Gene Template

Lu Zhiyu felt as though something was being conceived within the space between his brows. When his meditation ended, supported by his mental power, something seemed to break through his brow and surge into the real world.

Lu Zhiyu saw the world outside—not with his eyes, nor through that inward perception he had used before, but from an entirely different perspective, observing the whole world. His consciousness had broken free of his body's restraints and affected the real world.

The real world observed through mental power still appeared as a stream of information composed of countless points and lines. There were no colors or light, only points, lines, and all kinds of information. The instant Lu Zhiyu extended his mental power, he felt the outside world's information continuously pouring into his mind: the humidity of the air, the size of the room, the length of the bed, its structure, material, and density.

In that instant, Lu Zhiyu realized he had never understood his room so thoroughly. Yet the overwhelming flood of information made his head feel as if it were about to explode.

"Is this the world detected by mental power? The world is made of information!"

Lu Zhiyu withdrew his mental power and immediately felt dizzy. Information from the entire world kept drilling into his mind. The sensation was intoxicating, yet almost unbearable.

After steadying himself, Lu Zhiyu began what he had intended from the start: observing the inside of his own body, probing deep into his cells, just like the Insect Queens.

His mental power penetrated his body and refined itself further and further. Lu Zhiyu saw his body magnified: muscles, blood vessels, blood, and then the endlessly flowing cells. They looked like countless bubbles gathered into an unceasing river flowing into the distance.

As his mental power probed even deeper, Lu Zhiyu saw inside the cells and found the nuclei. The nucleus was a small core-like structure within every cell. Although each cell's functions were determined by the cytoplasm outside the nucleus, it was the nucleus that formed the cell's core.

Lu Zhiyu extended and refined his mental power to its absolute limit once more. At this point, he found it extremely strenuous. The tendrils of his mental power had reached the microscopic world, the most wondrous and mysterious corner of this world. Compared to the macroscopic universe, everything in the microscopic world held an even greater fascination for humanity.

Lu Zhiyu finally saw his own DNA, a spiral, coiled ladder-like bridge. This was the greatest secret within the human body. Humanity's genetic material, its genes, lay hidden within it. The greatest secret of the human body—all information was contained there. It was also a mystery humanity had always sought to unravel, yet had never been able to fully solve.

Overjoyed, Lu Zhiyu plunged into it. At once, countless pieces of information, like visible words, continuously flooded into his mind. Lu Zhiyu felt as though he were standing naked in a river of information, stretching from ancient times to the origin of life, with endless information beneath his feet.

"Is this... the memory of life?"

Lu Zhiyu saw information about generations upon generations of his ancestors. He saw the origins of humanity. Following the river of information upstream, he could even observe shadowy figures—his ancestors. Further upward, he saw human faces becoming increasingly primitive, their clothing changing continuously, until he finally reached the stage of primitive humans.

Homo sapiens, Homo erectus, Homo habilis, Australopithecus. At this point, Lu Zhiyu found that the path ahead abruptly ended. The template of humanity's origin stopped here; the genetic trace could go no further back.

Or rather, this was humanity's origin. Species further back no longer had any real connection to humans. To witness humanity's origins and evolution so directly was like watching an unimaginably grand slideshow, shaking him to his very core.

The instant Lu Zhiyu withdrew his mental power, his whole body swayed, and he nearly fell off the bed. Covering his face, he panted heavily, taking a long while to recover.

After a long time, Lu Zhiyu began laughing again and again, his laughter trembling. He felt as though he stood at the edge of human evolution, and he finally understood the secret hidden deep within genes.

After observing the secrets deep within genes, the Zerg Race had begun using pheromones to influence genetic changes. Yet Lu Zhiyu had conceived of an even more terrifying idea, because he had seen the template at the deepest level of genes: the template of humanity's ape-man ancestors.

What would happen if he altered that template? If he modified the source template of genetic information and told the genes that their ancestor was not an ape-man, but a Titan Giant, or a god from legend, or a Dragon, what would happen to humans? Would atavism occur? Could humans leap forward and evolve into extraordinary beings?

The very thought was incredibly exciting, yet it also seemed extraordinarily difficult. For a goal to go from an idea to reality, it had to undergo countless tests. Lu Zhiyu had no idea whether it could truly be achieved.

Lu Zhiyu set up a laboratory upstairs. It was not particularly professional, but he had bought quite a lot of equipment. As for biological equipment, all he could say was that it was outrageously expensive and burned through money, not to mention difficult to purchase. Fortunately, he only needed basic equipment, because in many respects, his mental power far surpassed ordinary tools in precision and fine adjustment. Observation in particular allowed Lu Zhiyu to accurately track changes during experiments.

CO2 incubators, biosafety cabinets, ultra-low-temperature freezers, and a whole range of consumables—Lu Zhiyu emptied all his savings. He had even spent the money his parents had left him before managing to buy everything.

When buying the equipment, Lu Zhiyu had also asked an elementary school classmate named Wang Yi for help. Back then, Lu Zhiyu had attended elementary school in his hometown, and their homes were only a few hundred meters apart. They had been fairly close.

Wang Yi was currently an assistant at a research institute jointly established by a pharmaceutical company and a university. They had not seen each other for years, so when Lu Zhiyu suddenly contacted him, Wang Yi was quite startled.

The first subject of Lu Zhiyu's experiments was the white mouse. That was right—the poor little mice were placed on Lu Zhiyu's experiment table. Following his sudden inspiration, Lu Zhiyu randomly altered the source biological templates of their genes. Yet every time, he found that the moment he made an alteration, the entire genetic chain instantly collapsed. The blood in the culture dishes immediately lost all vitality, completely unable to withstand Lu Zhiyu's reckless modifications.

Lu Zhiyu began to understand that a life template had to be reasonable, and it had to be something he understood well enough. Otherwise, the chain reaction it caused would only plunge the genes into collapse.

Lu Zhiyu gradually began trying to imprint the information from the human Gene Template into the genetic origins of animals. After several attempts, he finally created the Rat-kin Gene.

Lu Zhiyu immediately used PCR to replicate the Rat-kin Gene and began producing the earliest version of an evolution serum, which he named Rat-kin Serum.

However, when Lu Zhiyu excitedly injected the serum into a white mouse's bone marrow, the mouse immediately exploded! Lu Zhiyu's heart instantly turned cold.

After being dejected for a long time, Lu Zhiyu felt that perhaps he could nurture a new generation of life from embryos, rather than so directly and crudely modifying the genes of mature life forms, like cloning sheep.

And at that moment, even more intense changes erupted within the Painting Space!