Chapter 322: Land, Sea, and Air! A Simplified Ultimate Lifeform!
Located at the southernmost tip of Manhattan, New York, there is a crescent-shaped Beach connecting to the Atlantic Ocean, with an island visible to the naked eye on its west side.
Originally, this was a tourist resort under a high-end Hotel, but it was later acquired by Vought International and transformed into a public Beach with a Superhero theme. The Deep of The Seven often brought his wife here for vacation.
"Sorry, I couldn't help you this time," The Deep, lying under a sunshade, said somewhat shamefully.
"It's been two days since Herogasm. How is Homelander doing now?"
Xia Shang opened his panel, looking at the data on it, and slightly frowned.
[Superpower Chest Blast is fusing, current progress is 40%]
After spending nearly half a month and absorbing a large amount of Compound V, the fusion progress on the panel had only increased from 2% to 40%.
While this progress wasn't exactly slow, compared to the Tokyo Ghoul World, it was like heaven and earth. In the Tokyo Ghoul World, fusing a talent skill took no more than a week at most, and could even be completed in just a few days.
But now, to fuse Superpower Chest Blast, he had to wait over a month. Such a huge contrast was difficult for even Xia Shang to digest.
However, upon second thought, Superpower Chest Blast was, after all, The Boys' most top-tier superpower. It was understandable that the fusion was slower. If it were Billy's Laser Eye, Xia Shang was confident he could complete the fusion within half a month.
"As soon as he returned to the company, he kicked Starlight out of the Co-Captain position. Then he held a celebration banquet." At this, The Deep's tone became somewhat agitated. "Goddamn it! He actually forced me to swallow Timothy whole. He's an animal!"
"Timothy?" Lying on a Beach chair, Xia Shang asked, flipping through his panel.
"That was my dearest friend, a sexy and gentle octopus. We had many unforgettable beautiful memories together." The Deep picked up a soda with immense sadness and took a sip.
"But all of that was ruined by Homelander. He's a Demon, Satan crawled up from the depths of Hell."
"What a shame," Xia Shang said, feeling regretful that he missed the famous scene.
"Thank you, I guess only you can understand me. I met it right here. Back then, it was as shy as a little girl, hiding in the rocks and refusing to come out. It only swam over to me after its sisters persuaded it," The Deep said with a look of memory, as if recalling that wonderful time.
But a hint of surprise flashed in Xia Shang's eyes. "Wait, it had sisters? You kept more than one octopus?"
"Is that strange? I call them the Timothy Family. Since Timothy died, only Aphaya and Liliana are left to keep me company."
Ridiculous.
Xia Shang could only use this word to describe The Deep's preference. While people's fetishes could be niche, The Deep's could be considered outright bizarre.
"Let's put the octopus topic aside for now. What does the Vought Board of Directors think about Homelander's actions?"
"What else can they think? Stan Edgar's retirement is set in stone, nobody can change it. I estimate that within a week at most, those old men will be forced by Homelander's pressure to announce Homelander as the new Chief Executive Officer of Vought International." To be honest, The Deep felt like dying right now. Timothy's death had caused him immense psychological trauma, and who knew what other insane things Homelander would do to him next.
"It would be great if you were still at Vought," The Deep said. It had to be said that the period when Xia Shang served as Vice President was the most comfortable time for The Deep; at least he could avoid persecution from Homelander.
"Don't worry, that day will come. Oh, right, did you bring the thing I asked for?"
"It's already prepared," The Deep pulled out a piece of information from the backpack beside him. It recorded the changes in his body as he submerged to various depths of the Ocean.
"Thanks. Next time, if you encounter something like what happened with Timothy, you can mention my name. I'm sure Homelander will give me some face."
Saying that, he got up and walked towards the Ocean.
At the same time, he brought up the Fantasy Value on his panel. [Fantasy Value: 10720]. Compared to half a month ago, there wasn't much difference. After all, he hadn't expected Soldier Boy to still not make a move after three days. He was probably busy tracking down the whereabouts of his former teammates.
One of Xia Shang's clones was monitoring Vought's Experiment Base. If there was any disturbance, Xia Shang's main body would know immediately.
As the warm seawater submerged his body, several slits split open on both sides of Xia Shang's abdomen. Just like The Deep's body structure, there were flesh and blood tissues inside that resembled gills.
"It has some effect, but not much." The slits on Xia Shang's abdomen opened and closed, swallowing a large amount of seawater, absorbing oxygen and expelling carbon dioxide, as well as deoxygenated water. However, this method of absorbing oxygen was appallingly low in efficiency. There was nothing he could do; he didn't have the corresponding superpower, and Xia Shang didn't want to fuse The Deep's superpower anyway, as he had no interest in hearing marine life talk.
In Xia Shang's view, this was even a side effect, an aftereffect that would arise from fusing The Deep's superpower.
Therefore, Xia Shang could only continuously improve its internal structure based on his own ideas.
First, he thought of the lungs used for breathing. So, he imitated the working principle of gills and transplanted them onto his lungs.
If Xia Shang's body were cut open, one would see that layers of internal flaps resembling gills were gradually growing on the inner walls of his lungs, oscillating at an extremely regular frequency.
But there was still a problem that couldn't be solved: how to extract oxygen from seawater. Relying on swallowing seawater with his mouth was even less efficient than growing a few gills on his abdomen. After careful consideration, Xia Shang thought of the human body's largest organ, the skin.
Without any hesitation, he swam directly towards the Ocean. High-temperature steam gushing out from his back made him like a torpedo, plunging straight towards the seabed.
"Adaptive Self-Healing."
As a passive talent skill, Xia Shang didn't use it often. Especially after experiencing so many times Traveling the Myriad Worlds, it was truly difficult to encounter beings that could injure him and cause him to evolve. Moreover, this ability's evolution speed was extremely slow and its efficiency was low. However, this was, after all, just an ability from a One-star Fantasy World, so he couldn't be too harsh on it.
With the cooperation of Adaptive Self-Healing and Xia Shang's conscious control, the pores on the surface of his skin changed from absorbing seawater to being able to absorb part of the oxygen from the seawater.
Since Xia Shang's oxygen consumption in his normal state was only two or three times higher than that of an ordinary human, even if the oxygen content in seawater was low, it could still satisfy Xia Shang's needs.
(end of chapter)