Progenitor Transformation

An hour later, the car had long since left Chengdu and stopped in a remote stretch of wilderness.

The nearest highway was twenty kilometers away, and the nearest village was five kilometers away.

"Are you going to deal with this tail, or should I?" Luo Yi lit another cigarette.

Xia Heng said flatly, "I'll go. Use this time to turn Little Wu into a Madblood Clan member."

Luo Yi spoke meaningfully. "Then it's settled..."

"It's settled." Xia Heng got out of the car and surveyed the terrain.

He spotted the refrigerated truck keeping its distance, parked on a county road two kilometers away rather than daring to approach. He could not help shaking his head.

Xia Heng walked down the dirt slope. Purple Armor Bio-Armor covered his entire body except for his right arm.

The moment he passed behind a large boulder and vanished from sight, he suddenly accelerated, racing away like lightning.

Not only was he fast, but his figure also became blurry and translucent—optical camouflage.

In an instant, he disappeared into the mountain forest without a trace.

Luo Yi lit a cigarette, leaned against the car, and beckoned. "Come on, Little Wu. Let me bite you."

Wu Zhong approached, both excited and nervous, while Yang Chunsha watched him enviously.

"Imagine a taut string in your head. You're incredibly irritated, unable to sleep, with a powerful sense of excitement building inside you."

"It's like you're driving a speeding car in your mind, but the brakes have failed and won't respond."

As Luo Yi described it, there was a faintly hypnotic quality to his words.

Wu Zhong did his best to imagine that feeling and followed every instruction.

"Ah!"

Suddenly, Luo Yi grabbed Wu Zhong and sank his teeth into the artery in his neck.

Wu Zhong had prepared himself for pain, but to his surprise, it was not too bad. Luo Yi merely bit his neck lightly enough to break the skin.

A tiny trace of blood stained his teeth. Then Luo Yi blew softly, and Wu Zhong immediately felt a strange, exhilarating rush.

Every cell in his body boiled. His blood surged, his heartbeat became powerful and vigorous, and an indescribable comfort flooded his organs, limbs, and bones.

Luo Yi released him, frowned slightly, and spat.

Meanwhile, Wu Zhong found that his hearing had become extraordinarily sharp. His vision was even clearer—he could make out the veins of a leaf dozens of meters away.

It was as though the entire world had been given a new filter, while something muffling all sound had been lifted away. Everything felt completely renewed.

"I... I'm stronger already?"

"Aren't I supposed to feed on a mental illness first?"

Wu Zhong felt light as a swallow. He started jumping on the spot, each leap taking him over a meter into the air.

He was not curling his legs beneath him, either. These were basketball-style vertical jumps, his legs straight as he rose one and a half meters off the ground.

Wu Zhong was one meter eighty tall. His standing leap looked absurdly dramatic, like some strange peak rising from the ground, and it gave Yang Chunsha quite a fright.

Luo Yi spat again. "You absorbed mine. More precisely, I injected one of my severe mental disorders into you."

"That's the First Embrace. Once you forcibly accept the Madblood Clan's mental illness effect, you become a Madblood Clan member too."

"But the price paid by the Madblood Clan isn't so easily resolved. The first person to discover the First Embrace originally wanted to pass his own mental illness burden onto someone else."

"In the end, not only did he create a second-generation Madblood Clan member, one of his own mental illnesses was also randomly replaced with an even more awful one."

Wu Zhong understood. A Madblood Clan member's mental illness was a calamity effect.

Trying to transfer it to someone else and reduce your own burden? Dream on.

Instead, it would backfire. Another random mental illness would instantly replace it, and getting a random one was gambling with your life. Bad luck could leave you even more screwed.

"Lord Luo, what illness did you pass to me?" Wu Zhong pressed.

Luo Yi wiped drool from the corner of his mouth. "Insomnia. I already told you what my insomnia feels like, so it would be easier for you to accept my sleep disorder and resonate with the First Embrace."

"This kind of First Embrace might trigger Progenitor Transformation."

"Progenitor Transformation?" Wu Zhong was stunned.

Luo Yi lit another cigarette. "It means becoming a first-generation Madblood Clan member. You'll be fundamentally different from the ordinary ones, kind of like vampires in fiction."

"There are thirteen first-generation Madblood Clan members in total. That number is fixed. If all the spots are currently filled, then you definitely won't trigger Progenitor Transformation."

"But if you become first-generation, your diet will be broader. For example, you can absorb the characteristic mental illnesses possessed by ordinary Madblood Clan members. You can even consume mental distortions as illnesses."

"In short, your diet expands from ordinary illnesses into the realm of calamity objects."

"Absorb mental distortions?" Wu Zhong was horrified.

Luo Yi explained, "Things like Money Phobia, Infinite Emotion, Absolute Guilt, and other weird calamity memes such as Must Feast Every Day and Couples Must Be Burned to Death."

"Damn it, not a single one of them is any good."

Wu Zhong scratched his head. "I understand the first part, but what's a meme?"

Luo Yi exhaled smoke. "Genes are units that reproduce and spread on the biological level. Memes are units that reproduce and spread on the level of thought."

"For example, when it's your birthday, don't you eat cake?"

Wu Zhong shook his head. "I've never had cake."

"..." Luo Yi froze awkwardly, blinked, then asked again, "Well, anyway, everyone celebrates their birthday..."

Wu Zhong sighed sadly. "I don't celebrate my birthday either."

Luo Yi's mouth twitched. "Stop interrupting me! Anyway, most people think birthdays should be celebrated. That's a meme."

"No one knows who invented it, but people who didn't know they were supposed to do it see everyone else doing it, learn from them, and imitate birthday celebrations. Eventually, similar birthday rituals become popular culture."

