The ground temperature continued to rise, killing countless plants and animals.

Rivers dried up, fish in the water were sun-dried into jerky, frogs and tadpoles became desiccated corpses, and animal remains littered the mountains, fields, and riverbanks. The number of living beings on Blue Star was decreasing at an extremely rapid pace.

The snow mountains of the North and South Poles melted, forcing penguins and polar bears into the sea to survive. The number of zombies in the ocean skyrocketed, while zombies on land became even more grotesque and terrifying. Their flesh withered, with blackened outer skin wrapping around bones, making them resemble skeleton monsters more than zombies.

Humans were forced to hide underground, and the population plummeted once again.

In a certain underground space, three loli-form Huo Linglings and one tall, mature-sister-form Huo Lingling were playing rock-paper-scissors. Yun Xiuzhi soaked in the water, complaining that she was about to become roasted pigeon.

Li Xuan rested with his eyes closed in the corner. "The night is almost here."

Several months had passed since they killed the Prison of Corpses Forest. During this time, they had eliminated many mutated zombies based on intelligence, occasionally encountered a few mutated zombies by chance, cooperated with people, and obtained several supernatural characteristics.

Two months ago, the ground temperature became too high, forcing the three of them to abandon their plan to continue eliminating mutated zombies. They came to a cave connected to an underground river and temporarily settled there.

Yun Xiuzhi froze for a moment, then became ecstatic. "It's finally going to end! I'm almost dying from the heat!"

All four Huo Linglings stood up and bounced over to Li Xuan's side. "Can we go up now?"

Li Xuan rubbed the head of the tall, mature-sister version of Huo Lingling. "Soon, just wait a little longer."

The other three smaller versions of Huo Lingling said in unison, "Me too!"

Li Xuan rubbed the heads of the other Huo Linglings, and only then did Huo Lingling leave satisfied.

The four Huo Linglings naturally originated from the ability of the Splitting Characteristic. Initially, Huo Lingling split off one of herself, transforming from a tall, mature sister into a youthful girl. Then she split off another, shrinking in size again, until after splitting into three versions of herself, Huo Lingling became four little lolis.

Originally, the splitting ability could only divide herself and couldn't be reversed. Later, Li Xuan found a Plasticity Characteristic for Huo Lingling, allowing her to transform one version back into the tall, mature-sister form. The other three smaller Huo Linglings could hide in the shadow of the large Huo Lingling, an ability derived from the 'Illusion Characteristic.'

The Illusion Characteristic's effect allowed one to hide in their own shadow, with the drawback that the main body couldn't move while hiding in the shadow. Huo Lingling perfectly overcame this flaw - the large Huo Lingling moved while the small Huo Linglings hid in the shadow. When encountering danger, they could also use the small Huo Linglings' concealment for surprise attacks.

So far, in human form within the three-person team, Huo Lingling had the strongest combat power, Li Xuan was second, and Yun Xiuzhi had never transformed back into human form, making her the weakest.

In beast form, Li Xuan was the strongest, Yun Xiuzhi was second, and Huo Lingling was the weakest.

Li Xuan had long collected the Perfect Body Enhancement characteristics, with his physique enhanced in all aspects. As time passed, the Giant Beast had evolved to an extremely terrifying level.

The number of supernatural characteristics he possessed was a figure that people outside wouldn't dare to imagine. If publicized, it would shock countless people.

Perfect Body Enhancement Characteristic (containing three Strength Enhancements, three Speed Enhancements, three Constitution Enhancements, two Outer Skin Enhancements, three Size Expansion Enhancements, two Organ Enhancements, two Bone Enhancements, three Defense Enhancements)

Two Claw and Fang Enhancements, one Venom Enhancement, one Burst Enhancement, two Scale Reinforcements, one Wing Enhancement, two Plasticity Enhancements, two Hardening Enhancements, one Softening Enhancement, one Death Feigning Enhancement, one Sonic Wave Enhancement, two Self-Healing Enhancements, three Adaptation Enhancements, one Hearing Enhancement, one Vision Enhancement, one Wisdom Enhancement, one Fusion Enhancement, one Endurance Enhancement.

