Elf Exiting the Laboratory

Leaving the laboratory, he returned to his home, dozens of meters away.

Outside the window, the autumn wind rustled.

It took him over two hours to drive to the city center, so it was quite remote, and the outside appeared deserted.

Li Qing planted the seed in the soil of a large bonsai pot in the room and watered it. Under the effect of the Growth Code, the plant broke through the soil at a visible speed and sprouted.

Li Qing began to pour water and various nutrient solutions.

It quickly grew the first segment of its spine.

And it 3D printed layer by layer, climbing upwards at a rate of one layer per half hour!

"The Ripening Technology is faster than specially bred broiler chickens, like in that brand of pig feed commercial, growing strong and fat at lightning speed."

Li Qing showed curiosity.

He had been cramming biology knowledge recently.

Most of the fastest-growing things in nature are insects, but the overnight growth of certain fungi and mushrooms can make you question life. Of course, the most exaggerated is that some bee larvae can increase their body weight a hundredfold in a single day.

And in just one afternoon.

The spine began to grow a skeleton, turning into a white bone Tower of Babel, a twenty-six-story exquisite pagoda, standing tall on the ground.

At this stage, the spine could have any data modified and fine-tuned.

The Tower of Babel technology is currently a very useful experimental testing technology, building the main frame of the spine and continuously observing and recording its growth.

But now that everything was set up for him, Li Qing didn't need to input data to adjust the Tower of Babel.

Under the windowsill, where bright sunlight shone in.

"I can wait a day or two," Li Qing said with a very calm expression, looking at a book very carefully in front of this growing bone structure.

Because he read very quickly and his gaze didn't linger, he wasn't afraid of anything happening.

The book was called The Selfish Gene.

The views within were very interesting.

"Every living organism is a survival machine manipulated by genes. For the purpose of self-preservation, genes always manipulate individual life forms to perform various actions, doing their utmost to maintain their own gene perpetuation, even at the cost of great sacrifice."

Li Qing's gaze continuously swept across the rows of text.

He was deeply moved by the words in the book, feeling a grand, tragic, and cold evolutionary history.

These selfish genes, manipulating their life forms as survival machines, weren't they just intelligent single cells within these ever-changing exoskeletal life machines?

These gene-single cells were alive, conscious, manipulating the body machines, and driving the grand process of evolutionary history.

When he reached the end and closed the book, he let out a deep sigh and gently stroked the Elf skull in front of him.

The scenes described within, the history of civilization's evolution on the planet, were so inspiring!

Compared to the vast evolutionary history of planets that spanned billions of years, our individual human lives were so insignificant.

Normally, with a limited lifespan, one couldn't witness infinite evolutionary history.

But now, he possessed the ability.

He had enough power to personally deduce the future biological history epochs thousands and hundreds of billions of years from now, to evolve this vast and magnificent everything, and to overlook the rise and fall of countless living beings.

Li Qing stood up, put the book back on the shelf, his eyes flickering: "But, will life's evolution have an end?"

"As far as we know, life clearly has limits."

"Or rather, carbon-based life on our Earth has limits."

BOOM!!

Li Qing suddenly punched a nearby steel plate. The steel plate didn't move at all, but his hand suffered some bone fractures.

He shook his hand, his bones itching as they healed.

"Reality isn't a movie."

"Flesh and bone, he can run fast and jump high, but he can't dodge bullets. No matter how strong the recovery, it's ultimately difficult to resist the tide of steel, high-temperature magma."

He looked at the surveillance screen on the tablet in front of him, at that World Tree, his eyes shining with a strange light.

"Dear gods, I hope you can give me the possibility of surprise, to let me see what a pile of flesh and bones can achieve."

"I have no more biological content to give you as reference. You have already entered an era of the future that I cannot comprehend."

His eyes flickered with longing, and a hint of a gentle smile appeared:

"Let me see if carbon-based life's skeletons can be harder than carbon steel!"

"Let me see if muscles can rival the toughest and most elastic advanced rubber, and if your strength can transform into the Hulk from the movies, or even dragons, qilin, and celestial gods from mythology."

As Li Qing was contemplating, his computer suddenly beeped.

