Sakun

Lu Zhiyu loaded a vial of serum into the slot above the biological chamber and pressed the button, injecting it immediately into the seahorse. One day later, the seahorse's memories and consciousness had been completely wiped by Lu Zhiyu, who then attempted to inject the soul of the Tree of Life into the creature's body, only to be met with intense rejection; the seahorse's body died in an instant!

Furthermore, the soul of the Tree of Life was slightly weakened. Lu Zhiyu discovered that the originally pure soul body of the Tree of Life had become somewhat contaminated; the soul body, which previously lacked any consciousness, now carried traces of chaotic thought fluctuations!

Lu Zhiyu subsequently experimented with various other marine organisms, failing several times in succession. The contamination of the pure soul body had become even more severe, and Lu Zhiyu knew that if he failed a few more times, the soul body would likely collapse entirely!

"Sigh, what a waste. But there's no help for it; I don't understand the underlying principles, and my research into the soul is insufficient. I'll just have to treat this as tuition fees."

"What is the root cause? Why does rejection occur even after the consciousness and memories have been wiped?" Lu Zhiyu had previously tried using plants, which also failed. Reflecting on this now, it seemed the issue wasn't merely a matter of consciousness rejection.

Lu Zhiyu stopped; unless he could think this through, continuing would be nothing but a futile effort. He paced anxiously around the laboratory, pondering for a long time: "It might not just be consciousness rejection. The genes themselves might be resisting the dominance of an external consciousness, much like the situation when I first modified organisms."

"What if I try creating a deified creature starting from the embryonic stage?"

Lu Zhiyu immediately began to act. This time, the biological template was a squid. Instead of placing it into the biological chamber, he began cultivating the first generation of deified creatures within an aquarium.

After watching a squid lay its eggs, Lu Zhiyu found the one he was looking for and successfully integrated the soul of the Tree of Life into the egg. He was extremely excited; just as he had hypothesized, the fusion was successful. How to put it? It felt like the miraculous sensation of reincarnation!

Lu Zhiyu activated its consciousness and granted it access to the Zero-Dimensional Otherworld, guiding it to extract Source Substance. Sure enough, with its powerful soul, it bypassed the steps that had taken Lu Zhiyu years to traverse.

Lu Zhiyu immediately saw it derive its own mental power from a purely soul-based state. Its powerful soul structure allowed it to remain in the Zero-Dimensional Otherworld for longer periods and extract more Source Substance. Its mental power surged by a large margin every day, increasing by over a dozen units in a single day!

By comparison, Lu Zhiyu was like a bucket filled with water, spending all day trying to find ways to increase his volume through slow, grinding effort, while it was an empty bucket that only needed to find a way to fill itself up!

Lu Zhiyu could feel its originally simple soul body gradually transforming into mental power, eventually converting entirely and reaching 150 units—a level that already surpassed Lu Zhiyu himself!

When the conversion of its mental power was complete, Lu Zhiyu watched as the white squid egg was eroded by that mental power and transformed into deified cells. He then saw it hatch immediately from the squid egg.

A strange, grayish-black hatchling appeared in the biological chamber. Lu Zhiyu watched as it rapidly absorbed the nutrients in the chamber, growing swiftly until, within a minute, it had proliferated into a black squid the size of a human head.

By this point, it had exhausted its mental power capacity, reaching its limit. However, unlike Lu Zhiyu, it was completely and thoroughly deified throughout its entire body. Although its size was much smaller, there was a fundamental difference: it was a true deified creature!

The moment its transformation was complete, Lu Zhiyu locked eyes with it from outside the chamber and found it to be exceptionally furious and mentally chaotic, constantly slamming against the chamber walls. However, the walls were incredibly sturdy. Although the squid had finished deifying its body, it did not know how to modify its own genes; it merely possessed the immortality and plasticity characteristic of a deified creature.

Lu Zhiyu looked at it inside the chamber with interest: "Do you want to come out?"

"Sakun!"

"Sakun!"

The moment it locked eyes with Lu Zhiyu, he saw its exterior begin to change, actually mimicking Lu Zhiyu to evolve vocal organs, shouting strange, meaningless roars at him. The sound was piercingly harsh, carrying long, drawn-out tones.

Lu Zhiyu sensed it and discovered that it possessed absolutely no autonomous personality; its consciousness was extremely chaotic, as if a dozen consciousnesses were fighting inside its head. It was so muddled that it had no idea how to control itself!

The sounds it shouted and the movements it mimicked were merely subconscious and lacked any meaning. Lu Zhiyu frowned; this was completely different from what he had imagined, yet he had indeed created the first deified creature!

"How could this happen? It must be because of the failed fusions earlier; the soul body was contaminated!"

"I shall call you Sakun!"

Since this was the first sound it had emitted, Lu Zhiyu used it as its name. Although it lacked a perfected personality and intelligence, in terms of its level of life, it was an absolutely superior organism.

Once Lu Zhiyu completed his own deification, he would also begin to attempt to modify his own genes, trying to make his life template one that truly possessed transcendent abilities. Lu Zhiyu intended to call this high-level life template a Mythical Creature Template—changing one character from "deified creature," yet it felt quite appropriate. What difference was there between such an existence and the creatures of myth?

Lu Zhiyu did not yet know how to craft his own Mythical Creature Template. After all, he had never seen such a high-level life form with his own eyes and could only rely entirely on imagination to attempt and explore.

And this first deified creature he had created was his chance to experiment—to craft a life template for a superior being and utilize the plasticity of the deified creature to create a true transcendent life form!

Lu Zhiyu looked at Sakun with a smile on his face. Although the little guy looked quite weak right now, it had fundamentally crossed a chasm-like gap compared to ordinary organisms. As long as he applied the Mythical Creature Template to it, it would be able to soar into the sky.

Lu Zhiyu began to ponder: "How should I design it? The life templates of the past certainly won't work; they were merely developing the instinctive power of the human body."

For ordinary organisms, increasing strength and speed several times over, opening a god's-eye view, gaining dynamic vision, or inheriting the powerful swordsmanship and memory legacies of ancestors might be called powerful. But for a deified creature, these things were of too little use—or one could say, they were a waste of the plasticity of deified cells!