Chapter 3: The Turbulent Years

"Genes determine a qiē." This is Maxim. Quote from Dr. Rothchet.

Sixty years ago, at the end of the old era, Dr. Rotschett was an expert in the field of genetics and biology, and he treated science and himself with the same zealism and madness. Unable to find enough volunteers, or test subjects, to put his genetic research into practice, he set his sights on himself.

Within ten years, countless pieces of gene had been implanted into his body. These genes work together, mix with each other, and mutate. By the later stages, Dr. Rothchet's body had become a natural genetic battlefield, with countless genes constantly fighting, mutating, trying to eliminate or control opponents. As a carrier of genes, the Doctor has access to hundreds of deadly viruses at any time.

As Cosie, Dr. Rothchet's daughter, put it, Dr. Rothcht was no longer a human being in his later years.

In his later years, Dr. Rothchet also considered himself no longer a human being, but an apostle to the gods. Especially when his genes undergo a series of recombinations, finally forming a mysterious, stable and completely new genome.

At that time, the Doctor's left hand could condense unusually high temperatures, enough to ignite alcohol. This was a temperature that the human body could not tolerate at all, but the Doctor's left hand did not hurt afterwards.

"This is God's left hand!" Rothchet stared at his left hand and uttered his second famous phrase known to the world.

In the following year, the doctor's ability to control high temperatures gradually stabilized, and the temperature at which he could condense also increased. The doctor recorded the preliminary stabilization of the genome and the experience of controlling the high temperature, and divided the data into three parts, two copies were preserved, and one was ready for publication to announce his results to the world.

On the day of the Doctor's press conference, war broke out without warning.

Instantaneous high-temperature flames and shockwaves destroyed a single Qiē, including the Doctor who thought he had the body of a god. However, the Doctor's brief but powerful speech has been sent to all corners of the world via the airwaves.

The brief war ended as abruptly as it came.

The survivors began to emerge from various shelters and ruins, looking in horror at the world that had changed beyond recognition. Some interested people remember Dr. Rothchet's statement and find the safe he left behind. The safe, which had crystallized pre-war technology, was unharmed, and the number inside was intact.

This information is the prototype of the first-order ability of the quasi-spell domain: flame.

All human abilities begin here.

Ten years later, in these turbulent times, abilities are pouring out like mutant insects. Some of these abilities are very stable, some are very short-lived, and some are fatal. And it has been found that people who survive in the wild and in ruins, who are exposed to radiation all the time, do not need to undergo physical genetic recombination, and all kinds of abilities are beginning to emerge.

After categorization, summarization, systematization, and a series of arguments, the various well-defined and effective abilities were finally boiled down to five domains: Spell-like, Combat, Perception, Psionics, and Occult.

Quasi-spell is a general term for various energy manipulation abilities, and in honor of the doctor who was once a magical paranoid doctor in his lifetime, this earliest discovered ability domain was named quasi-spell. The Combat Domain is a general term for various types of combat offensive and defensive and movement abilities. The perceptual domain, as the name suggests, can be attributed to the ability of a qiē to detect the known or unknown world. The psionic domain summarizes various control abilities, the most common of which is the operation of various weapons, from the most basic cold weapon operation, ordinary gun control, sniper specialization, etc., to the advanced command of complex weapon systems.

Eventually, there is the occult, a domain of abilities similar to chicken ribs, into which almost a single inclassible ambiguity can be thrown. And in the occult, the core ability is luck, all kinds of luck. However, those who cast a large number of evolution points in the occult are often not as fortunate as they imagined. They have not discovered rare mineral deposits, nor have they acquired great wealth or superhuman abilities out of thin air, and no fewer have died in the end than those who majored in other abilities. There was a man who did find a vein of gems, only to be cut into meat sauce by a greedy mob. Over time, fewer and fewer people practiced the occult.

Of course, the distinction between the various domains is not so clear, rigid, and insurmountable in reality, and with the passage of time, more capabilities are emerging, and there are many new capabilities that are difficult to simply classify into a specific ability domain, and some abilities require the cooperation of multiple ability domains to appear.

At this time, the once madman Dr. Roschet had been revered as the father of the Ability Domain. The Doctor used his left hand to open a door that increased the stakes for the survival and survival of the human race in the harsh world, but until now, it was not known whether the path behind this door led to heaven or hell.

When those who survived in various bases gradually woke up from the aura of ability, they were horrified to find that everything in this world was no longer stable, including genes, the genes of creatures.

