Perfect Stem Cells

The girl in the mirror looked no older than seventeen or eighteen, with striking features and a flawless, palm-sized oval face.

She had originally possessed very attractive features, but she was too dark and too thin, like a scrawny girl.

Jiang You tilted her head slightly, and the girl in the mirror tilted hers as well.

Her jet-black, smooth, shoulder-length hair flowed like the finest silk.

Thinking of something, Jiang You took a fruit knife from her spatial storage and cut her own palm. Blood immediately gushed out.

But in less than a minute.

The wound she had just made began to heal at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Jiang You's lips curved upwards wildly, her eyes flashing with a somewhat morbid light.

She muttered repeatedly.

"It actually succeeded."

"...That old man, succeeded..."

With a swift movement of her hand, a small finger, along with blood, rolled into the sink.

At the severed end of the finger, bare bone fragments were particularly gruesome amidst the bright red flesh.

Jiang You waited patiently, time ticking by second by second, blood dripping down, its flow gradually slowing.

After more than an hour, a mass of red blood vessels surged at the site of her severed finger, and new flesh began to grow.

Like a gecko regrowing its tail, a new finger regenerated.

After a long silence, Jiang You whispered.

"This is... the Doctor's gene modification... succeeded?"

What was going on? She'd been reborn, shouldn't she have returned to before everything began?

How could this be?

A moment later, a wild, arrogant laugh erupted from the bathroom.

"Hahahaha, it succeeded!

That old geezer killed tens of thousands of ability users, and the thing he couldn't finish even at death's door, actually succeeded!

Hahahahaha!!!!"

She covered her face, crying and laughing, looking like she had schizophrenia.

It succeeded!

Although she wasn't sure, Jiang You guessed that her rebirth might have broken some kind of gene sequence, which led to the success of the Doctor's gene experiment.

So...

Tears mixed with blood on Jiang You's face, making her look somewhat tragic. She looked at her bloody hand.

The newly grown, perfectly intact little finger had skin as delicate and smooth as a baby's.

She should be happy. What a powerful cheat she had.

With such tenacious vitality, as long as she didn't court death, she basically couldn't die.

But for some reason, besides happiness.

She also felt a desire to destroy everything.

This monstrous regenerative ability was the result of countless nights she spent tied to the experiment table like an animal.

Her blood was drained repeatedly, her flesh was cut off piece by piece, and the research institute achieved this result after innumerable experiences worse than death.

Some high-ranking officials even knew about her special physique and personally came to Forbidden Island to watch the experimenters cut off her flesh and put it on plates.

They used elegant cutlery to enjoy the freshest ingredients, even as the ingredients themselves glared at them with resentment.

Every part of her body had been missing.

Limbs, skin, flesh, even internal organs...

The Doctor's research results had succeeded, no, not entirely succeeded.

She was still far from the ideal planarian physique he envisioned. Planarians could grow as many bodies as they were cut into pieces.

She looked at the severed finger in the sink.

In less than an hour, that severed finger had melted into a pool of bloody water and was washed away by the current.

When flesh and bone separate from the main body, they quickly rot and cannot regenerate into independent individuals like planarians.

So she was not yet the perfect gene the Doctor dreamed of.

Jiang You cried and laughed.

Finally, she washed her face and looked at herself in the mirror.

Her once sallow hair was now jet-black and smooth, her formerly dark and sallow skin was now fair and delicate, this incredibly beautiful little face...

How pretty it was.

But the sight of blood coursing from her wounds made her feel a little nauseous.

Rebirth, it turns out, couldn't bring her back to before everything began.

In the end, she was still the monster from the Forbidden Tower...

"Hello, monster Jiang You."

The girl in the mirror tilted her head, a bright smile on her face.

CRASH!

Then she punched the mirror, shattering it. Fragments scattered across the floor.

The morning after waking up, Jiang You habitually walked to the balcony to look down. The water had completely receded.

The roads were covered in dry mud, and zombies roamed everywhere.

The buildings, submerged by the water, had clear dividing lines marking the water's height.

There were no screams, no passing cars. The city was as quiet as if it were dead.

Only the roars of zombies could be heard.

On the top right of the page are functions like "Switch Simplified/Traditional Chinese," "Adjust Font Size," and "Reading Background Color."

She opened the window and let a few large flies into the room.

These flies had mutated. Each was the size of a thumb, and they flew much faster than normal flies.

The buzzing sound was incessant.

Jiang You ate popsicles while practicing her abilities with the flies.

