Chapter 646: Self-Repairing Materials!

Chapter 646: Self-Repairing Materials!

Not selling?!

After hearing his subordinate’s report, Cinderson, who had been sipping tea and flipping through a newspaper, froze on the spot, his hand pausing mid-page.

The salesman standing by the desk nodded, a helpless expression on his face.

“Yes, sir. We went to the front-line camp of the Boulder City militia and requested to purchase the fruiting body remains from their commander. But they didn’t even listen to our offer—they shut the door in our faces—”

“And the reason?!” Cinderson cut him off impatiently, gripping the armrests of his chair, indignant. “Don’t they know that leaving those fruiting body remains unattended could cause a severe plague?”

“Well… I’m not sure,” the salesman said nervously, looking at his boss and speaking in a timid, low voice. “The reason they gave was that the Alliance authorities had taken over the batch of fruiting bodies.”

Cinderson stared blankly after hearing that.

The Alliance authorities took them over?

What the hell do they want with those?!

In the glitzy, decadent Free State of Bugra, Cinderson’s Trading Company was a tiny, inconspicuous firm. Its sole business was supplying raw materials to the Free State’s processing plants for synthetic food and organic fertilizer.

In previous years, when the wave erupted, he would send people to Clearspring City to procure a batch of goods, then flip them back home for a profit of hundreds of millions of Bugran dollars.

Those fruiting body remains were practically free pickings.

After all, the poor of the Bugra Free State didn’t care where their food came from, and the food processing plants couldn’t care less about the source of nutrients.

And Boulder City just so happened to need those fruiting body remains disposed of—his trade was, without a doubt, a win-win for all parties!

Hearing that the wave after a warm winter would be fiercer than usual, this year Cinderson not only borrowed money from the bank to rent over thirty heavy trucks and a hundred-man escort, but also personally led the team south to Dawn City, ready for a big push.

But just as he was basking in his dreams of wealth, the news brought back by the salesman he’d sent to the front lines left him frozen in place.

He’d already lined up buyers.

And the Alliance told him they weren’t selling those fruiting body remains at all?!

What a joke!

Though his fingers trembled with rage, Cinderson quickly calmed down.

As the saying goes, the arm can’t twist the thigh.

Facing a behemoth like the Alliance, a mere trading company was nothing but an insignificant grasshopper.

Though he didn’t want to see his hard-earned business of years go bankrupt over breach-of-contract penalties and unpaid bank loans, Cinderson knew full well that a head-on confrontation was out of the question.

He’d have to think of another way!

Staring at his salesman, Cinderson asked, word by word.

“What about those fruiting bodies? How does the Alliance plan to deal with them?”

The salesman swallowed hard and whispered.

“I heard they were all sent by the Alliance authorities to the Eastern District of Clearspring City… As for what exactly they’re doing there, I don’t know.”

Sent to the Eastern District of Clearspring City?

Cinderson frowned deeply.

He remembered that the Eastern District was a forest-covered urban area, wasn’t it?

What were they doing there?

Puzzled, Cinderson pondered for a moment, then looked at his subordinate.

“Tomorrow morning, take me to the eastern outskirts of Clearspring City.”

The salesman nodded quickly.

“Yes, boss!”

……

The next morning, Cinderson rose early. While the sky was still dim, he set out from the inn with his salesman and a few guards.

Leaving Dawn City from the east, the group trekked for over ten miles until they finally reached the edge of Clearspring City’s Eastern District.

But when he saw the scene before him, he was utterly stunned. He stood frozen for a long while before finally forcing out a sentence.

“…What the hell is this?”

He saw Gnawers pushing carts loaded with fruiting body remains, moving from a mountain of corpses toward a half-collapsed building nearby.

In the pitch-black windows, faint crimson fungal patches pulsed slowly—unmistakably the shape of a hatchery!

The guards beside Cinderson instinctively gripped their guns, flicking off the safeties with their index fingers, nerves taut as they warily eyed the direction of the hatchery.

Gnawers weren’t worth fearing.

