Chapter 80: Gene Modification Department (First Update)

Returning to the Primordial Altar, Qi Sheng sat cross-legged.

The brief journey had ended; he returned to his busy state, reviewing information generated by the players to find directions for updates and optimization.

As for the Mechanical Sovereign he had encountered during this trip, he had already marked it as a hostile faction.

The Mechanical Sovereign's goal of shattering the Monster World was destined to run counter to his ultimate objective.

However, this hostile faction did not need to be dealt with for now.

At least before the Player Legion advanced to the Earth-Tremor Continent, it would not pose a substantive threat to the development of the Player Legion.

In his eyes, the vast and boundless Monster World seemed to have become incredibly vibrant during the years since the Four Gods vanished.

The Terrifying Black Black Tide, the Counter-Black Tide Legion, the Mechanical Sovereign... clearly, countless new forces were rising in this ancient and vast world, staging an unprecedented, magnificent epic struggle for supremacy.

The future, where heroes vied for dominance, filled Qi Sheng with anticipation.

Currently, the factions he had explicitly marked as hostile were the Terrifying Black Black Tide and the Mechanical Sovereign; as for the Counter-Black Tide Legion, he was temporarily unsure whether they were friend or foe, or if there existed any conflict of interest.

Thinking of this, Qi Sheng raised his head to look at the Guiding Water Sphere floating beside him:

"Guidance, if I use the identity of Di Zhao to recruit this Eight Extremes God whose identity is unknown, what is the probability of success?"

[Boss, without specific conditions to analyze, I don't know if the Counter-Black Tide can be recruited... It is best not to make contact until we know the other party's specific situation; the identity of Di Zhao's heir is too sensitive, and rashly exposing it will inevitably attract the attention of various factions, including traitors greedy for Di Zhao's power and powerful enemies from outside.]

Hearing this, Qi Sheng nodded to show his understanding.

Similar words had been spoken to him by all four of his Vassal Servants.

Di Zhao was the creator of the Monster World; even those manipulating events behind the Black Black Tide could not refuse its power.

Before possessing sufficiently powerful strength, exposing one's identity was purely an act of seeking death.

At that time, with factions from all sides gathering, the Player Legion would have no room left for development, and he would completely lose the initiative, becoming the center of contention for various factions and drifting with the Black Tide.

This was also the reason he had initially chosen to burn Sacrificial Power to go out hunting.

Without dwelling on this issue, Qi Sheng shifted his gaze to the forum.

Scanning quickly, a post refreshed just three seconds ago caught his eye.

[Finally my turn to get rich; before successfully containing it, I'm posting this to draw fire. The more you roast me, the happier I am, because I know you're jealous. If you want to curse, come to my livestream room; preferably donate some money while you're at it.]

Poster: Kill My Teammate First, You Brave Fellow

Content: (Livestream link)

Qi Sheng's vision shifted to the livestream room.

In the live footage shot from the perspective of a Guidance avatar, three players were fiercely battling a emerald-green plant at a volcanic crater west of the Cracked Furnace region.

The plant's roots pierced the earth, while its branches and trunk, like flexible whips, lashed out, making the three players cry out in pain; every strike left red marks on their bodies, and the Black-Armored Great Snake tanking at the front was whipped until its skin split and flesh tore, with most of its scales falling off.

Yet none of the three players retreated; while crying out, they persisted in the fight.

Looking at the analysis screenshot in the bottom-left corner of the screen:

[Extraction (First Generation Primordial)]:

Hunting Rank: 18

Guidance Analysis: A special monster wielding Primordial Power, possessing the unique ability to extract the essence of plants.

Seeing it was a Primordial monster, the livestream chat was flooded uniformly with "You guys really deserve to die."

What the spectating players found most unbearable was that the three-player squad was clearly on the verge of successfully containing the Primordial.

One could see that most of the branches wielded by "Extraction" had already snapped, and the frequency of its whipping attacks was decreasing over time; containment was merely a matter of time.

