Chapter Forty-Two: Mushrooms and People

Ling Mo glanced, somewhat surprised, at his own hand that had been flung aside, his expression turning cold. “Oh? Are you implying I have no bottom line?”

Katherine was a little frightened, but she still mustered the courage to lift her head and meet Ling Mo’s gaze. “I… that’s not what I meant. It’s not that I’m afraid to eat my own flesh; it’s just that I am human. I believe that, no matter who it is, eating human flesh is wrong—even if it’s your own!”

Ling Mo snapped back, “Don’t you know about expediency in desperate times? Right now you have my help, and you know I won’t let you suffer permanent harm. But what if you were on your own? Would you still be able to say this so resolutely?”

Katherine was silent for a moment, then spoke with renewed resolve, “Even if it would cause permanent damage, I still wouldn’t do it. Once I cross that threshold and eat my own flesh, what if I’m starving next time and start wanting to eat others? It would be hard to stop myself.”

Ling Mo turned his head away with a cold snort. “Suit yourself, do as you like.”

With that, he strode ahead. Katherine hurried after him, putting on a pleading face. “Don’t be like that, Master! What am I supposed to do without you? Just look at this wrinkled old skin on my face now—can you really bear to see a young maiden suffer such torment? Besides, if I have to stay looking like this, the viewers on the livestream will think there’s some major flaw with martial arts, and that won’t help you promote it at all!”

That remark struck a chord with Ling Mo. The main quest he’d received earlier had, at some point, acquired a small line of additional instructions:

“Main Quest Title: ‘To Offer Martial Arts to a Beautiful World!’”

“Quest Description: As a lone wanderer, your strength is already great and you have advanced far on the path of martial arts, even taking your first disciple. Now, bringing martial arts to this world has become your inescapable duty. Strive to increase the influence of martial arts in this world and let more people practice it!”

“Quest Progress (Stage One): Number of people with sincere longing for martial arts: 5208/50,000.”

Ling Mo surmised that this prompt appeared when the number reached five thousand. It seemed that upon reaching fifty thousand, he would receive the first-stage reward. Although the system he’d obtained only issued quests every few years, the rewards were always generous. If this reward maintained its usual high standard, perhaps he could finally attempt something he’d long been considering...

With this thought, Ling Mo asked, “Do you know why you’re in such a state right now?”

Katherine nodded. “Didn’t you just explain, Master? I’ve basically used up all the energy stores in my body. To keep me alive, my body started breaking down tissues it shouldn’t have touched…”

“It’s not just that you’ve exhausted your energy stores.” Ling Mo shook his head, quickening his pace slightly to signal Katherine to keep up. “Growing a new hand out of thin air doesn’t just require energy; you also need all sorts of other elements. Bones need calcium, nerves need zinc, skin needs keratin, and so on. All the macro and trace elements in your new hand were scavenged from other organs in your body.”

Katherine’s eyes widened. “Master, are you saying my body took a bit from everywhere and pieced together my hand?”

“That’s exactly it. So, even if you had plenty of energy during the regeneration, your body would still end up like this. The problem is far more than just lacking energy—you’re short of everything from vitamin A to Z.”

“So, even if my body gave me a two-hour buffer, just replenishing energy wouldn’t help—I still couldn’t recover?” Katherine’s face fell. “Then what’s the point of these two hours? It’s already hard enough to hunt enough prey, let alone find all the trace elements I need so quickly. I don’t even know how many elements I’m missing, let alone what they are!”

“That’s why right now, you can’t just look for high-energy foods. You need to find something with a composition as close as possible to the human body.” Ling Mo, once again trying to persuade her, added, “Understand? Your own hand, after all, matches your body perfectly! If you eat it, you’ll recover. Aren’t you tempted?”

Katherine stared at Ling Mo for a long moment, then nodded. “I understand—I've realized something.”

“And what is that?” Ling Mo asked.

“I’ve realized you’ve been teasing me all along!” Katherine’s tone soared. “Suddenly it struck me—if martial arts limb regeneration only worked if you had the original severed part, that would make it pretty impractical, wouldn’t it? Hardly deserving of all the hype you gave it, right? Is watching me agonize really that amusing? If I actually gave in and ate my own hand, would you really be that happy? Or is this something I absolutely have to do?”

