Paying Homage to Lord Progenitor?

*Bang!* A deafening gunshot tore through the forest. After weighing the pros and cons, Ye Shi had ultimately chosen to strike first. His opponent had apparently decided the same. The very instant the bullet burst from the muzzle, a two-meter-tall dark silhouette darted out from the trees. It was a quadrupedal beast. Built low to the ground, it possessed razor-sharp foreclaws, sturdy hind legs, and dagger-like fangs! The creature didn't look like a mammal; it resembled a reptile instead. Its predatory form was crouched like a lurking wolf, yet it lacked a single strand of fur, clad instead from head to toe in oily, gleaming scales! What made Ye Shi's heart leap into his throat was that the creature possessed an extraordinary instinct for danger. As if anticipating his attack, it had predicted and dodged his trajectory a split second before his finger even pulled the trigger. It looked like sheer coincidence. Yet to a Perception-type player like Ye Shi, there was no mistaking what that really was! "Look out!" A delayed gasp rang through the comm channel as the distance between them collapsed from twenty meters to under ten in the blink of an eye. Refusing to let the safety of power armor make him careless, Ye Shi swiftly shifted his barrel to match the mutant's trajectory, toggling his rifle to full auto and letting rip two controlled bursts. His wasteland experience had taught him that wearing power armor didn't make him invincible. Dangerous species like Deathclaws could still string up and thrash a rookie clad in power armor with ease! "Got you!" The concentrated volley suppressed the creature's path of movement. Darting left and right, the mutant was eventually struck. The 7mm rounds punched through its horn-like scales, riddling its body with bleeding bullet wounds. *Roar—!* Crying out in agony, the creature bared two beady eyes that flickered with terror. However— Instead of turning tail and fleeing, it surged with the desperate courage of a cornered beast. Channeling every ounce of strength into a final charge, it gaped its bloody maw and lunged straight for Ye Shi's face. The ferocious snap surged forward like a head-on collision with a truck, and Ye Shi could already smell the foul breath blasting against his visor. Yet he was a battle-hardened veteran player. Even if strength and agility weren't his strong suits, there was no way he'd let himself get farmed by a random wild mob. Sidestepping the terrifying bite, he raised his rifle and met the howling foreclaw with the stock. In the next breath, he drew the brush-clearing machete hung at his waist and swung it horizontally toward the beast's neck with lightning speed. Driven jointly by his muscles and the power armor, the razor-sharp blade flashed like a bolt of lightning, lopping the head clean off. Dark crimson blood geysered from the severed stump, hissing and sizzling as it splattered across the emerald-green grass. Looking down at the spray of hot blood he had instinctively dodged, Ye Shi wore a look of surprise. Just then, an anxious voice came through the comm channel. "Are you all right?" "Nothing major. Handled it." Ye Shi shook his head, glanced down at the machete, wiped the blood on a broad leaf nearby, and slid it back into its leather sheath. This place was downright uncanny. Unable to resist looking back at the patch of grass where vapor was rising, he muttered, "Holy crap... Is this blood seriously acidic?" Even more bizarrely, amid the wisps of rising mist, the grass soaked in blood seemed to have been fertilized rather than burned, actually growing with greater vigor. What in the world? Jiang Xuezhou's voice came over the comms. "It might not be acidic. It could be some dehydrating compound we're unfamiliar with... There are sampling tools and test tubes aboard the shuttle. Could you collect some samples if possible?" "No need to be so polite. I was already planning to." *Wasteland OL* had an ongoing mutant compendium quest that yielded plenty of contribution points and silver coins. This was an alien mutant. Wasn't that vastly cooler than a mutated polar bear? Ye Shi returned to the shuttle, grabbed specialized sampling gear, and collected the creature's blood, saliva, and tissue cells from several spots, labeling them before placing them inside a cryogenic sample case. While he was busy doing this, the bloody scent drifting from the carcass had already drawn a swarm of bizarre little critters. Among them were flying insects sporting straw-like proboscises, plump beetles, a cluster of small crawlers that resembled ants yet weren't quite ants, and several small four-legged