Still Human

To the north of Yue lay Xiang. Once joined together, they formed Huguang Province System.

The battles between the Gene Colonies fleeing north from Yue Region and the Gene Colonies here had turned vicious—oh, the infighting had reached its extreme, giving rise to irreconcilable hatred.

The species of the two regions had undergone extensive targeted evolution.

Some had evolved to blend perfectly with the mud underwater, letting them lie in ambush. Others had developed spikes that fit exactly between their opponents' limbs, pinning them in place.

This vicious evolution had consumed vast amounts of ecological resources and energy. So the total Node Creatures among the hundreds of small and medium-sized Gene Colonies that had once existed in Xiang Region awakened from Dongting Lake.

At the bottom of Dongting Lake, a central creature stirred to life. Its many scaled, python-like bodies writhed and extended up to four hundred meters in every direction. It was not quite an Apostle Level creature, but it was unquestionably the overlord of the region. Its powerful Life Radiation affected every small and medium-sized Gene Colony.

In turn, those Gene Colonies, descendants of the great Node Creature, fed back a massive amount of biological energy.

A great deal of silt rose from the lakebed, bringing settled organic nutrients to the surface along with countless eggs that resembled toad spawn.

Under the sunlight, the eggs unfurled green leaves and became duckweed. The duckweed spread rapidly across the lake, but just as it was growing fastest, countless whirlpools appeared beneath the surface and swallowed it up.

The creatures that made those whirlpools fed on the nutrients and completed their development underwater. They crawled crookedly onto the shore. At first glance, they looked like a group of giant salamanders, but over the following days, they devoured the surface-dwelling creatures around them. Their hind legs lengthened into an ornithischian form, and their jaws grew more powerful until they became Tyrannosaurus Rexes.

Farther north, another center of powerful Life Radiation lay upstream along the Yangtze: Yu City.

The skyscrapers that had once stood along the river had been replaced by the trunks of giant trees. The fragments of every building had been wrapped up and devoured by plant matter on Giant Tree Number One.

At the top of the highest tower, a structure formed from fused giant trees, hung a "fruit" four meters in diameter. It had a human brain and eyes. This was Prime Spirit, the supreme ruler of Yu City's Gene Colony.

Now, she was gazing south, toward Dongting Lake.

Below her, forty-three priests sat on the branches of the giant tree. For the most part, they still looked human, but their hair, pupils, nails, and the scales and hairs on their skin bore traits of other creatures.

Prime Spirit said, "The dragon in Dongting Lake has stirred. Now that it's awake, it won't just clean up its own territory. Before it goes dormant again, it'll expand into the surrounding regions."

Prime Spirit shifted her gaze to her lower left and sent a question to her children through telepathy. "How should we respond?"

As she asked, she placed most of her hopes in the two Symbiotic Human priests closest to her: Long Ximin and Qi Shengxun.

While Long Ximin was still thinking, Qi Shengxun stepped forward first. "Lady Prime Spirit, the Dongting Lake Tyrant woke because an anti-nature force rose farther south. It isn't our enemy. We should guide it."

Prime Spirit asked, "Guide it?"

Qi Shengxun said, "The humanoid Gene Colony in the far south is currently damaging nature's ecosystem in ways that go against us. If we help it understand our path of life while it's still weak, that'll be better than reaching out after it's strayed farther and farther from our path."

Prime Spirit looked at Long Ximin.

Long Ximin turned to Qi Shengxun. "Genetically speaking, they're all new Gene Colonies evolved from human genes. Should we really clash violently with an entity whose genes resemble ours?"

Qi Shengxun said, "If we're talking genetic similarity, so are the ones downstream."

Long Ximin said, "That's different. The Old Humans downstream aren't a Gene Colony." In Yu City's way of thinking, anything that hadn't formed a colony was just a bunch of bacteria with human cells and genes.

Qi Shengxun calmly stated the key point. "But the beings in the south aren't Mother's children, either. They aren't our siblings."

Long Ximin silently stepped back and said no more.

Prime Spirit looked at the other priests. "Does anyone have a different opinion?"

As her thoughts echoed among the branches at the top of the giant tree, none of the other priests opposed Qi Shengxun.

Yu City's Gene Colony had the ability to handle industry, something extremely rare across the world. From the outskirts of Yu City, one could see enormous pyramid-shaped structures sealed in greenery among the mountains. They hadn't been built during Human Civilization, but had risen from the ground during the Pandora Era. Now, they lay sealed alongside the buildings of the Civilization Era.

If they considered it necessary, they would still smelt steel. But the high temperatures and exhaust fumes produced by steelmaking were repugnant to the Gene Colony. They viewed workshops that produced such Metal Items as they would a spittoon.

