Chapter 23: Chapter Twenty-Two: The True Method of Gene Fusion

"You said she left?" Ding Huan repeated involuntarily.

He ran all the way back to Anhe County and immediately went to Yilan Hotel, where he learned from the front desk that Qu Yi had left Anhe County—departing at six in the morning.

Because of that mutated golden-faced thick-tailed ape, Ding Huan didn't arrive here until just after eight in the morning.

After leaving Yilan Hotel, Ding Huan immediately planned to buy a ticket to Pujiang.

Even if Qu Yi didn't believe his gene serum now, he had to find out where her family lived.

According to his memory, Qu Yi had at most four or five months before the Gene Alliance took her for experiments.

Wait…

Four or five months? That's exactly when the Blue Star Top Ten Academies' enrollment exams end.

The Blue Star Top Ten Academies' enrollment exams are less than three months away; if Qu Yi was taken after the exams and then used as a gene test subject four or five months later, it's entirely possible.

The Gene Alliance definitely holds some influence over the Blue Star Top Ten Academies' admissions.

After all, the Blue Star Top Ten Academies were jointly established by over a hundred countries, the Martial Alliance, and the Gene Alliance.

When Qu Yi said she was going to Puhaiboh, she was definitely going to take the Blue Star Top Ten Academies' enrollment exam.

If he went to Puhaiboh now and found Qu Yi, would she believe him? Would she agree to fuse with the gene serum he offered?

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Since Qu Yi definitely wouldn't fuse with the gene serum he provided, there was no need for him to go to Puhaiboh first.

He would still follow his original plan: find fire lizard grade specimens, then return to Luohe City to manufacture the gene serum.

Once he finished manufacturing the gene serum, he would head to Puhaiboh ahead of time.

At least during this period, Qu Yi was safe.

…

Traveling from Anhe County to Lujang City required one transfer.

The wilderness was extremely unsafe now; between Anhe County and Lujang City lay many uninhabited zones, all teeming with gene-monsters.

Normally, vehicles on these routes ceased operation at night.

Ding Huan bought his ticket in time and arrived in Lujang City by evening.

Originally, Ding Huan planned to rest one night in Lujang City, then go out to search for fire lizard grade specimens the next day.

But when Ding Huan arrived in Lujang City, he realized he'd vastly underestimated others.

In Lujang City, you didn't need to go out searching for fire lizard grade specimens—you could just buy them directly.

Almost every street had shops selling fire lizard grade specimens, and the prices were extremely cheap.

Whether you wanted dried specimens or live ones, you could buy them here.

Not only that, even European fire lizard grade specimens were available here—though at much higher prices.

After a little inquiry, Ding Huan learned the reason.

Fire lizard grade specimens could now be used in medicine, enhancing meridians and healing injuries for martial artists; moreover, major gene laboratories also needed them desperately.

Ding Huan easily bought several live fire lizard grade specimens for just over a hundred Alliance coins.

"Friend, the fire lizard grade you bought is mediocre—I have hexagonal fire lizard grade here…"

Seeing Ding Huan carrying a cage with fire lizard grade specimens, a street vendor immediately pushed his own wares.

Hexagonal fire lizard grade?

"Let me see." Ding Huan stopped, and sure enough, he saw several hexagonal fire lizard grade specimens on the vendor's stall.

"This one's head is quite large." Ding Huan was very satisfied.

The vendor chuckled, "My fire lizard grade specimens are all wild—you bought mostly farmed ones."

"Did you catch them yourself?" Ding Huan was surprised.

The vendor boasted, "Anyone who knows me, Old Liu, knows my fire lizard grade specimens come from Penglu Mountain. Even students from the Blue Star Top Ten Academies have bought from me."

"Impressive—only the skilled dare go to Penglu Mountain to catch fire lizard grade specimens; the gene-monsters there don't recognize anyone."

Ding Huan casually complimented him and decided to buy one more from the vendor.

His praise was genuine—Penglu Mountain was full of gene-monsters; anyone daring to hunt wild fire lizard grade specimens clearly had skill.

