Chapter 538: Research Progress
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
In the spacious spacecraft laboratory, a series of biological cultivation devices were operating quietly. Each of the large, silver integrated test benches had a big, transparent canister. There was a small amount of red, bloody viscous liquid in the transparent canisters. They were flowing slowly at the bottom as if they were alive and trying to climb up the canister walls. Above the fluid were many biological tissues, which looked like blood vessels and tendons supporting some strange organs.
That was the results of the cultivation device's work over the past few days. It used the protocells from the Divine Sarcophagus to create strange life.
The MDT connected itself to the analytical host computer in the laboratory and reported the progress. "The culture will not continue after this step. These biological tissues will stop growing and they will no longer be functionally differentiated. Their genetic structure is weird and they store information far beyond what they're supposed to in their current form. However, some factors prevent their genetic information from being revealed. It may be related to the supernatural power of the goddess. Besides, the organs produced by each culture tank are slightly different and may be related to the original location of the extracted protocells. I remember that the protocells were originally harvested from seven different locations of the Progenitors of Life."
"These are the organs of the Seed of Origin?" Lily peeked at the nearest test bench curiously, staring at the weird "meat" in the culture tank. They looked somewhat similar to an animal's flesh tissue, but the colors as well as texture looked a bit like plant fiber. From the surface, they appeared flexible and well-put-together. "Looks slightly..."
"Disgusting, isn't it?" Nangong Wuyue said, sticking out her tongue. "Like something from a horror movie."
Lily licked her lips and said, "Not really. It's actually appetizing. This is meat!"
Everyone was speechless.
"Pull her back, don't let her be in contact with the samples." Cold sweat trickled down Hao Ren's forehead. He had to let Vivian keep an eye on the husky. "She must be craving for grilled meat so badly!"
Lily was still trying to lunge to the front while being dragged to the back by Vivian. "That's meat! That really looks like meat! Just let me take a bite!"
"Let's us get down to business," Hao Ren wiped the cold sweat off his forehead, then turned to look at the MDT. "Do you think the cultivation results are correct? Is this really part of the Seed of Origin?"
"I'm not sure," the MDT admitted that this experiment was not so perfect. "The protocells have many incomprehensible self-selection and mutation during the growth process, and finally turned into this. I am not sure these things are the Seed of Origin—it would seem impossible to use the Seed of Origin's cells to reverse-engineer to its original form. Without the supernatural power of the Goddess, these things are only defective products."
Hao Ren's brow pulled together. "At least there should be something else? At least there's some understanding about the Seed of Origin."
The MDT wobbled up and down. "At least we've got something. The cells used in the cultivation are from the necrotic ganglion of the Seed of Origin, so these mutated tissues that are now cultivated are also related to neural activity. If they haven't mutated into this state... they should be part of the brain tissue of the Seed of Origin, or the brain of the seed. These organs have a complex neurotransmission infrastructure and an antenna-like transceiving structure—but something is wrong with the transceiving structure, it's not functioning. I've activated a sample and its antenna receives only clutter."
"The part of the brain?" Hao Ren looked at the samples in the canister with interest. "Do they have the ability to think if reasonable stimulation is applied?"
"There is a complex reflection mechanism but no sign of intelligence," replied the MDT, and then spoke about a strange phenomenon suddenly. "There is another discovery. Take a look at the Culture Tank Number One."
As soon as the voice of the MDT trailed off, the top of the culture tank on the Test Bench No. 1 suddenly opened before a green plant was thrown inside. The biological tissue and the red liquid in in the canister sensed the object immediately as they twisted and moved. The green plant was soon swallowed by the red liquid, but after a few moments, the red liquid receded to aside. The plant was intact and even looked healthier than before.
"This is a living sample," said the MDT. "Now, look at the dead sample again."
The green plant was removed, and then a bunch of withered grass was thrown inside.
Once again the red liquid wrapped around the 'foreign object' and within seconds, the grass was digested completely.
"This is..." Y'zaks looked in wonder at what was going on in the canister. "Eating?"
Y'lisabet, holding a small screwdriver, tried to get close but she was pulled back by her dad. The little girl protested. "I'm not going to break it! I know this thing is important, I just want to take a look…"
No one gave a shit about what the little girl said; she might know that this thing was too important to be messed with, but who could guarantee its safety when it came to a child?
"It keeps away from living things?" Hao Ren had figured out something. "It's a scavenger."
"It's a scavenger. And taking into consideration that it's the Seed of Origin's ganglion, the First Born's early 'console', I suspect that the Seed of Origin, and even the First Born that had hatched subsequently, were all based on this ganglion's judgment mechanism to survive, that is 'scavenging'," the MDT analysed. "which can be used to determine the patterns of action of the Seed of Origin after its 'landing' and the original form of the First Born: they created lives, evolved the ecological circles, and took the last spot of the food chain, recycling the necrotic organisms and nutrients in the soil to fuel the entire cycle. They were responsible for providing the initial creation and the ultimate recovery of the ecosystem, and the evolution process in between was the job of the Second Borns. That constituted a complete 'work'."
The MDT added, "Besides, it could be fed with silicon minerals, water, sulphides and carbon, which prove that the First Born could adapt to a variety of nutrient environments and create organic matter by itself without the existence of any organic matters."
"Scavenger. It sounds very gentle," Vivian said thoughtfully.
"It's indeed a gentle diet, but it has little to do with its 'character,'" the MDT explained. "The analysis host computer suspects that this scavenging behaviour was only to ensure that there was no problem during creation, it was to prevent the blood tide from mistakenly consuming its own creation. If it were to grow a complex filtering mechanism to choose which organisms to eat, how much to eat per meal, then it would certainly exhaust too many nerve cells, so the creator of the seed simply set the rule and made it a scavenger, which only fed on the dead, and completely skipped living things. This had protected the ecosystem. The ganglionic suppression of the First Born activity probably started a similar mechanism."
"But the First Born's scavenging behaviour has obviously gone out of control. It ate everything." Hao Ren raised his eyebrows. "Or to put it more directly, it deliberately went out of control. It wanted to destroy the ecosystem."
"The First Born's initial offensive ability must be coming from its 'feeding' mechanism, but later on in order to destroy the Second Borns, it began to develop various kinds of weapons, such as seed cannons capable of performing space operations. This is obviously completely out of control." The MDT lamented. "Look how perfect it was its initial safety mechanism. Unfortunately, the system had collapsed. This shows that centralized network is not as reliable as distributed network, when the server goes under all the clients are basically useless."
A surprisingly lament of a PDA.
"Although there is no way to analyse the causes of the loss of control of the First Born and the whereabouts of the Goddess from these organs, we do have something else." The MDT sighed as it directed an autonomous robot to carry two boxes to Hao Ren. "They're fresh from the oven."
The box was opened; one of which contained a silver-white ball with a neat blue pattern on the surface, the other box was filled with transparent containers of pale red liquid.
"What's this egg for?" Lily leaned forward from behind. "It reminds me of Lil Pea."
"This is a suppressing signal transmitter." The voice of the MDT sounded helpless. "It can perfectly simulate the signal of the progenitor, and keep the First Born in its sleep. We can put this on the First Born of Holletta, then it wouldn't care even if we detonate a nuclear bomb on it."
"What about the other one?"
"An Interfering pheromones, made with those cell samples and lifeblood," the MDT apparently cared more about these substances. "Suppressing signal emitters is a very problematic thing. Once the signal is interrupted, the First Born will wake up. So interference pheromones can be used as a backup safety measure: it can wake up the First Born's 'scavenging mechanism' in short a time, leaving it impossible to swallow living things."