“Toàn Cầu Tiến Hóa” lấy bối cảnh thế giới cận kề tận thế, khi căn bệnh Ô Nhiễm – một loại dịch bệnh lây nhiễm nguy hiểm ngày một lan rộng trên toàn cầu và đe dọa đến sự tồn vong của loài người. Những kẻ tiếp xúc với nguồn lây nhiễm chỉ có hai kết cục, hoặc biến dị thành Vật Ô Nhiễm cần phải bị tiêu diệt, hoặc thức tỉnh thiên phú và trở thành Kẻ Mặc Khải có thể cứu rỗi nhân loại.
Sau một cuộc phẫu thuật đầy kỳ lạ, chàng bác sĩ trẻ Lục Ngôn đã may mắn nhận được thiên phú hệ thống “Biết Tuốt” cùng một quả trứng Cá Vua có khả năng hấp thu Ô nhiễm và biến nó thành sức mạnh của bản thân. Từ khi sở hữu hai thứ ấy, cuộc sống của Lục Ngôn đã hoàn toàn đảo lộn. Anh bị kéo vào một tổ chức “việc nhẹ – lương cao – chỉ là hơi dễ bay màu” mang tên Ủy ban Tác chiến Đặc biệt, và mỗi ngày dù anh bước chân nào ra đường thì cũng có xác suất cao rơi vào ải sinh tử với những con boss siêu mạnh.
Trên hành trình đầy hiểm nguy ấy, Lục Ngôn đã thu hoạch được rất nhiều vật phẩm để trở nên mạnh hơn, quen biết những đồng đội mới, và đặc biệt nhất chính là cuộc gặp gỡ khó quên với Đường Tầm An – Kẻ Mặc Khải cấp S mang biệt danh “Bạo Chúa” đầy ngông cuồng, nhưng thực tế lại là một người rất mực dịu dàng với anh…
English title: After the Global Evolution, I Stand at the Top of the Food Chain Chinese title: 全球进化后我站在食物链顶端
I wasn't sure what to expect going into this novel, and the summary definitely doesn't help. It's not really an accurate description of the story at all imo.
The novel is set in an apocalyptic world where upon contact with Pollutants, which are creatures with powers, humans will either awaken their own abilities and become an Enlightened or slowly degrade into a Pollutant themselves, at which point they need to be killed before they harm any other humans. Both the Enlightened and Pollutants are classified into classes based on their abilities and power level, with E class being the lowest and S class being the highest.
The story starts out with our MC, Lu Yan, getting exposed to a Pollutant during an surgical operation. That awakens his powers and he gets his first ability, Omniscience, which is like a voice in his head feeding him all sorts of useful information and instructions. Following the System's directions, he picks up a Kingfisher egg and ingests to start his path towards becoming more godhood.
The story starts out slow, so between the slow pacing and the gross descriptions of all the mutated humans that the MC runs into, I strongly considered dropping the novel. Thank goodness I don't have a strong imagination, or else this story would have been too much for me. Throughout the book there are lots of really gross things that happen, including so many mentions of cannibalism (there's a whole meat pig slaughterhouse where the "pigs" getting killed are humans), so this book should definitely have a horror tag imo.
Nevertheless, I was curious who the ML was, so I decided to persevere until he appeared, hoping that the story would get more interesting at that point. And it did. Our ML is the only S class Enlightened, Tang Xun'an, who has survived multiple surgeries and fusion experiments to become the most powerful Enlightened. At the same time, he's treated like a ticking time bomb since his mutation level is close to the threshold of 100, and any human who crosses that threshold gets euthanized.
**Warning: Spoilers Ahead**
I feel like the author had a lot of ideas for this story, but not everything was executed well and there were a lot of plotholes by the end. For one thing, Lu Yan is driven by revenge against his father for so much of the novel, so with all of the buildup, I thought there would be some kind of epic showdown between them. Instead, his father gets crushed by another Pollutant who has a strong crush/obsession with Lu Yan, so there's zero closure here. Lu Yan doesn't even get to have a conversation with his father before the father is killed.
Also, there are constant allusions to Lu Yan having split personalities and a "younger brother" that shares his body. I was so confused throughout the story, as it seems like this "brother" personality is a strong Pollutant with god-like powers, but there is barely any explanation for the "brother's" presence in his body. Even after finishing the story, I'm still not sure who this "brother" is and why he is so powerful, or why the Lu Yan is restricted from asking certain questions about the "brother" or else he suffers from a heavy nosebleed and migraine.