All living things, including human beings themselves, are changing rapidly, and the processes of evolution and mutation that took thousands of years in the old era have been condensed in just a few years in the new era. The knowledge of the world that mankind has accumulated over thousands of years is collapsing at an alarming rate.

Look, there is a row of afterimages passing outside the barbed wire, it is a rabbit with red eyes, long ears, and a docile temperament that is evading predators by relying on speed, but no one can guarantee what will become of this animal that is faster than a leopard today.

Therefore, this new era is called the era of turmoil.

Su walked cautiously through the deep cave, his steps light and soft, like a nimble cat, moving silently. The thick hooded cloak and bandages that cover his body keep his scent and body temperature from leaking, making it difficult for dangerous creatures that hunt with their sense of smell or infrared vision underground to detect his existence.

He was carrying a three-edged thick steel pipe with sharp edges and corners, and the front end was sharpened so that it could be swung or stabbed, which was a very terrible murder weapon. Fitted with a rifle and pistol on his back and hidden under his cloak, his pistol is powerful but inaccurate, but in terrain such as the Cavern Pass, the pistol can be multiplied in power.

The problem is that in this deep and quiet passage, the sound of gunfire can be heard very far, which is tantamount to telling a monster within a few kilometers that I am coming.

Su's eyes emitted a faint blue light, and the light kept changing with the change of ambient light, and the scenery in the passage became clearer. This is the ability that appears in the third order of visual enhancement in the perceptual domain, low-light vision.

In this cave, several electric lights were arranged at the N11 base, illuminating more than 100 meters close to the base, which was left over from the last exploration of the base. The electric lights were destroyed even further down, and the base wisely did not send additional personnel to repair and restore them. But for Su, who has a low-light vision, he only needs a little light to see the surrounding scenery clearly.

Sue is now walking through the dark passages. The occasional glowing moss in the passages, as well as the faintly glowing sewage, were enough for his shimmering vision to work.

At a corner, Sue suddenly stopped, and the whole person shrank back into the cloak, slowly disappearing into the darkness.

There was a low rustle in the burrow, and a ferocious gopher a meter long came out, the disproportionately large nose on its head with two holes in the sky and its small eyes dim, which seemed to have almost degenerated. Ferocious gophers and their relatives, the ferocious rats that live on the ground, were almost indistinguishable from each other a decade ago, but now they are almost divided into two species.

Sue, who was quietly stinging in the dark, suddenly moved! The triangular steel pipe stabbed out like lightning, pierced against the upper end of the mouse's nose, penetrated the upper and lower jaws, and pinned it firmly to the ground.

The nose was the most important thing for the ferocious rat, and it screamed wildly, its four short, sharp claws desperately grasping the ground, and the rubble splattered, and in the blink of an eye it carved a hole in the hard rock.

Su's left hand grasped the upper end of the steel pipe tightly, but his seemingly slender arm was as unshakable as a rock. The ferocious rat, which had been severely injured, could not support it for even a minute, and its body convulsed violently, and then fell to the ground and did not move.

Su slowly pulled out the steel pipe and turned the ferocious rat over, and saw that it was a female rat. Ferocious gopher males are accustomed to acting alone, while females are always followed by a male rat if they appear.

Su quickly moved a few steps sideways, standing in the center of the passage where the ferocious gopher appeared, half-squatting on his front legs, standing on the ground with his back feet, holding the steel pipe flat, aiming at the deep and dark passage. Almost at the moment when his steel pipe was flattened, a gust of fishy wind suddenly gushed out of the passage, and an even thicker and ferocious gopher male suddenly burst out of the darkness and bit Su in the air!

The steel pipe did not move, and with the momentum of the ferocious gopher, the sharp tip of the steel pipe pierced deep into the throat of the gopher, passing through the internal organs, and almost bursting out of the anus.

Su let go of his hand and quickly took a few steps back, his posture light and swift, as if he was gliding on water.

With a click, the ferocious gopher almost used all his strength to close the huge mouth and bite the grip of the steel pipe. Its incisors can gnaw almost a qiē rock, but they are not as hard as this thickened steel. With a click, the steel bent and the rat's teeth shattered.

The male rat rushed too violently, and after falling from the air, he slid several meters out of the rugged ground before rushing in front of Su.

Sue lifted her right leg and stepped on the male rat's head. The male rat squeaked and struggled, but the rat's head could not be lifted from the ground at all. As soon as it exerts force, the body pierced by the steel pipe will be filled with unbearable pain. Even with the trauma, it struggled for more than a minute before it stopped breathing.

Su's eyebrows moved slightly, for him, these ferocious gophers were a little tougher than they had been a few months ago, and the speed of mutation made him feel very uncomfortable.

