Evolution Begins with Elemental Domination

"What a nice, long stick."

Amidst the collapsed ruins, Su Chen had managed to find a wooden stick in a pile of stone and timber.

No man can refuse a perfect stick.

To put it another way, posting it on an online forum would garner a ton of replies.

It was just over 1.2 meters long and uniformly thick, with an excellent grip. It could serve as a simple hiking staff, and it was also the perfect natural material for crafting a spear or javelin.

’Not bad.’

The ancient hunter-gatherer genes deep within Su Chen were stirred.

This was an essential tool for early humans.

After rummaging through the rubble, he also found two more perfect, sizable sticks and five hard stones as smooth as river pebbles.

It was a pleasant surprise.

Since he didn’t need to move around while eating and guarding the hidden shop, Su Chen took the opportunity to remove his watch and give it a full charge.

Once everything was ready, he took Xiaoye and headed for the downhill section of Xiangyang Road.

「Twenty minutes later.」

A peculiar discovery made Su Chen stop in his tracks and pull out his phone to record.

Nearby on the slope, a purple vine hanging from a towering, ancient tree was surging with what looked like liquid electricity. A steel-shelled beetle that flew by and accidentally brushed against it was instantly electrocuted into a charred husk.

’This could be used as a power cable.’

That was the real reason he was recording. He also made a quick note on his phone’s map, marking the area where he found the purple vine.

He had already taken many screenshots of the terrain from his drone’s video feed, on which he had marked his route with a clear red line. The only drawback, of course, was the lack of topographical data showing elevation changes.

Meanwhile, Su Chen was unaware that his discovery was already causing a massive stir elsewhere.

...

"This thunder vine isn’t just a living electrical wire—it can also absorb and store energy! My God, it’s a perfect creation of nature!"

About half a kilometer outside Dongfu City, Professor Zhang was ecstatic. Even this simple preliminary conclusion was enough to make him realize there was a glimmer of hope for the city’s power supply problem.

Earlier that morning, a team had accidentally discovered a conductive purple vine.

Once it was reported, the Security Committee recognized its importance and immediately sent for Professor Zhang and his colleagues from Dongfu University’s College of Electrical Engineering.

At first, they thought it would be good enough to just use as a power cable.

But they never expected what came next.

After a brief test, a group of professors and students in insulated suits discovered that the thunder vine could absorb free-floating electrical charges from the atmosphere for sustenance. This process involved fluctuations of the Thunder Element—a phenomenon that lay outside the bounds of their scientific knowledge.

But that wasn’t all...

An even more astonishing discovery was yet to come.

"P-Professor, the voltage is absurdly high, far exceeding high-voltage standards! And... its internal resistance... it seems to be nearly zero," a student said, their voice filled with irrepressible excitement.

"Zero resistance? Superconductivity?"

An excited Professor Zhang snatched the multimeter and personally confirmed the reading.

The result was correct.

If one ignored the minuscule resistance of the test probes themselves, the purple thunder vine was actually capable of maintaining superconductivity at room temperature.

"My God!!"

Professor Zhang was completely ecstatic. If he could bring this vine back to Earth, he would become the most influential scientist of the 21st century and a strong contender for the third-greatest in scientific history.

But it was all a fantasy.

Given the circumstances, returning to Earth was nothing but a dream.

At this thought, his laughter turned to tears.

The officials standing by couldn’t empathize; they just saw a man acting manic and loud. It was a strange sight, like a historical scholar driven mad by sudden success. But one thing was certain: this thunder vine was an extraordinary discovery.

"Can this vine be transplanted back to the city for cultivation?" one of them asked tentatively.

This forest region was not safe. To ensure the safety of the research personnel, a team from the Combat Defense Department had been specifically assigned to provide security.

"You’ll have to ask Dean He and his team about that. My primary focus right now is figuring out how to safely channel the current stored in this thunder vine to our everyday appliances." Wiping the tears from the corners of his eyes, Professor Zhang finally got back to business.

The Dean He he had mentioned was none other than the Dean of Dongfu University’s College of Agriculture.

Since the previous day, they had been shouldering a critical mission: solving the city’s potential food crisis.

The city itself had extremely limited arable land, and the surrounding towns and villages didn’t have much farmland either.

To address the land shortage, in addition to a few areas designated early on as sites for mega-farms, several commercial buildings were being converted into vertical cultivation centers. Engineers were already hard at work, installing LED grow lights floor by floor.

This was considered an ideal solution, as they could utilize the buildings’ existing backup power and ventilation systems.

Of course, traditional methods alone were a dead end.

A city with millions of mouths to feed couldn’t afford to wait for a harvest season that could take three to five months.

The key to breaking the impasse had to lie with the system of Elements.

「Meanwhile.」

Inside the College of Agriculture building, the elderly Professor He slowly took off his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and sighed. "To put it in you youngsters’ terms, this is enough to shatter one’s worldview."

The analysis of the Otherworld’s soil composition had just been completed. Not only was the soil rich in extraordinary levels of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, but the so-called Wood Element micro-particles within it produced results that completely overturned their understanding.

"A single handful of dirt from the forest is practically a natural culture medium."

Beyond that...

A far more significant discovery had them truly excited. Under the continuous effect of a Growth Rune, a tuber ripened into a large potato in less than ten seconds.

Suppressing his excitement, Professor He said in as calm a voice as he could manage, "Ah Dong, go with the others and analyze the composition of this ripened potato. Test a few more. If there are no issues, move directly to testing the ripening effect on the giant pumpkin seeds."

Giant pumpkins had a high yield and were durable; they could last for half a year if kept in a cool, dark place.

"If this Rune can be widely implemented, I can’t say it will completely solve the city’s food problem, but it will solve at least half of it," Professor He said, full of confidence.

One student, however, wasn’t so optimistic about this prospect, because the Growth Rune’s synthesis required Water, Wood, and Light Elements.

And as it happened, Light Elemental Essence was extremely rare.

Nevertheless, this Wood Element Rune and its ripening effect was a tangible and massive boon for humanity.

The complete set of one thousand Rune synthesis formulas was a rich, untapped mine of potential; who knew what other benefits for their civilization were waiting to be discovered.

Of course, the professors and students of the College of Agriculture were focused on the problem of grains and crops. Whether monster meat was safe to eat and could serve as a source of protein was outside the scope of their research.

...

’A Bear Cave?’

As Su Chen made his way toward the Forest Canyon, Xiaoye’s keen sense of smell led to a stunning discovery: it had found a cave that very likely belonged to a giant bear.

In fact...

The giant footprints all over the forest floor were enough to tell anyone a massive creature lived in that lair.

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