Accumulation

Wang Yiyang had spent the last few days in a frenzied state of testing and experimentation, leaving his mind feeling muddled and sluggish.

Once he finally quieted down, a wave of soreness and exhaustion washed over his entire body.

The anatomical expertise Twist had granted him provided an unimaginably sharp sense of dexterity and a level of precision that made him intimately familiar with the dissection of living subjects.

As he paused to catch his breath, Wang Yiyang checked the time and realized with a jolt that he was only one day away from his third identity synthesis.

...Have I really been holed up in here for three days straight?

He leaned his back against the cold wall; the success of the Source Silver gave him a glimmer of hope that he could break free from this dead end.

As long as he could leverage an external force that didn't originally belong to the situation, he had a chance to shatter this stalemate.

Besides, the applications of Source Silver went far beyond simple artificial organ transplantation...

As he rested, a flurry of novel inspirations flooded Wang Yiyang's mind.

The professional knowledge he had gained from handling so much medical equipment was particularly crucial in sparking these ideas.

If machinery can be turned into flesh... then there must exist some kind of reversible reaction that allows flesh to be mechanized. If I could control this process at will...

Wang Yiyang's mind drifted to the steel-based superpowers he had seen in movies—the ability to briefly turn parts of one's body into hard metal when needed to deflect attacks.

After the battle, one could revert to flesh and utilize the body's natural healing properties to recover from injuries rapidly.

Think about it: for steel, a dent caused by immense force would be a permanent deformity, but once reverted to flesh, that dented tissue could be massaged back into elasticity in moments.

Even for injuries like massive hemorrhaging, one could suture the wound and then rapidly metalize the surrounding skin and muscle to instantly stabilize the injury and drastically reduce blood loss.

With these and other applications, one could almost mass-produce superhumans akin to men of steel.

Clang. Clang.

A heavy thudding against the main gate interrupted his train of thought.

He looked toward the entrance as two soldiers, clad in exoskeleton suits and wielding cutters and impact drills, forcibly pried open the laboratory door.

"Time to go." Wang Yiyang stood up and walked toward the door.

Handling the messy cleanup work wasn't difficult for Wang Yiyang; given his status, a single mention of "high-level classified" was enough to deflect any and all questions.

Upon leaving the laboratory, his first priority was to use the synthesized Source Silver to manufacture the various organs required by the Experimental Martial Artist, following the established operational procedures.

Source Silver was a truly miraculous substance; under the irradiation of different intensity radiation spectra, it could undergo a one-time, irreversible transformation into various types of biological tissue.

Skin, bone, viscera—aside from teeth, it could transform into almost anything at will.

This effectively overturned every theory in modern medicine.

Feeling somewhat recovered, Wang Yiyang quickly mixed the Source Silver with metal to create five different organ models.

He then had surgeons from various fields take the organs into the operating theater.

Next came the time for waiting.

Physically and mentally exhausted, Wang Yiyang did not leave the underground base. After checking the status of his subordinates via his chip and phone, he began mobilizing his manpower and waited in silence.

Two hours later.

The surgery was a success.

The surgeons who had taken the artificial organs into the operating room walked out one by one, looking dazed and bewildered, as if they couldn't quite believe the level of surgery they had just performed.

Before they were brought in, they had been told they were performing a standard transplant using organs that had already been sourced from donors.

They had been mentally prepared for the compatibility issues typical of organ transplants.

What they couldn't believe, however, was that the organs they received felt as if they had just been harvested from a living body—warm, robust, full of cellular vitality, and even pulsing faintly.

The actual surgery was even more unbelievable.

The transplanted organs fit as if they had always belonged to the patients; even the vascular and neural connections aligned perfectly.

It was simply incredible...

After the success of the surgery was announced, the surgeons were quickly escorted away to be sworn to secrecy.

Wang Yiyang stood up from the bench in the corridor.

"Begin the rejection response test."

Modern medical technology already possessed methods to accelerate the detection of rejection responses.

After running the instrument simulation, half an hour of testing yielded results equivalent to three weeks of time. The veteran researcher operating the equipment walked up to Wang Yiyang, his expression one of pure shock as he held the report.

"It's unbelievable... even the most cutting-edge artificial organ transplants today couldn't achieve such a perfect healing effect!"

All the researchers were stunned by the report. Meanwhile, the perimeter of the base had been thoroughly locked down by the Yanhu Sect, who had received word in advance, along with Jian and his elite subordinates.

"Seal all information. Everyone is to remain in lockdown here for one month."

He didn't wait for the bewildered reactions of the others.

Wang Yiyang took the remaining Source Silver, led his people away from the base, returned to the city, went back to his rented apartment, and collapsed onto his bed, falling into a deep, heavy sleep.

If everything went as expected, this attempt to leverage external forces would likely succeed.

Having mastered the production method of Source Silver, and having tasted the benefits of mechanical flesh-integrated organs, he believed the Yanhu Sect would not be stingy with their own power.

Of course, they might also harbor malicious intent, wanting to coerce him into revealing the production method of Source Silver because the strength of the transplanted organs exceeded the original versions.