But if a Crawler, or even a Tyrant, showed up, things would get serious… In such complex terrain, even seasoned mercenaries wouldn’t claim a hundred percent chance of victory.

As it turned out, there were indeed Crawlers and Tyrants here.

Not far from the hatchery, beside an abandoned concrete high-rise, a Crawler on all fours was climbing straight up and down a wall covered in slime mold, carrying a huge stack of bricks or a bundle of steel rebar on its back.

They delivered the bricks to damaged spots on the wall, where slack-jawed Gnawers waited to receive them, stacking the bricks one by one onto the broken masonry.

“Are they… bricklaying?” the salesman exclaimed in astonishment, staring in that direction. The guards beside him looked as if they’d seen a ghost.

“By the Great Antlered God…”

“Since when do mushrooms know how to build houses?!”

Cinderson said nothing. He swallowed hard, pulled a telescope from his coat, and aimed it at the waist of the concrete building to get a closer look.

Then he witnessed a sight he would never forget.

The bricks weren’t laid on cement, but on a layer of pale red fungal mat.

That mat seemed alive, its tiny cilia writhing. The moment they touched the bricks, countless fine cilia gripped them tightly, then sprouted pale red husks from the gaps, which dried out and firmly fixed the bricks to the damaged wall.

Cinderson was stunned by what he saw.

The sun must be rising from the west!

These slime molds were actually repairing human buildings!

Even more incredible, Cinderson noticed that the buildings repaired by the slime molds weren’t ugly at all—they had a unique, natural beauty.

At least, they were far more beautiful than the dilapidated ruins around them!

The pale red fungal mat wasn’t the least bit grotesque or out of place. Spreading across the walls along the broken gaps, it looked like some kind of artistic graffiti, recording the scars of the war two centuries ago in a distinctive way.

The only question now was whether these slime-mold-repaired houses could actually be lived in.

Cinderson asked himself—he wouldn’t dare live in one. Maybe the poor of the Bugra Free State wouldn’t mind the environment, but he had no desire to soak in musty spores day in and day out.

The salesman beside him clearly felt the same, shaking his head as he watched the slow repair of the scars on the abandoned building.

“I wouldn’t live in a place like this… It feels like some kind of trap. Once you go in, it’ll swallow you whole, like a pitcher plant.”

The other guards exchanged glances and nodded in agreement.

“Same here…”

“Not unless you pay me.”

“But can a house like this really be lived in? They didn’t even use cement.”

“Whether it can be lived in or not, at least now I know what the Alliance is planning with all these fruiting bodies.” Lowering his binoculars, Cindison cursed under his breath with a grimace, though he felt utterly helpless.

He had no idea how the Alliance had managed to make those slime mold fruiting bodies obediently work, but that was their business.

Earlier, he’d thought about a zero-cost solution—sneaking over under cover of night, loading a few trucks with fruiting bodies, and heading north.

After all, the eastern district of Clearspring City was vast; the Alliance might not even notice.

But now, that plan was clearly impossible. Those fruiting bodies seemed almost like sentient beings, and he doubted they’d stand by while he loaded their kin onto trucks.

Just as Cindison’s spirits sank, the roar of engines came from nearby, and two motorcycles rolled in from a side street.

Cindison and his group turned to look, spotting the Alliance flag on the bikes and the emblem of the First Brigade on their fronts.

Four soldiers dismounted, eyeing the unfamiliar group warily as they approached.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Cindison quickly spoke up.

“I’m a traveling merchant passing through. What’s going on here? Why are there so many slime mold fruiting bodies—”

“That’s none of your business,” the soldier cut in coldly, his face expressionless. “Ahead is a military exclusion zone. Unauthorized entry is prohibited. I’m ordering you to leave immediately, or we’ll take enforcement measures.”

The Alliance’s ecological reserve was currently closed to the public.

Though what was happening here was hardly a secret, aside from shelter residents, anyone unrelated who entered this area would be forcibly removed.

