Monster Pet Evolution

"Do you remember the way to the slaughterhouse now?" asked Gao Peng.

"Yes," said Dumby, nodding.

"Good. From tomorrow onwards, you'll bring all of those skeletons in the facility back to life and absorb the Flames of the Undead from them. Did you get all that?" asked Gao Peng.

Dumby thumped its chest, indicating that it had understood what Gao Peng had said.

Gao Peng and Ji Hanwu went back to the manor to turn in for the night, while Dumby returned to the treehouse that Gao Peng had built for it and its child in a 40-foot-tall tree.

The treehouse was made of branches tied together with pieces of vine. When Dumby started climbing up the tree, a small head poked out of the treehouse's window and warily peered down.

After seeing that it was Dumby, the little thing retracted its head from the window. Suddenly, a red blur bounded out of the door and leapt into Dumby's arms, then let out a soft purr as it clambered up to Dumby's head.

Gently holding its daughter in one arm, Dumby continued climbing up the tree with his other hand. Despite turning into a skeleton, it still remembered how to climb up a tree like any other monkey.

"Did you behave yourself today?" Dumby asked its daughter.

The Red River Ape looked up at it with teary eyes and began counting its fingers. When it was done, it cried out excitedly, "I thought of daddy nine times today!" The small Red River Ape then looked at Dumby expectantly, as if it was hoping to be rewarded for its actions.

"That's not what I meant," said Dumby, frowning.

Even though Dumby's fleshless face showed no emotion, the small Red River Ape was able to sense that its father wasn't in a joking mood.

"I learned three words today... Human language is so hard to learn. Can I not learn it?" said the small Red River Ape, now clinging to its father's arm.

Dumby hesitated for a moment, then it said, "No." It placed its right hand on the small Red River Ape's head.

I can't let you be a small Red River Ape forever. I'll beg the young master to let you evolve if I have to. I can't protect you forever, but I can give you the power to protect yourself, thought Dumby as he stared at the starry night sky from the edge of the treehouse.

...

"Boss, I guarantee that you won't be able to buy 220 pounds of these high-quality golden-winged cicadas at such a low price anywhere else!" said a young man wearing a blue mandarin jacket and a straw hat to Liu Senlin outside the gates of the Southern Sky Group.

"All right, I'll take your word for it. I'll transfer the money to your account shortly," interrupted Liu Senlin. He then beckoned at a security guard nearby to pick up a huge box on the ground.

Before the young man could say anything else, Liu Senlin sharply turned around and walked away.

The young man sighed as he watched Liu Senlin leave. "I was going to tell him that those golden-winged cicadas were nasty... Weird, why would anyone buy so many of them anyway? They're not exactly edible, and they have an extremely bad temper... Rich people sure are strange," muttered the young man as he turned to leave as well.

The security guard frowned as he held the box in his arms. Under normal circumstances, he could carry a 220-pound object without too much trouble. However, just then, he could feel hundreds of fleas madly jumping around in the box, threatening to burst out of it at any moment.

The box soon reached Gao Peng. He opened it, making sure that it was what he had requested.

"Come out, Da Zi. It's time for your evolution," shouted Gao Peng.

Da Zi nearly tripped over its legs as it excitedly scrambled down from the tree.

Gao Peng then placed the box on Da Zi's back. The usually hyperactive Da Zi obediently carried the box to the laboratory without jostling it too much.

Gao Peng extracted the wire cage inside the box. The holes on the wire cage were so small that not even the walnut-sized cicadas couldn't escape through them.

The golden-winged cicadas had filled practically half of the wire cage.

Some of them were still clinging to the corners of the cage, while others were hanging upside down from the top of the cage.

"I'll first need to prepare a special solution using these golden-winged cicadas... then I'll let the Purple-Backed Thunder Centipede soak in it..." muttered Gao Peng. A pained expression contorted his face as he looked at the golden-winged cicadas jumping about inside their cage. There were at least a hundred of them, and he had to extract a certain organ from each and every one of them. This process would take him at least half a day to complete. Also, the extracted organ could only be preserved for six hours.It would lose its vitality if it was left out in the open any longer than that.

He called his grandfather on his cellphone. "Grandpa, I need an assistant to help me out with this. Yes, someone who doesn't mind getting their hands dirty... What? No, nothing like that! I just want someone who won't mind doing a bit of hard work."

Gao Peng let out a long sigh when he hung up the phone, then he began handling the golden-winged cicadas.

Half an hour later, the doorbell rang outside the laboratory. Without turning his head away from his work, Gao Peng simply said, "Come in."

Someone pushed open the door and entered the laboratory.

"Professor Gao, I'm your new assistant for today."

Gao Peng glanced up. Before him stood a beautiful lady in a white lab coat whose hair was tied into a ponytail behind her head. He had met her before. It was Xu Qingzhi.

She has quite a high hairline, thought Gao Peng.

Not knowing what was going on inside Gao Peng's mind, Xu Qingzhi simply stood there without a sound. This wasn't her first time working in a laboratory setting. However, she hadn't expected someone as young as Gao Peng to be her boss for the day.

She had assumed that Gao Peng was just one of the researchers working in this laboratory. Who would have thought that he was in charge of it?

"All right," said Gao Peng curtly. He knew why she had been chosen to be his assistant. Her father and uncle were the top of the Southern Sky Group. Gao Peng's grandfather must have figured that it would be best to employ someone who was already part of the "family," as most of the things in the laboratory were classified.

Gao Peng's hands didn't slow down one bit during his thought process. He crushed a golden-winged cicada's head with a metal rod, ending its life instantly. He then deftly carved out its wings with a scalpel and put them inside an empty container. The rest of its body was thrown into a bin.

'What are you still standing there for? Come and help me with these golden-winged cicadas," said Gao Peng brusquely.

"Oh, okay." Xu Qingzhi carefully listened to Gao Peng's instructions and was able to pick things up quickly. At first, her movements were clumsy, but soon, she was able to handle one golden-winged cicada every half a minute.

Two hours later, they finally managed to clear out all the golden-winged cicadas from the cage.

"Alright, we're done here. You can go now," said Gao Peng, waving her off.

"Huh?" Xu Qingzhi stared at him in disbelief.

Bang! Gao Peng slammed the door in her face.

For the next half hour, Gao Peng carefully prepared the concoction necessary for Da Zi's evolution.

He held the test tube containing the concoction up to his eyes. A white smoke was coming out of it. At times, a blue flash of light appeared in the translucent liquid.

He then added a large volume of hot water into a reaction vessel. Once the vessel was full, he poured its contents into the test tube.

Crackle!

A flash of electricity appeared in the test tube.

A few drops of the liquid flew out of the test tube onto Gao Peng's face. Da Zi, who had been lazily licking the tips of its feet on the ground this whole time, suddenly jerked up, as if it had been electrocuted by something.

"And finally, the last ingredient." Gao Peng took out nine pinecones from the freezing chamber, each of them adorned with a lightning pattern.

He then dropped the pinecones into the concoction. Inside, they dissolved into a golden liquid before disappearing entirely in the test tube's mixture.

The boiling liquid began cooling down until its surface was as smooth as a mirror.

"All right, Da Zi, jump in," said Gao Peng.

Da Zi raised its head and waggled its feelers at its master, then it crawled into the experimental tub.

Boom!

As soon as Da Zi entered the tub, a sound like thunder rumbled from it, rattling everything in the room. It was so loud that it could even be heard outside the laboratory.

Xu Qingzhi bolted upright and narrowed her eyes at the closed doors of the laboratory behind her. What on earth is he doing in there?