, the gestation began. Countless dark red nerve fibers woven in mid-air, using the biological genetic blueprint left by the severed arm as a template. A vibrant, fully-formed cloned arm quickly took shape.

  The hut carefully carried this arm to the bedside and removed the fiber bandage from Lan Chi's wound.

  Blood began to flow out again, but the hut did not panic. It pressed the newly grown arm against the stump. Instantly, the granulation tissue on the fresh wound, as if sensing its destination, frenziedly bit into the severed area.

  Flesh reconnected, nerves joined, bones clicked and locked together.

  Blood began to flow again through the newly formed blood vessels. A powerful pulse beat within the new arm.

  Seeing that Lan Chi's condition had stabilized, the hut's anxiety finally dissipated.

  ................

  Lan Chi's eyelashes fluttered slightly. He slowly lifted his heavy eyelids. A layer of hazy white mist clouded his pupils, and it took a long moment before they could finally focus. His throat was parched, his entire body weak and limp—he didn't even have the strength to lift his hand.

  "Lan Chi, you're awake!" The large eye suspended in mid-air exclaimed joyfully.

  Lan Chi didn't respond. Gritting his teeth, he tried to sit up, but the moment he exerted himself, his vision darkened, and dizziness surged over him like a tide.

  Several tentacles extended nimbly, supporting his body. "How are you feeling?"

  "Hungry... water... food..." Lan Chi forced out the words with difficulty. Every syllable scraped against his throat, raw and painful.

  Warm water and mutated fruits were quickly brought to his mouth. Lan Chi weakly bit into a fruit. The sweet and sour pulp slid down his esophagus.

  In an instant, he felt a wave of heat rise from his abdomen. His previously ice-cold limbs rapidly warmed, and his blurred vision refocused.

  "No wonder that orc A Dai liked buying fruits from me so much. So it's because they can quickly restore vitality." Having recovered, Lan Chi's mind began working rapidly. Given this effect, the prices he'd sold at before were practically giving them away.

  Lan Chi looked down at his left hand, completely intact, and froze. The skin on that arm showed a dark brown, woody texture. Although it felt the same as before he lost his arm, this was clearly not the original.

  "Little Hut, my hand... what happened?"

  "I reattached it for you!" The hut's voice carried a note of pride. "I evolved to Tier 2. I can clone arms now. I reattached it for you last night."

  A cloned arm. Lan Chi felt thoroughly unsettled.

  "Then... what happened to my original severed arm?"

  "I ate it. Evolved to Tier 2 right after."

  "Sigh." He let out a sigh and decided not to dwell on it. Given his current circumstances, not being crippled was the best possible outcome. He wasn't ungrateful.

  "What about that mass of flesh from last night?"

  "I locked it in the folding space."

  Lan Chi stood up and walked into the living room. A slight vibration came from under his feet. "Are you moving?"

  "Yes. I was afraid of pursuers, so I kept looking for hiding places."

  Lan Chi walked to the window and looked outside. It was flatland forest. He pondered for a moment, then said, "Head for areas with lots of bushes. Find a dense spot to hide in. We were discovered yesterday probably because we were the only bushes in that area—too conspicuous."

  "Understood!" The hut continued moving forward.

  Lan Chi entered the folding space. Inside, the mass of flesh was deformed from being constricted by tentacles. Beside it lay the book emitting black mist.

  He opened his system interface and checked the information on the flesh mass and the book:

  [Heterized Bloodstained Cult Flesh Mass]: A heterized creation whose faith has been severed. Abandoned by its god, it has become a pollutant of the Abomination.

  [Heterized Hymn]: A mutated class token. Any believer granted the Hymn can immediately take up the profession of Abomination Priest. Originally a bridge to communicate with the Bloodstained God, it has now become an anthem for the Abomination.

  "Bloodstained Cult..." Lan Chi stared at that term, a bad feeling rising within him. "Looks like I've stirred up trouble with some crazy fanatics."

  He was silent for a while, then asked, "Little Hut, this flesh... can you eat it?"

  "Yes!" The hut's voice carried a hint of eager anticipation, but also a probing tone. "But... you don't mind?" It remembered that the education Lan Chi had received didn't approve of such things.

  Lan Chi's tone was calm as he said, "Eat it. Leaving it here is just asking for trouble."

  With that, he bent down and picked up the Hymn. Probably because the book had been altered by his mental energy, the moment his fingertips touched it, he didn't feel the expected chill, but rather a strange sense of familiarity.

  He casually flipped open a page. The words inside were twisted, carrying a maddening impact, as if they couldn't have been written by any sane creature. Strangely, Lan Chi could actually understand them.

  It was a long passage of fervent worship for the "Abomination," praising some indescribable existence with the most ornate and distorted language.

  "...The Lord of Alteration who strides across the stars, You are the end of all things, the shaper of flesh and blood..."

  "Tsk." Lan Chi felt a shiver of disgust, so embarrassed his toes curled. "What the hell is this? This is so cringe."

  He closed the book, threw it on the ground, and instructed the hut, "Seal this book in this space. Close off the door."

  "Okay."

  The moment Lan Chi stepped out of the folding space, the bark door behind him quickly closed, the wood grain merging together, becoming a solid wall.