"Fierce Snake Coiling."

Accompanied by a roar, the ten-meter-long Black-Armored Great Snake in the footage charged at Extraction through a dense barrage of whipping branches, coiling tightly around Extraction's body.

"Ow, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts! Hurry up and deal damage, my soul is about to be whipped out!"

Although 90% of pain perception was blocked, the remaining 10% of pain feedback still made the player who had chosen the Black-Armored Snake bare his teeth in agony; subsequently, he fiercely bit into Extraction's trunk, his sharp teeth piercing the surface and digging deep inside.

Seeing this, the other two teammates raised their hands, condensed ink-colored fireballs, and hurled them at Extraction.

Upon contacting Extraction, the fireballs transformed into tongues of flame that spread, but a few seconds later they were extinguished by the green light emitted from Extraction's body, unable to inflict continuous damage.

The fierce battle continued for another five minutes.

Extraction completely lost the energy to continue fighting, its branches hanging limp.

As two massive fireballs struck Extraction, the ink-colored flames no longer extinguished but burned fiercely; Extraction's branches drooped, withering and shrinking.

Dragging along the Black-Armored Snake teammate who was still in a coiled state, the ink-colored flames ignited him as well; after releasing his tensed body, he fell to the ground and rolled around:

"Unfilial son, hurry up and give me a potion; it's killing your dad!"

"Damn it, I'm definitely not playing melee in my next life; it's too much suffering. The total beating I've taken in this lifetime hasn't been as much as just now; it nearly whipped my soul away."

Amid the leading player's cursing, the other two players rushed to help, muttering as they did so:

"Brother Dian, melee is the choice of a real man; in our squad, you are the strongest, so melee belongs to no one but you."

"Brother Dian, hurry and switch to a Gargoyle; the Black-Armored Snake is still a bit weak at soaking up damage; only the most formidable Gargoyle is the best fit for your Soul Soul."

Just as the three squad members were conversing, a channel-wide announcement rang out:

[Challenger Notification (Channel-Wide): Congratulations to players Kill My Teammate First, You Brave Fellow, I Am The Teammate, and I Am The Brave Fellow for successfully killing the First Generation Primordial monster Extraction, receiving a Sacrificial Power reward: 10,000 points (shared among participating players)]

Under the barrage of comments flooding the chat from spectating players, the three players were instead smiling happily.

After switching back to human form, the leading player ran a hand through his hair, facing the camera with a head that was noticeably swollen, and said with flair:

"Containing a Primordial was easy peasy; ending stream!"

The live feed cut off immediately after.

Half an hour later, the forum gradually refreshed with review posts about the new Primordial Soul Soul, "Extraction."

Among them, the one receiving the highest attention was the review shared by the player Night Is Coming.

[Stop rushing me; the preliminary review post is here.]

Poster: Night Is Coming

Content:

Before explaining the review content, let me add a buffer first: this review is for reference only; if you have different opinions, we can discuss them together, but uncivil language is not allowed in the comments section.

Next, let's get to the main topic.

I can clearly tell everyone that this is the weakest Soul Soul of the current version, bar none.

Of course, by "weakest" here I mean limited to the current version; in the future, compatible Soul Souls may appear, leading to very powerful performance.

Just like the Brain Overclock, Lucky Fortune, and Great Fortune Soul Souls I reviewed previously, which seemed like useless trash Soul Souls in the early stages but were later proven to achieve excellent performance when paired with other compatible Soul Souls.

The Extraction Soul Soul is the same.

The effect of this Soul Soul's ability is to extract the essence of spiritual plants.

I conducted multiple tests and discovered that this Soul Soul only works on plant-type lifeforms, and the effect is pitifully weak.

The test target was a level 10 Ghost Wood; each use of Extraction caused less damage than a single chop from a level 10 Strength Barbarian Axe, making it utterly useless to the extreme.

Although Extraction can extract plant energy, this thing holds little significance for us.

