Concepts for Creating Life

Li Qing grew increasingly interested.

He felt that, like this Cellular Civilization, he was a natural creator of biological evolution. Gene sequences were like building blocks in a child's hands, like programming code in computer software, capable of being studied through all kinds of templates.

Right now, he had three useful primitive gene templates in his hands.

1. Amphibious Water Cannon Vehicle.

2. Sea Giant.

3. Sea Fortress.

Without a doubt, these had the potential to evolve into mythical dragons, Tidal Giants, and Monster Islands. Never mind their specific abilities for now—at least they had the appearance, even if they were all show and no substance.

Li Qing began studying the books they had written in Gene Script. He also prepared bird cell material, wanting to see whether he could enlarge this little vehicle and create a genuine finger-sized dragon.

But after working at it for more than three hours, he discovered that his skills simply were not enough.

The basic embryonic lifeform was clearly already there. All that remained was the simple task of enlarging it and piling on cells. Yet once there were too many cells, the structure became unstable and began to collapse.

Several attempts all ended in failure.

Constantly performing microscopic surgery had left his brain utterly exhausted as well.

These cells were like bricks used to build a house. With this blueprint, building a one-story brick house was easy enough. But if he wanted to build hundreds of stories with it, the whole thing would collapse without a steel framework.

He had originally planned to use the light skeletal cells of birds, weaving them through the flesh to support it like meat skewers, patching and stitching it together. It might even be able to fly. But his technique simply could not achieve it.

After several attempts, Li Qing completely understood:

"They currently have six trillion people—one thousand times Earth's population. For even a single branch of fish, five or six billion people have to work together on genetic engineering, with every citizen acting as a scientist and dividing up the labor, like a highly efficient computer with hundreds of millions of calculations."

"After fusing with the Mental Superpower, my thinking and intelligence have grown stronger, but in the end, I am still only one person."

It was like developing a massive game hundreds of gigabytes in size. Could it possibly be done casually without hundreds of programmers, divided into several departments, spending years on research and development?

There was no way he could handle it alone.

Scientific research was not child's play. The achievements of even a top scientist often took more than a decade to develop.

What? Your project had seven billion top scientists researching it together?

And their consciousnesses were highly unified, like a cluster consciousness formed from a pile of brain cells? They finished it in a single day?

Then never mind.

The more Li Qing thought about it, the more absurd it seemed.

The advantage of my superpower isn't intelligence, nor is it being small. My greatest cheat is that I created a population of lifeforms far exceeding Earth's population in one breath!

If the population had no upper limit, how terrifyingly would civilization explode?

However, this was also an "advantage" that could get him killed.

After all, he could control them, but only a tiny fraction of them. The rest would not obey him. They might even grow rebellious bones, seek to replace him, seize his superpower, and make it so that the more people there were, the faster he died.

But regardless, he immediately stopped wanting to rely on his own efforts.

This was not a matter of him failing to compete hard enough. He simply could not compete at all. Copying the Atabians' achievements was much faster.

He also had to set his sights on the civilization they had accumulated!

Li Qing put aside his research on the dragon and directly declared it a failure.

But he was not someone willing to admit defeat. He sensed the Mental Guard he could control.

Sure enough, once he entered, another batch of people had died, leaving vacancies in his control quota.

He immediately opened his eyes and stared straight at the mite-sized dragon.

One second.

Two seconds.

Seventy seconds.

Splash.

The Primordial Dragon, stitched together from cells, actually came alive.

Sure enough, these stitched monstrosities had not escaped the category of single-celled bacteria. They could still awaken.

"Ah."

"Oh, who are you?"

Some simple Consciousness Waves spread out.

Li Qing gave them a brief introduction, then tossed the Atabian corpses to them. "Study them properly. Do your best to turn yourselves into dragons."

He described the abilities of dragons, then stuffed them into a test tube and poured in culture fluid, letting them fend for themselves.

Their numbers were a little low, so genetic construction would probably be slow. Still, something was better than nothing.

After finishing all that, Li Qing was so tired that he sprawled flat on his bed and took an afternoon nap.

"Forget it. This kind of biological evolution experiment doesn't do much to improve me. I should go work out instead."

At two in the afternoon, Li Qing decisively went out and found a gym.

His appetite had remained enormous these past few days. His body was slowly growing stronger, and his superpower was also becoming stronger with time.

But the spirit rose from the body. A healthy body would surely speed up the process.

Although he did not have much savings, he still went to a high-end gym. Making money would probably not be difficult in the future, and he could still afford two or three months of expenses in the short term.

"Yes, I want a male trainer. Preferably somewhere private, the kind with fewer women." At the gym reception desk, Li Qing stated his requirements with crystal-clear logic.

Intense exercise could easily trigger hormone secretion, making him more noticeable than usual and potentially drawing the attention of some bacteria-covered women.

"No problem."

The beautiful receptionist gave Li Qing a strange look.

He had such a fine bearing. What a pity—he was actually that kind of...

Did ordinary people come to high-end gyms for more advanced equipment?