With her previous experience, her progress was very fast.

From a wide area of gentle breeze, she learned to condense it into a ball, then compress it into a wind blade. It only took her two days.

She could now use wind blades to precisely decapitate the flying green flies.

Round fly heads fell to the ground one by one. Strangely, Jiang You found their emerald green eyes almost delicate.

Although she had mastered precision, her ability level limited how many times she could use it, and the range wouldn't exceed ten meters. She could only attack at close range.

But for a beginner evolution, this was already the limit.

Even though the apocalypse had broken out, it didn't mean humanity would perish.

Living beings would find their own ways to survive.

With the zombie outbreak, even small creatures like flies and mice could mutate, let alone humans.

Among humans, some awakened various extraordinary superpowers, and these ability users were called ability users.

Ability types were mainly divided into four categories.

The first type was body enhancement abilities, including strength enhancement, speed enhancement, sensory enhancements like smell, hearing, and sight, as well as physical reinforcement and voice amplification.

Enhancement abilities were the most common.

The second type was elemental abilities: including metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.

The third type was natural abilities: wind, thunder, lightning, and ice.

The fourth type was unsequenced abilities: these abilities had no sequence or rules; they were awakened completely randomly.

They were also extremely rare.

Known unsequenced abilities in her past life included mental abilities, healing abilities, invisibility abilities, space abilities, and more.

Ability levels were divided into 6 realms and 3 grades.

F was the lowest, and so on, with A-level being the highest realm.

Ability users beyond A-level might exist, but she had never met one.

When Jiang You died, she was an A3 level ability user.

For a small base, having an A3 level ability user was more than enough to provide security.

While she was practicing her abilities, many things had already happened outside.

Some people were bolder than other survivors from the start. After the water receded, they grabbed weapons and left their homes, fighting desperately against the zombies.

They discovered that these monsters weren't that terrifying in the early stages. As long as they were bold and careful, they could handle them.

Thus, they ventured out at great risk to search for supplies. This group was at the forefront, gaining the advantage of being first movers in the search for supplies.

Others hid in their homes until they ran out of food and supplies before mustering the courage to face the monsters.

But it was too late. The edible and easily found supplies had long been claimed by others.

More and more people overcame their initial fear and found ways to survive.

Due to the heavy rain and flooding that had occurred earlier, many supplies had been ruined.

Most of the exposed food had rotted.

Only food items with intact packaging, or canned goods and beverages, remained undamaged.

At this time, as long as it was food, even if it was moldy and rotten, people at the brink of starvation could still eat it.

City A had millions of residents. Even if half of them turned into zombies, the remaining population was still a terrifying number.

With so many people and so little food, the conflicts naturally became more brutal.

Every corner of the city was a stage for killing or being killed, moment by moment.

Some were family, some were friends, and some were strangers.

It didn't matter if these people were white-collar workers, tycoons, laborers, or bosses before. At this moment, their assets were irrelevant.

The only thing that mattered was the weapon in their hands.

Whoever had the bigger fist could make their voice heard.

The scenes of husbands and wives turning against each other, brothers killing brothers, and sisters becoming enemies were happening all the time, caught between life and death.

Trust between people had dropped to freezing point.

Jiang You wasn't in a hurry to go out. She had stockpiled supplies herself, and she had also taken over the warehouse of the largest foreign chain supermarket in the city before. Now, the supplies in her space were enough for her to eat for several lifetimes without running out.

As for the zombies.

The zombies now likely didn't have crystal cores growing in their brains yet, so there was no rush to act.

Crystal cores were a form of energy body found in the brains of zombies.

Not just zombies, but also mutated beasts, mutated plants, and even ability users.

Any creature that had evolved would have such an energy crystal in its brain.

This was the tangible manifestation of gathered abilities.

Absorbing crystal cores benefited any living creature.

Ability users could use crystal cores to help them advance; mutated animals and plants or zombies could evolve faster by consuming crystal cores.

Even ordinary people could have a chance to awaken abilities by consuming and absorbing crystal cores. However, an ordinary body could not withstand the power of a crystal core, so doing so would only result in three outcomes:

One was to break through their limits between life and death and awaken abilities, becoming an ability user.

Two was to explode and die.

Three was to be infected and become a zombie or some other monster.

Compared to the latter two outcomes, the possibility of becoming an ability user was less than 0.5%.

But even this 0.5% chance was enough to drive people mad.

After all, in the apocalypse, strength was everything.

If you like this book, remember to add it to your bookshelf to avoid losing it next time.