Sakun

Lu Zhiyu loaded a tube of serum into the slot on top of the biological pod and pressed a button. The serum was immediately injected into the seahorse. A day later, Lu Zhiyu had completely erased the seahorse's memories and consciousness. Then he tried to implant the Tree of Life's soul into its body, but it was violently rejected. The seahorse died in an instant!

The Tree of Life's soul was weakened a little, too. Lu Zhiyu noticed that its once-pure soul had become somewhat tainted. The soul, which had originally possessed no consciousness at all, now carried muddled thought waves!

Lu Zhiyu tried several more kinds of marine life, but failed again and again. The pure soul was becoming increasingly tainted, and Lu Zhiyu knew that if he failed a few more times, it might collapse altogether!

"Ah, what a waste. But there's no choice. I don't understand any of this, and I haven't studied souls enough. I'll just have to consider it tuition!"

"What exactly is causing the rejection? Why is it happening when I've already erased its consciousness and memories?" Lu Zhiyu had tried plants before, too, and that hadn't worked. Thinking about it now, the problem clearly wasn't just a matter of consciousness being rejected!

Lu Zhiyu stopped. There was no point carrying on if he couldn't figure this out first; he'd only be wasting his efforts. He paced anxiously around the lab, thinking for a long time. "Maybe it's not just consciousness being rejected. The genes might also be resisting another consciousness taking control of them, just like when I first modified a living creature!"

"Should I try creating a deified creature from the embryonic stage?"

Lu Zhiyu immediately got to work. This time, his life template was a squid. Instead of putting it in the biological pod, he began cultivating the first generation of deified creatures in an aquarium.

After watching the squid lay its eggs, Lu Zhiyu found the one he wanted: an egg infused with the Tree of Life's soul. He was thrilled. Just as he'd suspected, the fusion had succeeded. How could he describe it? It felt strangely like being reincarnated!

Lu Zhiyu awakened its consciousness and even granted it access to the Zero-Dimension passage, guiding it to draw Source Substance from the Zero-Dimension World. Sure enough, its powerful soul let it leap past the steps Lu Zhiyu had spent years working through.

Lu Zhiyu watched as it developed spiritual power from what had once been a simple soul. Its powerful soul structure allowed it to remain longer in the Zero-Dimensional Otherworld and draw more Source Substance. Its spiritual power surged by leaps and bounds each day, rising by more than a dozen units in just one day!

By comparison, Lu Zhiyu was like a bucket already full of water, constantly trying to increase its capacity through slow, painstaking effort. This creature, on the other hand, was an empty bucket. All it had to do was find a way to fill itself!

Lu Zhiyu could see its once-simple soul gradually transforming into spiritual power until it had all become spiritual power. It reached one hundred and fifty units, surpassing Lu Zhiyu!

Once the transformation was complete, Lu Zhiyu saw the white squid egg being consumed by its spiritual power and turning into Deified Cells. Then, right before his eyes, it hatched from the egg.

A strange, gray-black young squid appeared inside the biological pod. Lu Zhiyu saw it rapidly absorb the nutrients in the pod and grow. Within a minute, it had grown into a black squid the size of a human head.

At that point, it had used up all its spiritual power and reached its limit. But unlike Lu Zhiyu, it had completely deified its entire body. It was much smaller, but fundamentally different: it was a true deified creature!

The moment its transformation was complete, Lu Zhiyu looked at it through the pod and saw that it was furious, its mind in utter disarray as it repeatedly rammed into the wall. The pod's walls were extremely sturdy. Though the squid had deified its body, it didn't know how to modify its genes. All it possessed were the immortality and plasticity of a deified creature.

Lu Zhiyu watched it inside the pod with interest. "Do you want to come out?"

"Sakun!"

"Sakun!"

The instant it met Lu Zhiyu's eyes, it began changing its appearance. It had actually evolved vocal organs in imitation of Lu Zhiyu and shouted meaningless, bizarre sounds at him. The sounds were piercing, with long, drawn-out notes.

Lu Zhiyu sensed that it had no independent personality at all. Its consciousness was so chaotic that it was as if a dozen different minds were fighting inside its head. It had no idea how to control itself!

Its cries and imitative movements were only instinctive and had no meaning. Lu Zhiyu frowned. This was completely different from what he'd imagined, but he had indeed created the first deified creature!

"How could this happen? It must be because my earlier fusion attempts failed and tainted the soul!"

"I'll call you Sakun!"

Since that was the first sound it had made, Lu Zhiyu chose it as its name. It didn't have a fully developed personality or intelligence, but in terms of its level of life, it was undoubtedly a higher life form.

After completing his own deification, Lu Zhiyu would also begin trying to modify his genes, working to make his life template a genuine life template with supernatural abilities. He planned to call this high-level life template the Mythical Creature Template. It was just one word different from "deified creature," but the name seemed fitting. How was this kind of being any different from a creature out of myth?

Lu Zhiyu still didn't know how to create his Mythical Creature Template. After all, he had never seen a higher life form like this with his own eyes. He could only rely entirely on his imagination to experiment and explore.

The first deified creature he'd made was a chance to try: to create a life template for a higher life form and use a deified creature's plasticity to make a truly supernatural being!

Lu Zhiyu looked at Sakun and smiled. The little fellow looked rather weak right now, but its nature set it apart from ordinary creatures by a gulf as vast as the heavens. As long as he gave it a Mythical Creature life template, it would soar to greatness.

Lu Zhiyu began to think. "How should I design it? The old life templates definitely won't work. They only develop the body's natural abilities."

For ordinary creatures, multiplying their strength and speed, unlocking an all-seeing perspective and dynamic vision, or inheriting their ancestors' formidable swordsmanship and all kinds of memories might be considered powerful. But for a deified creature, these things were of little use. They were also a waste of the plasticity of Deified Cells!