Beginning Evolution

Beginning Evolution

Huang Ji researched until late at night before going back to sleep.

The next day, he practiced martial arts after getting up. After lunch, he returned here to continue his research.

In just one day, Huang Ji had made progress.

His research methods were extremely direct. First, he extracted an ordinary influenza virus from Tang Yan's blood. Then, using his exceptional medical skills, he quickly analyzed what kind of medicine could destroy it after being absorbed by the human body.

Once the medicine truly proved capable of defeating influenza, Huang Ji unlocked the corresponding predictive information.

Now, when he examined a medicine, Huang Ji could determine its effectiveness against any virus.

It was like performing a random set of movements and immediately knowing their energy efficiency.

Using his own knowledge, Huang Ji experimented with all kinds of new drug combinations.

Then he checked their success rates, therapeutic effects, and what they still lacked.

In other words, Huang Ji barely needed clinical trials.

The reason he said barely was that he still could not grasp the actual effects from the data alone.

What did a ten-percent treatment effect actually feel like? He could sense a little of it, but it was not intuitive.

Huang Ji made the medicine, injected it into Tang Yan, and carefully observed him. Only then did he understand. Oh, so that's what it is. It's not much different from taking no medicine at all...

With viruses, if a medicine's treatment effect was only ten percent, it was equivalent to doing nothing—or even worse, because viruses were adept at mutation.

Temporary suppression might make someone feel much better, but the virus's later counterattack would be even fiercer.

Thus, Huang Ji kept devising new medicines and quickly found a formula with an eighty-six-percent treatment effect.

A Special Medicine that others might need three to five years to develop took Huang Ji only seventeen cumulative hours to create.

"That fast... I even set myself a deadline of no more than twenty days..."

"And I finished it in seventeen hours?"

Huang Ji looked at the latest version of the Special Medicine before him, feeling as if it had ended just as he was getting excited.

Although its treatment effect was only eighty-six percent rather than one hundred percent, that was already enough.

Through his research, Huang Ji discovered that a so-called Special Medicine only needed to reach sixty percent to cure someone infected with a virus.

The only differences were the time needed for recovery and the side effects.

"Every medicine has side effects."

"Special Medicines rated from one to fifty have varying degrees of suppressive effects. They are like Quick-Acting Heart-Relieving Pills—effective, but incapable of curing the disease."

"At sixty, it can already completely cure the disease. Seventy merely makes it faster and reduces the side effects."

"At eighty, there are almost no side effects. That means once the effect reaches ninety, it will be an immediate, side-effect-free super Special Medicine."

"What about one hundred? That should be what they call perfect treatment: merging with the virus. Not only are there no side effects, there are positive effects instead—genetic evolution."

Huang Ji did not stop working. Instead, he continued searching for an even better Special Medicine.

Yet unexpectedly, after another two days, Huang Ji still could not create a better medicine.

"No, my approach is wrong."

"Simple chemical drugs can no longer achieve better treatment effects. Even if they can, the formulas would be extremely complicated. Even if I know what types of compounds are lacking, their combinations are endless. There's no way I can conceive them in a short time."

"I shouldn't be thinking that pure medicine alone can achieve one-hundred-percent perfect fusion."

"Viruses themselves adapt to the human body through countless rounds of division and mutation. In the end, their harmfulness to humans grows lower and lower, while their benefits grow greater and greater. Only after perfectly adapting to the human body do they merge into the genetic sequence."

"Using medicine alone is simply too crude. It leaves viruses almost no time to adapt. It's like mindlessly sterilizing with Broad-Spectrum Antibiotics."

When an influenza virus of the first generation initially entered a human body, suppose it was level 1.

Once it ultimately fused with the human body's genes, it could be considered level 100.

Viruses might be capable of rapid mutation, but going from level 1 to level 100 still required time.

The mutations caused by constant division were random. It was merely that, through natural selection, those better suited for survival remained alive.

Throughout this process, the virus remained harmful. It was a pathogen that could cause all kinds of complications and even kill humans.

The immune system was not useless either. It would also try to eliminate the virus in order to survive.

This meant that, in reality, a virus could never reach level 100. If it evolved too quickly, it might kill its host while only at a few dozen levels...

If it evolved too slowly, it would be wiped out by the immune system while still only at a dozen or so levels because it was too weak.

Then there were all sorts of additional circumstances, such as the host dying unexpectedly or a Doctor developing a Special Medicine...

In this struggle for survival, one side had to die before adaptation could be completed.

Under random viral mutation, the probability of both sides just happening to remain balanced, with no severe complications and the virus developing harmoniously, was extremely low.

It could only rely on accumulated iterations.

Although a host might die, the virus would spread onward. After evolving a little, it would kill another host, then move on to the next one.

Passed down through generations like this for thousands or tens of thousands of years, as long as it was not eliminated by human immunity, it would eventually become a beneficial virus and merge into the genetic code.

Before level 100, however, it was still a virus, merely one that was almost harmless.

Because it was almost harmless, it was more conducive to transmission.

The infected would not even know they had been infected. In this way, a near-max-level virus would silently spread through an entire species unless geographical barriers separated them.

