Naming and Development

The first group of hunters had returned. They had not caught any crows, but they had brought back several crow eggs.

Looking at the five grayish-green, speckled crow eggs, they had been placed behind the village, in the nest Wang Yuan's two Mutated Crows had built in a large tree.

Crow eggs took sixteen to eighteen days to hatch. No one knew how long these eggs had already been incubated, but under Wang Yuan's orders, the two crows had taken over. New crows would likely hatch before long.

Ever since falling out with his family, Komoro had built a new house behind the village and lived there, handling various miscellaneous matters every day. The village chief was dead, and Jacques, regarded as the next village chief's successor, was dead as well. Komoro now had the greatest influence in the village. In the past, everyone would have simply minded their own business, but now Negary's radiance enveloped the village. No one knew whether their former actions might offend the great Negary.

For example, when a sheep raised by a family fell ill and died, they used to eat it if they could, or bury it somewhere if they could not, adding to the soil's fertility. But now, for all they knew, Negary might have set His gaze upon that sheep. They did not dare dispose of it carelessly.

Watching Komoro drive away those who had come to ask questions, Wang Yuan drifted to the large tree behind the village to inspect the crow eggs.

I wonder whether these new crows can adapt to the Progenitor Pathogen. Wang Yuan silently thought. By now, the pathogen had undergone an unknown number of mutations.

The original pathogen might have merely been an avian pathogen Wang Yuan had brought from his own world. In that world, it naturally posed little danger to people who had been vaccinated.

But after arriving in this low-magic world, the pathogen had begun mutating due to new triggers. It had directly claimed Wang Yuan's life, yet unexpectedly formed a symbiotic relationship with crows, causing them to mutate beneficially.

The original pathogen carried by these crows was called the Progenitor Pathogen. At present, its function was to establish a stable mental link between Mutated Crows and Wang Yuan. However, when applied to other living beings, differences in their constitutions would cause their deaths.

Wang Yuan had also named certain things. For example, the white vapor that spilled out after a life died was named Vitality Qi, while that cool, refreshing aura was named Soul Qi. As for the various pathogen strains mutated from the Progenitor Pathogen, some were named according to their characteristics, while others were assigned numbers based on their test subjects.

Many of these mutated pathogens had come from the contributions of the village's Kexi People. The village now had a new rule: anyone who fell ill had to go behind the village and receive the gift of the Negary Messengers.

Once someone was confirmed to be ill, they would be sent to the messengers behind the village to receive Negary's gift—that was, infection with the Progenitor Pathogen. Wang Yuan would continuously observe how the pathogen changed inside their bodies.

Some influenza pathogens, such as those causing colds, would be Devoured by the Progenitor Pathogen and produce another round of mutations. Wang Yuan would observe the effects of these mutated pathogens on the human body, ensure that their carriers did not die, and collect any valuable strains.

Some illnesses had nothing whatsoever to do with pathogens, but their sufferers would still be implanted with one, becoming ordinary human culture vessels. This allowed him to observe the pathogens among different groups of people. Fortunately, Wang Yuan could now suppress the pathogens' rate of reproduction, ensuring the infected neither died nor became completely immune to the pathogens.

One case worth mentioning was a villager suffering from something similar to cancer. Wang Yuan was not a medical student and had not studied such matters deeply. His Perception Field had merely discovered a tumor inside the dying villager's body, and it had been growing wildly during this period.

After Wang Yuan's pathogen entered the man's body, it quickly mutated because of the tumor. That mutated strain partially escaped Wang Yuan's control and multiplied frantically. Before long, large black spots appeared across the man's body.

The black spots kept spreading. In the end, the villager became a "black man." Black crow down began growing from his skin, but before those black feathers could emerge, he was already dead.

In the end, Wang Yuan preserved this mutated pathogen and fed it from time to time to maintain the activity of the pathogen he had named "Black Crow."

During the patient's mutation, he displayed all sorts of feats difficult for humans to accomplish. He had originally been a patient on the verge of dying, yet during the mutation, he could easily leap five or six meters and smash through the beams supporting a house with one punch. Wang Yuan believed this "Black Crow" pathogen was worth cultivating, though it still needed improvement.

Besides "Black Crow," there was another pathogen worth collecting. It came from Komoro, who had been infected the longest among those still alive.

Perhaps because the Progenitor Pathogen had been suppressed in Komoro's body for too long, it had undergone a peculiar mutation and gradually entered a dormant state. However, once Wang Yuan controlled those pathogens, they stimulated Komoro to secrete two different substances. One made Komoro feel pleasure, while the other filled him with extreme fear.

As for which substance was secreted, that was entirely under Wang Yuan's control. In fact, if Wang Yuan did not interfere now, Komoro would no longer die because of the pathogen.

Wang Yuan named this pathogen, which could produce pleasure and fear, the "Domination" Pathogen. It meant that once infected, one could not escape Wang Yuan's domination. More importantly, Komoro could now provide Wang Yuan with Soul Qi, that cool, refreshing aura, just like a Mutated Crow.

Unlike the crows, however, the Soul Qi Komoro provided, like the Soul Qi absorbed from human corpses, contained emotional residue and fragments of memory.

This is somewhat like the faith-based ascension to godhood I saw in my previous life. Could Soul Qi's true name be the power of faith? Wang Yuan thought. However, he abandoned the Soul Qi Komoro provided.

Wang Yuan did not want to become that kind of Faith God. Such gods seemed to control everything, but were actually controlled by their many believers. That was something Wang Yuan could not tolerate. He could willingly accept changes to his personality, but he could not accept being passively remade.

Wang Yuan had defined his own goal as becoming a Dominator, not a god. If it was that kind of god, then Wang Yuan intended to dominate it one day as well.

This Domination Pathogen is quite useful. Unfortunately, its ability to spread and infect has become extremely weak. It cannot be transmitted on a large scale, and for now, only Komoro carries it. Wang Yuan sighed, then continued examining the development and mutation of the Progenitor Pathogen inside various hosts.

Komoro's mother should be close to giving birth these days, shouldn't she? Wang Yuan thought.

Please bookmark, vote with recommendation tickets, and add this book to your reading lists. Thank you all for your support.