Hunter of Immortals

Chapter 366: Mass Evolution

Chapter 366: Mass Evolution

Mutation has granted me more power, but I can't afford to mutate any further.

In his obsessive pursuit for more power, Adam had no qualms with becoming a monster, but the more mutated he became, the more his brain chemistry would be altered, and he would go completely insane if he were to stray too far down this path.

He was willing to sacrifice a lot for the sake of his objectives, but he wasn't willing to sacrifice his sanity as it would negatively impact his ability to carry out his plan.

I have to suppress my killing urges, deranged thoughts, and everything that goes against my human nature, Adam thought to himself, and at this point, the self-inflicted wound on his arm had already completely healed.

Eager to perform more experiments, Adam invoked Sludge.

Sludge already possessed tremendous regenerative abilities to begin with, and he was eager to see what kind of effect his psychic mutation had had on Sludge.

After invoking and fusing with Sludge, Adam began to attack himself once again, but his massive fists were unable to do anything even as he pounded his own chest with all his might.

Sludge's defensive prowess had always far outstripped its offensive capabilities, so it naturally wasn't able to break through its own defenses.

"Can you two give me a hand?"

"Of course!"

Under Adam's request, Armadillo and Mole began to attack him, along with Hellhound.

However, all three of them possessed rather lackluster offensive prowess, and they were only able to inflict minor injuries upon Sludge, with the most severe one being a chunk of rock around the size of a washbasin being torn away by Hellhound's powerful jaws.

An injury of that size was akin to a mosquito bite on a normal person, and he was able to recover from it in an instant, so it was impossible to tell whether his regenerative powers had improved.

"Forget it, this isn't gonna work."

It was clear that this experiment wasn't going anywhere, and considering the situation outside in the real world, he felt it best to leave the psychic world right away.

"Let's get out of here. I don't trust those gang members. One of them could come in and kill all three of us while we're unconscious."

Thus, the three of them promptly left the psychic world one after another, and as soon as Adam opened his eyes, he was greeted by the sight of a haggard and wizened face.

As it turned out, the pig farmer had woken up before everyone else, and Adam reflexively took a step backward at the sight of him.

"How the fuck did he wake up so soon?"

Mole was also quite alarmed to see this, and he immediately prepared to lash out, only to be stopped by Adam.

"It's fine, let him go."

"Get out of here!"

Mole shoved the pig farmer away, and the latter stumbled before steadying himself, but instead of departing, he turned around to face Adam again.

There was a hint of excitement on his face, and he stared at Adam for a long time before finally asking, "I heard them say that you're an adapter, is that true? Also, that dream I just had, all of it just happened in the psychic world, right?"

Adam was rather taken aback as he looked at the pig farmer. This wasn't the reaction that he had expected from someone who had just survived a close brush with death.

"Are you an adapter?" the pig farmer repeated.

"What do you want?"

Adam was beginning to lose his patience.

"If you're an adapter, then your friends must be adapters as well. I want to hire an adapter to help me investigate a case."

"What case? The one to do with your son?"

"That's right."

Adam's response acted as further confirmation to the pig farmer that his dream was indeed something that had unfolded in the psychic world.

"What do you want me to investigate for you?"

"I was incarcerated for the crimes of murder and bodily dismemberment. I..."

"I know what happened to you, and I know that you took the fall for your son. Get to the point."

Adam didn't want to listen to the pig farmer's pointless ramblings. His time and energy was very limited, and there were far too many things that he had to do in the short lifespan available to him, so he had no interest in and reason to help others.

However, it then occurred to him that he wasn't going to be in Darvaza Prison for very long, and not only did he have to focus on becoming more powerful here, he also had to enhance his own reputation for his long-term plan.

According to the path Thilan had mapped out for him, he was going to enter the Sandrise City mayoral election following his release from prison. There were only three super metropolises on the entire continent of North America, and with a population of over 300 million, Sandrise City was home to a third of the entire continent's population. If he could become the mayor of Sandrise City, his power would rival that of the presidents of a century ago.

Only by attaining such an enormous amount of power and influence would he be able to carry out his plan.

Hence, he had to paint himself as a hero to the general public, so the more good deeds that he did, the more his reputation would be embellished.

Hence, this seemed to be an opportunity, not just for the pig farmer, but for Adam as well.

"Take your time and tell me what happened."

"As you just said, I took the fall for my son." The pig farmer paused momentarily here to heave a long sigh, then continued, "I thought my son was the one who had killed all those teenagers, and in order to protect him, I helped him dispose of the bodies, and I was willing to serve the prison sentence for him. However, after my incarceration, I gradually realized that something wasn't quite right."

Adam nodded in response, prompting the man to continue.

"Not long after my incarceration, I heard that some type of ore was discovered under my farm. It was nickel ore or something like that, a material used for making batteries."

"I see."

All of the Mechguard units and the majority of prosthetic limbs were battery-powered, so batteries had always been short on supply.

If there really were a nickel ore under the pig farmer's residence, then there was a chance that he had been targeted in some type of sinister scheme.

"I've been in here for quite a few years now, and during that time, the more I thought about it, the more things seemed fishy to me. My son is mentally handicapped, but he's never hurt anyone. He was bullied as a child, but he would only retaliate when he was pushed too far. Even if he was experiencing heightened sexual urges due to puberty, there's no way he would've killed others to satisfy himself. Most importantly, since I've had so much time to think about what happened, I realized that the crime scenes were suspiciously clean, and it didn't seem like something my son was capable of."

The pig farmer seemed to recall the crime scenes very clearly, and it was quite apparent that he had thought long and hard about this.

"I see. I'll help you look into this matter, but it's going to take some time."

"Thank you so much! If you can get to the bottom of this case for me, I'll give you my farm as compensation!"

"You have yourself a deal."

……

Time slowly passed by, and while Adam could still ensure his own safety, he made his way down his list of names one by one, hunting down the targets that he felt were likely to be psychic deviants.

During the past nine days, he invaded the psychic worlds of 40 inmates, 27 of which were true psychic deviants, but 24 of them had rather low-level anomalies that were predominantly around the fourth or fifth level.

Even so, with the sheer amount of anomalic power that he was able to accumulate over time, Adam had managed to evolve all of the anomalies that he deemed to be useful.

Among them, Camera, Ogress, Nun, Clown, and Mummy had all evolved to become level five anomalies, while Horse Face and Distortion had become level six anomalies.