Chapter 00023: The True Method of Gene Fusion
# The True Method of Gene Fusion
Chapter 23
Novel: After the Myth
Chapter 23: The True Method of Gene Fusion
"She left?" Ding Huan instinctively repeated the words.
He had rushed back to Anhe County and immediately headed to Yilan Hotel.
From the front desk, he learned that Qu Yi had left Anhe County early that morning at six o'clock.
By the time Ding Huan arrived, it was already past eight in the morning due to the mutated golden-faced thick-tailed ape incident.
After leaving Yilan Hotel, Ding Huan quickly decided to buy a ticket to Pujiang.
Even if Qu Yi didn't believe in his gene potion now, he still needed to find out where her family lived.
According to his memory, Qu Yi had only four or five months left before she would be taken by the Gene Alliance for experimentation.
Wait...
Four or five months? That would be right after the admission exams for the top ten academies on Blue Star.
The exams were less than three months away.
If Qu Yi was taken after the exams and then subjected to gene experimentation four or five months later, it was entirely possible.
The Gene Alliance definitely had some influence over the admissions for the top ten academies on Blue Star.
After all, these academies were jointly established by over a hundred countries, the Martial Arts Alliance, and the Gene Alliance.
Qu Yi had mentioned going to Puhai to try her luck.
She was undoubtedly going to take the admission exams for the top ten academies.
If he went to Puhai now and found Qu Yi, would she believe him? Would she be willing to fuse with the gene potion provided by a stranger like him?
Since Qu Yi definitely wouldn't fuse with the gene potion he provided, there was no need for him to go to Puhai first.
He would stick to his original plan: find the fire lizard, return to Luohe City, and make the gene potion.
Once the potion was ready, he would head to Pujiang early.
At least during this time, Qu Yi would be safe.
...
The journey from Anhe County to Lujiang City required a transfer.
The wilderness was extremely dangerous now.
The route from Anhe County to Lujiang City passed through many uninhabited areas, places teeming with gene beasts.
Under normal circumstances, these routes didn't operate at night.
Ding Huan managed to buy a ticket and arrived in Lujiang City by evening.
Originally, he planned to rest in Lujiang City for the night and search for fire lizards the next day.
But when he arrived, he realized he had underestimated others.
In Lujiang City, there was no need to go out and search for fire lizards; you could simply buy them.
Shops selling fire lizards were everywhere, and the prices were very cheap.
Whether you wanted dried or live fire lizards, you could find them here.
Not only that, but even fire lizards from Central Europe were available, though at much higher prices.
After a quick inquiry, Ding Huan understood why.
Fire lizards could now be used in medicine, benefiting martial artists by strengthening meridians and healing injuries.
Moreover, major gene labs also had a high demand for them.
Ding Huan easily bought several live fire lizards for just over a hundred alliance coins.
"Friend, the fire lizards you bought are of average quality. I have six-horned fire lizards here..."
Seeing Ding Huan carrying a cage of fire lizards, a street vendor quickly tried to sell his own goods.
Six-horned fire lizards?
"Let me see."
Ding Huan stopped and indeed saw several six-horned fire lizards on the vendor's stall.
"They're quite large."
Ding Huan was very satisfied.
The vendor chuckled, "My fire lizards are all wild. The ones you bought are mostly farmed."
"You caught them yourself?" Ding Huan was surprised.
The vendor proudly said, "Anyone who knows me, Liu Tou, knows that my fire lizards are caught from Penglu Mountain. Even people from the top ten academies on Blue Star have bought fire lizards from me."
"Impressive. Those who dare to catch fire lizards from Penglu Mountain are no ordinary people. The gene beasts there don't discriminate."
Ding Huan casually praised, intending to buy another one from the vendor.
He genuinely admired the vendor.
Penglu Mountain was full of gene beasts, and only those with real skill dared to hunt wild fire lizards there.
The vendor became more talkative, "Gene beasts are one thing, but last time on Penglu Mountain, I even saw a two-horned fire lizard. To be honest, in all my years, I've never seen a two-horned fire lizard over a meter long."
"A two-horned fire lizard? Over a meter long?" Ding Huan's eyes immediately lit up.
This was definitely a top-tier mutated fire lizard.
Legend had it that fire lizards carried a trace of divine beast bloodline, specifically that of a dragon.
Ding Huan's mind naturally conjured up an image of a meter-long, two-horned fire lizard—a rare, ancestral mutation with divine beast bloodline.
"It's absolutely true. It might even be longer than a meter. I saw it with my own eyes. But it was a mutated beast, so I ran as soon as I saw it."
The vendor swore it was true.
"Well, I'll take one of your six-horned fire lizards."
Ding Huan didn't press further and bought a six-horned fire lizard.
If he weren't in a hurry to get to Pujiang, Ding Huan would have loved to venture into Penglu Mountain to search for the two-horned fire lizard.
But he knew such a creature wouldn't be easy to find.
If he were to search, it would have to wait until after he met Qu Yi.
He couldn't risk her safety for his own sake.
Ding Huan spent the night in Lujiang City and returned to Luohe on the third day.
Geng Qianxing and the other three were still fervently practicing the Thousand Veins Gene Technique and basic long fist.
No one even noticed when Ding Huan returned.
Without resting, Ding Huan headed straight to the gene lab.
If it weren't for Principal Tan Bei of Yujiang University hoping someone from the school could get into one of the top ten academies on Blue Star, the lab would have likely been sold off long ago.
The school's neglect of the lab was actually convenient for Ding Huan.
Ding Huan's first task wasn't to extract the healing genes from the fire lizards but to extract the anti-toxin genes from the golden-faced thick-tailed ape and refine a gene potion that could be fused.
