Epoch of Twilight

Chapter 417: Four-Dimensional Cloning

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Though many of the evolved humans were not popular, it did not mean that they were incapable. Some of them had not performed well mainly because they had not been given the proper training while the majority of them had just been unlucky. For example, there was a batch of clones that Luo Yuan took extra care of whose embryos had been inserted with a unique gene which came from an evolved human that died in the purge. If he had been alive, he would have been a super evolved human even without any improvements in his abilities.

The records in the document stated that the evolved human had super strength which was similar to that of Hercules. He could lift up a tank which weighed 50 tons and toss it at his enemies. He could also easily jump several hundred meters above the ground. Luo Yuan could not believe that any human would have possessed such strength. Contrasting to Luo Yuan’s own Strength (currently at 17), he was only able to lift up objects as heavy as one ton. As far as he knew, only insects could lift weights which were three times their size.

There was no record of how the evolved human died but based on some information that had been mentioned in his file, the military had issued a bounty for his death and his body had been preserved. He had the same body structure of an ordinary human and though his body looked fit, the physical structure did not seem to be any bigger than the body of an ordinary human. What made him unique were the body cells or to be exact - the mitochondria which his body had possessed.

Luo Yuan noticed that his mitochondria were special. Not only was its structure complicated, the cell had a series of enzymes which allowed him to carry out a cold fusion reaction. When water entered the mitochondria, its molecules would be broken down into an ionic state where the hydrogen atoms would then fuse into nitrogen parathion and other elements. Elements such as oxygen and hydrogen were converted into several amino acids which were required by the body while the energy that had been generated by the fusion reaction was used to run daily chores.

The reaction process of the fusion was slow as only two hydrogen atoms could be formed by each mitochondrion every second to be converted into nitrogen parathion. Even if there were a total of fifty trillion cells in the human body, the amount hydrogen atoms that were able to go through the fusion would have only been 1/10,000 grams.

However, the energy that was produced from the fusion process was incomparable to the energy that was produced by a normal reaction. As the energy from the cold fusion reaction was stronger than a hydrogen bomb explosion, the energy that was produced from a small amount of 1/10,000 grams of hydrogen was equivalent to that of a standard coal combustion. Therefore, it was more than 8,000 times the amount of energy an ordinary human required, which was about 30 times what Luo Yuan required.

The existence of such mitochondrial cells also meant that the amount of food he needed to survive was extremely minimal. He did not even have to breathe so all he needed was water and some standard elements to survive. No creature like it ever existed on Earth. When Luo Yuan first discovered this fact, his mind was blown away. He knew that his abilities would have gotten a huge upgrade if he possessed such mitochondria in his body. His power and strength alone would have been increased by 10 folds.

…

Suddenly, Professor Guan had appeared before him along with a few other researchers. "Captain Luo, we have bad news! The egg cells in Group A1 to A10,000 are dead." He ran towards Luo Yuan and said nervously. He knew that those had been the groups of pods which were most important to Luo Yuan. Unfortunately, none of them had survived.

"What happened? The embryos had not even started to split so how could this have happened?" Luo Yuan mumbled to himself. As long as the cells were active, they should not have faced the problem of not being able to split. Furthermore, based on his experience through working in the lab, regardless of how much the genes changed, the first splitting was always successful and the death of the embryo usually took place when they were almost developed into a fetus.

Luo Yuan did not even consider the possibility that the researchers would have made a mistake as it was a simple task to carry out. After all, the cloning process was not something new to them and they were definitely familiar with the technique. Every step had been written clearly on the manual for them to refer to if they ever forgot. All they had to do was to follow the steps in the correct sequence like workers working on an assembly line would. Even non-researchers could have taken over their roles if they had been given the proper training.

"According to the operation records, the transplant of the egg cells were active and the level of nutrients were normal. The amount of hormones required had also been added accordingly but the split just did not happen." Professor Guan said as he paced around the room pondering as to what was the cause of the failure.

"What do you think?" Luo Yuan asked.

"Putting all possibilities aside, I suspect that there was something wrong with the chromosomes which caused the cells to refrain from splitting." Professor Guan answered hesitantly as he turned to look at Luo Yuan.

All the genes had been personally edited by Luo Yuan himself. If there was no problem with the operation procedures, then something must have gone wrong during the editing process. Though the acknowledgment of the project done by the Reconstruction Area had been credited to Luo Yuan, there had so far been no improvement in the genetic modification technique. It felt like entering a mountain filled with treasures but there were no proper tools to attain them. None of them had the ability to edit the genes directly like Luo Yuan could.

Luo Yuan was not offended by how straightforward Professor Guan had replied him. He took a moment and pondered to himself while he circled around the room saying, "Let’s see."

