Digimon: I really didn't want to be the Digimon Emperor!

This evil artifact, along with Ink, manifested as a demon beast and came to the real world.

“Two weeks…” Cheng Yuan muttered to himself. From the moment the little dog beast first showed abnormalities, the Dark Gear had been lurking in the real world for a full two weeks.

How many Digimon will be infected by Dark Gear?

Where has the escaped Mo hidden now?

Most importantly—what to do about the gears inside the puppy's body?

These questions gnawed at his heart like venomous snakes.

“Brother Xu,” Cheng Yuan stepped forward, carefully choosing his words, “I suspect that Dark Gear may spread like a virus. It can infect Digimon, making them irritable and out of control…” He carefully avoided mentioning the fact that Puppymon might be infected, “All infected Digimon could become new sources of infection.”

Cheng Yuan did not mention that his dog was also suspected of being infected by the Dark Gear. Now that they knew about the Dark Gear infection, removing it would not be difficult.

Xu Xin frowned: "Okay, I'll make sure the association keeps an eye on it."

Not far away, the Golden Horned Beast and the Silver Horned Beast were being guided onto a specially made heavy truck. Cheng Yuan noticed that at the end of the convoy was a Shaman Beast controlled by a special restraint device—presumably Xu Xin's mission target.

As the bus doors closed, Cheng Yuan looked out the window and saw that the streets of Pengcheng were already filled with quarantine personnel and armed police. The entire city seemed like a net that was gradually tightening, but would the demon be caught so easily?

In the shadows of the city, undercurrents are surging.

Deep within the black market, a merchant wearing a gas mask was violently kicking an iron arc! "Why are all the goods here so limp?" he complained into the communicator. "Even with the inhibitor, they shouldn't be like this..." Meanwhile, black oil seeping from the joints of his Digimon friend Y gleamed eerily in the dim light.

In the underground arena, the cheers from the spectators nearly lifted the roof. The Ironhide, a serrated beast riddled with scales, its fur concealing tooth-like lumps, suddenly unleashed a fierce attack, its eyes turning bloodshot and carrying an aura of dark energy that drew gasps of terror from the surrounding crowd.

At the stray Digimon shelter, caretaker Zhang hummed a tune as he changed the oil in the sick Gearmon. Completely unaware, in the shadows beneath the workbench, a few drops of black, oily liquid dripped from the metal casing...

When Cheng Yuan got off the bus, it was already night, but she still managed to get through to Zhou Mo on the phone.

"Sister Mo, I think I know why the little dog beast's dark attribute has surged." Cheng Yuan dialed Zhou Mo's number as soon as he got out of the car, his voice a little tense.

"Come to the lab and tell them I'm still working overtime," Zhou Mo said, her voice trembling with exhaustion.

After hanging up the phone, Cheng Yuan casually hailed a taxi.

"Master, is it convenient to go to the Evolution Research Institute on Progress Road?" Cheng Yuan asked as he got into the car carrying the little dog.

"Is it convenient? There's a public restroom right ahead; you don't need to go all the way up the road," the driver kindly offered.

Cheng Yuan: "???"

"Did he mean going along the way to Progress Road...?" the little dog asked.

"Oh...oh, on the way!" The driver suddenly realized and sped off.

In just half an hour, we arrived at the Institute of Evolution.

The Institute of Evolution was brightly lit.

As soon as Cheng Yuan entered, he bumped into three researchers who were in a hurry.

"Hurry, hurry, the shaman beast sample has arrived!"

"I heard the mission team made an amazing discovery in Savage Valley, which is consistent with our hypothesis of cub transformation. We'll conduct verification experiments. If it holds true, then our research funding for the second half of the year will be secured!"

Just then, the three of them saw Cheng Yuan walking towards them... Why does he look so familiar?

"I'm busy." Cheng Yuan greeted him subconsciously, his hands behind his back.

"Yes, leader." The three of them straightened their backs as if by reflex.

Cheng Yuan: "???" (Leader?)

The three people: "???" (Leader??)

They both gave an awkward smile.

Cheng Yuan said, "It's good to be busy, it's good to be busy... The research institute can't do without you pillars of strength."

The three of them were stunned for a moment, and Cheng Yuan and the little dog had already walked away and entered Zhou Mo's laboratory.

"It's him?"

"Not that one...?"

"It's him!"

