"It's barely been four months, yet the world is going through one change after another. We can no longer ignore all this, Eden Union represents a serious threat to us"

The leaders of the three remaining independent superpowers on the planet were gathered, discussing the recent overpower obtained by their enemy. Although their means had initially blocked the advance of the new international organization, containing the revolts and tying the smaller nations more closely to them, it was clear that they could only be considered a temporary measure. The more that unstable situation continued, the more money they had to spend to keep order; after all, armies did not forage themselves. Therefore, as Eden Union grew rich, the NMWA continued to impoverish.

It would not take long before the three superpowers could no longer contain the riots. At that point, it would be the end for the NMWA. The nations would have been too poor to support themselves and would have run to hug the thighs of the first passing giant, who obviously would have been represented by the Eden Union.

What Sobek had foreseen was coming true: the NMWA was collapsing in the face of the new, more effective and richer organization. As much as the old superpowers tried to ignore it, the change that was going through the world was proceeding faster and faster.

"So what are we planning to do?" Bennett asked, hoping for an answer. "How can we counter them?"

"That's the point. If it were times gone by, we could smother this organization with trade, or even use force" the Gardarikian president replied. "Now, however, this is not an option. The Eden Union is more powerful from an economic point of view and a war is no longer conceivable, not with nuclear weapons"

"We're improving our weapons though" Wafner noted. "Our scientists are rapidly developing ever more powerful weapons. We will soon be able to replace uranium with hydrogen, creating many times more bombs"

"And you think our enemy isn't thinking about it? They would be crazy if they didn't continue the research themselves" the other one pointed out. "No, fighting an atomic war is not an acceptable decision. We would lose more than we would win. If we are not careful we could turn this planet into a dark, cold, radioactive, hellish version of itself"

"So what do you suggest?"

"Easy: we have to steal their secret. Eden Union is recovering too quickly from the economic crisis facing the whole world. It is impossible that it is the work of the nations. It is clear that the dinosaurs are helping in some way to improve the conditions of the enemy"

"So what?"

"And therefore, if we want to win, we must first put ourselves on the same level as them. We must unleash every spy we have and find out how they make so much food, or what the secrets of their recent pharmaceutical advancement are. If we were able to obtain these secrets, the equilibrium of the world would return to normal and we will again be able to compete with the Eden Union with economy and development"

Wafner and Bennett thought about it for a moment, then agreed that once again the Gardarikian president was absolutely right.

*******

"Please tell me that's what I think"

Darius was staring at what Robert Oz had brought him: a glass case with a tender shoot inside. A sapling that, Darius knew, was potentially the key to ushering in the era of interplanetary colonization.

Robert nodded. "It is. Alan, Sarah, Mitch and I used our every single knowledge to be able to extract the supergrow gene from the plants created by Lord Sobek and put it here" he explained. "It wasn't easy at all, but trust me… he works. This plant was just a seed twenty minutes ago. If we wait a few hours, it will become a tree by sunset"

Darius held the plant in his hands as if it were a chick. Looking at it he seemed to see not a plant, but the future of all humanity.

For the past four months, scientists around the world had had the opportunity to study Lord Sobek's prodigious creations. It was the beginning of an era of discoveries that went beyond the unimaginable. The mangers had opened up an immense amount of possibilities, and every science person in the world was eager to explore them. But even more immense were the possibilities opened by Dr. Henry Wu's research as soon as they were revealed by Jocelyne after John Hammond's death.

With the help of the entire scientific community and the Wu's knowledge, the enormous progress made by the Beleriard researchers accelerated exponentially. A great amount of diseases became treatable. Within a few more months, nations would begin mass-producing cancer and cancer treatments. But of course, it wasn't just that.

The rapid cell multiplication that scientists had been able to study in the mangers and the [Regeneration] ability of dinosaurs had also been very useful in other areas. Through a long treatment it was now possible to replicate missing body parts. Transplants, except in emergencies, had become completely useless: it was now possible to completely regrow a damaged organ within a few months, but the scientists thought that with further research they could further reduce this time.

