Chapter 252: The First Pseudo-Spiritual Root Mortal to Break Through to "Foundation Building&qu

Two days later...

Sixty meters underground in Bloodstone Town, deep within an abandoned air-raid shelter.

The heavy, lead-gray blast-proof door completely isolated this place from the noise of the surface. Under the dim emergency lights, hundreds of first-tier demon cores and more than ten second-tier demon cores were roughly embedded into grooves carved into the ground, forming a huge and twisted spirit-gathering array. The array patterns were not sophisticated, or even orthodox; many nodes still bore traces of welding torches, making it look like a monster forcibly stitched together by some kind of industrial machinery and ancient formations.

At the center of the formation, there was no prayer mat, only a welded operating table.

A layer of dark bloodstains remained on the table that could not be washed off, and there were even a few scratch marks on the edges that had been dug out by fingernails.

Old Ding sat cross-legged on the operating table, shirtless, his chest rising and falling slowly. Under the dim light, his body, covered with old wounds, new scars, and suture marks, resembled a weapon that had been disassembled and reassembled countless times. In the center of his spine, a dark red line bulged slightly, as if something alive was lurking beneath the skin, pulsating slowly along the spine.

Before him lay several top-grade blood ginsengs and a specially made alloy container. Inside the container were the bile and heart blood of a second-tier mutated giant python. The dark red, almost black liquid swayed slowly, its stench so strong it sounded like the last gasp of a living creature before its death.

Beside the blast door, Little Stone held a heavy psionic machine gun, his palms sweating with nervousness, the handle of the gun slipping from his grip.

"Uncle Ding, are we really going to try to break through tonight?" Little Stone swallowed hard, his voice trembling uncontrollably. "The atmosphere in town has been strange these past few days. There are more and more guild spies. And using a bio-based spiritual root to break through to the Foundation Establishment stage... there don't seem to be any successful precedents in the current reports. Should we wait until the technology is more mature before trying? Just in case..."

"There's no 'what if'. If we delay any longer, we'll really have no chance left."

Old Ding suddenly opened his eyes, and in those eyes, which already faintly had dark golden vertical pupils, was a do-or-die determination.

For the past three months, he's been like a bottomless black hole, frantically devouring all sorts of top-grade spiritual herbs and demonic beast essence. That perfect bio-root has indeed stopped absorbing his lifespan, but catalyzed by the massive amount of energy, it's growing too fast. His current cultivation level is almost unable to keep up with its growth rate...

It had already spread countless extremely fine biological tentacles throughout Lao Ding's body, tightly binding his internal organs and every major blood vessel. Lao Ding could clearly feel that if he couldn't break through the limits of the mortal body in one go and complete the leap in his life level, this enormous energy might forcefully burst him apart.

If it is not broken, it will die.

"Stone, guard the door. No matter what noise you hear, even if I scream like a ghost and die inside, don't open the door, and don't let anyone in. If I haven't come out by dawn, then come in to collect my body."

Old Ding took a deep breath, resolutely picked up the few blood-red ginseng roots, chewed them up and swallowed them in large mouthfuls, then picked up the alloy container filled with the giant python's blood and bile, tilted his head back, and drank it all in one gulp.

boom!!!

The moment the extremely potent medicinal power and the essence of the demonic beast entered their stomachs, the hundreds of demon cores placed inside the air-raid shelter seemed to be drawn by something, bursting forth with dazzling spiritual light. The concentration of spiritual energy in the entire underground space instantly soared to an extremely terrifying critical value, and the air even became as viscous as mercury.

"Ugh!!!"

Old Ding suddenly raised his head and let out an extremely shrill roar that was completely inhuman.

For those disciples in the Green Zone who possess innate spiritual roots, Foundation Establishment is an elegant transformation—a natural process of receiving protection from elders, consuming Foundation Establishment Pills, and shedding worldly dust.

But in this muddy area of ​​the Yellow Zone, for a lowly mortal who relies on biotechnology and demon-eating cultivation, this is an extremely cruel physical tearing and reconstruction.

After absorbing this ultimate energy, the dark red bio-root went completely berserk. No longer content with merely attaching itself to Old Ding's spine, it launched a savage "invasion" of Old Ding's limbs and bones.

Click. Click.

The chilling sound of bones cracking echoed continuously in the air-raid shelter. Old Ding's mortal bones were simply unable to withstand the terrifying energy impact and were breaking inch by inch. But then, the dark red biofilm spreading from his bio-root acted like an extremely strong adhesive, instantly enveloping the broken bones and forcibly piecing them back together and reshaping them.

Black impurities and foul-smelling blood gushed wildly from Lao Ding's pores. This was a true cleansing of the marrow and tendons, only the process was extremely bloody.

"Uncle Ding!" Hearing the horrific scream, Xiao Shitou gritted his teeth and stared at the lead-gray explosion-proof door with red eyes.

But that's not the worst part.

When the tendrils of the bio-engineered spiritual root spread to the latest model of tungsten-metal mechanical arm on Lao Ding's left shoulder and the alloy prosthetic leg on his right leg, an extremely absurd scene unfolded.