Public suspicion of slime molds was still high, and if someone got into trouble here—even if it wasn’t caused by Xiaoyu’s fruiting bodies—it would be nearly impossible to explain.

Seeing only four soldiers, a young guard behind Cindison couldn’t help but sneer.

“Enforcement measures? Just the four of you?”

The soldier wasn’t provoked by the taunt; instead, he looked at him with amusement.

“Want to try?”

Survivors in the River Valley Province were known for their toughness, and Clearspring City was no exception. This kind of hothead, strutting around with a gun slung over his neck, was nothing new to him.

The guard’s brow furrowed, and he was about to say something harsh, but his boss grabbed him and shot him a fierce glare.

Cindison wanted to slap the man twice.

He was here to make money, not to stir up trouble!

Forcing a smile, he turned to the four soldiers standing at attention and softened his tone, speaking apologetically.

“Sorry, officers. We’re new here and didn’t know the rules… We’ll leave right away.”

With that, he pulled out some bills and tried to slip them to the squad leader, but the leader pushed his hand away with disdain.

“Keep your money. Leave now. This is your final warning.”

“Yes, yes!”

Cindison nodded hastily, grabbed his clerk and the still-defiant guard, and hurried away from the trouble spot.

The First Brigade soldiers followed them until they were completely out of the district.

As they stopped by the two motorcycles at the other end of the street, the clerk beside Cindison, his face flushed with indignation, couldn’t help asking.

“Boss, are we just going to let this go?”

“Let it go?” Cindison narrowed his eyes and let out a dry laugh. “How could I just let it go?”

The other guard, who had been silent all along, hesitated at this and lowered his voice.

“Boss… the patrols here are too tight. We were spotted the moment we arrived. Sneaking anything out won’t be easy.”

“Sneak? Hah,” Cindison glanced at his subordinate, curling his lip in contempt. “Do I look like someone who needs to sneak?”

Just now, a brilliant idea had struck him. Maybe he could not only force the Alliance to cough up this hot potato but also snag a few live specimens for study.

A group of fruiting bodies that could work on a production line…

The thought made Cindison’s heart race with excitement. He couldn’t wait to put his genius plan into action.

Seeing his boss’s confident expression, the clerk immediately caught on and leaned in to whisper.

“Boss… what are your orders?”

Cindison smiled faintly and murmured a few words in his ear.

“We’re not the only merchants hauling goods from Bragg Free State. There are others… Find their bosses and send them an invitation. Say the owner of Cindison Trading Company wants to buy them a drink and discuss something big.”

He paused, then gestured for the guard standing nearby to come closer, whispering further.

“Later, take a detour and snap a few photos of the place we just left… I have a big use for them.”

…

While the merchants from Bragg were scheming in the shadows, Chu Guang happened to be inspecting the ecological reserve.

After a day of practice and lessons learned, his little players had grown increasingly adept at commanding Xiaoyu’s fruiting bodies.

Especially the life-skill players.

To recoup the silver they’d spent buying fruiting bodies, they’d thought of every possible method.

Some chopped wood, some hunted, some helped build houses, and some even took on garbage-sorting orders from the industrial zone.

With their help, this ecological reserve—once nothing but slime molds and forest—was gradually revealing its economic value.

What amazed Chu Guang most was that his players had come up with the wild idea of using slime mold fruiting bodies on construction sites.

Before, they had to set up scaffolding and use cranes and other machinery to start building.

But now, the fungal mats covering the walls served as natural scaffolding, and the climbers that could scale walls vertically were natural brick carriers.

Not only had they saved on labor for moving bricks, but they’d even improved the construction materials.

They replaced cement with slime mold fruiting bodies as the binder between bricks.

When Chu Guang heard about this from Xiao Qi, he was stunned by the players’ imaginative audacity.

Could slime molds really be used this way?

“Using fungal mats instead of cement… Is the strength of this material really okay?” Staring at the building, which was visibly repairing itself, Chu Guang couldn’t help asking after a long pause.

A cheerful cry came through the comms.

“Ee-oo!”

Sitting on Chu Guang’s shoulder, swinging her little legs, Xiao Qi translated happily.

