Nearly fifty years have passed since the end of the great war in the Southern Continent, and another major event has stirred up public opinion in the Southern Continent.
Yalian II, emperor of the Boya Empire, one of the two great powers of the Southern Continent, has passed away.
The deaths of royals in these kingdoms do not have a specific title like the Pope's, and their passing is not a particularly significant event. After all, the royal succession is already established, the external situation is relatively stable, and recent developments have been quite good, so their departure will not cause national turmoil.
The main reason for the uproar in public opinion was his death.
In this age where Vampire are so prevalent and roam everywhere, it's Vampire that these emperors didn't become Vampire to enjoy immortality, but instead simply died of old age on their thrones. This is the real reason for the uproar.
Why wouldn't even the royal family of such a vast empire be willing to become Vampire? Would they really be willing to give up their lives?
It's worth noting that many royal families in surrounding small countries have already legally accepted Vampire and are eager to become Vampire themselves. They're all emperors; could there really be differences between them?
No one could understand why this wise emperor, who had lived a full life, ultimately chose to die of old age, and many even mocked and ridiculed him.
"The emperor of the Boya Empire is a real idiot. With such power, why doesn't he hurry up and live forever to enjoy it? Instead, he insists on dying in bed. Does he really think his spirit can move heaven and earth?"
"Oh dear, I feel like he's completely ruined his manhood. Think about it, he's enjoyed himself for so many years, how much more could he have enjoyed? He must have reached the point where living is worse than being dead."
"Foolish. Born into an imperial family, yet not knowing how to maximize one's own interests. If it were me, I would certainly..."
People do indeed have different perspectives and outlooks.
As for the death of the Boya Empire emperor, His Majesty Norton remained completely silent.
Because he simply didn't know.
All his attention was drawn to his experiment.
The Scarlet Tower, at the thirtieth floor.
Thirty years have passed since Norton began his experiment.
Over the past thirty years, Norton's experimental methods and the sheer number of experiments he has conducted could fill a mass grave.
Although those used as experimental subjects were all criminals or other creatures, the sheer number of lives consumed over the years has earned him the infamous reputation of a tyrant.
Over the past thirty years, Norton has conducted numerous controlled experiments using knowledge he hadn't completely forgotten from his previous life.
For example, two people of the same size, age, and gender could simultaneously devour his flesh and blood to see if their degree of mutation was the same, to see to what extent they could mutate, and to see if these two experimental subjects could reproduce offspring with the same mutation.
For example, you could experiment on two subjects, a male and a female, simultaneously to see if they have the same degree of mutation and whether they can produce mutated offspring through mating...
The experiment lasted for thirty years. Apart from Norton and the experimental subjects, no other creatures were able to enter the entire thirty levels of the Tower of Blood. And all the hard work paid off. Norton did indeed obtain a lot of information from the thirty years of experimentation.
First, his flesh and blood are indeed the root of the mutation, and this mutation can be manipulated by his will.
Over the past thirty years, he has cultivated ghouls, deities, mutants, and even merfolk with gill openings on their bellies using only the human species.
Aside from humans being able to cultivate different species, even various animals and monsters, as long as they are living things, can mutate by consuming flesh and blood, thus forming all sorts of monsters that have never appeared before.
It could be said that Norton alone could cultivate all the species in the entire Western fantasy world.
He truly lives up to the name "Little God"!
However, this requires his fixed mindset to cultivate them in a targeted manner, and these species, which have been cultivated to the point of being as mature as lumps of Coal Ball, seem to have impure genes. Not all of their genes were created by Norton, which has caused them to be reproductively isolated from their original species and no longer able to reproduce. Even mating with opposite sexes that have been cultivated to the same degree by Norton makes it difficult to create new offspring.
Instead of cultivating it to maturity, it is allowed to devour only a small portion of its own flesh and blood, so that when it undergoes a shallow mutation, its genome may be able to interbreed and reproduce with the original species because the changes are not significant.
However, the offspring produced by these shallowly mutated experimental subjects were the products of the deep mutation that Norton had envisioned.
To put it bluntly, it's like the Wolf King ate some of Norton's flesh and blood, but he himself didn't become New-Type Werewolf. However, his offspring became a mutated and mature New-Type Werewolf, and they were capable of reproduction.
This is somewhat like saying: 'My creation is not the complete creation; the creation of my creations is the complete creation.'
However, most of the children they give birth to are deformed, and few are fully formed.
It's somewhat like Norton and God's genomes are so deeply intertwined that both are influenced by the other, making it impossible for either to fully express itself.
No wonder that Coal Ball and Plum Blossom haven't been able to reproduce after so many years of mutation; their relationship has mutated too deeply, somewhat like a mule produced by mating a horse and a donkey, losing its fertility!
However, the above experimental results were obtained after Norton had predetermined its mutated form.
If Norton hadn't defined the final form of these mutations, then the mutated products of these experiments would be somewhat similar to the Kryptonian system.