There were 10 clone pods in each group. The death of group A1 to A10,000 meant that 100,000 genetic modifications had failed. It was standard procedure to remove the core of the egg cell before transplanting it into the carrier cell. Although it was the largest cell in the human body, its diameter was only 0.1 millimeters, which was equivalent to the thickness of a strand of hair. While it is floating in the nutrients, only Luo Yuan could see it without the aid of any lab equipment.

He looked at the cells and saw that they were broken and shriveled because most of the liquid in the cells had leaked out. The cell was dead and Luo Yuan did not have to look at all of them to tell that most of the embryos in the area were dead as well. Each and every cell in the area had been imprinted with Luo Yuan’s Will and was partly connected to him. Though they were not directly attached to him, there was a special connection between them. Sadly, he felt that the connection between him and all the cells in the area had completely vanished.

"Apart from these groups, are the rest okay?" Luo Yuan decided not to use his Will to check but turned around to ask Professor Guan instead.

"There are no problems with the rest. Those that were growing at a fast rate had gone through their 10th split while even the slowest ones’ had made it through their 1st split."

Luo Yuan had the same thought too.

The clone pods between Group A1 and A10,000 had mostly been implanted with at least one ability gene while some even had two to three. Group A10,000 had been implanted with 12 types of ability genes, but regardless of how many types of ability genes that had been implanted, all of them had one thing in common – they had been implanted with Xu Zhiqiang’s ability gene.

Xu Zhiqiang had a life that was close to the fourth dimension and so naturally there were four-dimensional secrets in his genes. Unfortunately, it was difficult to explore the fourth dimension. Even though Xu Zhiqiang’s genes showed no difference compared to an ordinary evolved human’s and the editing process had gone well, the results obtained were negative.

All the embryos with Xu Zhiqiang’s genes were dead because they could not split. Luo Yuan suspected that he must have missed something during the gene modification process.

"Fourth dimension!" he thought. Perhaps a part of Xu Zhiqiang’s genes did not exist in the third dimension and was an entirely different organism. Xu Zhiqiang did not possess the real four-dimensional life and had only adapted to part of the fourth-dimensional world, which was the same in Luo Yuan’s case. There should have been some difference in their genes.

Luo Yuan told Professor Guan, "Get rid of the dead embryos and get someone to individually clone the cell labeled S36778. Clone one hundred copies of them and send a sample to my office."

S36778 was Xu Zhiqiang’s gene. He wanted to see if the cell could be cloned.

"Alright!" Professor Guan said immediately.

When they were done talking, Luo Yuan quickly headed back to his office. After he had closed the door, he removed his headband and launched his four-dimensional vision while using his inner vision simultaneously. The inner vision of his Will gave him the ability to see everything. Luo Yuan noticed that there were significant amounts of dark energy in his vision. It was as if the world was a floating sea of energy and they were flowing into his body.

The energy did not feel real as they easily entered his body with no trails left behind. A slight change in Luo Yuan’s Will made the energy dance as if they were being controlled. However, Luo Yuan did not know how to control it and stopped after a couple of attempts. Though the energy seemed calm and harmless like a flowing river, it made him worry. He was not sure if there would be any serious consequences if he was to conduct an experiment on himself, especially since it had to do with the inside of his body.

He diverted his attention from the energy towards a chosen somatic cell. The cell was enlarged and he stared into the core of the cell and later into the chromosomes. Luo Yuan searched for the chromosomes of the genes located inside the brain, however, he could not find any that came from the fourth dimension. He frowned and thought to himself, "Could I be wrong?"

He just could not figure it out and decided to look at Xu Zhiqiang’s cells as a last resort. He hoped that he was wrong.

Soon, Xu Zhiqiang’s cell sample arrived at his office. He waited for the assistant to leave before he closed the door and then proceeded to use his Will to investigate the cell sample. In the cell, he found a group of "fourth-dimensionalized" chromosomes. It was a Klein bottle structure that was formed from a third and fourth dimension gene. There was no way to the see the four-dimension genome in the third-dimension but he was able to see the complete genome in the fourth-dimension. When the fourth-dimension gene was removed, the genome became invalid.

Luo Yuan was doubtful of the two results he had just discovered. He had suspected that there was something wrong with Xu Zhiqiang’s gene, however, there was nothing wrong with it and the characteristics of the gene were in line with the characteristics that would have been found in a fourth-dimensional creature. The problem lied with Luo Yuan’s gene.

Could it be that his brain cells had gone through a gene mutation while the rest had not? Could it be possible that his gene had remained in the third-dimension while some of his brain cells had entered the fourth dimension?

…

On the fourth day, the cloning of Xu Zhiqiang’s cells had failed and all the embryos had died in the process.