Salvation’s mecha clone hesitated slightly, not very obviously.

Soon enough, it obediently approached the eerie pool emitting mist-like monsters.

The shadow phantom stared at the mecha for a moment, seemingly unsure where to begin.

So he simply stated directly: “A powerhouse of your level should be able to extract the ‘heart’ separately, right?”

Salvation cooperated quite well—

He raised his hand, palm brushing over the mechanical eyes.

Then directly tossed those two round eyeballs into the mechanical mouth.

Immediately after, the entire Salvation mecha emitted a sound like a motor running.

Soon, a small mechanical door opened at his chest position.

Behind the door was a button.

Salvation pressed it with his right index finger, followed by another mechanical sound of motor operation.

This time, a black box emerged from the small door opening…

Salvation generously handed the black box to the shadow phantom:

“Here, this mecha clone’s heart.”

Damn, playing it pretty high-tech.

But both the shadow phantom and the chubby guy seemed well-traveled and showed no reaction to Salvation’s heart-extraction method.

The shadow phantom directly opened the black box, which indeed contained…

Huh? Rotten stinking meat??

The moment the box opened, Jiang Ye smelled the overwhelming stench of decay.

The “heart” in the box was completely devoid of fresh blood color.

Instead, it was putrid, decaying black emitting a foul odor!

So the term “black heart” really wasn’t an exaggeration after all.

This Doomsday Apartment actually had such black hearts…

The shadow phantom was clearly accustomed to this; he moved the heart-containing box above the pool.

However, the mist-like monsters emerging from the pool seemed indifferent to that stinking heart.

Seeing this, the shadow phantom glanced sideways at Salvation and murmured quietly:

“Your mutation success rate might be very low…”

As he spoke, his free hand flipped over, seemingly taking out a palm-sized, dial-like prop, quickly tossing it into the pool.

Jiang Ye didn’t even get a clear look at what the prop looked like.

With a “plop” sound, the circular prop entered the water, and the entire pool’s semi-transparent black liquid began swirling, forming concentric vortices.

The mist-like monsters in the water also became more active now.

Soon, they voluntarily left the pool, pouncing toward the box containing the stinking heart…

This process closely resembled when Xiao Hei was invaded by numerous monsters.

What surprised Jiang Ye was—

As the monsters invaded the heart, the Salvation mecha began emitting motor-like sounds again.

And this time, the sound wasn’t as smooth as before.

The volume fluctuated, stumbling along, as if something was stuck.

Visibly, the mecha raised its hand as if uncontrolled.

Empty eye sockets emitted eerie black light.

The shadow phantom glanced at him, voice cold:

“Relax, this process won’t be life-threatening.”

Sure enough—

As all mist-like monsters completely invaded that black heart.

The Salvation mecha’s abnormalities also subsided.

And that originally stinking heart no longer emitted odor now.

However, lying quietly in the black box, it seemed to breathe—its noticeably plumper surface had slight undulating movements.

Wait?

This didn’t seem like breathing-like “undulation”!

But rather…

Something was emerging from that heart!

Sure enough, moments later, a blood-colored worm the size of a rice grain crawled out from where the heart was undulating!

The shadow phantom seemed quite familiar with such scenes.

He directly extended his seemingly illusory hand, left index fingertip approaching the blood-colored worm.

Moments later, the blood-colored worm appeared to…

Have bitten the shadow phantom!

No, not “appeared to”! It actually bit him!

Jiang Ye watched extremely carefully, absolutely certain—

The moment the blood-colored worm bit the shadow phantom’s fingertip, that fingertip clearly had a missing piece!

But quickly, that barely noticeable gap returned to normal.

If not watching closely, one probably wouldn’t notice this small detail…

The shadow phantom moved quite swiftly.

It looked like he just touched the blood-colored worm, then pressed it back into that black heart.

Soon, this time, the black heart returned to calm.

The shadow phantom then returned the heart-containing black box to the Salvation mecha.

Salvation asked: “That’s it?”

The shadow phantom nodded: “You can reinstall it now.”

Salvation cooperatively stuffed the small black box back into the chest door opening.

After another mechanical operation sound, the Salvation mecha’s chest returned to normal.

He spat out two eyeballs from his mouth, reattaching them to the empty eye sockets.

With this, everything was completed.

The entire mecha person appeared no different from before.

Then, the shadow phantom imitated the chubby guy’s action, snapping his fingers.