He would also refine the healing genes from the fire lizards but didn't plan to use them immediately.
When he had time, he intended to see if he could find that meter-long, two-horned fire lizard.
Extracting and refining gene potions that could fuse with the human body wasn't new to Ding Huan.
He had done it several times recently, and each time had gone smoothly.
Every time he successfully extracted a gene potion that could fuse with the human body, he felt he understood a bit more about gene potion-making.
So, this time, extracting the anti-toxin genes from the golden-faced thick-tailed ape, Ding Huan wasn't worried about failing.
However, the easier something seemed, the harder it often turned out to be.
Ding Huan had been in the lab for two days, filling notebooks with data, but he still couldn't extract the anti-toxin genes from the golden-faced thick-tailed ape.
If he hadn't brought back half of the ape's tail, he might not have had enough material to continue experimenting.
By the third day, Ding Huan felt he couldn't keep going like this.
He needed a breakthrough.
He left the lab, took a shower, ate something, and rested for the night before starting to rethink his approach.
Once he calmed down and thought carefully, some vague genetic knowledge began to surface in his mind.
Things that had been unclear before slowly became clearer as he took the time to organize his thoughts.
First was the concept of spiritual root genes.
In an era before genes were understood, spiritual roots were likely a form of gene.
But later, as the world's spiritual energy dwindled, humans on Earth gradually lost some of their traits.
The spiritual root genes were among those lost.
Without a spiritual root, no matter how good the cultivation techniques or how rich the spiritual energy, one couldn't cultivate.
He could create spiritual root genes not just because of the Reincarnation Blood but also because he was making them for himself.
In other words, if he made a spiritual root gene potion for Qu Yi, would it truly fuse with her?
Next were skill genes.
The anti-toxin genes he was trying to create now also fell under skill genes.
Could he not just borrow the gene abilities of other species, like the golden-faced thick-tailed ape's anti-toxin ability, but instead transform these abilities into his own physical genes? That was different.
One approach was simply to fuse and gain the ability.
The other was to make it an innate part of his body, without needing to fuse with foreign genes.
On the surface, they seemed the same, but Ding Huan vaguely felt there was a significant difference—one that could determine his future potential.
Unfortunately, he couldn't yet grasp what that difference was.
Since he couldn't figure it out, he decided to focus on creating the anti-toxin gene potion.
As Ding Huan delved deeper into the vague genetic knowledge, the method for refining and fusing genes with the human body gradually became clearer.
For any foreign gene, if humans wanted to extract it, refine it into a potion that could fuse with the human body, and allow humans to possess that gene's abilities, they had to search.
Yes, search.
If he didn't just want to extract and fuse foreign genes but to transform gene abilities into innate physical traits, he needed more than just a gene fragment...
Previously, he had only extracted a small fragment of the golden-faced thick-tailed ape's anti-toxin gene, and there were many such fragments in the ape.
His earlier approach had been to refine this small fragment into a potion that could fuse with the human body.
Fortunately, he hadn't succeeded.
Now, he realized he needed to extract countless such gene fragments, then combine them with other genes, even his own, to form a new gene...
This was the process of creating a new gene.
This method wasn't just about borrowing the innate abilities of foreign genes.
Instead, it was about transforming those abilities into innate physical traits through the expression of foreign genes.
Ding Huan was excited.
He felt his understanding of gene utilization had shifted from quantity to quality.
No longer just superficial gene use.
But extracting a complete gene from billions of possibilities was incredibly difficult.
Ding Huan looked at his notebooks.
He knew that even if he filled truckloads of notebooks, he might not find all the necessary gene fragments.
Suddenly, a method popped into his mind: he could use a gene death screening process...
By adding a certain type of gene to billions of gene fragments, any fragments that didn't meet his requirements would be dissolved, leaving only the ones he needed.
Adding dissolving gene fragments was something others couldn't do, but he could.
With this method, Ding Huan let out a long breath.
Without wasting another moment, he hurried back to the lab.
He continued extracting the anti-toxin genes from the golden-faced thick-tailed ape, refining the potion, adding dissolving genes...
Day after day...
One data point after another was recorded, then screened, and new dissolving genes were added...
On the sixth day, Ding Huan excitedly held two test tubes filled with fiery red gene reagents.
He had succeeded.
He had successfully created two doses of anti-toxin gene potion.
Ding Huan felt these two bottles of gene potion were even more valuable than the spiritual root gene potion he had made before.
It wasn't that the spiritual root gene potion was easier to make, but because he had found a new direction for gene fusion—no longer just making gene potions.
With this method, Ding Huan felt more confident about creating a spiritual root gene potion for Qu Yi.
But the prerequisite was Qu Yi's cooperation.
He needed her blood to find a way to fuse the spiritual root gene potion with her.
He needed to extract the necessary gene fragments from her genome to create a potion that could fuse with her.
He had to go to Pujiang early.
Once Ding Huan made up his mind, he carefully packed one of the anti-toxin gene potions into a glass vial.
The other, he drank directly.
The fiery red potion felt like icy threads spreading through his body as soon as it entered his mouth.
Ding Huan, sensing something profound, immediately began practicing the Luo Shi Scripture.
In the next moment, he felt sharp pains throughout his body, but the icy threads seemed to absorb and dissolve the pain.
Gray droplets seeped from his fingertips.
Ding Huan felt a mix of fear and anger.
He had been poisoned.
If he hadn't taken the gene potion he made today, even if he didn't die, his cultivation path would have been blocked at the gene foundation level.
(That's all for today's update.
Goodnight, friends.
During the new book period, Old Five here asks for your recommendation votes and monthly tickets.)
(End of Chapter)