Chapter 258 — Ginseng Baby's Invincible Evolution

But Ginseng Baby and Shi Jin obviously wouldn't be satisfied with that. Ginseng Baby's Mutation Body hadn't felt any pressure at all yet, so there was no reason not to keep absorbing.

Only, from here on it wouldn't be a matter of relying on time power alone.

"Eee..." Ginseng Baby began eating the Moonstone, began eating the Time Soil, began eating the Death Spirit Fruit, began eating the time-mutation fruit, continuing to enrich the mutation power within its body.

At this very moment, if not for its Mutation Body skill, its body would already have burst. Enormous mutation power had gathered in the special organ condensed by the Mutation Body, waiting quietly for Ginseng Baby to absorb it...

A long while later...

Ginseng Baby glanced at Shi Jin, feeling it was time to absorb this mutation power.

"Then let's begin."

Shi Jin smiled faintly and gave Ginseng Baby a thumbs-up for encouragement.

"Eee!" Ginseng Baby wore a resolute expression.

As Ginseng Baby decided to evolve, the other three little family beasts, who had been wandering the Time Secret Realm for half a day, immediately came running to watch.

They gathered around Shi Jin, all staring at Ginseng Baby, curious whether it could mutate successfully.

In truth, if Ginseng Baby grew stronger, the whole team would benefit—Eleven and the other beasts understood that much perfectly well.

"Eee!"

And from Ginseng Baby's own perspective, aside from the fact that growing stronger meant it could nourish Shi Jin all the better, its desire to greatly boost its own combat power was in truth just as fierce. Whether it could escape the fate of being nothing but a health supplement—this was the one chance to decide it all!

The mutation materials used this time were already of a very high grade. Although the mutant form was a permanent skill, counting on another mutation down the road was hardly realistic. This time, it had to get it right in one go!

"Eee!!" Ginseng Baby cried out once more.

"Evolve," Shi Jin murmured, watching, expectation stirring quietly in his heart.

The next instant.

BOOM!!!

Ginseng Baby fully activated the power of mutation. In an instant its body became like a reactor, every kind of mutated force erupting all at once, remaking Ginseng Baby's body.

At that moment, white light of evolution flooded almost instantly through Ginseng Baby's entire form.

Among it all, the vast Time-Accumulation Force blossomed first, turning Ginseng Baby's body into something like a Time-Accumulation white hole. Beneath the baptism of boundless Time-Accumulation Force, Ginseng Baby unexpectedly sensed, within that white world, that the greatest change the Time-Accumulation Force wrought upon it was in fact to dig once more into its latent potential and raise its own quality.

It was as if its body had in a single instant endured decades, even a century, of tempering, its life force grown incomparably mellow. This was the peculiar nature of tonic-type beasts: the longer they lived steeped in time, the richer their nourishing effect.

This surge of Time-Accumulation Force seemed to transform it outright from a hundred-year ginseng into a thousand-year ginseng. The skill that benefited most was probably Source of Life; in that moment its mastery began climbing straight toward the proficient tier.

An aroma beyond all compare burst from Ginseng Baby's body, filling the entire palace in an instant and moving Shi Jin and Eleven and the others to their very core.

"Eee..." Within the white light, Ginseng Baby's consciousness drifted in a daze.

Beside it, Shi Jin and the others scarcely dared to breathe, afraid they might lose control of themselves.

Holy shit.

That smell—it went straight to your head.

At this moment, though Ginseng Baby's evolution had not yet fully run its course, Shi Jin's bestiary was already clearly reflecting the changes in Ginseng Baby's energy.

In but a brief moment, its energy value surged from 110,000 to 160,000, all at once nearly catching up with the main group.

Yet this was not what shocked Shi Jin and the others most. The scene that unfolded the next instant was.

The Time-Accumulation Force within Ginseng Baby's body seemed to resonate somehow with the Time-Accumulation Force of the Time Secret Realm, in an instant throwing the utterly tranquil environment of the Time-Accumulation Ruins into turmoil.

Ginseng Baby's body was like an immense black hole. Not content with having absorbed the Time-Accumulation mutation force within itself, as though its potential had yet to be fully tapped, it began—just as it absorbed natural force—to draw in the Time-Accumulation Force of the outside world as well!

This anomaly set the white mist of the Time Secret Realm churning like a rolling sea of clouds, and the whole of the Time-Accumulation Ruins trembled with it.

"Holy shit."

At the sight, Shi Jin and Eleven and the rest, their bodies swaying, wore blank expressions—but what left them even more dumbfounded was yet to come. The light of evolution upon Ginseng Baby, sweeping up the Time-Accumulation Force, transformed straight into a power that pierced the heavens, tearing open a great white hole in the sky. And this white hole—the more Shi Qi looked at it, the more it resembled the very hole the owl had opened when it sent them in.

Right now, the appearance of this hole was uncanny in the extreme, leaving Shi Jin thoroughly suspicious that the Time-Accumulation Ruins meant to politely show them the door. After all, they had freeloaded an awful lot of power here...

Still, the evolution absolutely could not be stopped now. This was the most critical moment of Ginseng Baby's evolution; beneath the light of evolution bathing the whole palace, Ginseng Baby had already begun awakening its first skill!

The instant that skill awakened, Shi Jin froze on the spot, his face flushing red as he fought to hold it in.

Because...

A Time-Accumulation-type skill!!

[Skill]: Time-Accumulation Fruit

[Attribute]: Wood, Time-Accumulation

[Grade]: High-tier

[Description]: Creates a Time-Accumulation Fruit. Any creature that eats it may temporarily grow younger or older, thereby gaining the peak power of its youth or the peak power of its maturity.

Holy shit!

Shi Jin blurted "holy shit" twice in a row. This was high-tier? This was high-tier?

The effects of high-tier spatial-type skills were already impressive enough, but Shi Jin had never imagined that high-tier Time-Accumulation-type skills would be even more outrageous.

In a single instant, he was stunned by the formidable power of the Time-Accumulation Fruit.

What did this even mean?

Take Chongxuan, for instance—Chongxuan, suffering wounds that could not be healed. If he ate a Time-Accumulation Fruit, could he not return straight to his uninjured peak? Of course, this surely placed demands on Ginseng Baby's own strength as well; Ginseng Baby would at the very least have to reach Totem-tier.

Beyond that, if such a fruit were fed to a growing-stage beast of immense potential that had not yet come into its own, would it not directly gain the peak combat power it would have had years later—its battle strength utterly off the charts?

Time-Accumulation-type! Time-Accumulation-type!

This skill was so very fitting for the Time-Accumulation type. The only thing Shi Jin found regrettable was the word "temporary"—every effect was temporary. Still, that was only natural; if it were not temporary, it would be a divine skill outright, and even super-tier would be selling it low.

Most likely, the duration of this Time-Accumulation Fruit was pitifully short, and the drain on Ginseng Baby would be countless times greater than producing nutrients.

Shi Jin held his breath and kept watching.