With the stem cell at his disposal, he had full access to everything Anthea had sacrificed his life to create.
The question now was how he was going to harness.
"One cell is obviously useless," Rui mused thoughtfully. "I need a large number of cells. Millions. Billions of cells."
Otherwise, there was no point.
He was trying to essentially bee a hybrid between human and evosapien so he could integrate genetic adaptive evolution into his Martial adaptive evolution.
"...This will take some time."
He could accelerate it by causing the evosapien cell to develop cancerous genes, but that was likely to be more dangerous and damage what he had. Reversing it would be a pain in the ass if it went sideways.
"No need to be impatient," he heaved a deep breath. "Before I even get to that point, though, I need to ensure that I can even harness evosapien microbiology into my system. There is no point in having billions of evosapien cells if I can’t integrate them into my body in a stable and viable manner."
This is where his suspected need for the Divine Doctor would e in.
This wasn’t just a matter of tinkering with chemicals and DNA; once it became part of his body, it would interact with his entire system. It would have long-term and short-term effects as well as alter all kinds of variables and parameters he didn’t even understand.
On top of that, he didn’t know how to harness the adaptive evolution mechanism.
Evosapien cells had a nuclear membrane that was essentially armed with a gamma radiation laser on the inner side of the membrane that could edit DNA in real time.
He didn’t entirely understand how the evolutionaries controlled this mechanism.
"I imagine it feels like controlling a muscle," Rui mused. "I will need to study living evosapiens to fully understand how this mechanism works and then alter my own body to gain control over this mechanism."
This was not easy.
Just figuring it how to integrate the evosapien cell into his body without dying was going to be challenging.
The cells of different species typically did not survive very long inside the body of another living being. The largest reason for that is because the immune system of one’s body would detect the foreign body and the white blood cells of the creature would surge to kill the foreign cell.
"Thankfully, I am a Martial Sage."
With the power of the Martial Soul, he had nigh absolute control over his body.
He could suppress his immune system, thereby ensuring that the evosapien cell would not be hunted alive.
However, a cell still needed more than just not being destroyed to survive. It needed nutrients and chemical pounds as well as systems in place to ensure that it could eject waste properly.
This was where the difference in species was not helpful.
The cells of different species had different chemical signals.
He needed to figure out what those chemical signals were and then alter his body or the evosapien cells, or both, to bee systematically patible with each other. They needed to learn to speak the same language.
"It shouldn’t be that difficult," Rui decided. "The Divine Doctor did confirm that we are reproductively patible with the six species. If we can reproduce to form fertile offspring, then we should be able to make our cells metabolically patible."
Thus, Rui cautiously introduced the evosapien cell into his body.
For starters, he placed it inside his skin.
Immediately, he could sense his immune system acting up.
A reaction he voluntarily suppressed.
He needed to work fast, before the cell died.
Even though he could resurrect it, it was too much of a pain in the ass to do so.
For now, his goal was merely to ensure that the cell could survive inside his body.
There was, of course, another major impediment aside from just his immune system.
He could almost feel the Gu poison sensing new prey inside his body, desperate to leap at it.
His control over the poison was not as good as his control over his body.
The very moment the cell was introduced, the Gu poison around the area began converging upon it, threatening to kill it where it was.
"Let’s hope you weren’t just all talk," Rui murmured, thinking back to Anthea’s adaptive evolution of the Gu, as he watched the Gu poison interact with Anthea’s cell.
The cell survived the interaction.
Rui’s eyes widened as he watched the cell maintain its structure as the Gu harmlessly passed by it and through it.
And yet, by the time it was done, the cell was still living.
What surprised Rui was that the mechanism by which the cell adaptively evolved to the Gu was different from the mechanism that Rui used.
Rui adaptively evolved to the Gu by giving himself cancer.
He gave himself an explosive cancer, one that would literally explode him if not for the Gu.
Cells divided aggressively, causing a tsunami of new tissue to expand within him.
The Gu killed all those cells, keeping them in check.
Anthea had adaptively evolved to the Gu in a more sophisticated and elegant manner, it appeared.
He essentially made his cells ’appear’ chemically unalive.
Although the Gu was not alive, it functioned like a living creature that ’detected’ life and chased after that life.
However, it did not harm the non-living.
Thus, if a cell could ’appear’ as chemically unalive by undergoing a few genetic changes, it would be ignored by the Gu.
"Damn..." Rui cursed with a tone of grudging respect. "This solution is better than mine."
pared to that elegant solution, Rui’s explosive cancer was more crude, more dangerous, and also more energy-consuming.
The cancer consumed a lot of energy.
Each cell division required not just energy but also a lot of chemical nutrients.
The only reason that Rui was not exhausted twenty-four-seven was because he had the Blood of Solaris and Hungry Pain. The Blood of Solaris almost gave him limitless physical stamina over indefinite periods of time, and Hungry Pain ensured that he was never lacking for chemical nutrition.
Thus, with both of them bined, he could ensure that the explosive cancer did not drain his stamina.
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