We can simply sacrifice spiritual plants directly to Brother Di Zhao; why add an extra step of extraction? The amount of Sacrificial Power gained will not increase.

Unless the Monster World opens up Alchemist or similar professions in the future, I cannot think of any use for the Extraction Soul Soul.

The full test video is posted below; interested brothers can take a look.

Finally, let me say one thing: in the current version, the utility of the Extraction Soul Soul is at the bottom when paired with any other Soul Soul; it can be listed as number one on the top ten weakest Soul Souls.

Learning Has No Bounds: Seeing a new Soul Soul contained, I got excited for a moment, only to find it's a useless Soul Soul; back to killing evil spirits.

Is This Reasonable: I thought the effect of the Extraction Soul Soul was to drain the target's life energy to heal myself, but it turns out it's an ability to extract resource essence; after reading Brother Night's text introduction, I can't even be bothered to click open the review video; it's definitely a trash Soul Soul.

Killing Heart Moved: What I want most right now are Invisibility, Divine Speed, and Certain Kill from the Trial Tower Soul Soul Library; adding my Black-Armored Snake Deadly Poison, I could play the Assassin build I've been longing for; I hope I can play this build within my lifetime.

Night Is Coming (OP) replying to Killing Heart Moved: I advise you to continue pairing with existing Soul Souls and not plan for future pairings; this game's worldview is extremely vast; I asked Guidance, and it indicated that the Di Zhong Mountain Range region we are exploring is just a small corner of the Monster World; from this, we can see that the Eclipse Clan intends to develop and operate this game for the long term; there may be many Soul Souls we will never be able to contain in our lifetimes, or even rarely see; we'll have to rely on our descendants to work hard.

Game Brick-Moving Party replying to Night Is Coming: Damn, your words hit hard; once I have money, I'm going to the Moon Base to get a shot of Life-Extending Gene Serum.

Super Divine Old Hen: More and more Soul Souls are being contained, but the true gods of the version are always magic-based, especially the recently developed Clone Fireball build, which is too ferocious; when will we melee players ever see the light of day? (God of Wealth clenching fists, turning red from anger.jpg)

Luck Emperor: I'm not very interested in either melee or ranged; I just want the Shadow Legion build; the feeling of getting stronger while lying down sounds amazing just thinking about it.

Just as the players were hotly discussing the Extraction Soul Soul:

At the exit of Di Zhong Village.

Yang Tianxuan of the Doomsday Technology Society was testing the power of the fourth-generation Spirit Energy Firearms.

Building on the modification foundations of the first three generations, they carried out more detailed structural modifications and upgrades to the Spirit Energy Firearms.

His gaze swept toward the society members testing the Spirit Energy Firearms' power not far away.

One could see the tester switch to Bone Fire form, then take out a Spirit Energy Firearm from their Spatial Sack.

After pulling the trigger, flames on their body continuously injected into the gun barrel.

The muzzle subsequently spat out bullets imbued with ink-colored flames, igniting the Blood Corpse not far ahead; the continuously exploding bullets caused wave after wave of sustained damage, making it impossible for the Blood Corpse to get close.

Two minutes later, the Blood Corpse completely stopped moving, leaving behind only a charred corpse on the ground.

The All-Things Extraction System within the Challenger System activated accordingly, extracting the Blood Corpse whose "Life Stability Structure" had been destroyed, turning it into a clump of gray mist that flew toward the player who had killed the Blood Corpse.

"Director Yang, the initial test results are good, but the gun barrel suffers continuous burning damage in Bone Fire form and will run out of weapon durability before long."

"It's fine; human form can also utilize the abilities of Bone Fire; later, when other players raise their Body Tempering Ranks, they won't need to maintain Bone Fire form constantly; this issue doesn't need worrying about."

Having said this, Yang Tianxuan looked toward the testers on the other side.

The greatest improvement of the fourth-generation Spirit Energy Firearms compared to the first three generations is that they can be used in combination with Soul Soul abilities.