"You don't celebrate your birthday, fine. That proves it's a normal meme, because it doesn't spread by force. It isn't absolute mental infection."

"On the other hand, certain memories and cognitions can be forcibly implanted into the human mind, driving people to imitate certain behaviors and turning them into absolute common sense—an ideological brand!"

"No matter how strange or jarring it may be, infected people will think it is the most natural thing in the world."

Wu Zhong suddenly understood, then widened his eyes. "Wait, does Must Feast Every Day mean exactly what it says? What if there's no feast to eat?"

Luo Yi spat. "It's like how you need to eat every day. What if you don't have food?"

Wu Zhong replied, "Then I don't have food. I'll just stay hungry until I have money to eat."

Luo Yi rolled his eyes. "Don't be a smartass. Anyway, this kind of absolute common sense can drive people mad. Denying them a feast is like not letting them breathe."

"As the day draws to a close and they still haven't had a feast, their craving and obsession become like someone dying of thirst in the desert searching for water. Their eyes turn red, their adrenaline surges, and they'll use every possible means to get a feast."

"If they really fail to get one, then they fail to get one. They'll break down for a while, like they've been socially ruined. They'll feel as though they've been defiled, and their emotions will sink to an extreme low."

"But that's all. There's no tangible price for failing to eat one, because it only affects cognition. The next day, they'll go about their business as usual—while continuing to need a feast."

Wu Zhong stroked his chin. "If first-generation Madblood Clan members can even absorb mental distortions, isn't that basically purification?"

Luo Yi spat on the ground. "Purification my ass. It still just gets transferred onto yourself."

"Besides, plenty of terrifying mental distortions can't be absorbed. Madblood Clan members have very low priority."

"Even memes like Must Feast Every Day can't be completely absorbed by Madblood Clan members. They can only treat the symptoms, not the root cause. The infected person will still relapse for no reason the next day and become infected out of thin air."

Wu Zhong nodded in understanding. Xia Heng had also told him about priority.

For example, if a mental distortion came with the condition "absolutely cannot be transferred," then it probably could not be absorbed.

Among calamity objects, there was no strongest—only stronger.

"Then, Lord Luo, do you think I'm a first-generation Madblood Clan member now?"

Luo Yi smacked his lips. "How would I know? This thing depends on luck. Old Xia was the one who insisted I help you become first-generation."

"Otherwise, I would've bitten you back when you drank yourself unconscious. Why wait until now?"

"It's only because I knew Gödel Psychiatric Hospital lost two first-generation Madblood Clan members not long ago, leaving the thirteen clans short of their full number."

"That's why I let you try your luck. Otherwise, there'd be no point trying at all."

Wu Zhong tilted his head. "Ordinary Madblood Clan members can't absorb the illnesses of their own kind. If I absorb some of your mental illness, won't that prove it?"

Luo Yi rolled his eyes. "Are you kidding? Do you think I'm not first-generation?"

"Only first-generation members can trigger Progenitor Transformation and create new first-generation members. Even if you succeeded, you still couldn't absorb mine."

"Go find an ordinary Madblood Clan member to test it on later. You'll understand."

"Oh, right. Whenever you absorb a mental illness in the future, make sure it's severe. Try not to absorb mild ones unless it's an illness you absolutely can't accept."

Wu Zhong blinked. "What do you mean? Isn't mild better?"

Luo Yi explained, "Only severe ones increase your physical abilities to twice that of an ordinary person. Otherwise, it's only 0.8 times, 0.5 times, and so on."

"Think about it. You can only absorb each type of mental illness once. Every acceptable category of mental illness is like a safe slot, so naturally you want to maximize the return."

"It's like equipment slots. If you put a mild one in there, wouldn't that be wasting a slot?"

"The insomnia I gave you just now is severe. Because of it, whenever I want to sleep, I need massive amounts of alcohol and anesthetic injections."

"Even because my physical condition is too strong, ordinary anesthetics don't work anymore. It's gotten to the point where I'm a little addicted to anesthetics..."

"But don't worry. Insomnia doesn't mean you absolutely can't sleep. It just means you need certain methods. Among the Madblood Clan, it's publicly recognized as an acceptable mental illness."

"Your starting point is insomnia, which gives you physical abilities twice those of an ordinary person. That makes it easier for you to endure substance addiction disorders that harm your health later on."

"You can follow my route—start with psychological dependence on tobacco and alcohol, then expand into obsessive-compulsive disorder, fetishism, and the like."

"If you don't mind it, sexual dysfunction is an extremely cost-effective mental illness. Many Madblood Clan members are frigid. It doesn't affect daily life or combat, and it can even be good for your health."

Watching him seriously teach the finer points of choosing a "Madblood path," Wu Zhong thought to himself that Brother Xia truly had not told Luo Yi about his Mental Bastion.

Luo Yi did not know that he was not afraid of any mental illness at all.

"Insomnia... Got it. Thank you, Lord Luo, for granting me Madblood blood."

"Um, you transferred your insomnia to me, so a random mental illness should have appeared to replace it. What is it?"

Wu Zhong looked at him with concern. Luo Yi kept drooling, which he had not done before. Could that be one of the symptoms of his new illness?

Sure enough, drool ran from Luo Yi's mouth again, and he slurped it back.

He frowned. "How would I know what illness I got?"

"But it clearly doesn't affect my mind. That's already the best possible outcome, so don't worry about it."

Wu Zhong nodded. For Madblood Clan members, any mental illness that did not severely affect the mind was a good illness. What a bargain!

Luo Yi had taken a huge risk by turning him into a Madblood Clan member. Put plainly, it had been a gamble.

Now, it seemed he had won. Luo Yi could still converse normally, and there was nothing wrong with his mind.