Chapter 249: The Price of Evolution

“Third Brother, I’m a Strength Evolver. Moving or carrying hundreds of pounds of supplies is pretty much daily routine for me. Because of that, I’ve got muscle strain in my shoulders, legs and lower back. Sometimes the skin in my palms splits if I push too hard. These injuries are just par for the course now. Do you have any medicine that can help with this?”

After being ravaged by violent tectonic shifts, nuclear fallout and bursts of cosmic gamma rays, Blue Star entered a disaster era. When the Xiang and Yi elements suddenly appeared, every living thing on Blue Star underwent rapid evolution in a short time.

But for humanity—who once stood at the top of the food chain—evolution was the slowest and most unbalanced. The entire biological hierarchy was reshuffled again and again, and humans could no longer keep their grip at the top.

To illustrate this uneven evolution, the radio used a simple analogy—a wooden bucket.

After the mass evolution on Blue Star, the body’s physical functions doubled across the board. Imagine every plank of the bucket was made twice as long, so the bucket could hold twice as much water. This kind of evolution was considered balanced.

Roughly one and a half in a thousand humans received even more energy during evolution. For these people, their body functions continued to improve after the initial doubling. But the growth showed in only one or two abilities—and for a rare few, three. The speed of improvement for those abilities far outstripped everything else in their bodies.

This was like making just a couple of the bucket’s planks taller. The bucket looks different on the outside, but it doesn’t actually hold much more water.

Take Xia Qing, for example. After her strength evolved, she can haul six to seven hundred pounds over long distances. But she can’t use her explosive strength whenever she wants because her bones, muscles and skin didn’t evolve to the same level. They can’t handle the backlash of that kind of force, which leads to injuries. So she relies heavily on her strength evolution—but she rarely goes all-out.

Or take Yang Jin, a top-tier Speed Evolver. At full speed, he can run a hundred meters in just three seconds—cheetah territory by pre-evolution standards. The human body simply wasn’t designed to reach those speeds. But because of the imbalance in his evolution, if he goes flat-out for too long, he ends up injured too.

According to mysticism and religion, humanity’s uneven evolution is Blue Star’s harsh punishment, proof the world has completely given up on people—and intends to wipe them out.

Scientists call this unbalanced evolution “Incomplete Evolution.” As for why it’s incomplete or how to achieve completeness, they’re still scratching their heads.

As an advanced Strength Evolver, Xia Qing feels the cost of incomplete evolution daily. Of everyone she knows, only Zhang San might be able to heal or relieve her injuries.

By now, Xia Qing has sorted out most of her survival issues. With over a thousand pounds of top-quality, edible chestnuts piled up, she finally feels confident enough to offer Zhang San—her picky Idol—a deal to help heal her injuries.

Zhang San didn’t answer right away.

She noticed his voice grew heavier. A few moments later, footsteps echoed through her phone, bouncing along a narrow corridor. Xia Qing’s heart thudded in time with his steps.

Her instincts told her she’d asked Zhang San for something difficult this time. So Xia Qing immediately started backpedaling. She had to—he was her Idol and there’d be plenty of trades for good medicine down the road.

“If you don’t have anything for injuries like this, I’ll swap for trauma medicine, anti-inflammatories, dewormer or even the stuff you use to mix spinach juice.”

About half a minute later, she heard a beep on the line, then a door opening, closing and a heavy mechanical click—probably a lock. With her sharp hearing, she deduced that Zhang San had entered a room where only he was allowed in, the most secure lab. Xia Qing instinctively held her breath.

It was only after entering the maximum-security lab that Zhang San spoke, sounding lazy as ever. “This kind of medicine is really expensive. Are you sure you want to trade for it?”

If even Zhang San, usually so carefree, called it “really expensive,” this wasn’t something you could get for a handful of cash. But Xia Qing didn’t waver—she still wanted that medicine.

Ten years into the calamity, she hadn’t suffered any major injuries, but running her strength at full tilt for so long had left her with plenty of deep joint and muscle damage—a diet with more nutrients wouldn’t fix it.

Now that she finally had a shot at fixing her body, of course Xia Qing wanted to get herself in peak shape. Only then would she have a better shot at surviving when things got really dire.

“Absolutely. Third Brother, just tell me—how many pounds of Greenlight Chestnuts would it take?”

Like Li Si, Zhang San replied with a strict tone, “I have to examine your muscles, skin and joint damage to determine the ingredients and price. At minimum, two thousand pounds.”

Based on the price Zhang San quoted earlier, two thousand pounds of Greenlight Chestnuts equals 800,000 points. In other words, healing her injuries would cost her the same points needed to buy Mountain 49!

It sounded outrageous—until you put it in perspective. That was the monthly output of her territory’s pristine spring water, or four hundred vials of premium nutrient solution, or just four Yi Stones the size of pigeon eggs.

That was all.

Xia Qing felt ready to negotiate. “Third Brother, I need this medicine. But this year I only harvested 290 pounds of Greenlight Chestnuts, not nearly enough. Could I make up the rest with Greenlight Spinach Seeds or other Greenlight plants—or even wild game?”

Zhang San reminded her in a weary voice, “Xia Qing, the Greenlight Spinach I’ve grown from the seeds you traded is better quality than yours.”

Got it. To her Idol, her spinach wasn’t worth much. He wasn’t interested in her Greenlight game either. All he cared about now was Greenlight Chestnuts.

Xia Qing dug deep. “If it’s only Greenlight Chestnuts you want, I can probably give you another three hundred pounds by this time next year. To boost my strength, I worked with Yang Jin and leased a patch of Evolver Forest near my territory on Mountain 49. All these Greenlight Chestnuts came from that forest—this year I picked a total of 330 pounds of Greenlight, and 1,200 pounds of Yellowlight Chestnuts. Need any of the Yellowlight kind? If not, I can owe you for now, and pay you back with more Greenlight ones next year or the year after?”

Two thousand pounds. She could definitely pay that off within six years.

Xia Qing shrunk into herself, leaving the rest unsaid. The calamity had lasted only ten years, but already over 6.4 billion of Blue Star’s population of more than eight billion were gone. Forget six years—even a year from now, who dared promise they’d still be alive?

Her answer piqued Zhang San’s interest. “Wait. Are you saying all these chestnut trees are from the same stretch of Evolver Forest?”

Xia Qing’s eyes lit up. “That’s right. They’re all together. The leaves of these chestnut trees evolved a sticky texture—they can trap Evolved Insects and have formed a symbiotic relationship with Evolved Hornets. The stickiness is even stronger than Xiang-evolved Pumpkin, and once it gets on your protective suit, you can’t wash it out.”