The vendor went on enthusiastically, "Gene-monsters are nothing—I once saw a two-horned fire lizard grade in Penglu Mountain."

"To be honest, in all my years, I've never seen a two-horned fire lizard grade over a meter long."

"Two-horned fire lizard grade? One meter long?" Ding Huan's eyes immediately lit up.

This was definitely an elite mutated fire lizard grade—the legends said fire lizard grade carried a trace of divine beast blood, referring to dragons.

Ding Huan's mind naturally conjured an image of a one-meter-long two-horned fire lizard grade—a retrograde mutation carrying divine beast blood.

"Absolutely true—maybe even longer than a meter; I saw it with my own eyes. But it was a mutated monster, so I ran the moment I saw it," the vendor swore earnestly.

"Oh, then I'll take one of your hexagonal fire lizard grade specimens." Ding Huan didn't press further and bought one.

If he weren't in a hurry to reach Puhaiboh, Ding Huan would have seriously entered Penglu Mountain to search for the two-horned fire lizard grade.

One could imagine such a two-horned fire lizard grade would be incredibly hard to find.

Even if he wanted to search, he could only wait until after meeting Qu Yi—he couldn't let Qu Yi be put in danger because of him.

Ding Huan stayed one night in Lujang City and returned to Luohe on the third day.

Geng Qianxing and the other three were still frantically practicing the Thousand Network Gene Art and Basic Long Fist; when Ding Huan returned, no one even noticed.

Without even resting, Ding Huan went straight to the gene laboratory.

If not for University of Yujiang's president Tan Bei, who desperately wanted someone from the school to enter the Blue Star Top Ten Academies, this lab would have been sold long ago.

The school's neglect of the lab was genuinely convenient for Ding Huan.

Ding Huan didn't start by extracting the fire lizard grade's injury-recovery gene—he chose first to extract the golden-faced thick-tailed ape's anti-toxin gene and synthesize a fusion-ready gene serum.

He would also synthesize the fire lizard grade's healing-recovery gene later, but he didn't plan to use it yet.

When he had free time, he planned to see if he could find that one-meter-long two-horned fire lizard.

Ding Huan had not done this for the first time—extracting and refining gene agents that could fuse with the human body; the past few times had gone extremely smoothly.

Each time he extracted a gene agent capable of fusing with the human body, Ding Huan felt he understood gene agent production a little better.

So this time, extracting the toxin-resistant gene from the Golden-Faced Thick-Tailed Monkey, Ding Huan wasn't worried he couldn't do it.

Yet things always fail precisely when you think they'll be easy.

Ding Huan had stayed in the lab for two days, filling notebook after notebook with recorded data, yet he still couldn't extract the Golden-Faced Thick-Tailed Monkey's toxin-resistant gene.

If he hadn't chopped off half the monkey's tail and brought it back, he might not have had enough material to continue the experiment.

On the third day, Ding Huan felt he couldn't go on like this—there would be no progress.

He left the gene lab, took a shower, ate something, and rested overnight before beginning to rethink his strategy.

Once he calmed down and thought carefully, vague fragments of genetic knowledge gradually surfaced in his mind.

Things he had previously been utterly unable to understand slowly became clear as he took time to organize them.

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First, the Spirit Root gene—in the era before genes were discovered, the Spirit Root must have been a gene.

But later, as heavenly energy grew scarce, humans living on Earth gradually lost certain traits.

The Spirit Root gene vanished entirely; without a Spirit Root, no matter how excellent the cultivation technique or how dense the heavenly energy, one could not cultivate at all?

He could produce a Spirit Root gene not merely because he possessed Reincarnation Blood, but more importantly because the Spirit Root gene he made was for himself.

In other words, if he made a Spirit Root gene agent for Seeing Qu Yi, could it truly fuse?

Second, the Skill gene—the toxin-resistant gene he was making now also belonged to the Skill gene category.

Could he not merely borrow the gene's ability, such as the White-Faced Thick-Tailed Monkey's toxin resistance?