“Tch, so you noticed.” Ling Mo clicked his tongue, ignoring her questions. “We’ll talk about that later. For now, I’m telling you: you need to look for something with a composition similar to the human body. What creature comes to mind?”

Katherine thought hard, then hesitated, “Maybe… monkeys? Or apes? I remember a lot of scholars claim humans evolved from monkeys. Since we share a common ancestor, our bodies should be quite similar, right?”

“Sorry, not monkeys.” Ling Mo shook his head. “You’re thinking in the wrong direction. The organism most similar in composition to the human body is—mushrooms.”

“Mushrooms?!” Katherine was startled, gesturing with her hands. “You mean those, umbrella-shaped mushrooms?”

“That’s right.”

“But—but that’s absurd! Aren’t mushrooms fungi? They’re not even animals. How could their composition be close to humans’?”

“People’s common sense and first impressions are often wrong,” Ling Mo said, pointing to his stomach. “Mushrooms, or fungi, have a core function: they break down all kinds of cellulose into protein for other living things to use. In the human body, this function comes from the same source as fungi—it’s inseparable. As far as I know, whatever components the human body has, fungi have them too, and even more besides. In fact, you’re far more like a mushroom than you think. Maybe, one day, researchers will discover that humans are actually just huge mushrooms.”

Katherine was left a little dazed, unsure whether to believe him or not. Fortunately, Ling Mo didn’t dwell on the topic. He reached out with his left hand, grabbed Katherine, and, like an arrow loosed from a bow, sprinted forward. Katherine felt the wind whip against her face, mixed with dust so thick she couldn’t open her eyes. The wind no longer screamed as usual—it thundered, like the roar of the magical shuttle she’d once ridden, breaking the sound barrier!

Even more astonishing, despite the deafening noise, Ling Mo’s voice rang out clearly in her ears. “In truth, eating your own hand or a monkey’s would do you no good. Even if the composition matches, the human body absorbs only a fraction of the trace elements you consume—lucky if it’s one part in ten. Since you passed my test, I’ll take you straight to the right place this time. But next time, you’ll have to manage on your own!”

No sooner had he finished speaking than Ling Mo came to a sudden stop. Katherine finally managed to open her eyes and take in her surroundings. She found herself in a strange cave—spacious, but very deep. She moistened a finger with her tongue and tested the air; there wasn’t a trace of wind. Clearly, this cave was a dead end.

But what was most peculiar was that, though sunlight couldn’t penetrate at all, the cave was still quite well-lit. This was because not far away, clumps of organisms emitting black light were growing from the ground. On closer inspection, she saw they were enormous black-capped mushrooms!

These mushrooms looked much like ordinary umbrella-shaped mushrooms. Their stalks and caps were pure white, but the edges of the caps were as black as ink, forming a stark contrast with the rest. Even more unsettling, the black edges were slowly oozing a viscous, pitch-black liquid, from which the black glow emanated, illuminating the entire cave.

Katherine swallowed nervously and asked, “Master, don’t tell me I have to eat those things? Hey, what’s that you’re holding down?”

“That’s right—you have to eat these mushrooms. They’re called ‘Inkcap Ghost Umbrellas.’ Apt name, isn’t it? Pick the ones with the black ooze dripping fastest—about five should do. That’ll restore all your missing elements and let you temporarily regain your normal combat strength.” As Ling Mo spoke, he pressed his hand downward, and by the black glow from the fungi, Katherine could see clearly that beneath his hand was a giant scorpion, three meters long and over a meter wide! It was completely pinned to the ground by Ling Mo, its six segmented legs scraping wildly as it struggled in vain.

Ling Mo gave Katherine a broad smile. “The mushrooms can replenish all your missing elements and restore your body to normal, but they can’t restore your energy. You’ll only have what little reserves are left. See this scorpion? That’s your energy source. I won’t help you with this part. If you can’t defeat it, then you’ll die here in this cave.”

At these words, Katherine wasted no time. She bent down, picked the five most bizarre-looking mushrooms she could find, and, shutting her eyes, stuffed them into her mouth.