beasts lingering at the edge of the thicket, eager to approach but too timid to draw close. Protected by power armor, Ye Shi wasn't afraid of bugs crawling over him, but they were still an annoyance. "Shoo, go play somewhere else." Seeing more and more insects gather, he had no choice but to pull out a white phosphorus grenade, pull the pin, and toss it aside. A blinding white flare ignited, and pungent, dense smoke billowed outward, finally driving the bugs away. Taking advantage of their retreat, Ye Shi quickly wrapped up his sampling. By the time he stowed the samples aboard the research vessel and returned outside, the head lying in the grass nearby had already been picked clean down to the white bone. Ye Shi suddenly felt as though this place was an enlarged version of the Baiyue Strait. Unlike there, however, he hadn't detected anything resembling primitive Na fruit strains in the surroundings. The creatures here seemed to share an ordinary food chain relationship, without deeper genetic exchanges. "...Could Gaia already be dead?" He had no idea whether Gaia even possessed a concept of death, but the thought arose unbidden in his mind. Especially considering that from the moment he touched down until now, the only threat he had encountered was that single mutant beast. He had assumed his opponent would be the entire planet. In truth, this wasn't just Ye Shi's confusion; Jiang Xuezhou shared it as well. While this place was hardly safe, it didn't seem quite as lethal as they had envisioned either. Of course, it was also possible that because they had only just landed, the colossal world had yet to realize they were here... "...We should hurry. Maybe we can get out before Gaia realizes we're here." "I'll do my best." After replying to Jiang Xuezhou, Ye Shi hauled the dead beast's carcass further away to bury it, then returned to the shuttle and scattered some feces scooped from the creature's intestines around the perimeter. This had been Jiang Xuezhou's suggestion. Supposedly, the droppings of apex predators could deter other wild animals. He didn't know whether this terrestrial wilderness survival trick worked on an alien planet, but Ye Shi swallowed his disgust and carried it out anyway. Once finished, he wiped the armor's gauntlets against a tree trunk until the bark was nearly peeled off. Then he dragged several bags and cases of gear out from the research vessel. All of this equipment had been fabricated by Jiang Xuezhou using materials from the missile cruiser *Orion*'s engineering workshops. It included a temporary relay station supporting medium-range signal reception, a surface weather station, a drone charging dock, solar panels, metallic hydrogen batteries, and more. With these in place, he was guaranteed to stay online within a fifty-kilometer radius of the research vessel. It was clear Jiang Xuezhou was genuinely worried sick about his safety—Ye Shi had never worried this much about himself. Back when he took quests around Dawn City, he and his brothers from the Burning Corps had always face-checked bushes without a second thought. If they died, they treated it as an early teleport back to base. Once all preparations were finally complete, Ye Shi hoisted a supply crate that reached halfway up his height. Followed by a quadcopter drone, he moved out, tracking the black box signal from the wreckage of the missile cruiser *Gemini*. He recalled the lore on the official website mentioning that during the Human Alliance era, a network of roads and rail transit systems had been built connecting colonies on planet Gaia, with the largest human community once housing a population of over a million. Yet for some reason, though Jiang Xuezhou's drone circled overhead several times, it saw nothing but lush, dense tropical rainforest. Traces of civilization seemed completely erased, leaving behind only wildly overgrown, bizarre flora. Ye Shi could only act like an ancient pioneer, hacking away with his brush-clearing machete as he pushed through the tangle of trunks and vines, praying he wouldn't run into any weird mutant beasts along the way. Honestly, more than once he considered tossing an incendiary grenade to burn a path straight through. Remembering that this entire planet was alive, however, he forced the urge down. Gaia might not have noticed his presence yet, but lighting a forest fire would make that hard to overlook. Fortunately, perhaps because the surrounding wildlife also deemed the forest depths perilous, he encountered no more ferocious carnivores along the way. As for the venomous insects that occasionally struck at him, they were all turned aside by the armor plating