Of course, his snap wasn’t audible:)

But visibly, with his snapping motion, the entire Salvation mecha’s black surface seemed to become darker?

No, not just the mechanical exterior darkening…

The entire Salvation mecha seemed to start emitting heat!

As time passed, steam even emerged from the mecha’s surface!

This situation matched Yu Mo’s early mutation symptoms.

Just as Jiang Ye thought the entire mutation process would take considerable time like Yu Mo’s…

He heard the mecha person suddenly emit Salvation’s changed voice:

“Wrong! Something’s very wrong!”

The shadow phantom’s voice also sounded unusual: “Your… physical condition isn’t right!”

“This mechanized body provides too much energy to the physique, while the energy proportion supplied to the heart is far too weak!”

“This situation would be impossible for normal people to survive!”

“Normal people with your energy distribution would have died from heart failure long ago!”

As the shadow phantom expressed shock and complained.

A “bang” sound was heard.

Followed by “crackling,” like setting off firecrackers during New Year.

The entire Salvation mecha’s surface showed clearly visible cracks!

The steam emerging from those cracks clearly had higher temperature!

Jiang Ye remembered that Yu Mo’s early mutation steam didn’t have the terrifying power of later stages.

The steam’s energy progressed gradually.

But Salvation’s mutation process seemed…

Already out of control?

Even Jiang Ye, an outsider, could see the problem.

The shadow phantom naturally understood even better—

“Failed indeed! Your modified body severely violates normal physical body principles!”

“This experiment would likely fail even after several more attempts!”

With these words, the shadow phantom’s human form suddenly enlarged, transforming into a giant hand again.

That giant hand enveloped the steam-exploding mecha person within its shadow.

In the blink of an eye, the entire mecha person completely dissolved amid the steam explosion…

Then, the shadow phantom returned from giant hand to human form.

He seemed to glance at Jiang Ye before saying to the chubby guy:

“Clearly—experiment failed.”

The chubby guy looked thoughtful, also glancing at Jiang Ye before waving his hand, producing another card showing projection footage.

The footage clearly showed another Salvation mecha.

The chubby guy laughed: “Hey, how’s Boss Salvation doing?”

The mecha in the projection remained calm, directly responding:

“Just lost one clone.”

After a moment’s thought, he directly asked:

“From that shadow phantom’s meaning, this mutation failed because of my mecha physical body.”

“So, does it require relatively ‘intact’ hearts to ensure mutation success rate?”

The chubby guy raised an eyebrow: “From your tone, you want to experiment again?”

The Salvation mecha nodded, while the footage showed another mecha person being pulled over.

That mecha person said: “This mecha clone’s ‘heart’ should meet normal powerhouse heart standards.”

The chubby guy didn’t respond, just looked at the shadow phantom again.

The shadow phantom nodded: “Can try again.”

So the chubby guy said to the projection: “Then this time, I’ll pull this mecha over…”

With another snap of his fingers.

A card again remotely grabbed the Salvation mecha.

Then, the same process—

The new version Salvation mecha again provided 1000 hairs.

The shadow phantom summoned the pool again.

The newly summoned pool water, unclear if same as previous experiment.

But the newly summoned pool water remained clear initially.

Only after throwing hairs in did it become semi-black transparent.

The subsequent process remained unchanged, though Salvation’s extracted heart was no longer stinking black.

Instead, it was an extra vibrant red large piece, looking very “healthy.”

This time, the shadow phantom didn’t throw any dial prop into the pool.

The emerging monsters from the pool voluntarily invaded that fresh healthy heart.

And this time…

The moment the blood-colored worm emerged, Jiang Ye secretly fused with his True Sight Eye clone.

A 【True Sight Eye】 was cast toward that blood-colored worm.

He just saw the characters “blood realm” when the blood-colored worm was pressed back into the heart by the shadow phantom.

Of course, this time, the shadow phantom also fed that “blood realm” a fragment of his fingertip shadow, extremely fast, barely noticeable.

Then, the “blood realm”-implanted healthy heart was returned to the Salvation mecha.

This time, the mecha’s heating and steam emission process progressed gradually, seemingly within controllable range.

However, the mecha person still uttered:

“Something’s wrong…”

This time, the shadow phantom explained: “The procedure is correct. If you feel pain, discomfort, or even lose consciousness, it’s normal.”

“Of course, normal mutation processes also have quite high failure proba… bility”

The shadow phantom stumbled noticeably on the word “probability.”

