Zhou Yi carefully observed.

The kobold's eyes were flying around erratically, chasing each other, but it seemed to have no effect on its body.

It showed no signs of physical discomfort, and its eyes did not attack its body. The kobold looked more anxious, like a child playing in the yard who refuses to come home for dinner.

Its life was not in danger.

Zhou Yi felt slightly relieved.

There was a more important action to take.

Fire transmission.

Zhou Yi activated the Fire Transmitter in his memory core.

It was as if there was a pump that connected him to the Sea of Gems.

Zhou Yi suddenly found that the Gemstone World had brightened significantly.

The flow of gemstones constituted the motion of this life form.

White Gemstone had the strongest plasticity; it could transform into Blue Gemstone and Black Gemstone and could also be used as a tool to remodel other gemstones or life forms.

Blue Gemstone stored energy, constantly absorbing energy from the external environment.

Black Gemstone served as a consciousness carrier, responsible for information recording, storage, and output, closely related to the Conscious Key. It transmitted information quickly internally, but transmitting information externally over the body incurred huge energy costs—this was also key to why gemstone life forms rarely contacted each other, as it was costly.

These three could transform into each other.

White Gemstone gradually turned into Blue Gemstone after absorbing energy.

Blue Gemstone, after being fully charged with energy, could transform into Black Gemstone through movement, contact, and interaction with a large number of gemstones.

As a consciousness carrier, Black Gemstone, after being used for recording and outputting information, had limited usage and would be reduced back to the form of White Gemstone through consumption.

Now Zhou Yi knew that the Heavenly People's body he controlled was already in a state of decay and collapse.

A large amount of White Gemstone was loosening and leaving this body.

The amount of Blue Gemstone continued to decrease, with slow energy absorption leading to expenditures exceeding income.

Black Gemstone was also diminishing one by one.

"It's already in a state of death."

Xiao Fu assessed, "Its weakening will accelerate over time. Unless more Blue Gemstones can be obtained to maintain the metabolism of this body by acquiring external energy."

The outside was pitch dark, with only very faint energy reactions.

In the distance, there was a glowing blue strip.

Energy propagated outward from the glowing strip, rapidly depleting as it flowed, lessening with distance.

In theory, as long as one approached the blue light, there would be sufficient energy to absorb.

Xiao Fu suggested, "Burn those Blue Gemstones and head towards the blue energy strip, but there is a significant risk. This body might fall apart along the way, as the distance could be very vast."

"Staying put would maintain it for a longer period, but it might suddenly accelerate its collapse."

As Zhou Yi considered his options, he suddenly noticed.

There were other gemstone life forms nearby, many of which were small like his.

That meant, most of those that came to this energy-deprived area were likely dead Heavenly People.

Why not take advantage of the remaining energy and reuse these corpses? Theoretically, there should still be some Blue Gemstones in the bodies, otherwise they should have already shattered and dispersed.

After all, their consciousness had already collapsed.

Reverse Flow was startled, "This is indeed a novel idea."

Zhou Yi's first target was a nearby individual even smaller than himself.

The entity was pale all over with dim light, performing some kind of rotation.

Zhou Yi activated a large number of Blue Gemstones, maneuvering the body closer to the other.

Though seemingly not far, he also burned through 400 Blue Gemstones just to make close contact.

He controlled the body to capture the smaller gemstone life form's corpse, gradually docking and integrating with it.

The internal movements of both parties were drastically different, causing a lot of gemstones to collide and spin intensely, resulting in many White Gemstones peeling off and breaking.

However, gradually, the main bodies of both completed integration.

Zhou Yi took some time to organize.

He acquired 7000 Blue Gemstones from this broken corpse. This meant the plan was entirely feasible, and the body's energy had been significantly replenished.

The gemstone life form controlled by Zhou Yi shone a bit brighter, yet this integration also doubled the body's mass.

Zhou Yi then considered reducing the burden—should he directly separate some White Gemstones?

By cutting sources and conserving resources, slimming down might reduce energy consumption.

Nevertheless, Xiao Fu advised, "The basic units that constitute life also require a lot of energy to grow to completion. If there isn't an immediate need, I suggest keeping them as much as possible."

Zhou Yi eventually chose to take the advice.

Though the mass had increased, causing White Gemstones to peel off slowly, the quantity hadn't increased too much; overall, it could be considered a successful extension of life.

The strategy was achieved.

As for the other surrounding gemstone life forms, all were similar or even larger in size than Zhou Yi.

He decided to play it safe.

First, check on the kobold.

…

Inside the White Gemstone chamber, the kobold had given up chasing and was sitting against the wall, head hanging low.

Zhou Yi could sense it was resting, even snoring.