The final result of reaching max level would be that the entire species evolved by one step within two or three generations.

If that step was large enough, it might directly give rise to an entirely new species.

If it was smaller, it might only create a subspecies. Smaller still, it might merely produce a new breed.

"Adapting to a virus cannot be done with medicine alone. The virus itself is not mature either. It's like trying to achieve a level-100 result by merging with something at level 50."

"I should suppress it while raising it, letting it develop... taming it until it becomes harmless."

Huang Ji quickly came up with a plan: first infect himself with the virus.

The virus would then surely divide wildly and attack his cells, while his immune system would try to destroy it. Most likely, one of the two would have to die.

At that point, Huang Ji would intervene manually, constantly using various treatment methods to tip the scales. If the virus became too dominant, he would suppress the virus. If the immune system became too dominant, he would suppress the immune system and prevent it from producing the corresponding antibodies.

That way, his condition would not become too severe, while the virus could still develop within his body. He would remain in a state of "mild cold" the entire time.

With that thought, Huang Ji turned his attention to the hundreds of effective medicines he had compiled through extensive experimentation during this period.

They were all medicines he had previously dismissed for having treatment effects below sixty percent.

Before, he believed those medicines could only temporarily suppress the virus. Once the effects wore off, the virus would grow stronger and return with a vengeance.

Especially those at ten percent—what use were they? Just feeding it experience?

But thinking about it now, wasn't that even better? Feeding it experience was exactly the point.

He tried combining them, assembling dozens of low-efficiency medicines into a major plan consisting of twenty courses of treatment.

"Just as I thought! Twenty medicines with only ten-percent treatment effects, used alternately to intermittently suppress the virus—the overall efficiency of the entire plan is eighty-nine percent!"

Huang Ji realized he was on the right track and continued experimenting with combinations.

By the evening of May 3rd, he had finally found a treatment package with ninety-nine-percent efficiency.

At the same time, he understood what the truly perfect plan was.

Tailored to the time, place, and individual...

A one-hundred-percent efficient solution existed only for an individual. There was no method in the world that was perfect for everyone.

The same was true of his Inner Canon. It was peerless martial arts only for Huang Ji himself. Even he would need to keep making fine adjustments in the future. One could imagine how much less effective it would be when others practiced it.

Thus, genetic fusion medicine was the same.

Everyone needed their own exclusive version. There could not be even the slightest error when it came to genes. The supposedly universal genetic medicines in novels, where everyone received the same effects after injection, were simply as if their "effects had been forcibly locked in place without reason."

Huang Ji had to formulate medicine according to the virus's mutations, creating the drug most suited to the circumstances at that moment.

He would not eradicate it completely. He would cripple it while leaving some behind, watch it grow stronger, then cripple it again while leaving some behind.

By putting it through repeated apocalyptic trials of Nirvana Rebirth, he would drive its advancement forward. Then, with an adaptation accelerator tailor-made by Huang Ji for himself, he would shorten the time required.

He would use his own body to nurture the virus, advancing step by step.

In the end, he would perfectly merge with the genetic material tempered through countless trials by the virus.

He would use the virus, tame the virus, and ultimately add a tiny fragment of the virus's accelerated evolution to his genetic sequence.

Once he thought of it, he acted. Once he acted, he could predict the most likely results afterward.

This time, Huang Ji sensed the virus's malleability, growth potential, and "human genetic compatibility."

Viruses came in all kinds. Humans were not the only ones who needed to evolve; every species did. Only a tiny handful were suitable for humans.

And even among those, some were more suitable than others.

Huang Ji compared the virus samples he had on hand and found that H1N1 was the best virus he currently possessed. Its compatibility was exceptionally high, and its potential ranked thirty-sixth in the world.

"Let's begin now!"

Huang Ji deliberately infected himself with H1N1. Then, according to the actual circumstances, he spent twenty-five minutes carefully devising a temporary targeted medicine. He spent another two hours synthesizing it, then injected it into himself on the spot.

Afterward, he formulated a tailor-made adaptation agent to accelerate the virus's adaptation to his body, effectively making its mutations slightly more directed.

"It can roughly be divided into three stages, with each stage lasting at least thirty days."

"In the first stage, the virus's infectivity will be effectively reduced, leaving only bloodborne transmission. It will not be transmitted to others through any other method."

"In the second stage, almost all complications will be eliminated, leaving only mild cold symptoms. During this period, my resistance will also decline, making me highly susceptible to infection by other viruses... But that's fine. I'll stew them all in one pot! Unless a single virus has absurdly high growth potential, it will only contribute a tiny fragment of genetic material. Even if fusion causes changes, they will not be too great. Combining multiple viruses is perfect—the more fragments there are, the better the effect."

"In the final stage, I'll practically be no different from a healthy person. All that remains is for the final genetic fragments to connect in parallel."

The adaptation would take approximately three months. After the genetic fusion, Huang Ji would evolve instantly.

And at this very moment, Huang Ji could already see his predicted lifespan soaring.

This was the theoretical maximum lifespan after evolution... one hundred and seventy-eight years!

P.S. Sorry.