of his power armor. Only one incident truly startled him. It happened as he crossed a relatively open broadleaf grove. Dark brown boughs were draped between trees twenty to thirty meters high, looking just like desiccated vines. At first Ye Shi thought they were just dried vines, so without a second thought, he raised his machete and hacked at them. The instant the blade struck the massive, ten-meter-tall web of vines, dark green blood squirted all over him. Immediately after, the entire "withered net" came alive, splitting into wrist-thick brown pythons that rained down from above in a deluge. As if driven mad, the snakes writhed across the ground and lunged at him, seemingly determined to slaughter him on the spot. Looking at the churning mass of serpents, Ye Shi felt his sanity gauge plummeting. In desperation, he pulled out a flare and swung it wildly, using the stinging smoke and dancing flames to hack his way out of the encirclement. After stumbling through the woods for a good while and confirming the squirming snake horde wasn't following, Ye Shi finally let out a sigh of relief and dropped the spent flare. The quadcopter drone wobbled as it caught up behind him, and Jiang Xuezhou's voice came through the comms. "I analyzed the photos taken just now... They appear to be some kind of serpentine reptile under Phylum Chordata, Class Reptilia. They link head-to-tail between tree trunks to form a net. All indications suggest they have no teeth, meaning they shouldn't be interested in prey larger than their mouths... You could have just walked around them." "Damn, what a bunch of weirdos..." Ye Shi panted, resting his hands on his knees as he cursed under his breath. "Hanging in midair playing dead for no reason. I thought it was a bunch of vines..." "Uh, actually, they might have been..." Jiang Xuezhou trailed off abruptly. Having caught his breath, Ye Shi grew curious. "Might have been what?" Jiang Xuezhou hesitated before finally speaking in an embarrassed tone. "They... might have been mating." *Pfft!* Hearing that through the comms, Ye Shi nearly choked on his own spit. Well then. Turned out he was the one in the wrong. "...Anyway, don't worry about minor details like that. The valley I photographed from above is right ahead. The vegetation there is extremely dense and tall, so the signal might become spotty. Be extra careful." Eager to move past the awkward topic, Jiang Xuezhou steered the conversation back on track at rapid-fire speed. "Got it." Ye Shi had no desire to linger here anyway. Catching his breath, he hoisted the crate and pressed forward. As he reached the valley's perimeter, the terrain grew noticeably more rugged, and signs of active wildlife multiplied. Particularly after pushing through a thicket of shrubs, he spotted a row of depressions in the ground about half a meter wide and over ten centimeters deep, resembling the footprints of some colossal creature. "...There's probably something massive around here." Which meant there was an eighty percent chance a water source lay nearby. Snapping a few photos of the tracks, Ye Shi dialed his vigilance up a notch. Just as he anticipated, once he pushed through a patch of tall grass, the sound of babbling water met his ears. The quadcopter drone following behind him flew ahead first, and Ye Shi picked up his pace to keep close. Soon, a winding stream came into view, followed by a breathtaking landscape unlike anything he had ever seen. Tree trunks as thick as pagodas stood along the winding stream, their dark brown bark coated in iridescent mosses and flanked by broad leaves as tall as a person or two. Tiny specks of light drifted between branches and leaves like dancing aerial spirits, congregating in the air into a shimmering, vibrant river of stars. Along the shaded banks of the stream, more than a dozen giant mammals, four to five meters tall, had lowered their triangular heads to the water, resting on their bellies as they drank in peace. The enchanting scenery left Ye Shi spellbound for a moment, nearly making him forget the lethal perils lurking in the wild. Seeming to sense his gaze, several of the drinking creatures lifted their triangular heads. Yet sensing no danger from him, they soon dipped their heads back down, paying him no further mind as they continued lapping at the sweet stream water. "So beautiful..." Jiang Xuezhou's voice came through the comm channel; she was clearly captivated by the magnificent sight as well. "Yeah. Even the forests of Baiyue Province fall short compared to this... The only thing that puzzles me is where Gaia went." Coming back to his senses, Ye Shi murmured under his breath as he followed the stream to find a place to cross. Right then, he noticed a dark green crystal deposit stretching across the higher ground upstream. "Is that... a crystal vein?" Surprise washed over Ye Shi's face as he walked toward the translucent formation. Clusters of dark green crystals appeared to grow straight out of the rock face, extending along fissures deep into the stone. *Is there a copper vein around here?