Two red eyeballs were still hovering above its head.

"It's nothing. It's just overdevelopment, leading to individual activity."

Reverse Flow said, "Normally, life grows somewhat uniformly, with limbs and internal organs developing and strengthening at a synchronized pace to maintain stable connections and interactions."

"The visual organs of this low-level life form are overdeveloped, possessing a certain degree of independent mobility. Hence, they are difficult to be constrained and connected by other enhanced organs, which are delayed in development, creating an imbalance."

"However, they cannot stay detached from the main body for long and will eventually return to the eye sockets."

Zhou Yi inserted a Black Gemstone into the kobold's head.

The other party's body suddenly stiffened.

"God! You have arrived!"

The kobold immediately showed excitement and quickly started to complain: "My eyes flew away, they are completely uncontrollable, I didn't expect this..."

Zhou Yi gave the kobold Blue Gemstones, all of which were absorbed by its eyes. The kobold liked to make its eyes glow, so he strengthened them all.

The intensity indeed increased massively.

This pair of dog eyes started having their own ideas... and they no longer responded to commands as obediently.

Initially, the eyes would autonomously and bizarrely shoot out beams; later, they began to rotate incessantly, making the kobold dizzy. Eventually, they simply flew out of the eye sockets and began to move around freely.

The kobold was helpless against them. Their speed was too fast to catch, and he could only wait for them to get tired and fly back.

This troubled him greatly.

"It's all my fault, I shouldn't have coveted the power of the eyes... I should develop evenly, God, I know my mistake now!"

The kobold was prostrating on the ground.

But solving this matter wasn't hard.

Zhou Yi used White Gemstone fibers to capture the two eyes and handed them back to the kobold.

"Thank you! You omnipotent God!"

The kobold hurriedly stuffed the eyes back into their sockets and continued to prostrate deeply.

Then Zhou Yi introduced some Blue Gemstones, which he, using White Gemstone fibers as input tubes, manually injected into the legs of the kobold's enhanced body.

As the strengthening continued,

a blue connecting line formed between the eyes and the legs, signifying that a balance had been achieved among the three enhanced organs.

The kobold felt this too.

"They don't jump around anymore, and they finally returned to normal! This is great, too great!"

"God, God!!"

He lay on the ground, his ears perked up excitedly.

Zhou Yi told him, "Moderate development is healthy; overdevelopment can result in the enhanced body rebelling, take heed."

"Yes! I will never dare again!"

The kobold's expression was one of lingering fear.

At that moment, Zhou Yi realized that mutants having multiple enhanced bodies don't pose any problem but instead form a more stable balance.

This contradicted the common medical knowledge from the Wasteland Era as described by Da Vinci.

Reverse Flow scoffed, "Only one enhanced body? That's because their technology and knowledge are insufficient."

"Having multiple enhanced bodies provides multiple directions to choose from."

"A higher life form is naturally born with many paths to take. But lower life forms are fragile physiologically, barely supporting one evolutionary direction."

"Unless, like the Heavenly People, they break through their own limitations with the constant intervention and transformation by a powerful external force."

"It's like an insect living in the jungle; the jungle could become a lake or turn into a desert. It can only survive and further evolve if it has capabilities such as swimming or flying adapted to lake and desert environments. If it can only survive in the jungle, it will go extinct."

Zhou Yi had a personal understanding of this.

As a child, his parents enrolled him in various hobby classes—table tennis, painting, calligraphy, soccer, basketball... Most of which proved Zhou Yi had no talent, learning only superficially.

However, when facing Qin Xie, his table tennis skills came in handy, serving as a means of socialization.

When deciding on a logo for the company, it was Zhou Yi who drew the samurai crab's symbol, now widely emulated by the employees.

The old saying goes, 'A man of many talents is never pinned down,' that's the idea.

Da Vinci's understanding wasn't wrong, just not complete.

...

Next, he used the Black Gemstone to deploy the Sky Dog in the Wasteland.

Zhou Yi found he could choose the deployment location.

The corresponding location was in the Wasteland World, and the entire map appeared in his mind.

He searched for a while before finding Sand Port Region.

It was a small area, but deployment wasn't possible there.

The nearest deployable location was in the Shuanghe Region, ruled by Duke Destructive.

Deployment was possible only within Heavenly Kingdom or Mechanical City.

Zhou Yi finally decided to deploy in Coral Port.

After locking the deployment location,

The kobold was encapsulated and solidified by surrounding White Gemstones, turning into a gemstone sculpture.

A countdown suddenly began in his mind.

"223, 222..."

"Projection initiated."

Zhou Yi's vision blurred, and he arrived in a secret chamber.

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