But they did not know how many critical steps were involved, whether they could reproduce this technology in a short time, or if they would encounter technical secrets that could lead to major hidden dangers during actual operation.

These were all difficult problems.

Therefore, for them, the simplest and most direct approach was to cooperate with Wang Yiyang.

In fact, Wang Yiyang had long been prepared for the possibility of violent coercion.

The production of Source Silver required extremely high precision and timing.

With him having destroyed all the data, even if outsiders obtained a sample, it would be very difficult for them to successfully reverse-engineer it.

And if someone tried to force the production method out of him, they would have to face the armed protection of Jian and the other chip-controlled bodyguards. They would also have to guard against the automatic defense system of the biological chip inside his body.

In the event of a fatal threat, the chip would instantly self-destruct while simultaneously emitting a powerful fainting pulse. In a short period, it could knock out even an elephant, let alone a human.

Of course, if the chip could not stop the opponent, then a force of that level would not need to be so circuitous.

They could simply go directly to the current chairman of Mister, force a bunch of top-secret information out of him, and then the entire group would be completely defeated and bankrupted by their rivals the next day. The benefits gained that way would be much greater.

After all, Mister possessed far too many top-secret technologies.

A force of that level would simply not waste so much time with Wang Yiyang.

After collapsing onto the bed, Wang Yiyang had never felt that sleeping was such a comfortable thing.

He lay on the bed, dazed and with his mind a blank slate, sleeping for over ten hours in one go.

It wasn't until the sound of a mobile phone alarm startled him from his deep slumber.

Snap.

He reached out from under the covers, swiped the phone to turn off the alarm, and then opened his eyes groggily.

The gap in the curtains was still pitch black.

"Is it time?" The alarm Wang Yiyang had set was for exactly 11:50 PM.

There were ten minutes left until twelve.

He sat up and checked his phone.

There were no calls, only a large pile of text messages. An Yuxi had sent the most.

After regaining her composure, this girl had sent him a barrage of questions about what happened that night.

Wang Yiyang casually tapped on one.

'I heard from Xia Ying that something happened at Zhao Wei's home, and no one has seen him since he went back. It seems like they moved away early. Actually, when I went back that day, I was really scared. I was afraid that Zhao Wei would take revenge on me after he got home. But what happened later proved that I was just overthinking it.'

Wang Yiyang tapped on another one.

'Are you there... Are you going to the International Digital Exhibition tomorrow? I'm really scared... so scared...'

This message was already several days old.

At that time, Wang Yiyang was still in the laboratory, so naturally, he hadn't gone. Later, there were several more messages from An Yuxi asking about the situation.

Even though she hadn't received a reply, this girl was surprisingly persistent, insisting on sending messages every single day.

Wang Yiyang shook his head, closed An Yuxi's messages, and looked at the others.

There were also messages from Xia Ying, also asking if the matter with Zhao Wei had anything to do with him.

However, Xia Ying was begging him to let Zhao Wei go, saying that it was just a verbal dispute that night and shouldn't involve his family or anything like that.

Setting those messages aside, Li Ran had also sent one, simply asking, 'Are you there?'

Wang Yiyang thought for a moment; he couldn't be bothered to deal with An Yuxi and Xia Ying, so he just replied to Li Ran.

'I've been working these past few days and didn't see it. If you have something to say, don't ask if I'm there. Just say it.'

After replying, he was just about to turn off his phone.

To his surprise, she replied immediately. The phone vibrated with a buzz, and a new message arrived.

'Nothing.' Just those two words, and then nothing more.

Wang Yiyang waited for a while, but there was no other reply. He figured Li Ran had also fallen asleep, so he turned off his phone, sat quietly, and waited for his new identity.

About five minutes later.

The second hand on the wall clock clicked past twelve.

The data in the bottom right corner of Wang Yiyang's vision began to change again.

A large pile of incomprehensible characters flashed and jumped rapidly, followed by legible characters popping up.

Initialization complete, Bronze Rank identity beginning to generate...

Two seconds later.

'Identity generation complete, loading initiated...'

Then, all the characters in the bottom right corner vanished in an instant.

Approximately two minutes later.

A low, synthesized electronic voice slowly resonated in Wang Yiyang's ear.

'On the surface, you are merely an ordinary director at Mister, just one of the common masses.

But in the shadows, no one knows that you hide another unknown, mysterious identity—the hypnotist Finn Katerina.'

'As a member of the Heart of Indulgence, you possess an exceptionally formidable talent for hypnosis.

You were once able to forcibly hypnotize anyone with ease in under a second. To you, groups of up to ten ordinary people were like walking lambs, tender and frail.'

'You were once a guest of honor to many powerful, secretive figures, adjusting their psychological issues and interrogating various intelligence for them. Your business card was worth more than gold in the underworld.'

'But all of that is in the past. Your arrogance offended another powerful hypnotist within the Heart of Indulgence—the Red Hypnotist Balai.

He shattered all your psychological defenses, crushed your subconscious core, and completely destroyed your hypnosis.'

'You became an ordinary person once again, a weak and powerless ordinary person. Yet, the Red Hypnotist did not let you go.

He hypnotized you, infecting you with a frantic addiction to alcohol. He intends to ruin you completely and kill you without a sound.'