For instance, the flames released in Bone Fire form could be injected into the spear shaft, merging with the energy provided by spirit stones to condense internally into an Ink Flame bullet; initial tests showed excellent performance.

In the future, after accommodating other elemental-type attack Soul Souls, they could also be paired with fourth-generation Spirit Energy firearms to inflict continuous elemental damage bombardment on targets.

Just then, a notification popped up in Yang Tianxuan's mind, indicating an incoming video call.

After accepting the connection, a light screen materialized before him; the man in the display wore his hair slicked back, his hair slightly graying, his Iron Face framed by a thick circle of beard.

"Xiao Ye, what do you need?" Yang Tianxuan asked curiously.

The man in the screen was named Cheng Ye, a team leader in their Weapon Research Department.

After entering the game and establishing the Doomsday Technology Guild, Cheng Ye chose a path entirely different from theirs, embedding only melee-type Soul Souls into his Star Veins.

The purpose of doing so was likewise for weapon research.

Recently, they were preparing to build a simple furnace for smelting spirit ores, but relying solely on their group of researchers, who lacked even the strength to truss a chicken, made it impossible; they still needed strength-type players to complete the task of hand-crafting the smelting furnace.

The position Cheng Ye chose was similar to that of a mechanical engineer, responsible for laborious tasks like manufacturing and maintenance.

The batch of measuring tools crafted recently was also completed under his responsibility.

Facing his inquiry, a smile floated across Cheng Ye's Iron Face in the light screen:

"Boss, have you seen the latest Soul Soul evaluation post on the forum?"

"Is it the Extraction Soul Soul mentioned in the notification just now?" Yang Tianxuan asked with some curiosity.

"Yes, exactly this Extraction Soul Soul; go check the forum..."

After ending the connection, Yang Tianxuan felt curious in his heart, unable to understand what Cheng Ye intended to convey.

Nevertheless, he decisively summoned the function panel and opened the forum page.

His gaze scanned the popularity rankings, quickly locking onto the evaluation post published by Night Is Coming.

As he scrolled through the content of the post, Yang Tianxuan's expression gradually changed.

"Extracting plant essence?"

He suddenly realized why Cheng Ye had sought him out so abruptly.

The primordial trait of the Extraction Soul Soul reminded him of a special department within the Tian Qiong Technology Research Center: the "Genetic Modification Division."

This division was established after the Moon Eclipse Clan gifted gene-editing technology to the Human Federation.

Its initial purpose was to use gene-editing technology to create a batch of Super Gene Warriors for the Human Federation; secondarily, it held the grand ambition of exploring the mysteries of life and promoting advancements in biological science.

Developed to the present day, the Genetic Modification Division had created one hundred thousand Super Gene Warriors for the Human Federation, while also making numerous contributions in the fields of agricultural biotechnology and medical health.

Nowadays, genetic modification experiments were divided into two types.

The first type was gene-editing modification, optimizing gene sequences to grant warriors powerful physiques and strength.

The second type was modification via implantation of spiritual seeds.

The modification material most frequently used in this type was: spiritual plants.

Unlike the wild spiritual plants of the Monster World, spiritual plants in the real world were cultivated indoors, catalyzed for growth through continuous energy infusion.

Both their medicinal efficacy and growth speed were far inferior to those in the Monster World.

The enhancement method involved stimulating and strengthening human genes by extracting spiritual medicinal liquids, thereby inducing evolution.

This was currently the most advanced modification technology.

However, this process carried significant risks; the success rate for creating Gene Warriors was less than thirty percent, with the vast majority of warriors participating in the experiments dying after suffering a series of ailments including physiological dysfunction, immune system collapse, and nervous system abnormalities caused by rapid genetic disintegration.

He had once conversed with an old friend from the Gene Research Department, learning that solving the problems of genetic modification required improvements in two aspects.

The first was the quality of spiritual plants.