A total of over forty supernatural characteristics!

Among them, the advanced enhancement characteristics included Fusion Enhancement, Perfect Body Enhancement, and Wisdom Enhancement.

Perfect Body Enhancement was a pieced-together advanced enhancement characteristic, while the other two were naturally advanced enhancements. The effect of Wisdom Enhancement was mysterious and profound. After absorbing it, Li Xuan naturally understood its effect - it enhanced his learning ability and mental potential in Giant Beast form.

This was an enhancement that increased potential. The first version might not be very useful, but in subsequent versions, when mental power would eventually be needed, that would be when the Wisdom Enhancement characteristic would shine.

Enhancement characteristics didn't disappear after the first version ended. Characteristics were forever rooted in transformers' bodies and would continuously evolve over time. The evolution speed might be slow, but it never stopped.

Strictly speaking, every ability user who had absorbed supernatural characteristics could become a strong individual or a heaven's chosen. They only needed time, but unfortunately, time was the most precious resource in the apocalypse.

The apocalyptic trial was like a boulder rolling down a mountain - once it started, it wouldn't stop.

Advanced characteristics were extremely rare, and often came with significant flaws, such as Chaotic Evolution, Hive, and other uncontrollable factors that Li Xuan was unwilling to absorb.

What he wanted were advanced characteristics like Fusion Characteristic and Wisdom Characteristic that provided substantial improvements without side effects.

Currently, he had one Chaotic Evolution characteristic in his possession. He felt it would be a waste to throw away, but didn't want to give it away for free, so he kept it.

Additionally, both Huo Lingling and Yun Xiuzhi had absorbed more than one supernatural characteristic, with numbers that were quite astonishing, enough to make countless survivors envious.

Repeated absorption of the same supernatural characteristic greatly reduced the effect. By the third absorption, it wasn't even one-tenth of the first absorption. Some characteristics had almost no effect when absorbed repeatedly, like the Plasticity Characteristic - he absorbed two but still couldn't change his appearance at will.

Moreover, since Li Xuan had long considered both women as his own people, he distributed the excess supernatural characteristics to them, especially Huo Lingling, who absorbed many. This wasn't due to Li Xuan's favoritism or lust for Huo Lingling's delicate body, but because the two women had different roles.

After Huo Lingling in human form absorbed some supernatural characteristics, she could become a mini-superhero with greatly enhanced combat power, able to help Li Xuan with many tasks. She could even single-handedly eliminate mutated zombies, while also replacing Yun Xiuzhi in transactions with outsiders.

Yun Xiuzhi's pigeon form had poor defense. If she encountered people with ill intentions, she could easily come to harm - even a simple wooden stick could injure Yun Xiuzhi. Huo Lingling was different - in human form, she could beat up anyone.

Yun Xiuzhi's role was as a scout, not a fighter.

Huo Lingling's current characteristics included: Speed, Strength, Constitution, Organs, Outer Skin, Bones, Defense, Splitting, Plasticity, Illusion, Self-Healing, Adaptation, Softening, and Reproduction - one each.

A total of fourteen supernatural characteristics. The Reproduction characteristic hadn't been used yet, making it essentially a useless characteristic.

After Li Xuan obtained the Reproduction characteristic, he originally planned to trade it for food or throw it away if he couldn't get any food. Seeing that Huo Lingling was very interested in the Reproduction characteristic, he gave it to her.

He specifically warned Huo Lingling not to use this supernatural characteristic lightly.

He knew full well the power of the Reproduction characteristic - it could increase the probability of conceiving life. When used at full power, it didn't even require help from the opposite sex. Just by finding a bit of genetic material from the opposite sex, it could create similar life.

Su Letian had used the Reproduction characteristic to drive even a Demonic Entity into qi deviation.