* Pondering this, he leaned in closer, only to discover in astonishment that beneath the diamond-like crystals crawled beetle-like insects. Dark green crystals were congealed upon their backs as they scuttled back and forth across rock faces and crevices. Every now and then, crystals would slough off their carapaces—and that appeared to be the source of these dark green formations! "This is some kind of organic material?!" Greatly astonished, Ye Shi pulled out a palm-sized chisel and tapped at the ground. The material was remarkably hard—possibly even harder than diamond—leaving scratches across the surface of the steel tool! Just then, Jiang Xuezhou's excited voice crackled over the comms. "Collect as much as you can!" "On it... I'm working on it," Ye Shi replied hurriedly, chipping a whole chunk of rock from the wall. Women really did love shiny things. Though of course, it could also be for scientific research. Truth be told, not only Jiang Xuezhou, but Ye Shi himself was curious about what this stuff was and how many silver coins it would fetch back on Earth. Speaking of which, who knew whether this stuff had emerged recently or had existed two centuries ago? If it was a recent development, he might very well be the first person to discover this dark green crystal. According to *Wasteland OL* convention, the first finder held naming rights. When the time came, should he name it "Leaf Crystal" or "Ye Crystal"? While Ye Shi was quietly rejoicing, a rustling noise suddenly came from the nearby thicket. Hearing the sound, Ye Shi instinctively looked up, only to freeze on the spot. A pale-green figure stood there. The figure held a javelin as tall as half a man, its tip fashioned from the very same dark green crystal. A pair of deep blue eyes stared unblinkingly at him. Perhaps baffled by the metal monstrosity standing before it, the figure stood entirely motionless. Catching sight of that pale-green skin, Ye Shi's heart shot straight into his throat. *What the hell?* A mutant?! Wait— How was that even possible?! He remembered clearly how mutants had come to be: an accident at a biological research institute in Yunjian Province during Year 44 of the Wasteland Era. No matter how fast mutants reproduced or how resilient they were, there was no way they could have spread all the way to planet Gaia! There was no time to think. His index finger had already flipped off the safety and rested against the trigger. Just then, however, an urgent shout rang through the comm channel. "Wait, Ye Shi! That might not be a mutant! Don't shoot yet!" At the same time her voice sounded, more rustling echoed through the brush. In the blink of an eye, dozens of figures emerged beneath the trees. The instant the "triangle-faces" drinking by the river saw this pack of "little green men," they raised their heads, let out a howl, turned around, and bolted. It was clear they had suffered plenty at the hands of these green-skinned folk. At the very same moment, Ye Shi witnessed a sight that made his jaw drop even further— A pterosaur flapped its wings and glided overhead! Unlike the pterosaurs he had seen in dinosaur museums, this beast also sprouted dark green crystals across its body. The spearheads wielded by these little green people seemed to have been pried straight from the hide of that massive creature. *This is a hunting party!* Ye Shi's mind raced. Just as he was torn over what to do, an elderly figure stepped forward from the group of twenty to thirty. The old man had wrinkled skin and an unkempt beard. Tears welled in his eyes as he babbled in an incomprehensible tongue, then suddenly dropped to his knees. The gesture caught Ye Shi completely off guard, and it seemed to startle the other little green folk behind him as well. Before long, however, the elder turned and spoke a few words. The sturdy young hunters lowered their weapons one after another and prostrated themselves reverently upon the ground. "What are you guys doing? Get up!" Ye Shi spoke between laughter and tears, only to remember that they probably couldn't understand him. Yet just as the thought crossed his mind, a halting phrase in the Human Alliance language tumbled from the elder's mouth: "Greetings... Lord... Progenitor."