No. It was because some ultra-high-end gyms had batches of handsome male and beautiful female trainers. That was their selling point against competitors: men sought female trainers, women sought male trainers, though there were also people with special preferences who specifically requested muscular, handsome male trainers.

Li Qing paid no attention to those strange worldly looks.

Before long, he headed into a room with a fitness trainer.

But just then, Susannie emerged from the neighboring room with a beautiful Asian female trainer. She also noticed Li Qing and watched with a meaningful gaze as he entered the room with the muscular, handsome male trainer.

"So that's how it is."

Susannie thought to herself.

With her beauty and supermodel figure honed through years of fitness, most men could not look away after seeing her at first glance. Yet when he had first seen her, he had deliberately avoided looking at her face and body.

Susannie merely smiled knowingly, as if she had encountered a kindred spirit, and did not dwell on it.

They worked out until dusk.

After Li Qing returned and finished dinner, it was already past seven.

Carrying the UV Lamp, he arrived at Ning Guochang's former residence several hundred meters away.

He opened the door, first setting the ultraviolet device on the floor before walking over to see how things were going with the other side.

But the instant he looked inside, he was somewhat shocked.

There was unexpectedly no movement this time. It was still as lifeless as ever.

Why had they not developed a means to counter Ultraviolet Radiation within a day this time?

In truth, Li Qing had taken things too much for granted.

They had initially possessed five or six trillion people. After this wave, only a little over one trillion remained. Their population base had dropped to only twenty percent, naturally affecting the speed of biological evolution.

Furthermore, the difficulty was different.

What was alcohol?

The skin of practically any organism could ignore it. It could even disinfect skin when applied to it. With six or seven trillion people, evolving alcohol-resistant skin overnight was standard procedure. Failing to evolve it would have meant they were brain-dead.

But ultraviolet radiation was different.

Resisting high-intensity ultraviolet radiation was not something just any organism could do. In fact, almost no organism in Earth's natural world could withstand it.

If humans were exposed to high-intensity ultraviolet radiation, they would quickly develop cancer.

Just as Li Qing's researcher friend had said, this was for killing people!

"Your speed has finally slowed down. Since you can't withstand it, have another round."

Li Qing showed no mercy.

A routine finishing blow, then he went back to sleep.

Over the following days, his life became rather repetitive.

World-ending.

World-ending.

At present, he only had ultraviolet radiation and alcohol. He did not seek out new methods of ending the world. He had no money, he was Asian, and other things were not easy to obtain. What was more, even if he found something, it might accelerate their evolution.

He planned to use magic to defeat magic, letting the Vassal Advance Team destroy the other side from within, seize power, and turn the entire empire into his own. That would solve everything once and for all. Otherwise, constantly seeking new methods to end the world and butting heads with their evolution would be truly courting death.

Fine, when all was said and done, it was still because he had no money.

Over the following days, Li Qing researched his superpower and worked out at the gym. He ran into Susannie again, and after seeing each other for several days, they gradually became acquainted and became friends.

During their conversations, she would even smile seductively with her ugly, bacteria-covered face, stroke her blonde hair tangled with black fungal clusters, and deliberately shake her plump, densely packed honeycomb of trypophobia-inducing holes to see Li Qing's reaction.

But Li Qing moved even farther away from her.

She immediately found Li Qing bizarre. Sure enough, he was exactly as she had thought—unaware that Li Qing found her even more bizarre.

"Even the old lady in her family feels a little stirred by me. That is the instinctive genetic yearning of life, yet she is unaffected and treats me like an ordinary person."

Li Qing pondered inwardly.

He guessed it might be because she was a lesbian.

Some studies reportedly showed that people like this were not psychologically abnormal. Their inclinations were more likely influenced by their genes.

She probably liked women, perhaps even at the genetic level. That was why she was unaffected by him, a man.

After roughly figuring out the logic behind it, Li Qing realized that she was not some flood or savage beast and had no designs on him. He relaxed and spoke openly with her. She, meanwhile, smiled as though they were on the same side, believing they shared common interests.

And very soon.

They began working out together. The woman took the initiative to become Li Qing's trainer, and they became fairly good neighboring friends.

After all, her family was truly wealthy, and she had quite extensive connections. It would not be bad to establish ties with her. She could become his new Doraemon embryo in the future, perhaps helping him obtain a few things.

"Some other day, I'll introduce you to my girlfriend. She's Asian."

One day, Susannie drove Li Qing home in her sports car and said:

"My old lady thought I liked Asians, so she got carried away and wanted you to get to know me."

"But my girlfriend is in poor health. She has a terminal illness."

Susannie sighed. "It's stomach cancer. She's barely hanging on, but my mom wanted to take advantage of her weakness. I was rude to you when we first met, and I'm sorry about that."

Li Qing found it interesting.

This woman was truly devoted. She refused to abandon her terminally ill girlfriend.

But stomach cancer gave Li Qing something to think about.

He got out of the car and went home.

It was now the sixth day of ultraviolet radiation.

He saw an earth-shattering change.

Beyond the Glass Window, beneath the ocean, corals, seashells, swimming fish, countless green underwater forests, and beautiful Sea Folk carrying bone tridents formed a breathtaking fairy-tale kingdom beneath the sea.