Adam Carter looked at him, not knowing what to say. In the end, he could only murmur the young human's name: “Aaron Carter?”

“You’ve almost learned the human language.” The human lowered his head and looked at his own body.

On this body, besides pus and bloodstains, there were also snow-white mycelium—part of Adam Carter's body. The mycelium wound and grew, tightly clinging to the wounds on Aaron Carter's limbs and torso. The mushroom’s intention was to stop the bleeding for this dying human, but instinctively, the mycelium also absorbed and digested the fresh blood that flowed out.

“By consuming my genes, can you really learn so much? The pollution index here is indeed very high,” the human said.

Fragments of knowledge unfolded in Adam Carter's mind. After five seconds of transformation, he understood that the pollution index meant the speed of gene transformation. Now, human genes were flowing into his body along with Aaron Carter's blood.

“Maybe... after I die, if you eat my whole body... you’ll gain even more.” Aaron Carter gazed at the top of the cave, the corners of his mouth twitching: “Then it seems I’ve done something meaningful, though I don’t know if it’s good or bad for you.”

Adam Carter said nothing, his whole body moving toward Aaron Carter. He used his newly grown human arm to hold Aaron Carter's shoulder, and a mass of mycelium surged over, piling up beside Aaron Carter, supporting his tottering body.

In the silent cave, only the dying human’s labored breathing could be heard.

After a long time, Aaron Carter finally spoke again: “I’m a person whose life has no meaning.”

“...There’s nothing outstanding about me, so it’s normal that they abandoned me. Actually, I’m glad not to return to the human base. It’s just like the wilderness—only those with value can survive. I’ve wanted to die for a long time, I just didn’t expect to meet a gentle creature like you before I died, little mushroom.”

Adam Carter didn’t really understand the meaning of those words—like value, like death. He only caught that term again: human base.

Leaning on Aaron Carter's shoulder, he said, “I want to go to the human base.”

Aaron Carter: “Why?”

Adam Carter slightly raised his left arm, his fingers wavering in the air as if trying to grasp a wisp of nothingness, but he caught nothing.

Just like his body.

His body was empty.

A huge void had grown from the deepest part of his shell, impossible to fill, impossible to heal. With it came endless emptiness and panic, which entangled him day after day.

He struggled to form human words, and slowly said, “I lost... my spore.”

“Spore?”

“My... seed.” He didn’t know how to explain.

Every mushroom has spores in its life—some have countless, some only one. Spores are the seeds of mushrooms. They grow from the gills, scatter with the wind to any place in the forest, take root, and become a new mushroom. Then, this mushroom will also grow up and have its own spores. Raising a spore to maturity is a mushroom’s only lifelong mission, but he lost his only spore before it was even close to maturity.

Aaron Carter slowly turned his head, and Adam Carter could hear the creaking of his bones, like an old human machine.

“Don’t go there,” the human’s voice was hoarse, his speech quickening, “You’ll die.”

Adam Carter repeated the word: “...Die?”

“Only humans can enter the human base. You can’t escape the eyes of the adjudicators.” Aaron Carter coughed a few times, then struggled to catch his breath: “Don’t go... little mushroom.”

Adam Carter said blankly, “I...”

The human’s hand suddenly grabbed Adam Carter's mycelium, using all his strength, his breathing growing more and more rapid.

“Listen,” after violent trembling and gasping, Aaron Carter slowly closed his eyes, his voice very low, “You have no attack or defense. You’re just... a very small mushroom.”

Sometimes, Adam Carter deeply regretted telling Aaron Carter that he wanted to go to the human base.

If he hadn’t told Aaron Carter, Aaron Carter wouldn’t have spent his last moments trying to stop him. Maybe he could have heard one more story from Aaron Carter, maybe he could have taken him out of this dim cave to see the ever-changing aurora in the sky one last time. But Aaron Carter's eyes would never open again.

Brief memories dissipated into the air, just as Aaron Carter's life suddenly vanished from this world. In front of Adam Carter, there was only a snow-white skeleton.

But still, he would go against Aaron Carter's wishes.

—He slowly spread his five fingers.

In the delicate skin and faint lines of his palm lay a brass-colored, metallic cylindrical shell, very heavy, with some incomprehensible but clearly unusual markings on it—he had found it in that place after losing his spore, and had never let go of it since.

If there was even a one-in-ten-thousand chance that he could recover his spore, then that chance rested on this shell, and it was a creation of humans.