The Human Federation's techniques for cultivating spiritual plants were limited, unable to produce high-quality specimens; if high-quality spiritual plants could be extracted to obtain gene-modification medicinal liquids, the risk of death during the modification process could be reduced.

The second was the physical constitution of the experiment participants.

The higher the physical constitution, the smaller the risk of genetic modification one could endure.

Both of these problems could find solutions within the Monster World following the emergence of the Extraction Soul Soul.

Firstly, regarding liquid extraction, the real world required highly precise advanced instruments to assist, needing to preserve the essence of spiritual plants while removing various impurities.

But in the Monster World, this could be completed in a short time via the Extraction trait.

Most importantly, the Monster World offered a plethora of high-quality spiritual plants to choose from.

Secondly, there was the issue of the physical constitution of personnel undergoing modification.

The Monster World was essentially a game; if modified personnel died during the experiment, they only needed to wait for a one-hour cooldown to end before resurrecting again, posing no risk of actual casualties.

His heart pounded; he felt that the "Extraction" trait, which forum players regarded as bottom-tier, was nothing short of a divine skill in the eyes of those guys in the Genetic Modification Division.

This meant they could conduct genetic modification experiments within the game without fearing risks.

As long as they possessed sufficient Sacrificial Power, they could buy as many spiritual plants as they desired.

In the future, once they accommodated the Cloud Field Domain Node, the player faction might even be able to mass-produce spiritual plants.

As for the modification effects, he believed they were highly likely related to enhancing Body Tempering experience.

If that were truly the case, those guys in the Genetic Modification Division could even earn huge profits in Sacrificial Power by selling gene potions that boosted Body Tempering experience, then reinvest those funds into building genetic modification laboratories and purchasing spiritual plants.

Thinking of this, Yang Tianxuan immediately decided to inform his old friend of this news.

Summoning the function panel, he chose to exit the game.

As the jumping thirty-second countdown numbers appeared before his eyes, within Yang Tianxuan's unseen body, strands of spirit runes rapidly generated and connected with one another.

When the countdown reached zero, the Consciousness Teleportation Array within his body activated accordingly.

Tian Qiong Technology Research Center.

"Old Yang, so you've already started conducting weapon research inside the game?"

Looking at his old friend's surprised expression in the video feed, Yang Tianxuan nodded without hesitation:

"This game features a virtual environment that perfectly simulates real-world physical performance, making it highly suitable for weapon research and power testing; naturally, I wouldn't miss this opportunity, and your gene modification technology can also advance there..."

After listening to Yang Tianxuan's explanation, a trace of helplessness appeared on Yu Ze's Iron Face:

"Your idea is good, but the problem is we simply cannot grab any game qualifications for the Land of Darkness, including that brother responsible for the procurement task at the Trading Center last time... Qin Ye, was it?... The cracked version game link he sent always displays a pop-up stating 'quota fully distributed' whenever we click to download."

Hearing these words, Yang Tianxuan fell silent.

He had encountered this same problem himself, yet he hadn't expected his old friend still hadn't managed to secure a cracked version qualification.

"Alright, I've heard your suggestion; I will find a way to resolve the game qualification issue. Recently, I will submit another application, requesting the higher-ups to obtain a batch of Land of Darkness game qualifications through diplomatic channels."

After ending the video connection, Yu Ze sat in his office with a helpless expression.

Old Yang's suggestion; how could he not have thought of it himself?

But the problem was that the official quotas distributed by the Moon Eclipse Clan were extremely scarce; one simply couldn't grab a game qualification, and even securing a qualification for the cracked version was difficult—it was truly excessive.

Sighing, he raised his head to look at the virtual desktop and tried clicking the shortcut URL saved in the bottom-right corner.

The webpage that popped up immediately redirected to the download address for the cracked version of Land of Darkness.

Yu Ze, holding no hope whatsoever, chose to click download once again.

[Ding~ Download initiated, Progress: 0.01%]

"Holy crap?!"

(End of Chapter)