“Xiaoyu says it made this adhesive fungal strain using DNA recycled from the ‘Decayed Knight’ evolution form. After spreading it into a mat and dehydrating it, it produces an effect similar to cement. Not only is it very strong, but it can also self-repair!”

Self-repairing concrete?

No—

This probably couldn’t be called concrete anymore, could it?

Bio-hybrid construction materials?

Chu Guang vaguely remembered reading somewhere that ancient bridge builders used to cultivate oysters under bridge piers to make the structures more stable.

Due to its rapid growth, strong reproductive capacity, and excellent gelling properties, it could bind stones together into a solid mass on the riverbed, a method also known as "oyster-planting foundation stabilization."

Inspired by the players' wild ideas, Xiaoyu applied this method to repairing high-rise buildings left over from the Age of Prosperity.

The fungal mat filling the gaps between bricks not only possessed adhesive strength comparable to cement but could also self-repair when damaged!

Although this construction method sounded a bit too avant-garde, under the players' direction, the results seemed unexpectedly good?

Just then, Chu Guang suddenly had an even more avant-garde brainwave.

"Can this type of fungus... survive in a vacuum?"

Xiaoyu: "Eeep?"

Xiao Qi: "Hmm... Xiaoyu says it hasn't tried, but the first hive it devoured had experience surviving in near-vacuum conditions; with a little tweaking, it should be fine... Master, where do you want to apply it?"

"On starships!" Chu Guang said without hesitation.

Not just Xiaoyu, but even Xiao Qi was stunned.

"Stars... starships?"

Did the Alliance even have such things?

"Exactly!" A cheerful smile spread across Chu Guang's face. "But starships are still too early for us; let's test it on the Steel Heart first."

Self-repairing armor!

If this idea could actually be realized, it would be incredible!

Thinking of those outrageous evolutionary forms produced by the hive in the city center, he felt his brainwave wasn't entirely impossible.

The more Chu Guang thought about it, the more excited he became.

Just as he was about to put it into action, Xiao Qi, perched on his shoulder, suddenly spoke.

"Master, a researcher from the Academy sent a message saying they want to meet you in person. Should I arrange a time?"

"A researcher from the Academy?" Stopping the thoughts fermenting in his mind, Chu Guang turned to look at Xiao Qi. "Which researcher?"

Xiao Qi continued.

"It's that B-level researcher named Yang Kai. He wants to discuss cooperation on behalf of the Academy..."

Hearing the name Yang Kai, Chu Guang's expression showed slight surprise.

It wasn't surprise at the man's identity, but rather that this fellow, who usually appeared as a holographic image aboard a research vessel, was now willing to meet face-to-face.

He could probably guess what Yang Kai wanted to talk about, and a playful smile crept onto Chu Guang's face.

"Arrange it for today... no, tomorrow noon. Have him wait for me in the meeting room at the Alliance Building."

Xiao Qi replied with enthusiasm.

"Received!"

A New Year's Letter to Book Friends

Every time I look at the calendar, I marvel at how fast time flies. It feels like just a blink, and 2022 is over, while the day I started this book in July 2021 seems like yesterday. Unknowingly, we've spent a year and a half together.

The joy of writing this book is probably the greatest in my writing career, both in narrative style and pacing—things I've never tried before.

Of course, the most important thing is having you all by my side.

Haha, though the letter was prompted by Dianniang, these are truly my heartfelt words.

In my previous works, I never tried creating so many characters, but while writing this book, every time I opened the chapter comments, I found endless inspiration.

One person's imagination has limits, but when many minds come together, it's a different story!

I have so much gratitude to express to you all, but saying it feels too deliberate, and right now I'm sneezing nonstop, my eyes barely open.

Looking ahead to the new year!

I hope to bring you all even more interesting plots, and I also hope to improve my physical health. Otherwise, forget about making up for lost updates—just maintaining the current pace will take everything I've got.

Wishing you all a happy New Year and a prosperous Year of the Rabbit!

Love you all.