Instead, could he transform that gene's ability into his own physical attributes? That would be different.

One is simply fusing to acquire the ability.

The other is turning it into a bodily instinct—one that requires no fusion of foreign genes to possess.

On the surface, they appear identical, but Ding Huan vaguely sensed a tremendous difference—this difference could even determine his future height.

Unfortunately, he couldn't yet understand where that difference lay.

If he couldn't figure it out, don't think about it now—focus first on making the toxin-resistant gene agent.

As Ding Huan used those vague genetic insights to think deeper, the methods for refining foreign genes that fused with the human body gradually became clear.

For any foreign gene, if humans wished to extract it and refine it into an agent that could fuse with the human body and grant the foreign gene's traits, they must seek.

Yes—seek.

If what he wanted wasn't merely extracting and fusing a foreign gene, but transforming its ability into his own instinct, then he needed more than just a gene fragment…

The fragments he had previously extracted were merely tiny pieces from among many such fragments in the Golden-Faced Thick-Tailed Monkey.

His earlier approach had been to take this tiny gene fragment and refine it into a toxin-resistant gene agent capable of fusing with the human body.

Fortunately, he hadn't succeeded before.

Now, if he didn't proceed this way, he would have to cut out countless such fragments, then add other genes—even his own genes—and fuse them with these fragments to form a new gene…

This was refining a new gene.

This refining of a new gene was no longer merely borrowing the foreign gene's innate ability.

It was using the foreign gene's expression pattern to transform the skill into his own attribute.

Ding Huan was excited—he felt his use of foreign genes had shifted from quantity to quality.

No longer superficial gene manipulation.

But how difficult was it to extract a complete gene from billions of fragments?

Ding Huan looked at his notebooks and knew that if he continued like this, even if he filled several truckloads of notebooks, he might still not find all the necessary gene fragments.

A sudden method appeared in Ding Huan's mind—he could use a gene-death selection method…

By adding a certain type of gene to billions of fragments, any fragment that didn't match his needs would be dissolved and killed—what remained would surely be what he needed.

Others couldn't add dissolution-killing gene fragments, but he could.

With a method in hand, Ding Huan exhaled deeply, and without wasting even half a moment, hurried back to the lab.

He resumed extracting the Golden-Faced Thick-Tailed Monkey's toxin-resistant gene, refined the agent, and added dissolution-killing gene fragments…

One day, two days…

One after another, Ding Huan recorded data, then filtered it and added new dissolution-killing gene fragments…

On the sixth day, Ding Huan excitedly gripped two test tubes filled with crimson-red gene reagents.

He had succeeded—he had produced two doses of toxin-resistant gene agent.

Ding Huan felt these two vials of gene agent were more precious than the Spirit Root gene agent he had made before.

It wasn't that the Spirit Root gene agent was easier to make, but because he had discovered a new direction in gene fusion—not merely making gene agents anymore.

With this method, he now had greater confidence in making a Spirit Root gene agent for Seeing Qu Yi.

But the prerequisite was Seeing Qu Yi's cooperation—he needed to find a Spirit Root gene agent compatible with Seeing Qu Yi.

He would need Seeing Qu Yi's blood, to locate within Seeing Qu Yi's genome the method for fusing the Spirit Root gene agent.

He must travel to Puhai in advance.

After making his decision, Ding Huan immediately carefully packed one vial of toxin-resistant gene agent into a glass bottle, and drank the other vial down in one gulp.

The crimson-red agent entered his mouth and instantly melted into threads of icy cold snowlines, which spread through his body in an instant.

Ding Huan's intuition struck—he immediately activated the Luo Shi Jing to begin cultivation.

The next moment, he felt continuous stabbing pains coursing through his body, yet those pains seemed to be swept away and dissolved by the icy snowlines.

Drops of gray liquid seeped from his fingertips; a wave of dread and fury surged within Ding Huan.

He had actually been poisoned — if not for the genetic potion he had refined and taken today.

Even if he didn't die, his future cultivation path would likely be blocked at the Genetic Foundation Establishment stage.