He received a web link to a trailer video:

Call of Cthulhu

--An epic blockbuster movie is about to shock your eyeballs!

Two months passed, and naturally, I hadn't been idle. I signed the contract and received the money.

The movie I did the voice-over for, a "talking-picture" big film, was about to be released.

This pace could only be described as par for the course.

After all, the visuals were already done; it was just a matter of post-production voice-overs, editing, and the various procedures for getting it onto the big screen.

Although I didn't intend to make money from this, having sold the rights, Li Qing still clicked on the promotional video, viewing it as an audience member:

[Wow, this is absolutely incredible! The visuals in the trailer are even more magnificent than before!]

[Right, right! It's like it's actually happening. Each Sea Clan Warrior has the lower half of a giant sea beast and the upper half of a human holding a trident – what an epic art style! The visuals alone are worth the ticket price!]

[No way! Didn't you guys notice? The most outrageous part is the overhead panoramic shot of tens of thousands of warriors attacking the city. Every single one has a different movement! Their fighting actions are so realistic, it's like each one is controlled by AI!]

[And the Church's Paladins, the Emperor, the city wall guards – it's too real! I seriously suspect this is a vast and fantastical Sea Clan Otherworld! I'll come back and confirm this theory after I see the movie!]

[Idiot above, this is AI-generated art, understand? If I'm stupid enough, everything is superstition, everything is mythology! You really think it's another world? I'll perform a handstand and poop myself.]

Li Qing scrolled through the comments on the movie trailer, finding it quite amusing.

The next day.

Early in the morning, Li Qing saw that in the large flower pot, a spine had emerged from the soil, and a skeleton was curled up hugging its knees on the pot.

The skeleton was brown.

It was covered in fine, intricate circuit-like patterns, resembling a peach pit.

This Elf was the latest version of the technology, the third generation Elf, a Peach Tree Elf.

In other words, it was a Treant made from a peach tree.

That skeleton was indeed solid wood, a peach pit, just not polished to a smooth sheen.

A thin skeletal membrane, like cling film, wrapped around the entire Tower of Babel, forming a delicate, semi-transparent white wax figure, like a beautiful cicada pupa. Within it, flesh could be clearly seen being woven.

Li Qing observed curiously for a while.

The internal structure was still simple!

It didn't even have complex organs like a stomach or intestines. The inside was more like the structure of a tree, truly a Treant.

The third day.

A perfect, naked Elf maiden grew from the spine, hugging her knees, curled up on the ground, emitting a peach fragrance, like a humanoid peach tree Flower Demon.

Her lush hair was made of fine, smooth willow branches, occasionally adorned with sparse emerald green leaves, which could even be woven into a leafy crown. Her ears were pointed, her figure slender with perfect proportions, and her appearance was quite beautiful, exuding an aura of nature.

Li Qing grabbed one of her slender, jade-like hands.

Unlike humans, her skin was cool to the touch, similar to cold-blooded reptiles or snakes, but her flesh was quite soft, like the flesh of a peach, feeling as though juice could be squeezed out with a gentle squeeze.

"The core is a wooden skeleton."

"The flesh and skin covering the outside are just a camouflage layer. The skin and flesh are too fragile; even some simple strenuous movements can damage the skin, causing the flesh to fall off and expose the skeleton, but its regenerative ability is very strong."

"It's like a giant humanoid peach growing on a tree! The peach flesh is the flesh, and the peach pit is the skeleton! In terms of hand-to-hand combat, it's weaker than a normal man, comparable only to a monkey from Mount Emei, with insufficient strength."

"However, it has a paralyzing toxin inside, and it can spray pollen, which is its only means of self-defense."

Li Qing didn't think much of it; being able to create an demi-human life form was already quite interesting.

It was truly like the Elves in myths, with all sorts of divine abilities, things far beyond his current capabilities. This civilization's explosive development would take at least another month, or perhaps two?

"But this Elf is very beautiful. You can doubt their technology, but you can't doubt the aesthetic beauty of the Gods' architecture. Just look at the Tower of Babel; it's an exquisite work of art, a marvel of craftsmanship."

"However, let's wait a bit longer. Only tonight will the final stage be completely woven, and the last piece – her brain – will be added."