Nowadays, when fighting the Human City-States downstream along the Yangtze, they preferred to grow hard wood with silicon-based crystals, polish it, and then embed it in a living body as a sharp Ram Horn. They also had flying beasts drop Corrosive Substance in aerial attacks.

September 4, 134, Pandora Era.

Qi Shengxun headed south with Prime Spirit's suggestion. In the vine-choked wetlands on the northern shore of Dongting Lake, he slowly sat down and began radiating energy as a small Node Creature.

After twenty minutes of waves churning across the lake, the massive worm within Dongting Lake surfaced. Its several-meter-high mound of flesh writhed through the wetlands, gouging a deep, black scar in the decayed vegetation.

Facing such a monster, Qi Shengxun looked a little afraid. But soon he spread his arms and welcomed it. His body sank into the worm's flesh, and the two melted together as their lives radiated into each other.

There seemed to be light during the process, but it wasn't visible electromagnetic radiation. It was a perception brought on in rapidly changing creatures by Life Radiation.

The two completed their Gene Fusion. That was how two Gene Colonies communicated.

For humans, such a process of communication was unimaginable. But for Gene Colonies and the individuals within them, it wasn't death. It meant that the colony had fulfilled its purpose.

North of Dongting Lake, the army from Yu City crossed the Yangtze. These animals moved over land like centaurs. Once they entered the river, the ribbed area of their humanlike upper bodies opened, revealing countless red slits that widened and closed like gills. When these forces reached the shores of Dongting Lake, they joined up with the thousands of battle beasts native to the lake.

Look closely, however, and the two forces were still clearly distinct, divided into two commands. The Gene Colony from the north still commanded the northern troops.

Although Qi Shengxun's body had been devoured, the entity he represented remained within this collective of life.

One might compare it to a political arrangement on Earth: the Dual Empire. When the royal house of one country inherited the king of another people, the two countries became politically united at the top. But they were still two distinct peoples, and when an era passed, they would separate again—like the Huns and Austria.

Though these were biological colonies, the movements of tens of thousands of Large Individuals weighing hundreds of kilograms or more amounted to a massive military campaign. Many were indiscriminate eaters with powerful digestive systems, but before moving out, they still had to build up large reserves of fat and modify their digestive systems.

Yue Region, Zhushui Jiao, a stronghold far downstream.

Beneath a cluster of black-smoke chimneys built from red bricks, Wei Keng watched the Fuel Manufacturing Equipment. The fuel passed from one reaction vessel to another, through various heating chambers where catalysts reacted, and finally into a Distillation Tower. At last, he had produced fuel.

Looking at the foul-smelling liquid in the Pottery Pot, Wei Keng couldn't help sighing. "If this had been five years after the Pandora Era, when the city-states still had plenty of Internal Combustion Engines, refining oil would've been like making gold. But now?"

Half an hour later, three Wei Kengs formed a team. One poured fuel into the pitch-black engine, while another picked up the Solid Iron crankshaft and began turning it. Bang, bang, rattle-rattle—the crude Diesel engine sputtered to life. Sitting on the Crawler Tractor, Wei Keng watched the speed reach ten meters per second. The wind, carrying the tractor's black smoke, stung his eyes as he sat in the driver's seat.

I had to finish showing off what I'd started.

The guests from the surrounding cities stood nearby.

He had brought out his own vehicle to show the surrounding factions that he was no longer technologically behind in any way, and to warn the powers behind them not to do anything stupid.

From what Wei Keng knew—well, from what he'd heard through the merchant groups—Jian City and two other city-states still hadn't given up.

Over the course of a year, nearly three or four thousand laborers had come south from various city-states. Under Wei Keng's organization, they had expanded the farmland and built roads while mining raw materials for production. The factories they had put into operation in particular showed what overproduction really meant.

Take the textile mill, for example. It had only seven or eight machines, but they processed fibers far more efficiently than people could by hand. The linen and Cotton Cloth they produced met the needs of the Wei Keng Collective, and the surplus was sold throughout the surrounding city-states.

Wei Keng could provide food, clothing, and safety. His strongholds had become a human-labor pump.

Young adults kept leaving their old strongholds and flocking to Wei Keng's, hoping to find a chance. Ordinary people in the various city-states hadn't noticed anything significant. They only saw more goods arriving with the merchant caravans, less work to do in the cities, and fewer people fighting in the shadows.

But the rulers of the city-states felt the change deeply. They could no longer issue absolute commands to the lower classes.

Before Wei Keng arrived, the upper classes of the city-states could threaten to cut off food to force people into dangerous zones to gather wood and mine salt.

