He continued to inspect the other mushrooms one by one and found that the four larger mushroom stalks all had holes similar to those left by doors and windows, while the smaller mushrooms did not. This further solidified the evidence for the existence of mushroom people—a group of them had once settled here.

“Maybe it was the mushroom people who cut down the big blue tree, left behind this patch of low shrubs, and planted these giant mushrooms here,” Brian Carter continued to imagine. “Then, because of the invasion of bomb caterpillars, the mushroom people couldn’t withstand the long-haired bombs and migrated elsewhere.”

This was just a speculation.

But it made Brian Carter feel a bit more at ease. After all, such a small intelligent species, still living in primitive mushroom houses, couldn’t possibly develop much of a civilization.

Besides, if even such tiny mushroom people could survive in this forest, it meant that this blue forest wasn’t all that dangerous.

“As long as I’m careful not to come into contact with this world’s viruses and bacteria… Right, when I get back to Earth, I definitely need to build a sterile laboratory to prevent any germs or viruses carried by new world species from leaking out and infecting people around me.” Thinking of the pandemic that once swept the globe, Brian Carter became serious.

Back then, when Westerners brought the flu virus to North America, the Native Americans were nearly wiped out.

“If the viruses and bacteria I bring infect the new world, that’s one thing, but I absolutely can’t let it happen the other way around and infect Earth. Otherwise, I’d be a criminal to humanity.”

These large mushrooms of different colors might not be the same species, but Brian Carter still grouped them together and called them “giant mushrooms.”

At this moment, something hidden in a clump of grass caught Brian’s attention.

Lifting the grass, he immediately saw a huge snail shell half-buried underground, as big as a millstone. It must have been dead for a long time, its color a grayish white, with lots of pink “moss” growing on it. There were also little grass shoots, like bean sprouts, poking out from the cracks in the shell.

“A snail this big?”

He tapped the shell, and to his surprise, a small creature darted out from inside and disappeared into the bushes before Brian Carter could react.

“What the heck, I only saw a gray blur!”

The little creature was already gone, so Brian Carter could only keep tapping, hoping to coax out another one, but no luck. He ended up smashing the shell, but found nothing else—just some dead grass and leaves, probably used as a nest by that little thing. Among the dead grass and leaves were some pitch-black pellets, probably droppings.

Brian Carter had no interest in picking up droppings. He scraped a bit of moss from the shell’s surface and pulled out a bean sprout, stuffing them both into a test tube.

But he thought to himself, “Just now, when I saw the mushroom houses, I thought maybe there were no large animals in this world. But with a snail shell this big, it means there are not only big animals here, but maybe even unimaginably huge ones… By the way, I don’t feel any heavier or lighter, so the gravity here is about the same as on Earth.”

Since arriving in the new world, he hadn’t felt any discomfort, so the planet this new world was on should be about the same size as Earth.

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Chapter 9: Death Worm

The gravity of the new world is similar to that of Earth.

Although the plants and animals of the new world are different, they still appear to be carbon-based life forms.

Brian Carter picked up a piece of dry dead leaf, then materialized a lighter. With a click, a flame appeared, igniting the leaf, which quickly burned to leave a bit of black ash. “Looks no different from Earth—there’s enough oxygen in the air for combustion.”

“Should I try taking a breath?” he suddenly wondered.

But he quickly dismissed the idea—safety first. Who knew what toxic gases might be in the air of the new world? He wasn’t in a hurry for now; his psychic armor was still supplying oxygen, and the consumption wasn’t much. He’d analyze the air composition after setting up camp for the night.

“The sun is high in the sky, the temperature reads 13°C. When I first arrived, it was 12°C, so it’s gone up by one degree. That means it should be morning now.”

He made a simple judgment.

The distance between the two stars hadn’t changed much, which meant the planet beneath his feet was orbiting a fixed point between the binary stars, and the two stars might be revolving around a certain point, rather than one star orbiting the other. Of course, this was just his guess—he’d never studied astronomy and didn’t really understand it.

“My time is still Earth time—nine in the morning. I have no idea how many hours are in a day or how many days in a year in this new world.”

There were too many questions to figure out, but fortunately, Brian Carter’s goal was clear: collect as many samples as possible and bring them back for analysis, hoping to find one or two new materials to make a fortune. As for other information about the new world, he could study it next time he crossed over.

Suddenly.

Under the shattered snail shell, Brian Carter found a few strange little bugs, somewhat like pill bugs on Earth, about the size of a fingernail.

He took out tweezers, trying to pick one up, but the bug quickly curled up into a little ball and, by some unknown mechanism, bounced off the ground and hopped away. The other bugs, seemingly startled as well, all followed suit and jumped away.