The steel pipe that fell into the body of the male rat, Su did not plan to use it again. He fumbled around the cave wall for a moment and pulled out a wire. This is the lighting line installed at the base, which is now abandoned. Su cut off a two-meter-long stretch of wire and peeled off the patent leather in the middle, revealing the tough alloy wire inside. He wrapped the wires around each end of his hands and continued his walk into the darkness.

Even in the dark and rugged cave, Su Youbi's eyes and rich experience could distinguish the traces of the ferocious gopher's walk, and it didn't take long for him to find the nest of the ferocious gopher. There are more than 30 fierce gophers of all sizes in the nest, the large ones are almost adults, and the small ones have not yet opened their eyes, and it can be seen that these gophers belong to different litters. Judging from the three-month adult period of the ferocious gopher, it can basically give birth to one litter a month.

"The growth period has been shortened by another ten days." Su Mo calculated, and the uncomfortable feeling in his heart became even stronger.

But the bad mood did not affect him to use the alloy wire volley to lassoate a fierce gopher that pounced, and then pulled and shaked, the gopher flew back, but the blood in the neck spurted wildly, and after hitting the cave wall and falling, it could not get up again. The sticky alloy wire swept to the ground again, and seven or eight little gophers instinctively opened their mouths and bit down. However, the alloy wires vibrated slightly, and their heads were almost cut in half.

A minute later, the nest of ferocious gophers was completely wiped out. The ferocious gopher is a creature with a very strong sense of territory in the group, and with this nest of ferocious gophers, there should be no second nest of gophers within a kilometer nearby.

Su took out a map, supplemented the topography of the passage in the blank part on it, marked the location of the rat's nest, and carefully put the map away.

A few hundred meters further down the cavern, Sue came to a halt in a cavity. Behind the mound of earth revealed a hole that could only be crossed by one person. On the other side of the cave entrance is a labyrinthine subway passage that is complex, deep, and full of unknown dangers. Coming here, it means that the 500 yuan prize has fallen into his pocket, and on the other side of the hole, a genetically modified medicine is tempting him.

Su half-knelt at the entrance of the cave and listened.

The wind blowing in the subway passage was strong and weak, and there was a faint rustling sound inside. The air is very filthy and the oxygen content is very low, which is not suitable for ordinary human life. This is one of the reasons why the N11 site cannot explore the metro access more deeply on its own.

Sue is certainly not an ordinary human. Su, who has a third-order ability in the perception domain and a second-order ability in occultism, can still be regarded as a human being, even he doesn't know. After killing the litter of ferocious rats, Su felt that the genes in his body were about to move again. He has accumulated three genetic evolution points, and maybe he can get a new one by walking around the subway passage.

The point of evolution is a common term for turbulent times. The so-called evolutionary point is actually the space left for new genes after genetic shock. More evolution points means more space, and it also means being able to withstand a more powerful infusion of new abilities. There are many ways to obtain evolution points, most of the naturally occurring evolution points are obtained for unknown reasons, and in addition, there are two main ways for humans to be controlled, genetic modification potions and combat.

Of course, after having an evolutionary point, you also need to get a specific genome to form the corresponding ability. Within each competency domain, there are a number of identified capabilities. However, many more abilities are still in the fog. The points of evolution gained in battles are often accompanied by new abilities, and most of the time, these abilities are not the same as those known. As a result, many fighters consider their abilities to be their biggest secret. When two capable people meet, after killing each other, there is a very small chance of obtaining the opponent's ability.

So, ironically, in these turbulent times, killing does make people powerful.

Sue closed his eyes, and a faint rustling sound sketched a clear image of a living corpse in his mind. They wandered aimlessly, their dark red eyes scanning the surroundings hungrily. Unlike the zombies that often appear in old-time novels, the living corpses are skinny, agile, and even much faster than humans. Their strong muscles and flexibility allow them to climb and move lightly on walls and even ceilings. From a genetic point of view, living corpses can still actually be considered human, and those high-level warriors who have undergone multiple genetic modifications are even further away from pure humans.

Fifty years have passed since the war, and many of the living corpses are now of the second or even third generation. Compared to their parents, they are faster, stronger, and more adaptable to harsh environments. Many of these living corpses that survive in subway passages have evolved infrared vision to adapt to environments that often have no light.

Su made sure that there were no dangerous creatures clinging to the hole over there, then took out his pistol, jumped lightly into the subway passage, and made another long jump, stepping on the rails and bending down. He walked fast, but there was no sound under his feet, and he never lost his balance on the narrow rails.