Advances in degenerative disease had also been very useful. While it was not yet possible to fully repair the damage to the brain, doctors were now able to at least partially reconstruct the damaged neurons. If they managed to intervene in time, before the situation got too serious, they could even cure the disease. Cases of epilepsy had decreased all over the world and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's were no longer so intolerable, to the delight of many elderly people and their families.

Oh, and obviously the war against bacteria and viruses had improved somewhat as well. Thanks to the studies obtained on the [Regeneration] ability, scientists had identified numerous previously unknown antibodies and used them to improve existing vaccines and treatments. Deaths from disease had declined around the world.

However, the greatest achievement, the one that had really shown how valuable the alliance with the dinosaurs was and was helping their progress, had been achieved by a scientist from Quinslande, a coastal nation close to the Kingdom of Prettania. By repairing the damaged neurons and using the antibodies discovered through [Regeneration], for the first time in the history of the world a person suffering from anger was healed.

The rabies virus was a monster humanity had never been able to win against. There was no working therapy against it. Virtually no one had survived after symptoms began. The only weapon that humanity had been able to use against the virus was the vaccine, but still this was not enough to curb the anger. The virus still killed more than 60,000 people every single year, of which nearly half were children.

Yet, by combining the powers of the dinosaurs with humanity's thirst for knowledge, this monster had finally achieved its first defeat. For the first time in history, a person had survived anger after symptoms had manifested.

Doctors all over the world had not hesitated to inquire about this prodigious therapy. The scientist, a certain Louis Pasteur, had been awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine. For people all over the planet, that was the signal that very soon humanity would be able to cure all diseases. If even anger had been defeated, then what could resist?

However, advances had not only taken place in the pharmaceutical field. Scientists had wanted to study the warfare and defense technology of dinosaurs, thoroughly exploring it and discovering its biomechanical components. Although many secrets of these contraptions still remained unsolved, many were already dreaming of how they could use them once they were revealed. There were those who argued that they could be used to create new sources of energy, others that they could speed up construction and improve the structure of buildings, still others believed they could create combustion without the use of fossil fuels. Only the imagination was the limit of humanity.

But for Darius, the greatest progress was made by his friends. Since that situation had begun, Alan Grant, Sarah Hardy, Robert Oz and Mitch Morgan had studied the rate of growth and regeneration of the feeders. Ian Malcolm obviously had also been part of the group, as well as Jamie Campbell, although their contribution had been, respectively, that of the catastrophist and the voice of reason. By combining their sublime minds, these people were able to extract the supergrowth hormone and transplant it into a plant. Not only that, but they could control it as they pleased, canceling its effect when the plant reached the desired age.

This could have infinite implications. Plants that grow in just one day? With them, humans and dinosaurs could have restored the continents of Laurentia and Saramir in record time. Humanity finally had the opportunity to make amends for its mistakes. But not only that: those plants would have been the means to colonize other worlds.

Reaching an alien planet was one thing, terraforming it was another. The colonists would always need three basic things: water, oxygen and protection from the lethal radiation of the sun. But thanks to that plant, two of those three problems were solved!

Thanks to its rapid growth, those plants could quickly be spread over the entire surface of the planet they wanted to colonize. Those plants would have pumped oxygen into the atmosphere at an extreme rate: with normal plants it would have taken tens of thousands of years to make the atmosphere breathable, but if entire generations of plants could have followed in a very short time an alien planet could have obtained a breathable atmosphere within a single human generation. Furthermore, much of that oxygen would have turned into ozone thanks to the chemical reaction with the lethal particles of the Sun, thus creating a shield that would have defended the colonists. All that was needed to make it all work was water and a good amount of carbon dioxide.

"With this, the colonization of Davis will be a reality. I might even live long enough to see it over!" Darius exclaimed as he raised the plant to the sky. "May humanity permanently break its chains! The time to be tied to this little planet is over. The time to explore the universe has come! This is the first step for our future among the stars!"