The Ultimate Evolution

The blue spirit crystal glittered with a mysterious light on Sheyan’s palm. Sheyan took one final look at Pontin. He did not see any fear in Pontin’s eyes. On the contrary, he saw a firm determination!

Pontin’s reaction no doubt gave Sheyan confidence too. Sheyan took a deep breath, activated the Protoss spirit crystal, and chose Pontin as the target.

A vivid crack abruptly appeared on the surface of the spirit crystal, and a series of crackle, like the sound of a river freezing in the winter, was heard. The spirit crystal turned into fine blue particles that drifted into the air like diamond dust, beautiful and dream-like.

But soon, the dust took on the form of a Protoss’ twisted soul. It let out a string of unwilling but silent howls, as if it were struggling to escape from its tragic fate.

This strange phenomenon was out of Sheyan’s expectations. He could not help asking Pontin one more time, “Are you absolutely sure you want to try this?”

But the face of Pontin that he saw was one full of ecstasy. That’s right, ecstasy. It turned out that he was not afraid of the possibility of dying; he was afraid that Sheyan was boasting about everything he had said before!

Now that he was witnessing the miraculous sight for himself, he immediately felt full of confidence. Seeing this change in Pontin, Sheyan no longer had any hesitation. He guided the glittering dust towards Pontin.

The dust were sucked into Pontin’s nose. Pontan’s face instantly twisted in pain. He felt as if rust was growing all over his bones. His right leg was numb, unable to move.

When he tried to scream, all that happened was his facial muscles becoming even more distorted; no sound came out of his mouth. Amidst the pain, there were also intermittent bursts of numbness and burning. It was a strange sensation. His arm felt as if it was dissolving like a candle!

Sheyan could only sigh. He did not know anything about the principle behind the strengthening, so he could not do anything to help. It was Pontin’s own choice. They could only leave it to fate.

But before Sheyan left, he still fed Pontin three mouthfuls of ‘Endless Vodka’ and gave Pontin a flask of his gene-mix. Sheyan did not know if they would be of any use to him, but it would not hurt to try.

***

The next morning, Sheyan was woken up by a roar of laughter. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was Pontin’s red face that was so excited that it had become a little twisted. The man was violently shaking the shoulders of another engineering SCV and wildly laughed.

“I did it! Ha-ha-ha, I really did it! I can feel the power surging in my body! ”

The poor SCV’s helmet was banging. Before Sheyan could ask, Kyrgyzna had already yelled in a very annoyed and angry voice, “What the hell are you doing?”

“Lass, I’m not afraid of you now. Do you want to take me on 1-on-1?” asked Pontin with a smirk.

Kyrgyzna was a pretty wild woman. In truth, gentler women were rarely found in the army, except among the nurses. She immediately raised her machine gun and pulled the safety catch, then said in an aggressive tone, “As you wish!”

But before she could do anything else, Pontin had already charged forward like a bull. His speed and strength were both at a level that was beyond his reach before this! Kyrgyzna could only lift her machine gun to block as Pontin raised his welding torch and slammed down!

Although he did not press the switch, the welding torch, weighing nearly 30 kilograms, struck the gun with a fierce clang. Various rivets flew off the gun from the impact, and the gun was clearly bent out of shape.

Kyrgyzna was pushed a few steps back before she could steady herself, crouching on the ground. Her face was ashen pale, and her chest felt so stuffy that she almost threw up.

Pontin stepped forward, put the nozzle of the torch on her neck, and let out a lewd laugh.

“You’re dead! Ha-ha, should you keep your promise and spend a night with me?”

Sheyan rolled his eyes. Indeed, sexual desire was the main driving force behind human evolution. So his outstanding willpower was derived from his desire for a woman’s body.

Sheyan now noticed that Pontin’s body seemed one size larger. Previously, his muscles seemed like they were only there for aesthetic purposes, but they now looked like they contained an explosive force. Blood vessels sat bulging on the muscles like angry snakes. The muscles felt as if even if they were bitten hard, the muscle fibers would put up a stubborn resistance against the teeth.

“You took the stimpack?” Kyrgyzna asked incredulously while coughing violently, “Are you tired of living?”

The stimpack contained drugs with side effects that had been seriously underestimated. These built-in chemical injections would produce some very strong positive effects after they were injected into humans…and also some very strong negative effects.

