A few more hours passed.
The steady, powerful flow of life energy, now efficiently processed by his Level 5 Mycelial Heart, had saturated his body.
Scott felt that his body was already filled with enough energy to function on its own; there was no need to stay tethered any longer.
With a simple flex of his newly reinforced muscles, he broke open the mycelium cocoon without much effort.
The threads tore like paper.
Just as he was ready to leave the chamber, to step out into his new life, when he stopped.
He turned slightly and looked back at his three other subordinates, still wrapped in their own cocoons, their lives hanging by a thread.
They had fought hard for the camp many times, throwing away their lives without even a second thought.
A flicker of genuine emotion, a remnant of the original Scott's respect and affection, stirred within him.
He couldn't just leave them.
He walked over to the Elder he had first scanned, Alistair.
He stopped in front of him and checked his panel again, but this time with a specific question in mind, "Can I upgrade others?"
A new expectation bloomed in his thoughts as his main focus shifted.
Could he upgrade others, like he did himself? If he could help them, he definitely didn't want to let these heroes die in vain.
Moreover, they are essentially no different from his own family, and as his subordinates they can help him in many ways.
However, he didn't plan on upgrading them above his own level.
In addition to that, Scott also thought of another important issue.
That is, if someone questions about how he could do this?
He could just attribute it to him awakening his innate talent and becoming an Innate Awakener during his life and death struggle against the Tiger Zombie.
Although Innate awakeners are a legend, there should be some in the surrounding camps.
It's just that his ability to Upgrade might be completely on a different scale compared to other Innate spore man.
Also, if he couldn't upgrade others, then there was nothing he could do but feel sorry and thankful for their bravery.
He focused his will, preparing to open the Upgrader function towards old man Alistair's panel.
To his amazement, it worked. The panel shimmered and rearranged itself into the familiar upgrade interface.
However, as he looked at the details, he noticed a key difference.
The attribute improvement for each level seemed to be just a 30% increase, unlike the 50% he received.
His cheat was clearly most effective on himself.
Still, it was something. He looked at Alistair's base attributes with some surprise.
Because of his higher level and decades of experience, his foundation was stronger than Scott's, who was at First Order Level 3.
That is… Alistair's Mycelial Heart had a basic +35% recovery rate 15% higher than his, and his Bull's Frame retained a +1.3 physique, which is also a 30% higher.
The most staggering part, however, was his accumulated experience.
The man had lived a long, hard life, and it showed in the numbers.
His upgrade experience, accumulated over the years, was in the thousands for both foundational genes and other genes.
Now that he had the means to save them, using their own life's work as the fuel.
A small, determined smile touched Scott's lips.
"Alright, old man," he whispered to the unconscious Elder. "Let's get you back on your feet."
This time he didn't go step by step as he did before.
He understood the system now, and together with the help from the heartwood tree there was no problem in upgrading faster.
With a single, decisive thought, he commanded the system to upgrade Alistair's foundation genes, both Mycelial Heart and Bull's Frame, pouring all the thousands of available experience points into them until they reach level 5.
The effect was instantaneous and violent.
Alistair's body, which had been passively accepting energy, suddenly became a massive vortex.
The mycelium cocoon around him erupted in a blinding, emerald-green light.
The air in the cultivation chamber crackled and hummed as the Heartwood Tree, sensing the change, began to pour a torrent of pure life energy into the old man.
Roots in the walls and floor glowed with power, all directing their flow toward the single, consuming point.
"Very efficient." Scott mused, watching the incredible display with wide eyes. "But without the support of the Heartwood Tree, it won't be possible to upgrade so violently.."
Looking at the surrounding changes, he also has a clear understanding of the demand for life energy to upgrade the Bull's Frame to a higher level.
The level numbers on Alistair's panel began to climb rapidly: Level 1... Lvl 2... Lvl 3... Lvl 4...
Stopped only when the level ticked over to five,
The upgrades continued until Alistair's panel finally settled.
Both his Mycelial Heart and Bull's Frame had reached Level 5.
Visible to the naked eye, the deep wrinkles on his face smoothed out, his sunken cheeks filled, and his shock of snow-white hair began to darken back to steel gray at the roots.
His body gained mass visibly and began to reforge thanks to the Bull's Frame genes inside his body.
He didn't wait to see what would happen next, but moved to the other two.
Looking through their data, Scott found that their accumulated experience was very less compared to Alistair's, but still very high compared to him.
He repeated the process for each of them, and the healing chamber was once again filled with the hum of huge amounts of Life energy and blinding light.
The three lay in softly pulsing cocoons, their bodies no longer old and dying, but filled with a vibrant, powerful life force.
Thanks to his ability, they were not just healed; but multiple times stronger than they had been in decades.
If they fight the tiger zombie again, any one of them could easily handle it without needing any support, this is the miraculous effort of Upgrade.
Scott could feel that his actions seemed to have caused a slight but definite strain on the Heartwood Tree.
As the air in the room felt a little thinner, the strong life energy fluctuations slightly depleted from the massive, sudden withdrawal.
"Thanks to the Heartwood Tree!!!" He thanked the Heartwood Tree inwardly.
It really was a huge cost of life energy to improve them all together, but one the tree had willingly paid.
His work here was done.
With a final, satisfied look at the recovering spore men, Scott turned and walked out of the cultivation chamber, ready to face the world.