The rulers of these city-states had retained some knowledge from human society before the Great Destruction. They knew terms like "industrial scissors" and "Urban Effect Radiation." They weren't like the upper classes of modern Great Qing, who could be bled dry without even knowing where their arteries had been cut.

So the city-state rulers who had recognized the threat seemed to have held several meetings among themselves.

Wei Keng stayed on guard. He knew very well that if he kept up this approach for a few more years, he could destroy them.

If they didn't act this year, they'd never get another chance. As for whether they would make a desperate move before the end, Wei Keng wasn't going to bet that their guns were empty.

While Wei Keng waited for the rulers of the city-states to make a move against him, he realized that once again, he might have been worrying too much.

On September 27, at Qingyuan Stronghold, Wei Keng established a Logging Squad to gather timber and transport it downstream by water for fuel and Chemical Raw Materials.

That morning, a merchant caravan arrived. Its leader said he had something important to report, so Wei Keng temporarily called off the group's work and brought them into the stronghold.

After sitting down and receiving a generous reward, the caravan leader dragged out the suspense for a while before announcing, "Farther north, a massive number of Gene Colonies are moving south." Wei Keng looked at the merchant's mysterious expression and immediately thought of a clickbait account.

But after all the bad luck he'd had since traveling here, Wei Keng knew rationally that his luck was terrible. Sometimes, it was better to believe a warning than dismiss it.

What happened next confirmed that this might all be true.

Shaoheng City was the northernmost city-state in Yue Region. It had a population of sixty thousand, making it a major city by the standards of this era. To the north, a road connected it to Gan Region and provided a route for vital technological supplies from the large Human City-States downstream along the Yangtze. It had long been a key point on the trade route.

But now its merchant caravans were no longer active. There was only one possible explanation: unknown Gene Colonies had surrounded the area. The humans defending the city walls were nothing like Wei Keng.

Wei Keng sent out groups of a hundred, large enough to push straight through the jungle. Even when facing Gene Colonies, they could shoot and steadily pick off targets on the outskirts. In the jungle, Wei Keng's telepathic connections between individuals grew so strong they were almost like a single person. They didn't feel the terror of facing the jungle alone. And because Wei Keng could use Life Radiation Perception to locate opponents in the Northern Yue mountains, it was as if they could see the danger. But the merchant caravans here could be surrounded by Giant Beasts if they made the slightest mistake in the jungle. They could even be destroyed by Life Radiation.

Wei Keng had wiped out four small Gene Colonies with his bare hands, then set fires and flooded the land to drive off the medium-sized Gene Colony that had invaded the area—the only one there besides his own. As a result, he had gradually overlooked something.

Now, he had been reminded. A city of sixty thousand people could be sealed off by Gene Colony radiation! The humans of this world weren't like him. They didn't have a unified will or resolve.

Wei Keng couldn't help thinking back to how he had been when he first arrived. What if I hadn't been determined? What would've happened?

After all, he hadn't forgotten the things from his previous life. That was why, when faced with a threat, they had risen up together.

Wei Keng couldn't help imagining, If I hadn't been so quick to change, perhaps we would've scattered. And what would've happened here then? The fact that some of my individuals died in this world already gives me a glimpse.

At that moment, Wei Keng felt a trace of confusion. "So, was I not wrong?" But the question touched an old wound in his heart, and he didn't want to think about it.

Wei Keng had come to realize that he was leaving more than industrial facilities and management behind in this world. There were also answers he still needed to seek.

Inside the various factory buildings at different strongholds, the Wei Kengs thoughtfully raised their arms and looked at the blue veins under their skin.

The people who came to his strongholds exchanged blood once a month, but they generally avoided Wei Keng.

Now, Wei Keng began seriously considering whether he could become more integrated with the people here. He opened the system and asked, "System, what effect does my genetic radiation have on the people around me?"

Bai Linglu dismissed the system's automated AI response, snatched the microphone, and began explaining. "If the genetic differences between two species are extremely small, their mutual radiation is harmless. When different people's genes build proteins, differences between individuals form during embryonic development and growth. But once people have developed into adults, the proteins in their tissues—their endocrine, muscle, and internal organ tissues—remain within a fixed range according to their differing lifestyles. So although your Life Radiation affects them, it mainly adjusts their biological clocks and mental states. It doesn't cause Thought Replacement or Appearance Replacement."

Wei Keng fell silent for a while, then sighed. "So, in the eyes of the humans in this world, am I an outsider?"

Bai Linglu said, "If you don't break through something, then you might always be seen as an outsider in certain ways."

After Wei Keng finished speaking with what he thought was the system, he walked toward the workers in the factories and said, "Everyone, let's sing a song."

"Unity is Strength..."

It was a song that had annoyed him whenever he sang it during military training in his previous life. Now, it was his courage song in this world.