Chapter 139: Plant-Animal Fusion Alchemy, Once Again

Wu You’s current plan was to proceed from the outside inward.

The active metal would serve, for the time being, as the outermost layer of protection. What he needed to solve now was how to amplify the strength of the inner layer.

Strength and endurance, continuous division and proliferation, rapid repair—in the end, all of these required a powerful enhancement of force, especially explosive power in short bursts.

Perhaps he would have to combine the traits of plants with those of animal muscle cells.

And so he had once again arrived at the problem of fusing plants and animals through alchemy.

It would not be easy, but over the long years, Wu You had occasionally considered this very question.

By now, he had more or less found a direction.

There was a type of organism that had long been the subject of controversy.

Throughout the history of biology, it had at times been classified as an animal, at times as a plant, while for much of that history opinions had differed—or it had been placed among entirely different forms of life.

That organism was the macrofungus.

The term might not be easy to understand, but put another way, everyone would know what he meant: things like mushrooms, toadstools, and shiitake.

Calling them plants was easy enough to understand, even for someone who had never attended school. Yet they could also be considered animals, since they possessed no chlorophyll and could not perform photosynthesis.

Fungi truly possessed characteristics of both plants and animal tissue. For example, they could directly exchange nitrogen, and their cell walls contained chitin, or shell polysaccharide—features that brought them close to animals.

Yet their way of life, their methods of propagation and reproduction, and the presence of both cell walls and cell membranes made them resemble plants as well.

Moreover, they grew rapidly and possessed extraordinary plasticity.

If he really intended to attempt the alchemical fusion of plants and animals, macrofungi would make an excellent foundational material.

What he still needed was a core biological material capable of providing genuine energy and explosive strength.

To be honest, Wu You had no idea what to use for that. He would have to look through some references.

He arranged the notebook in front of him and turned on the computer.

Even after the system had booted, opening a webpage remained sluggish.

It was not a problem with the internet. The computer itself was failing.

This laptop had been a brand-new model when he bought it during his university days, specifically so he could play a newly released game. In the blink of an eye, several years had passed.

Nearly ten years had gone by since he first met that group of people and began playing a semi-strategic, Three Kingdoms-themed game without target-locking mechanics.

That classic online game, *Blue Sky*, which Wu You had treasured, had ultimately failed to become popular domestically.

Yet he and those companions had become friends both online and in real life. Because there were no entanglements or conflicting interests, and because they spent most of their time separated by the internet, they had instead been able to speak freely about anything.

Everyone had gradually grown older. Those who had once been his closest companions in the game were now either buried in work or married with children.

Wu You himself was no exception. He had remained constantly busy; even after obtaining the Biological Alchemy System, he did not seem to have found any more free time.

For a moment, Wu You sighed inwardly.

He wondered when they would ever gather again to play the same classic game.

Perhaps there would never be another opportunity.

“Ha. It’s not as though there’s no chance. If my other idea works, I could blow their minds.”

Wu You chuckled to himself.

Another minute passed before the laptop finally recovered.

All right. The computers supplied to his company’s employees were so much better, while the one he used at home was practically junk.

He would have the company’s IT department select a few high-end desktops and laptops for him.

He began searching for suitable organisms.

When it came to muscular strength, most people would probably think of ants first. Some might even say that ants could lift dozens or hundreds of times their own body weight.

Unfortunately, Wu You had known for a long time that this phenomenon was mainly due to their size, along with the combined effects of factors such as air buoyancy.

If an ordinary ant were enlarged proportionally to human size, its muscular strength would not be much greater than a human’s.

Likewise, if a human were shrunk to the size of an ant, they too could easily lift objects hundreds of times their own weight.

Even so, there were powerful individuals among ants. Furthermore, insects possessed relatively simple bodily structures, and their muscles made more efficient use of energy. They were a worthwhile candidate.

As for plants, he spent a long time searching without finding a satisfactory choice. Eventually, he came across the claim that C4 plants were highly efficient at photosynthesis.

He therefore chose corn for the time being.

He would first try performing alchemy with a macrofungus, an ant, and corn.

The main reason was that Wu You already had all three in his material warehouse, so he would not need to search for them elsewhere.

He opened the system within his consciousness.

He selected second-level alchemy.

From the material warehouse, he chose a mushroom representing the macrofungus, a bullet ant, and a single ear of corn.

Following the system’s prompt, he confirmed his selection.

The next moment, an alchemical canvas with a background like flowing black water appeared.

The ten points of alchemical energy required for second-level alchemy no longer mattered much to Wu You, so this time he did not bother to sketch a draft.

To be honest, the sort of organism he wanted was difficult to sketch in advance anyway, since it had no fixed form.

He concentrated and began drawing with his mind.

This organism needed to balance strength and endurance while possessing excellent extensibility, regenerative ability, and stability.

It could be an aggregate of countless sub-organisms, without any fixed shape, yet it had to be capable of assuming any form.

It did not need much intelligence, but it had to possess rapid neural reflexes and the ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

This alchemical design was more chaotic than any he had created before.

As Wu You continuously added to his imagination, the lines on the alchemical canvas shifted from bizarre to abstract and back again.

At times, they resembled a honeycomb. At times, they seemed to depict olive-shaped nerve cells and muscle cells. At other times, they looked like a patch of green algae.

The most important point was that many of these lines overlapped one another.

By the time Wu You finished, even he had no idea what sort of thing he had drawn.

System evaluation: Bodily arrangement rationality, eleven percent. Alchemy success rate increased by 1.1 percent.

Current success rate: 70% + 10% (will resonance) + 1.1%.

Proceed with alchemy?

“Holy crap!”

Wu You, who had not held out any hope at all, could not help swearing aloud.

The system’s evaluation of the bodily arrangement had actually exceeded ten percent.

It was not merely low—it was unexpectedly high, high enough to fill him with delighted surprise.

Back when he had used first-level alchemy with low-level insects and plants, not once had the system rated the rationality of their bodily arrangements above three percent.

This time, surpassing ten percent meant that the design had considerable potential.

However, because of the disorder in his depiction, the mass of life on the alchemical canvas possessed a deeply incongruous appearance.

Still, the ten points of energy were going to be spent either way.

He selected the confirmation for alchemy.

The three organisms in the material warehouse transformed into streaks of light and flowed into the alchemical canvas.

Yet there was no sound of growth. All that could be heard was a faint noise like a machine jamming.

The organism on the alchemical canvas did not appear to be in good condition, either.

Several seconds later, it puffed up like a bubble.

Pop.

The bubble burst.

Prompt: Alchemy failed. All materials have disappeared.