The biochemical spiritual root actually classified these two cold mechanical creations as "foreign objects" and "obstacles".

With a piercing metallic creak, the flesh at the joints of Lao Ding's shoulder and leg writhed wildly, unleashing an incredibly powerful biological rejection reaction. The tungsten-metal mechanical arm, weighing tens of kilograms, along with the immensely heavy-duty prosthetic leg, was actually "squeezed" out of Lao Ding's body by an extremely terrifying force of blood and qi!

boom!boom!

Metal broke, and heavy mechanical limbs slammed to the ground, splattering black blood everywhere.

Old Ding had horribly bloody holes in his left shoulder and right leg, but he felt no pain at all because a more powerful force was awakening within him.

After knocking over the mechanical construct, the dark red bio-tentacles did not stop, but instead grew wildly along the blood hole. They were like extremely fine biological veins, intertwining and solidifying in a very short time, forcibly reconstructing a brand new arm radiating a dark golden glow and a thick leg full of explosive power with flesh, fascia and array runes.

Mechanical creations were completely abandoned, and pure flesh and blood and formations achieved the ultimate fusion.

Bloodstone Town, located above the air-raid shelter.

The once bustling black market suddenly fell into an eerie silence. But within a radius of two or three kilometers, all the independent hunters and the demon smugglers hiding in the shadows shivered in unison.

The feeling was extremely subtle. It was like a slumbering apex predator suddenly opening its eyes in a humid, sweltering rainforest.

In the corner, a demon smuggler who was trading with a human suddenly froze. His wolf eyes, hidden beneath his cloak, stared in terror at the cold concrete beneath his feet.

It sensed it. That extremely subtle pressure clearly contained the ferocity and bloodlust of a second-tier demon beast, but its underlying tone... strangely carried a trace of human aura!

This extremely strange spiritual pressure, filled with a mixed and savage aura, could never be emitted by those greenhouse cultivators in the Green Zone who rely on consuming pills to cultivate themselves.

......

Let's turn our attention back to the underground air-raid shelter.

At the eye of the storm, Old Ding remained seated cross-legged on the operating table.

The black blood on his body had been evaporated into dried scabs by the violent blood energy. He slowly opened his eyes, and the originally cloudy whites of his eyes had completely disappeared, replaced by a pair of pure, dark golden vertical pupils that radiated a terrifying aura. But after only two seconds, those vertical pupils receded, returning to the clear black and white appearance of a human.

His muscles became extremely smooth and explosive. His newly grown left arm and right leg were covered with an extremely fine layer of biological keratin, similar to snake scales, with dark red runes faintly flowing on the surface.

Without any exoskeleton assistance, Lao Ding simply raised his newborn left hand and gently clenched it in mid-air.

boom.

The air exploded with an unbearable roar, and an extremely powerful ripple of blood energy swept outwards from him. Although it didn't shatter the wall, the sheer physical pressure made Xiao Shitou outside the door feel his breath catch in his throat.

Old Ding stood up, firmly placing his newly grown right leg on the ground, and looked down at his completely transformed body. The external bio-root had completely disappeared, as it had been fully integrated into every drop of Old Ding's blood and every inch of his meridians.

He was no longer a mortal, nor a cybernetic machine that was extremely dependent on an exoskeleton.

In this air-raid shelter sixty meters underground, he had silently crossed that insurmountable chasm. He was the first Foundation Establishment cultivator in Earth's cultivation civilization since the cataclysm to completely abandon the theory of innate bloodline and transform himself in the mud of the wasteland by eating demons and cultivating demons.

Old Ding showed no elation, nor did he shout or yell. He simply and calmly picked up a large black tactical raincoat from the side, wrapped it tightly around his terrifying half-human, half-demon body, and then opened the heavy blast door.

As soon as Little Stone entered the door and saw Old Ding's appearance, he froze on the spot.

"Uncle Ding..." He pressed his back tightly against the blast door, his voice trembling, his teeth chattering, "You... are you even human anymore, or..."

"Don't worry, he's still your uncle."

"Let's go up."

The two followed the hidden passage back to the streets of Bloodstone Town.

The place has returned to its former bustling state, the mud mingling with the stench of blood and engine oil. No one knows that dozens of meters underground, an evolution that defied the ironclad rules of the cultivation world has just occurred.

Old Ding pulled his hood down and strode towards the Sanren Alliance's headquarters.

He didn't deliberately release any pressure, but the moment he passed through the street, the scattered hunters who were pushing and shoving each other and arguing over a few low-level demon cores suddenly stopped talking.

Those ruthless characters who had lived on the edge of death froze for a moment, instinctively stepping aside to make way for the man in the black trench coat on the crowded, muddy street. This was the instinctive pressure emanating from Old Ding's recent breakthrough and his inability to fully conceal his aura.

Little Stone followed behind, looking at the mixed expressions of bewilderment and instinctive awe in the eyes on both sides, clenching his fists tightly, trembling with excitement.

......