In the lab, Zhou Mo had two heavy dark circles under her eyes, looking like a panda who had stayed up all night. This appearance inexplicably reminded Cheng Yuan of a certain guy who always had dark circles under his eyes.

"Sister Mo, here's the situation..." Cheng Yuan explained the whole story about Dark Gear.

"So that's how it is!" Zhou Mo slammed her hand on the table and stood up abruptly, almost knocking over her coffee cup. "Then everything makes sense. Do you know how I got these dark circles under my eyes? We received a mission from the association last night to create a device to detect a certain kind of dark energy. I think it must be this Dark Gear... We were just worried about not having a sample. You really came at the perfect time."

Cheng Yuan and Zhou Mo discussed a plan, intending to use the advanced testing equipment here and the sacred energy within the puppy's body to force out the Dark Gear.

"Are you ready?" Zhou Mo adjusted the parameters of the energy monitoring device.

Cheng Yuan nodded and gently stroked the little dog's head: "Bear with it, it'll be over soon."

The puppy beast nodded, instantly activating the energy within the Sacred Ring to maximize its output.

With the hum of the instrument, divine energy surged into its body like a tide, gradually pushing back the black mist in its wake. On the monitoring screen, a gear-shaped shadow was struggling and writhing on the back of the puppy beast.

"Give it your all!" Zhou Mo stared intently at the screen. "It'll be out soon!"

Cheng Yuan could feel the little dog in his arms trembling in pain.

While Zhou Mo was fiddling with the equipment, he poured all his remaining wealth points into the Divine attribute.

[Holy type 5260 (+550), Light type (4650), Dark type (4200), Ice type (10)]

Suddenly, a beam of black light shot out from the back of the little dog beast—the Dark Gear burst forth from its body!

"boom!"

The gear slammed against the inner wall of the specially made sealed box, producing a piercing metallic scraping sound, and Zhou Mo's face revealed a look of wild joy.

“Perfect!” She spun around excitedly. “Not only did we solve the problem, but we also got a valuable sample! And a treatment plan—to suppress and eliminate the Dark Gear with divine energy.”

Overjoyed, Zhou Mo upgraded Cheng Yuan's research stipend to 8000 yuan per month.

Another unexpected windfall, Cheng Yuan was overjoyed.

On his way home, Cheng Yuan felt that the heavy burden on his shoulders had finally been lifted.

With all troubles resolved and the Dark Gear problem of the Puppy Beast solved, the Demon Beast will naturally be left to Xu Xin and the bigwigs of the association to worry about.

Back home, Cheng's parents assumed their son had simply gone on a three-day trip with his teachers and classmates, completely unaware of his sensational experience in the digital world.

After eating a bowl of noodles cooked by his mother and feeding the little dog Data Cube, Cheng Yuan and the dog fell asleep immediately without even having a dream.

He was awakened early in the morning by jarring text messages and system notifications—

SMS: [Mobile Banking: 285000 deposited into account, balance 861110]

[Ding! System notification: Wealth value 313800 (+285000)]

Sunlight streamed through the gaps in the curtains onto the bed, where the little dog was sprawled out, snoring. Cheng Yuan stared at his phone screen for a full ten seconds before suddenly leaping up like a carp.

"I'm rich!!!"

However, at that moment, he received a call from Zhao Lu.

Zhao Lu's voice on the phone was full of hesitation: "Cheng Yuan, could you... lend me some money?"

Chapter 63 X Antibody

Cheng Yuan sat up straight with a start.

Zhao Lu asked him for money? Could it be a telecom scam? But then he thought, given Zhao Lu's personality, she would never ask unless absolutely necessary.

“No problem, how much?” Cheng Yuan asked readily.

"Let's talk in person," Zhao Lu said, her voice barely audible.

Steam filled the rice noodle roll shop on a Saturday morning. Cheng Yuan was pouring soy sauce over the rice noodle rolls when Zhao Lu rushed in, panting, her ponytail all messed up.

"I'll pay you interest!" she said hurriedly as soon as she sat down. "I can pay you back when my dad gets back!"

Cheng Yuan noticed that her fingers were intertwined, and her knuckles were white. As a top student with excellent grades and conduct, she was a bit proud, but if it weren't for the interest, she would feel even more uneasy.

"No problem. What's wrong with Uncle Zhao?" Cheng Yuan tried to start a conversation to help her relax.

