Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The cave was dimly lit and damp, illuminated by the faint bioluminescence of the plants that grew there.

Vines coiled around the stone walls, in shades of deep green, purple, and black, like entangled masses of snakes.

A black insect stumbled in, its six rigid wings beating, equipped with three feeding structures.

Suddenly, a massive, dark purple bulge appeared amidst the entwined vines. It split open swiftly, resembling an opening maw, which snapped shut in the next instant, swallowing the insect whole.

The mass of vines began to slither slowly, retracting the swollen part back into their original state.

The sound of fluttering wings echoed through the cave. A drop of sticky fluid, trailing translucent threads, descended from the ceiling, plopping onto the mossy ground. The droplet squirmed minutely before being entirely absorbed, leaving no trace behind.

In a corner, bathed in the glow of green fungi, white surged forth from the crevices between rocks and soil, blanketing a large area with pristine mycelium. It sprawled, extended countless tendrils, and eventually moved towards the center, converging, gathering, and stretching. A shape materialized. One foot stepped onto the thick, spongy moss, sinking into it until only a snow-white ankle remained visible.

An Zhe looked at his ankle—a human limb, supported by bones, muscles, and veins. Its joints could move, albeit not very flexibly due to the constraints of the skeleton. The nails were formed of keratin, round and transparent, vestiges of once-sharp claws from his beastly heritage.

He lifted his leg and took a step. The moss, previously depressed by his weight, was cool and resilient, springing back together as he moved away, resembling standing earthworms.

This time, his foot stepped on something else – an arm bone from a human skeleton.

In the dimness, An Zhe looked at the skull.

Fungi and vines had taken root deep within its bones. Dark green vines entwined around its hip and leg bones, while brightly colored, tiny mushrooms grew on its ribs like blossoming flowers.

Glowing mushrooms sprouted from its hollow eye sockets and sparse teeth, their green light resembling fragmented sand, vaguely discernible amidst the mist in the cave.

An Zhe gazed at it for a long time before he finally bent down to pick up a leather backpack lying beside the skeleton. The contents inside the pack were still preserved from moisture, containing several clothes, human food and water, as well as a blue chip the size of half a palm with the numbers "3261170514" inscribed on it.

Three days ago, this skeleton was still a living human being.

"3261170514," the young human's voice was raspy and intermittent, illuminated by the eerie green glow in the cave, "My ID number. This is my ID card. I need it to return to the human base."

An Zhe asked, "Can I help you get back?"

The human smiled, letting his right hand fingers dangle limply by his side. The chip rolled out of his grasp and disappeared into the uneven moss. Leaning against the rock wall, he lifted his head and pressed his left hand onto his chest – there was a massive wound there. A grayish-white bone spur pierced through from his chest to his back, with the surrounding skin already rotten. Part of it was grayish-white, with fibrous flesh covering the bone spur's surface, while the other part was a dark green, continually dripping blackish-gray fluid in sync with his labored breathing.

He caught a few breaths and whispered softly, "I can't go back, little mushroom."

His shirt was soaked through, his skin pale, lips cracked, and his body trembled irregularly.

An Zhe gazed at him, unsure of what to say, eventually mumbling the young human's name: "An Ze?"

"You've almost mastered the human language," the human said, looking down at his own body.

In addition to pus and blood, there were also white mycelia on this body – a part of An Zhe's being. The mycelia intertwined and clung tightly to the wounds on An Ze's limbs and torso. Originally, the mushrooms had aimed to staunch the bleeding for this dying human, but instinctively, they had also absorbed and digested the fresh blood that seeped out.

"Eating my genes allows you to learn so much? The contamination level here is indeed high," the human observed.

Fragmented pieces of knowledge unfolded in An Zhe's mind. After five seconds, he understood that contamination levels referred to the rate of genetic transformation. Now, human genes were flowing into his body via An Ze's blood.

"Perhaps... when I die, if you consume my entire body... you'll gain even more," An Ze looked up at the cave's ceiling, managing a small smile. "Then it seems like I've done something meaningful, though I'm not sure if it will be good or bad for you."

