Chapter 127: But My Hair Grew Longer
A humanoid figure composed entirely of light slowly crawled out from his back, like an Alien bursting from its host.
“A clone composed purely of Spirit Energy.” Bai Mo, feeling his body hollowed out after extracting the clone, examined the sphere of light before him with an appreciative gaze. Its radiance filled the entire second basement level.
On the first basement level, the still-shaken vampires once again felt a powerful, invisible pressure emanating from below.
“It has no physical form, relying entirely on spiritual perception to sense the outside world and psychic power to interact with matter.” He poked the clone with his finger and found it passed right through.
“Condense!” Bai Mo uttered this command instinctively, as if breathing. The clone, which had been emitting endless light, began to dim until it finally vanished into thin air.
“It’s like suddenly having an extra pair of hands, and another pair of mobile eyes.” He manipulated the clone with a slight unfamiliarity.
“Phantom-like speed, even capable of short-distance instantaneous teleportation, and capable of invisibility for a certain period. It’s a shame that its psychic power output for attacks is only about thirty percent of my main body’s, but as an attacker for surprise strikes, it's almost perfect.” Bai Mo meticulously tested each attribute of his clone as if he had acquired a new sample.
“After condensing the Spirit Picture, ‘Void Heaven Profound,’ the Spirit Energy consumption within my body increased significantly. Based on this calculation, with fifty-eight Spirit Hubs corresponding to four Spirit Pictures, my body can at most support the consumption of only two of them. After all, the existing Spirit Hubs in my body are also major energy consumers, and the only Spirit Hub that increases output is the energy-absorbing skin. Perhaps my surgical plan should be revised, shifting the focus to increasing Spirit Energy conversion.”
“I’ve grown stronger, but my hair seems to have grown longer too.” While getting accustomed to his clone, he twirled a lock of his hair with his finger—hair that hadn't been cut in months and was nearly shoulder-length.
Cheng Mu and the others, who had been quietly drinking tea, their expressions turned somewhat grave after receiving the report from the rapid response unit commander.
“According to the report, he’s made another breakthrough.” Cheng Mu placed the submitted report on the conference table.
“While we are using him, is he not also using us?” Liu Zhen took a sip of tea from his cup and said unhurriedly, “Ultimately, we are in a race.”
“I can’t quite figure out his recent major moves. What exactly does he intend by throwing out something like the Xuanhuang Fruit to the public? He should know that the vast majority of it will still end up in our hands. Yet he went to the trouble of publicly announcing its existence. Does he want to incite hatred against us among the lower strata?”
“No, that’s not right. If he wanted to deal with us, he could just directly come and kill us. Why bother with so many tricks? If we don’t use that thing, we're basically facing certain death. But if we do use that thing, we still have a chance to fight.”
“Let’s speak less of that secret weapon; it only increases the risk of exposure.” Cheng Mu promptly interjected, stopping the topic.
“Aside from that, did he really just put out a million Contribution Points to test out some hidden powers across the world using a ‘silver bullet’ strategy?”
“Unclear. We know too little. The entire testing ground is under his control, and our people can barely uncover anything. Aside from receiving the relevant products every month, we have no idea what’s being done underground.”
“According to reports from our subordinates, he also exchanged for an extremely large quantity of special anesthetics during this period.”
“Never mind. This kind of deduction isn't our forte. Let's leave it to the professionals. What we need now is to constantly grow stronger until our strength and status match. Only then can we truly dispel the schemes of those covetous individuals. Otherwise, any more thinking is useless.”
“The Chairman is right, we need to speed up. Tying our lives and deaths to others’ thoughts is too unreliable.” Hua Changjiang added from the side.
“How is the coastal reconstruction progressing?”
“The coastal defenses are still under intensive construction. Most of the new cities for resettling residents have been completed. Here is the detailed progress report.” The confidential secretary standing behind him handed Cheng Mu a document.
Back at the laboratory, Bai Mo held several Petri dishes, each containing some Spirit Plant tissues.
In a recent experiment with Spirit Plants, he cultivated a batch of mutated fruits. To his surprise, he discovered they could serve as carriers for various medicines. In other words, after injecting medicine into these fruits, simply eating the fruit itself was equivalent to consuming the medicine.
Thus, at that time, he conceived the idea of grinding Spirit Energy tissues into a suspension and injecting it into the mutated fruits to see if it could achieve the same effect as transplanting Spirit Hubs. Because having to cut himself open for surgery every time was also very troublesome; if not for the existence of fast body repair fluids like liquid gold, frequent major surgeries would inflict considerable damage on his body.
Fortunately, the test subject who consumed a ‘fortified’ mutated fruit indeed gained abilities. Furthermore, after multiple tests and statistical analysis, Bai Mo discovered that the proportion of obtaining abilities through consuming this mutated fruit was far higher than through transplantation, with a success rate of nearly eighty percent.
However, regrettably, after the eagerly anticipating Bai Mo had the test subject eat a second fortified fruit, the test subject suddenly dissolved entirely and died without any warning.
It was only after Bai Mo conducted an autopsy and meticulously researched the mutated fruits that he discovered any two mutated fruits carried different types of specific proteases. Once these different specific proteases came into contact, they would generate a large quantity of special information molecules.
These information molecules would transmit erroneous signals to the body’s cells, instructing them to begin apoptosis and self-decomposition, ultimately leading to the body’s dissolution.
However, a single type of specific protease, upon entering the human body, could significantly enhance the host's immunity. This was inherently a good thing, but correspondingly, a drastic increase in immunity naturally meant a merciless slaughter of all "foreign bodies" within the system.
Bai Mo had previously conducted multiple transplantation experiments on test subjects who had consumed a mutated fruit. Each time a newly transplanted Spirit Hub was inserted, it would quickly be annihilated by immune cells that had become like rabid dogs.
At the time, he had only considered how to successfully transplant and had never thought it could be used in reverse. After several attempts with different test subjects, Bai Mo, still feeling that this path was blocked, could only reluctantly abandon this research topic.
It wasn't until two days ago, while pondering how to prevent others from researching in the direction of Spirit Pictures, that he suddenly conceived of such a plan. He picked up the experimental report he had written months ago and slowly wove together this ‘ultimate extermination scheme.’
“As long as everyone eats one of these, they will forever fail at transplantation due to their overly powerful immune systems. They will never again delve into the issue of Spirit Hub transplantation. What harm is there in freely giving them an ability? It's a pity that the time required to popularize this fruit is still too long. Whether it's the production of the mutated fruits themselves or the number of Spirit Hubs, both severely restrict the speed.” Bai Mo, fully utilizing his first-mover advantage, began digging pits for all future latecomers.
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