The mixture of synthetic epinephrine, endorphins and a kind of psychotropic drug would instantly stimulate the nerves, greatly increasing the speed and reaction of a soldier. However, the long-term side effects included, but not limited to, insomnia, emaciation, mania/mild mania, convulsions, paranoia, hallucinations, internal bleeding, and brain damage. Therefore, the stimpack were often used together with other medical drugs.

SCVs and normal humans were prohibited from administering the stimpack. This was not a restriction, but a protection. If the stimpack was used without the corresponding medicines, it could possibly result in direct death. That was why Kyrgyzna was so shocked.

“Ha-ha-ha, will I use that kind of thing?” replied Pontin with a wild laughter. “This strength belongs to myself. This is the legendary power that Brigadier General Seaman has personally bestowed on me! Sure, this power almost killed me, but in the end, I managed to claw my way out from the depths of hell!”

As he stared at the unbelievably excited Pontin, Sheyan suddenly received some notifications:

[ The storyline character Pontin (Elite SCV) admires you greatly. Your relationship level has increased to Exalted. You can now check his detailed information. ]

***

[ Pontin (Elite SCV) ]

[ Base Attributes: 88 Strength / 65 Agility / 38 Physique / 50 Perceptive Sense / 28 Spirit / 31 Intelligence ]

[ Special property of elite storyline characters: Each point of Physique increases HP by an additional 100 points. ]

[ Equipment: Special SCV Exoskeleton (Defence + 10) ]

[ Weapon: Multi-Spot Welding Torch ]

[ Ability: Bulky (creatures with this ability will get a 20% bonus to Strength when attacking and have a 33% chance of knocking down an opponent smaller than themselves) ]

[ Obtained Prefix: Skilled ]

[ Current Full Name: Skilled Engineering SCV Pontin (Elite) ]

[ Creatures with the ‘Skilled’ prefix often have extraordinary skills in certain aspects. With this prefix, Pontin’s speed in collecting resources increases by 500%, the speed of construction and repair increases by 500%, and he will need 20% less construction materials. ]

[ As Pontin’s strength continues to improve, so will the prefix. ]

***

Sheyan instantly checked the attributes of the other engineering SCVs. He found that they only had about forty points of average attributes, which showed how big an upgrade Pontin had undergone.

The rest of the people were shocked when they heard Pontin say that his strength was bestowed by Sheyan. Even Snake appeared incredulous.

Sheyan did not answer any questions. He left the entire mess for Pontin to handle (Pontin was only circling around Kyrgyzna, bothering her anyway). Sheyan still had many things he needed to do today. His first priority, of course, was to locate Ronnie. Since Ronnie had asked him for aid, he must have left some signs for Sheyan to help Sheyan find him.

He naturally left Pontin here to do work. Developing a base here seemed like a good idea. Sheyan planned to go out with Snake to look for more information. Although Snake was hiding a lot of secrets, it was undeniable that Sheyan had managed to obtain a lot of first-hand information from him.

Sheyan learned from Snake that the Lost Temple planet was much bigger than Earth, but there were a lot of forbidden, deadly areas on the planet which contained a kind of strong toxic substance that was fatal to both humans and Protoss. Even the tenacious Zerg could not hatch their eggs in the deadly areas.

Therefore, only areas that contained land that were steel blue in colour were safe, accessible areas. These safe areas were scattered throughout the planet. If these safe areas were put together, they would be about the size of Taiwan.

Therefore, it was not as hard as one would imagine to locate a friend or an enemy here. Snake also told Sheyan that the lost dark shrine would not remain at a fixed spot. Otherwise, let alone their enemies, even the Zealots from before, who had contradicting ideologies, would have located them and wiped them out.

Therefore, he had to wait for the right time to locate the lost dark shrine. Once the lost dark shrine appeared, a plethora of abnormal phenomena would occur. The most direct consequence of these phenomena was that this whole interstellar region would become like the Bermuda Triangle, causing strange disappearances of patrol spacecrafts.

Upon hearing this, a thought which gave Sheyan chills suddenly flashed across his mind. He suddenly recalled a particular matter which he could not figure out before – how Snake could ensure that his leadership status was not challenged by high-ranking survivors.

Perhaps Snake had killed all the officers who could threaten his position!