An Zhe remained silent, shifting his entire body closer to An Ze. He wrapped his newly grown human arm around An Ze's shoulders, and a flood of mycelia swarmed over, stacking beside An Ze to prop up his faltering form.

In the silent cave, only the labored breathing of the dying human echoed.

After a long while, An Ze spoke again, "I am a person without purpose in life."

"…There's nothing remarkable about me, so it's only natural they left me behind. In truth, I'm glad not to return to the human base. It's the same as the wilderness—only those with value can survive there. I've longed for death for a while, but I didn't expect to encounter a gentle creature like you, Little Mushroom, before my time."

An Zhe didn't fully grasp the meanings of those terms, such as value or death. Still, he caught onto the term "human base" once more.

Leaning against An Ze's shoulder, he said, "I want to go to the human base."

An Ze asked, "Why?"

An Zhe slightly lifted his left arm, his fingers gesturing in the air as if trying to grasp an invisible wisp of air. Yet, he grasped nothing.

Just like his body.

His body was hollow.

An immense void emerged from the depths of his being, a chasm impossible to fill or mend, leaving behind an endless abyss of emptiness and dread that clung to him day after day.

He composed himself, speaking human words with deliberation, "I've lost... my spore."

"Spore?"

"My... spore." He was at a loss for how to explain it.

In the life of every mushroom, there would be spores, some with countless, others with just one. The spore was the mushroom's seed. It would emerge from the gills and scatter through the forest by the wind, taking root and transforming into a new mushroom. Then, this mushroom would grow, eventually producing its own spore. Nurturing a spore to maturity was the sole mission of a mushroom's lifetime, but he had lost his only spore, long before it could have matured.

An Ze turned his head slowly, and An Zhe could hear the creaking of his bones, like an old human machine.

"Don't go there," the human's voice rasped, speeding up, "You'll die."

An Zhe repeated the word, "Die?"

"Only humans can enter human settlements. You won't escape the Judge's gaze," An Ze coughed, then labored for breath, "Don't go... little mushroom."

Confused, An Zhe said, "I..."

The human's hand suddenly grabbed hold of An Zhe's mycelium with great force, his breathing growing more and more rapid.

"Listen," after a violent tremor and heavy breathing, An Ze closed his eyes slowly, his voice barely audible, "You have no offense or defense. You're just... a very small mushroom."

Sometimes, An Zhe regretted telling An Ze about his intention to go to the human settlement.

If he hadn't told An Ze, An Ze wouldn't have spent his final moments trying to stop him. Perhaps he could have listened to An Ze tell a story, or perhaps taken him out of the dim cave for one last glimpse of the shifting aurora in the sky. But An Ze's eyes would never open again.

Brief memories dissipated into the air, just like how An Ze's life suddenly vanished from this world. Before An Zhe's eyes remained only a white skeleton.

Yet, he was still going against An Ze's wishes.

—He slowly opened his fingers.

In the palm of his hand, with its delicate skin and faint lines, lay a heavy, bronze-colored metal bullet casing, adorned with enigmatic yet extraordinary patterns. He had found it in that place after losing his spore, and had held onto it ever since.

If there was even a fraction of a chance, a one in ten thousand chance, to regain his spore, then that hope rested within this bullet casing – a creation of humanity.

Letting out a soft sigh, he placed the casing into An Ze's leather backpack and bent down to gather the clothes An Ze used to wear. A blood-stained, long-sleeved gray shirt, black rigid suspenders, and black leather boots.

After finishing these tasks, he walked out of the cave. The slightly loose clothing brushed against his skin, and a faint electric current flowed from the nerves beneath his skin to his central nervous system. An Zhe, using a human form for the first time, felt uneasy. He knitted his brows and rolled up the sleeves of the loose shirt.

The cave was long and winding, its walls covered in vines that retreated like receding tides as An Zhe passed, coiling up towards the ceiling.

