Chapter 37: Combinatorial Cloning! The Hut's New Evolution

  The hut slept all the way until the next morning. The first thing it did upon waking was frantically call out to Lan Chi in his mind, "Lan Chi, come quick, I've evolved something good!"

  Lan Chi yawned as he walked from the rental house to the stable and entered the hut's space. "What's wrong? Can you clone the omnivorous ants now?"

  "Haha, not just that!" The hut's large eye curved into a crescent moon, and even the walls of the house trembled lightly, its laughter filled with undisguised excitement. "I can do combinatorial cloning now!"

  "What?" Lan Chi's drowsiness was startled away, his fuzzy mind instantly clearing. "Combinatorial cloning? You mean you can mix and match to clone creatures?"

  "Yes, I can make scorpion-tailed bees grow omnivorous ant antennae, or make bloodthirsty wolves grow scorpion-tailed bee tails. I can also clone queen bees or queen ants." The hut said proudly.

  "Wow, amazing. My hut is finally proving to be truly useful." Lan Chi listened, equally ecstatic. Being able to freely combine clones, merging different species together, meant he could generate more helpers in the future.

  He opened the system panel. The hut's information had indeed changed:

  【Mutated Shelter/Writhing Wooden Hut】: Tier 2, Growth Progress 10%.

  "Incredible, the growth progress actually increased by 5%." He looked at the panel with delight. Since the hut reached Tier 2, its growth had been very slow. He didn't expect that consuming one colony would directly boost the progress by 5%. He wondered whether it was thanks to that strange flesh ball or the omnivorous ant colony. It seemed his previous approach to growth had been wrong; only by eating the right things could it grow faster.

  "Don't get too excited. This skill consumes a lot." The hut warned preemptively. "Each cloning requires at least one hundred Phosphorus Crystals worth of energy, with no upper limit."

  "No problem. As long as it's useful, this consumption is nothing." Lan Chi said with the air of a wealthy man.

  Just then, Nightshade and Kaelen, having heard the commotion, also entered the hut.

  After hearing the conversation between Lan Chi and the hut, Nightshade frowned slightly, a hint of confusion in his voice. "What's wrong? What happened yesterday?"

  He had returned very late last night. By the time he got home, Lan Chi and Kaelen were already asleep, completely unaware of what had happened. Kaelen quickly reported the previous day's events to him.

  After listening, Nightshade's brow furrowed. This incident of a pet mutating felt strangely familiar to him. He had seen similar things before. But he couldn't confirm the other party's intentions. He didn't know which category this pet shop fell into.

  Nightshade was silent for a moment. He didn't jump to conclusions immediately, only asking: "How did it start going berserk?"

  Kaelen filled in the details.

  Nightshade was silent for a few seconds, then said in a low voice: "This monster mutation doesn't seem like an accident. It feels like someone is trying to cause trouble." He looked up at the two. "From today onwards, everyone be careful when going out."

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  "What's wrong?" Looking at the serious expression on Nightshade's face, a bad feeling suddenly arose in Lan Chi's heart. "Do you know something?"

  "Hard to say exactly what the situation is. In the outside world, some people use mutated creatures for home invasion robberies, but..." Nightshade paused. "We need to observe further. Don't buy any more of these pets..."

  "No way, no, I want to eat more!" Before Nightshade could finish, the hut immediately tugged at the corner of Lan Chi's clothes, shaking it back and forth, shrieking shrilly: "I haven't had enough yet, I want more! Lan Chi, you promised you'd buy them for me!"

  "Alright, alright, I'll buy them for you." Lan Chi pulled his sleeve back and said to Nightshade: "Today I'll take the hut to the pet shop. We'll feed them to the hut immediately after buying them. The problem shouldn't be too serious."

  Nightshade hesitated for a moment before nodding. "Alright, be careful."

  He added a few more precautions, which Lan Chi acknowledged one by one. Then he took the hut and left.

  Walking down the street, the hut chattered excitedly in Lan Chi's mind without stopping: "Do you think that shop will have any new pets today? I want to eat something different."

  "Alright, I'll buy them all for you." Lan Chi smiled helplessly. It had been a long time since the hut had been this interested in food.

  He remembered the 10% progress on the system panel this morning, and his heart burned with anticipation. If it could devour more mutated creatures, maybe the hut would unlock new skills.

  After walking for over twenty minutes, the two arrived at the entrance of yesterday's pet shop.

  Lan Chi and Kaelen got off the wagon, handed the reins to the attendant at the door, and instructed in his mind: "Little Hut, you stay put here. We'll come out as soon as we've bought them."

  "Okay, okay. Lan Chi, hurry up. I can smell a lot of delicious food in there." The hut urged.

  "Got it."

  Lan Chi and Kaelen walked into the shop. He spotted yesterday's sales guide at a glance, walked straight over, greeted her, and said: "Hello, I'm the customer who bought pets yesterday. May I ask if you have any more of that Snowball Beast I bought?"

  "Hello, sir." The young guide was very enthusiastic. "The Snowball Beast you bought yesterday was our only ornamental pet. But we do have other pets that can help you survive better in the trial ground. Would you be interested?"

  "Alright, let's take a look." Lan Chi didn't mind. He walked around the pet shop and noticed that many of the pets here weren't the ones he had seen yesterday.

  Suddenly, the hut spoke up in his mind: "Lan Chi, that one, the one on the left in the middle against the wall. It smells so good."

  Lan Chi was startled and looked toward the left corner. It was a shoe-sized beetle, looking completely unremarkable.

  "Are you sure?"

  "Absolutely sure! Buy it, buy it!" The hut's voice was filled with barely suppressed excitement.

  Lan Chi felt suspicious but said to the guide: "I want this one."

  "Alright, this is a Burrowing Beetle, essential for dwarves going down mines. 500 Phosphorus Crystals." The guide quickly quoted the price.

  The hut's voice rang out in his mind again: "Lan Chi, the right side, by the entrance. I smell something fragrant."

  Lan Chi walked to the right side. There were three different monsters here. "Which one do you want?"

  "I don't know. They all smell good." The hut said uncertainly.

  "Alright, I'll buy them all for you." Lan Chi replied in his mind. He said to the guide: "I'll take these three as well."

  "Good, good." The guide's smile instantly deepened, the corners of her eyes and brows curving together, her mouth stretching wide, her voice carrying deliberate ingratiation. "These three plus the one just now, total forty-five hundred Phosphorus Crystals."

  "Fine." Lan Chi nodded and replied in his mind to the hut: "Any others you want to buy?"

  "Not for now. Just these few animals. Pay quickly, I want to go back and eat!" The hut said excitedly.

  "Alright, wait, don't rush." Lan Chi shook his head helplessly, but his heart was vaguely anticipating. He said to the guide: "Just these. Checkout."

  "Very well, sir. Please pay this way."

  Lan Chi paid readily. After the attendants loaded the animals onto the wagon, he immediately drove home with Kaelen.

  After the wagon drove off, a window slowly opened on the second floor of the pet shop.

  A figure in a cloak stood at the window, looking at the crowds coming and going on the street, his gaze sweeping one by one over the buyers carrying cages.

  "How many went out today?" He asked in a hoarse voice.

  "Twenty-three." The person behind him replied. "From yesterday to today, we've sold fifty-five in total. Is that enough?"

  The cloaked figure chuckled softly, a chilling coldness in his voice:

  "It's fine. Take it slow. We have plenty of time. As long as we proceed according to plan."