Then Jiang Ye saw again—

The Salvation mecha that had been gradually emitting steam moments ago made New Year sounds again.

After a series of firecracker crackling, the shadow phantom transformed from human form to giant hand again, enveloping the entire exploding mecha.

Until the entire mecha person dissolved again in the steam explosion…

Second failure.

The chubby guy’s previous projection screen remained.

Now, directly addressing another Salvation mecha in the projection:

“Big shot, have you been having bad luck lately? Failing twice so quickly?”

“…” The mecha person clearly stiffened.

Including its emitted voice sounding stiff:

“I’m infected with Lightburn, what do you think?”

Clearly, Salvation had indeed been unlucky lately.

Jiang Ye knew even better that this guy wasn’t just infected with Lightburn…

His bound Divine Crow had also been taken by the Nomadic Merchant…

This unlucky fellow, sigh~

“Try again?” The chubby guy’s questioning voice even hesitated.

Salvation didn’t answer immediately.

His gaze seemed to want to see beyond the projection footage.

However, projection control wasn’t his.

Unable to see Jiang Ye, he could only tell the chubby guy:

“Earlier you drove away ‘unrelated people,’ only leaving Jiang Ye…”

“So if I’m not mistaken, Jiang Ye also needs to cooperate with the experiment.”

Though phrased as a question, Salvation used a definite tone.

However, the chubby guy glanced toward Jiang Ye’s direction, then raised an eyebrow at the projection:

“Boss Salvation guessed wrong—”

“Jiang Ye doesn’t need to ‘cooperate with experiments.'”

“Rather, your mecha clone experiments aim to reassure Jiang Ye:)”

The subtext seemed to say…

In our R&D phase “medication,” you Salvation are the test subject.

While Jiang Ye, he’s the actual client!

This single sentence showed immense respect for Jiang Ye.

Of course, it might also be the chubby guy intentionally creating hostility toward Jiang Ye…

Anyway, after saying this, he turned to Jiang Ye, analyzing seriously:

“You witnessed the Salvation mecha clone’s situation.”

“Though both mutations ended in failure, the problems mainly lie with Salvation.”

“And Salvation’s clone situation basically proves—clone mutation death doesn’t affect other clones.”

“So? Are you willing to offer a clone for mutation attempt now?”

The chubby guy’s questioning tone remained quite polite.

Having witnessed Salvation’s two mutation processes, Jiang Ye had pondered many things.

One very clear point was—

The entire mutation process quite resembled when his mirrored clone mutated into Xiao Hei.

The monsters invading Salvation’s heart were almost identical to those invading Xiao Hei.

According to Xiao Bai, those monsters fed on radiation.

After mutation, Xiao Hei didn’t develop blood patterns.

However, Xiao Hei did master a Glyph Pattern Ability to release blood mist.

And this monster ability’s released blood mist quite resembled the Little Red Snake’s transformed blood mist.

With Xiao Hei as precedent, Jiang Ye’s resistance toward this mutation method naturally lessened considerably.

He even suspected whether his clone might also master blood mist release ability like Xiao Hei without developing blood patterns after mutation?

Of course.

The shadow phantom’s mutation method clearly differed from Xiao Hei’s experience—

Namely that grain-sized creature called “blood realm” invading the “heart.”

First, Xiao Hei was essentially a “mirrored clone” and probably had no “heart.”

Second, that “blood realm” clearly consumed the shadow phantom’s fingertip shadow fragment.

And the entire shadow phantom could essentially be seen as a giant mist-like monster!

Jiang Ye hadn’t realized this earlier when observing the shadow phantom.

But after witnessing two mutations, he increasingly recognized—

The entire shadow phantom might be similar to the mist-like monsters that invaded Xiao Hei and Salvation’s heart!

Similarly having form but no facial features.

Similarly appearing ethereal and unreal.

Those monsters fed on radiation.

And the shadow phantom clearly wasn’t afraid of the “steam” Yu Mo emitted earlier!

So, the shadow phantom and those monsters might share the same origin!

Of course, the shadow phantom was clearly more condensed and powerful than those numerous small monsters.

According to the chubby guy’s earlier statement—

Mutants and those performing mutations would have a symbiotic relationship.

Simply put, players accepting the shadow phantom’s mutation would share life and death with him…

After some contemplation, Jiang Ye directly asked brazenly:

“That ‘blood realm’ appearing during mutation…”

“If removed, can the mutation process still complete?”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep