I’m a Parasitic Fungus: From the Start, I Bond with a Female Researcher

[The rating just opened, so it’ll gradually climb back up. This is absolutely worth reading: a tight, fast-paced story!]

Tags: [Nonhuman Protagonist] + [Urban Superpowers] + [Biological Evolution] + [Genetic Absorption] + [Symbiosis/Parasitism] + [Cool, Aloof Heroine]

A forbidden biological experiment. A strange contamination from deep space?

Lin Ye woke in a viscous, slippery mass, without body heat, a heartbeat, or even a physical form. He had become a writhing clump of mycelium, imprisoned in a death lab beneath an abandoned city.

This was a hunting ground for genetic monsters and a forbidden zone for an out-of-control AI. Every inch of air reeked of despair. His only means of survival was his [Contamination] ability, which let him devour anything, analyze its genes, and evolve without limit.

Without eyes or ears, unable to tell which way to go, he could only expand on instinct, weaving a sensory web of mycelium through dark, damp pipes as he yearned for sunlight and freedom.

Then, one day, a stunning researcher with a cool, aloof air collapsed before him on the cold floor, gravely wounded and on the brink of death. Her arrival was like a ray of light tearing through the darkness.

Should he save her? Devour her? Or... become symbiotic with her?

When Lin Ye’s mycelium cautiously wound around her wounds, a fragile and dangerous symbiotic bond was formed. Her knowledge became his eyes, and his strength became her shield.

But what followed was not just the hope of escaping alive. There was also a relentless hunt by the forces behind the laboratory, and a huge secret she was hiding...

As the mycelium quietly crept out of the sewers and wound around the city’s steel and concrete, a nonhuman presence lurking in the shadows of neon lights began to rise.

“Wait, does she seem... more and more dependent on me?”