Chapter 4: The Three Calamitous Powers

Liu Jun did not find these few days of staying indoors dull at all.

On the contrary, he felt a sense of anticipation he had never experienced in his life; there was nothing more reassuring than growing stronger step by step. Perhaps it was the innate fear of insufficient firepower common to those who had transmigrated, or perhaps it was the fact that he had lived in constant anxiety for over a decade, but regardless, he had fallen in love with this life of seclusion.

No going out. He simply did not want to go out.

He hid in his room playing with his "Fungal Soup," letting his two dear roommates bring him food. Opening the pot, he peered at the bottom to see new talent mushrooms drifting about. Because no evolutionary raw materials had been added, [Low Consumption] had branched out into the three original variations from the game.

Mushroom Number One. A round-capped mushroom that emitted faint flickers of light like a firefly.
[Light and Dust]: Minimally absorbs light energy, feeding on light. At first, people only noticed the city's brightness dimming, until this disaster became inextricably linked to every human being. Perhaps one day in the future, when you open your eyes, the place where you stand will be total darkness.

Mushroom Number Two. A withered, decaying mushroom that looked like an old man's left ear.
[Clear Day, Gentle Breeze]: Minimally absorbs wind energy, feeding on wind. The world falls silent because of you; all things lose their voice because of you. Perhaps one day, when you have spread across the land, the world will have no flow of sound, and this planet will be like the vacuum of space.

Mushroom Number Three. A fluffy fungal mat that looked like a lump of soft mud.
[Clear Moon, Radiant Spirit]: Minimally absorbs radiation, feeding on rays. Mutation, irradiation, madness. The number of cancer patients in hospitals increased, and they sprouted dense, mushroom-like pus sacs. No one knew what was happening until the first mutated beast was born, but by then, people could no longer contain the disaster.

This left Liu Jun both pleasantly surprised and slightly fearful. These three talents could truly be described as monstrous; they had certainly lived up to his expectations. At the moment, perhaps none was stronger than the others. However, what tempted Liu Jun most right now was the ability to feed on radiation. With the city’s constant rain, he could absorb plenty of radiation and become a high-quality talent for environmental purification in Rehe City.

He could get stronger just by lying down.

But these talents would have to be delayed for now. [Low Symptoms]. He silently selected the primary talent he had previously unlocked.

It was wisest to first steadily activate the mushroom talent for hiding one's aura. These three talents—absorbing light, wind, and radiation—would all have to be activated sooner or later. After all, once evolved, these talent mushrooms would not dissipate; they would remain floating in the Fungal Soup, available for selection in the future.

*Swish!*

With a thought, the [Low Symptoms] fungus surged out of the soup and merged into Liu Jun’s body. He immediately suppressed his aura, vanishing without a trace, as if he possessed some unique power of concealment.

His form shifted again. Liquefying, shedding his skeleton, and restructuring, he found himself transformed into a soft mushroom, one meter and forty centimeters tall. He looked like something out of a fairy tale—plump, juicy, fresh, adorable, and bouncy. One look was enough to tell he was a rare treasure.

[Name: Liu Jun]
[Race: Fungus]
[Realm: Rain Realm, Eighth Rank Psionicist]
[Talents: Low Consumption, Low Symptoms]
[Fungal Soup: Low Intelligence, Light and Dust, Clear Day and Gentle Breeze, Clear Moon and Radiant Spirit]

In that pot of soup, the four talent mushrooms Liu Jun had not chosen to redeem bobbed up and down, their colors vivid, inexplicably making one feel a sense of delicious, mouth-watering temptation.

"I leveled up two more tiers!" Liu Jun was both shocked and delighted. "Seven realms broken in two days? How am I supposed to go to school? That’s all the more reason not to go!" He found his excuse and felt perfectly at ease staying home.

However, his teacher, Si Anhe, was far too responsible—or perhaps, far too good at squeezing her students for performance metrics. If he stayed home completely, she would likely come knocking in a few days. But that wasn't a major problem. He would stall her verbally for a few days; by the time the third talent was ready, he would surely have broken into the Third Rank. He could hit his teacher with a psionic shield, ensuring she wouldn't be able to detect any issues with him.

Every time his life realm evolved, his spiritual power increased. A bottleneck? It was perfectly reasonable that he had no bottlenecks! Everyone else had a fixed limit to their life, so it was normal for them to need to break through one bottleneck after another. But as for him, each talent he acquired raised the tier of his entire biological existence—how could he encounter cultivation bottlenecks? He was like a young god from mythology, growing to that level naturally.

"Still, according to the original Fungal Soup game’s evolutionary process, even more terrifying virus-type and infection-type talent branches might appear next!"

"There's no need to pick those. Picking them would be courting death. Any experienced player knows to pick stealth first, keep a low profile, and develop, never choosing pathogenicity."

"You only live once; I want to be a harmless fungus."

"The fairy-tale style is pretty good, and the 'rare treasure' route isn't bad either. Being a thousand-year-old ginseng is better than going around infecting and killing people."

"So, I must start changing my route, adding raw materials to the Fungal Soup to evolve the corresponding talents."

Liu Jun kept exploring his path forward. He resolved to be a law-abiding, good mushroom who worked hard and earned his keep. Fungi loved resources, but they obtained them through proper means.

He felt the power within his body as another three days passed in silence. He slept during the day, woke at dusk, and ate the dinner his two roommates brought back. Relying on [Low Consumption], he ate only one meal a day, pouring all his nutritional supplements into the pot of Fungal Soup.

*Spend money, make me stronger!*

10%... *Charge!*
40%... *Charge!*
70%... *Quietly idling, waiting for the next talent. Every day was fulfilling.*

But he discovered a problem.
87%... *It wouldn't charge anymore.*

He couldn't wait for the third talent to be ready; he had to head out immediately. He was almost out of savings.

"What a pity. My intention was to wait until the third talent was out, charge into the Third Rank, break through the class hierarchy, and then go out to earn some money..."

He was already beginning to realize what it meant to be unable to stop once evolution began. He had to keep evolving! This meant he could not stop absorbing energy; if he didn't secure a massive fortune to sustain this path, he would be sucked dry.

Before stepping out, another tax notification pulled him back to reality.

[Respected Liu Jun, you have not posted any content on social platforms within the last 48 hours. This is considered a "refusal to participate in social consensus construction." You are required to pay a Silence Tax of 500 Psionic Credits and have received one warning. If this occurs more than three times, it will be treated as a personal accident, and local duty organizations will visit your home to confirm your safety.]

*Damn, I forgot to post. Now I have to pay the Silence Tax!*

Liu Jun casually posted a few lines on the school platform about unity, working hard for the college entrance exam, and building up Rehe City. The lines were filled with humility, flattery, and obsequiousness.

He stretched his limbs, pushed open the window to look at the rain-misted city of skyscrapers, and a faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth:

"In this world, there are three things you cannot escape: taxes, conglomerates, and death."

Though his words were cold, for the first time, he suddenly felt that this world was quite beautiful. The weak version of him from the past was already dead. The one standing before you now would be an even weaker version of him. But his weakness in the past was due to powerlessness, while his current weakness was a form of restraint, biding his time as he waited for a future where he would be invincible.