Most of the story follows our MC as he travels around collecting Kingfishers, either in egg form or hatched, and gobbling them up to gain more spiritual power and abilities. These Kingfishers were left behind by his father in various locations to slowly mature into bits of a meal that would eventually create a god. Unfortunately, his father miscalculates even with his Prophet ability, and Lu Yan gets to most of the Kingfisher eggs before his own agent, an octopus Pollutant called Shen Qingyang does.
However, what I found confusing was that at one point, the MC had eaten 4 Kingfishers, but all of a sudden after leaving R'lyeh, the underwater city, he had 6 under his belt. It's not clearly stated where these extra two came from, but I assume Shen Qingyang must have eaten two himself, which then got absorbed by the MC when he ate SQY?? But none of this is mentioned at all leading up to that, or if it was, I completely missed it. All we know is that SQY is getting progressively powerful under the MC's dad's tutelage, but we don't know why.
The romance was decent, but it's definitely not the focus of the story. Their first interactions happen during the Enlightened Recruit Training, where Lu Yan is one of the participants and the Tang Xun'an is the lead instructor, but it's quite limited there until they enter a long dream together. It's the 3 months they spend together in the dream, where Lu Yan's full-time job is to take care of a younger test subject TXA, that they get a little bit closer.
I really liked the twist the author adds, where a young Tang Xun'an runs into Lu Yan when using his Time travel ability and learns that they're lovers. So really, TXA has been in love with Lu Yan for most of his life, it's just that for most of his life Lu Yan hasn't been born yet. What an interesting concept.
I was thoroughly amused by Lu Yan's constant evolution of titles as viewed by Zhou Qiming, another Enlightened. He can see titles above every person's name, similar to what you would see in a RPG, and what he sees for Lu Yan constantly changes. Here's the evolution:
The title above Lu Yan's head had also changed. The previous "Dr. Cannibal Flower," after not meeting for just a few days, he didn't know why it had become "Bloodlust Fish Killers."
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Lu Yan actually had two titles this time, one of which was a golden title with the highest rarity!
The last time Zhou Qiming saw a golden title was when he passed by Tang Xun'an at the Headquarters of the Prevention and Control Center in A City.
Zhou Qiming thought for a moment. Tang Xun'an's title seemed to be...
[Black Dragon in Despair]?
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After half a year, Lu Yan had gained two new titles on his head— one was the golden "Cult Ender (Intermediate)," and the other was a pink title that Zhou Qiming had never seen before. Zhou Qiming used his mental mouse to click on it, and the tooltip showed that the pink title was a hidden title from a special dungeon.
"Dagger-Wielding Beauty."
---------------
Zhou Qiming instinctively glanced at Lu Yan's head.
【The End of Cults (Ultimate)】
【Visitor from the Abyss】
【Meow Meow Yan】
He intended to ask how Lu Yan had quickly ascended to A-level, but upon seeing the title above his head, he forgot his words. After moving from B to A, Zhou Qiming could now see an additional column of titles. Not everyone had three titles, he observed. The first was an honorific title earned by completing specific events, the second a personal title reflecting the virtual world's assessment of the NPC, and the third, a relationship-related title that was rather puzzling when dropped.
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Zhou Qiming stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, lost in thought, and instinctively looked up at the sky.
In the pitch-black sky, a few lines of text faintly appeared.
[Harbinger]
[Visitor from the Abyss]
Zhou Qiming rubbed his eyes in disbelief. "I didn't stay up all night playing games yesterday, did I?"
Ban đầu tưởng là sci-fi dystopia nhưng mà rốt cuộc lại thành truyện kiểu hệ thống. Thiết lập cũng thú vị nhưng mà năng lực của nhân vật chính bá quá, lại có tính cách cool ngầu điển hình nữa nên không cảm thấy yêu thích lắm. Đọc chủ yếu xem thiết kế thế giới với tình tiết sao thôi, tuyến tình cảm chưa có gì nhiều.
Lần đầu đọc BL =))) mà này hay nha, thích cách tác giả xây dựng thế giới lắm luôn. Mình đọc xong tập 1 lâu rồi và mới đặt tập 2 hi vọng là về sau sẽ ngày càng hấp dẫn hơn.