Three turns later, moist wind blew in. Mushrooms pushed aside the withered vines hanging at the entrance. Mushrooms, his kind, stretched out before him, stretching into the distance, seemingly reaching the sky. Everything was eerily quiet. Through the mushroom caps, dull daylight filtered in, revealing a gray sky shimmering with scattered green hues. An Zhe caught the scent of rain, mist, snake skins, and decaying plants.

It was still twilight when he sat down beneath the canopy of the nearest grayish-white mushroom at the entrance of the cave. He took out a dark yellow map from his backpack, which was marked with varying shades to indicate the different levels of danger in various regions. An Ze had previously pointed out their approximate location on the map, which was the darkest area signifying a six-star danger level and a six-star pollution level – a place known as "The Abyss." On the map, the area where The Abyss was situated was littered with bizarre symbols. Following the index in the bottom right corner of the map, An Zhe cross-checked them all. These symbols indicated that The Abyss was densely populated with mushrooms, carnivorous vines, carnivorous shrubs, simple mammals, mixed mammals, ordinary reptilian monsters, venomous reptilian monsters, winged creatures, amphibious monsters, polymorphic hybrid monsters, and humanoid monsters... And that was just the beginning. The Abyss also contained canyons, hills, human ruins, and remnants of roads.

With north at the top and south at the bottom, his gaze traveled upward across the speckled map until he reached the upper right corner, where there was a pure white zone marked by a bright red pentagram. To the right of the pentagram was the name of this region: Northern Base.

As the green glow in the sky intensified, the underlying hue deepened into a pitch black. At midnight, An Zhe could barely discern the shapes of stars in the sky. He knew the brightest one was called Polaris, a guiding light for direction.

So, he aligned the upward arrow in the top left corner of the map with the direction of Polaris. Treading on decaying logs, fallen leaves, mycelium, and soil, he stepped out of the cave.

The night was not entirely dark. The shifting green radiance – known to humans as the aurora – illuminated everything ahead, filling An Zhe's vision with mushrooms.

Yellow, red, brown, large-capped mushrooms.

Small ones clustering densely on rocks.

Round spore sacs scattered across the ground, releasing a mist-like rain of spores upon maturity.

These spores landed on the damp leaf litter, dividing and growing into identical spherical sacs as their parents.

There were also mushrooms without caps, just white or yellow tendrils gathered together or fanning out like sea kelp floating in the air.

But this was not a world solely of mushrooms. Vines, moss, shrubs, carnivorous flowers, and bizarrely shaped trees lurked silently in the night. Amongst the dense vegetation, shadows of peculiar forms — beasts or hybrids of beasts and humans — dashed, howled, and fought. Animals battled animals, animals clashed with plants, and sometimes, plants fought one another. The echoing howls of varying pitches reverberated against An Zhe's eardrums. Fresh blood, a mix of colors, stained the stones and soil. He witnessed a pine tree bend its trunk to devour a two-tailed, pitch-black scaled snake. He also saw a giant toad — an enormous toad — extend its crimson tongue to capture a bat with human-like arms mid-air, only for a pair of black wings to sprout from its bumpy, slimy back five minutes after consuming the bat. This was but a fraction of the scenes he had grown accustomed to witnessing.

In that moment, a gray beast approached. It had four eyes, its body covered in scales, feathers, and fur. Its head resembled a crocodile's, yet also that of a massive wolf. Seven teeth protruded from its lips. It drew near An Zhe, sniffing at him with its blood-red nose.

An Zhe remained still, leaning against a mushroom while breathing evenly, allowing it to sniff his entire body.

The colossal creature, seemingly finding nothing of interest, turned away with heavy footsteps.

An Zhe realized that nothing seemed to pay him any attention, even though he inhabited a human form — perhaps because mushrooms were ubiquitous here, harmless, lacking nutrition, and sometimes toxic. Thus, he and they appeared as creatures from separate worlds, coexisting peacefully.

Perhaps, as An Ze had said, he was just a tiny mushroom.