"He is a professional animal trainer who goes out on missions every now and then."

"So busy."

"Yes, but this time, he's been in the Dark Zone for over a month and hasn't come back yet. I can't contact him, otherwise I wouldn't need to borrow money from you."

"The Dark Zone?" Cheng Yuan's heart tightened. Wasn't that the most dangerous place Xu Xin had mentioned?

The Dark Zone is the greatest threat to human survival, and Zhao Lu's father is likely carrying out a dangerous guarding mission there.

"How much do you need?" Cheng Yuan asked directly.

“28.” Zhao Lu’s voice was almost inaudible.

"Pfft—" Cheng Yuan almost spat out the soy milk.

You know I received a payment notification text message, right? You didn't actually fall for a telecom scam, did you?

Zhao Lu should have also received the same payment notification text message. This was the money that Xu Xin's team deposited into their account after they finished processing the harvest in Savage Valley.

"What do you need so much money for?" Cheng Yuan asked calmly.

Zhao Lu took out her phone and opened a picture: "Look at this."

On the screen is a crystal-clear spherical crystal, inside which flashes red digital codes that form a striking "X" shape.

X antibody!

Cheng Yuan's pupils contracted sharply, and he almost cried out in surprise.

This was a legendary power-up artifact in the Digimon series in its previous life!

The crystal-clear sphere before him, even the red data codes flowing inside, were exactly the same as the game illustrations he remembered.

Zhao Lu really got lucky and stumbled upon a dead mouse.

The concept from his previous life's anime immediately came to mind: the X-Antibody could resonate with the Digimon Core in a wondrous way, allowing the Digimon to acquire a completely new "X-Form" while maintaining its original growth stage. This was not a simple accumulation of data, but a reconstruction and sublimation of the essence of the Digimon Core.

Cheng Yuan suddenly remembered the joke he had made with Zhao Lu before—to make her Gearmon evolve into a "three-in-one Gearmon". Unexpectedly, his words came true, and the X antibody was the key to achieving this special evolution.

Even more coincidentally, it appeared in front of Zhao Lu by sheer chance.

But on the surface, he merely raised an eyebrow: "This is...?"

“This is called an X-Crystal,” Zhao Lu explained. “It comes from the Dark Zone. It was temporarily sold at the Digital Center last night; there was only one…”

She told Cheng Yuan that, according to her father, Digimon must "ingest" this substance before moving in the virus-filled fog areas of the Dark Zone, otherwise they will be infected by a kind of chronic virus. Although it can provide some combat power boost when used, its main purpose in the Dark Zone is to prevent infection.

“I need to get in line before the doors open,” Zhao Lu said, biting her lip, her fingers unconsciously twisting together. “This will help me prepare for the college entrance exam.”

She admitted that very few people knew this information, and she wouldn't have known it if her father hadn't been a professional animal trainer. The reason she was willing to share it with Cheng Yuan was because the puppy beast was strong enough—the puppy beast no longer needed these external forces.

Cheng Yuan was stunned—"Smoking?"

He was internally screaming, "The X antibody is clearly fused directly with the digital core, okay?"

A startling conjecture crossed his mind: Could it be that people's understanding of X antibodies in this world is still at such a rudimentary stage? They haven't even mastered the correct way to use them?

It seems there are more X antibody resources in the Dark Zone.

On the surface, Cheng Yuan simply nodded calmly: "I can lend you the money, and I'll waive the interest, but I have one condition!"

Zhao Lu looked up warily: "What conditions?"

"You need to write an essay praising me, such as 'My Class Representative Desk Mate,' which must be no less than 800 words, and must be sincere, touching, and heartfelt. Then submit it to the school bulletin board."

"..."

Zhao Lu's expression was as if she had swallowed a fly whole: "...I'd rather pay interest."

"I suppose writing an essay is something as simple as that, so it shouldn't be difficult for you."

After all, your book, "My Sheriff Dad," is on the Wall of Honor. I just want to experience what it feels like to be on the wall; that way, my parents will definitely change their impression of me as a bad student.

Zhao Lu's ears turned slightly red: "...Deal."

He asked for Zhao Lu's bank account number and transferred the money directly via mobile phone.

Cheng Yuan: "Okay, let's go. Let's hurry up and grab it. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

"Wait, let me get a taxi."