CHAPTER 1094: CHAPTER 103: MISSION RELEASE

"I hope you can bring some good news, Nia," Xiang Shan spread his hands.

"The reaction pathways are still a mess," Niyaguti said helplessly, "We don’t know how these special organics came about or what pathways they underwent, so it’s very difficult to know which genes are involved... And some may not even be genetic changes."

Changes at the genetic level, whether advantageous or disadvantageous, good or bad, are costs borne by both the remodeler and their offspring.

Uncontrollable natural mutations are one thing. Generally, ethically speaking, ancestors don’t have the right to decide all traits of their descendants.

Of course, descendants can indeed cover their ancestors’ choices through new gene modifications.

But this ultimately introduces a certain level of risk.

Each gene modification hides "unpredictable" risks. Even the most excellent scientists dare not assert they’ve fully understood the role of a specific gene segment within a biological organism. Transferring in a segment of a gene may produce some novel combinations with other segments, much like programmers never know how introducing a piece of code might produce bugs. Natural products always lack a holistic "design purpose."

For example, a common modification surgery requires integrating Genome A into cells. This Genome A produces special neurotransmitters to enhance cognitive efficiency. However, a person’s ancestor underwent a quite niche gene modification surgery, having Genome B within. If Genome B coexists with A, it leads to toxic material generation within cells, without a decomposing pathway. In such cases, the remodeler might be poisoned by the cell’s metabolic products.

Similar tragedies occasionally appear among Protector soldiers.

Moreover, modification surgeries can cause a loss of genetic information. This loss may result in future humans being unable to trace the origin of their evolution.

Therefore, neuro-modification technologies that don’t involve genetic information still hold certain space in this era.

Compared to gene modification surgery, these neuro-modification techniques boast stability and controllability.

In an age where "you don’t know what modifications your ancestors underwent," "control" is quite important.

Including using some signal factors to activate or inhibit specific genomes, causing cells to change shape within a certain period, or delivering other artificially synthesized cellular components via endocytosis, or embedding miniature artificial crystals directly on the cell surface, to alter specific cells’ electrochemical properties.

Long ago, Yawgmoth told Xiang Shan many life processes aren’t entirely controlled by genes. Or rather, "the proportion influenced by force is relatively large." Just fine-tuning the intracellular environment, identical genes can exhibit quite varied traits.

Even in those pursuing performance peaks with extreme modifications, these kinds of surgeries are considered meaningful.

"Considering the existence of such surgeries, predicting your brain material’s generation pathways becomes harder," Niyaguti shook her head.

"A mess of accounts," Xiang Shan sighed, "Isn’t there any good news?"

"Well, from comparing your DNA record with that of Xiang Shan in 2075, your similarity to Xiang Shan in 2075 is... around 98.98."

"Oh," Xiang Shan couldn’t help but clap, "So legally, I might not even count as the son of Xiang Shan in 2075? Or perhaps ’legally, this result is insufficient to prove I’m the son of Xiang Shan in 2075’? Is there that much change? Why 2075’s records anyway?"

"This is all that’s left," Niyaguti sighed, "Remember... do you have related memories? It was when we just started being Heroes. We began exploring more radical self-modification strategies. Even ancient meditation techniques were involved. Back then..."

Xiang Shan nodded, "Hmm, yes. But it shouldn’t be this much. Did we really rewrite so many parts? I remember, when you tried integrating something, you’d calculate for a long time, then experiment with lab mice, then..."

He lifted his head, "Heck, skipped primates and directly used it on ourselves? A bit crazy."

"Given these conditions..." Niyaguti shook her head, "You know what happened later. When Yawgmoth destroyed the internet, he also erased ’our’ previous bases. Luckily, we prepared for risk dispersion, so indeed there were several bases Yawgmoth didn’t know of. The records I found within only went up to 2075 — speaking of which, Xiang Shan in 2075 and Xiang Shan in 2025 aren’t even the same species, similarity is about 80%. Why care so much about the 98% data?"

Tao Enhai said, "Slightly smaller than the difference between humans and chimpanzees."

Xiang Shan nodded, "Yeah, true. Then how should I prove I’m myself... huh, no need to prove. My thoughts got caught up in that parentage test gag. The key isn’t how much I resemble Xiang Shan, the key is sorting out those odd genomes to see what enhancement surgery plan they can offer me..."

Niyaguti clapped her hands, then spread them, "This is indeed a bit challenging. This couldn’t be sorted out in a short-term anyway. Back then we couldn’t understand all humans’ genes’ uses. During Biosphere Ichigo’s extinction event, public panic thoroughly caused illegal, uncontrolled gene modification surgeries to pollute the world... quite deeply."

Xiang Shan said, "Any way to accelerate this process? Lacking data, we can snatch it, right? Or arrange some modification surgeries not involving genetic material for me, at least boost the strength of glial cells first."

Previously, while underwater, everyone couldn’t reach their peak speeds, so this disadvantage wasn’t very obvious. But now at this juncture, Xiang Shan must face Earth’s top martial powers.

Fighting scrub enemies is one thing. A huge gap in acceleration, too much disadvantage in speed change. He couldn’t possibly rely solely on anticipation for everything.

"Surgeries not involving genetic information are generally used for overall limit enhancement, typically placed behind surgeries involving gene modifications. If the glial cells harden, some surgeries requiring drug delivery into the brain can’t be completed. So..."

Xiang Shan said, "Need data?"

Niyaguti nodded.

"Academic exchange?"

Niyaguti nodded again.

"Which Order of Knights?"

"The Soul of Light Knights Order is committed to tracing all native Earth genes within human bodies. The Life Furnace Knights Order broadly collects data from various civil gene modification surgeries. The gene tax and welfare babies are also detected and calculated by this order."

Xiang Shan was stunned, then furious, "My project team?"

"Its predecessor was indeed the research institute within Superman Enterprise, and the research center established in the late secret war," Niyaguti said, "Two out of the three research institutions I worked at before joining Superman Enterprise have become Knight Orders now. At this stage, you should be used to this kind of thing."

Tao Enhai said, "Besides, you were just the one providing funding. Wasn’t Yawgmoth leading the research institute and research center? How could it be yours? That was the legitimate line of the Father of Machines."

"Find a way to steal the secret data from one of these two Knight Orders," Niyaguti said.