Infinite Genetic Evolution in a Game-like world

Morden didn’t waste any more time sitting in the library; he stood up, returned all the books he had picked up, returned them, and walked back home.

Morden stood in the kitchen with the potted rose bush still swaying faintly beside him. He remembers the name of the book page.

’Reaction to Vital Energy,’

’If the roses reacted to it, then what else in this house has been sitting here soaking it in without me noticing?’

He set the watering can down by the sink and looked around the kitchen properly for the first time since he’d gotten back, not as someone coming home, but as someone actually searching for something.

And in all honesty, nothing about the room looked wrong at first glance. It was the same worn counter, the same chipped mug hanging by the window, and the same crooked cabinet door that had never quite shut right, not even before everything happened.

Morden could even remember the memories tied to this place, especially that cabinet door.

’Normal. All of it looks completely normal.’

He reached out and touched the edge of the counter anyway, just to see, and as expected, there was nothing.

He tried the cabinet door next, running his fingers along the wood grain slowly, the same way he had with the rose petals.

But there was still nothing.

’Okay. So it’s not everything, and as the book said, it is probably only living things. That actually makes this easier, in a weird way.’

Morden moved through the living room next, trailing his hand along the couch, the bookshelf, and the old wooden frame holding a photo of his family that he still hadn’t been able to look at directly for longer than a few seconds at a time.

He touched the frame last, almost as an afterthought, bracing for something.

Nothing happened there either.

’So it’s not about being close to me. It’s not just because I’m a Bearer standing near it.’

He sat down slowly on the arm of the couch, thinking back to the earlier passage from the book over in his head.

’Prolonged exposure to high concentrations of Vital Energy. That’s what it said, wasn’t it?’

’The roses are outside. Right by the side of the house. Right where—’

He stopped the thought before it could finish forming, though the shape of it was already sitting heavy in his chest regardless.

’Right where the intruder went through. The one whose clothes got caught in the bushes.’

Morden stood up fast enough that the couch creaked beneath him; his mind was already working faster than his legs were moving toward the door.

’If it’s about exposure to Vital Energy, then it’s not random in which parts of the house react. It’s about where whatever happened that night actually touched.’

He stepped back out into the garden, kneeling down in front of the next rose bush over, then the next, working his way slowly down the side of the house exactly the way he imagined someone might have walked that night.

Each bush reacted the same way, swaying gently under his touch, leaves rustling in that same soft rhythm that still didn’t sound entirely natural no matter how many times he felt it.

"Their reaction is consistent all around the group, so it’s not a concentration situation.’

He reached the end of the small garden, right where the other parts of the backyard had begun, and knelt down in front of the bush, or should I say the weed.

It didn’t move at all.

Morden frowned, touching it again just to be sure.

Nothing.

’That’s the line. Whatever happened that night, it stopped right here.’

He sat back on his heels, staring at the fence for a long moment; his mind had been slowly piecing together something that felt less like a theory now and more like an actual trail.

’If the roses can show me where it happened outside, then something inside the house should be able to show me the rest.’

He pushed back to his feet and made his way back in through the kitchen, moving with more purpose now, checking every surface along the route that would have led from the back door toward the front of the house, the most direct path anyone could have taken that night if someone had actually entered.

But he didn’t think so; from the vision the only thing he got was a shadow, and he has done most things himself.

The hallway carpet gave a faint shift under his palm when he pressed it flat, barely noticeable, easy to miss if he hadn’t already known to look for it.

"There’s Something," he muttered.

He kept moving, tracing the same path deeper into the house, past the stairs, past the closed door at the end of the hall that he still wasn’t ready to open, until he reached the small side table sitting outside it.

An old wooden box sat on top; he had almost always ignored it for one reason: his mom never let anyone near it. He hadn’t touched since he’d gotten back from the investigation room.

But now, he touched it.

The box gave the faintest tremor under his fingers, so slight he almost convinced himself he’d imagined it.

’That’s not nothing. That’s definitely not nothing.’

Morden picked the box up carefully, turning it over in his hands, studying the worn latch holding it shut.

’Why is everything attributed to Mom, the only things with a strange reaction or something important?’

’Is it possible that she could have been a bearer?’

The possible answers to that question felt slightly scary, so Morden immediately pushed it out of his mind.

He stood there in the quiet hallway for a long moment, the box heavier in his hands than its size should have allowed, the door to his mother’s room looming just past it, closer now than it had felt in days.

’One thing at a time.’

He carried the box back toward the kitchen instead of opening it there, setting it down gently beside the potted rose, both of them sitting together on the table like two pieces of the same unfinished puzzle.

’I need to know what’s actually inside this before I go anywhere near that room.’

His fingers hovered over the latch.

’Small steps.’

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!