Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Medicine Is Not Potent Enough

Page 1 of 3

The college entrance examination had already been underway for twenty days.

The planet Xiyuan was ravaged, scarred everywhere by war and strife.

Most of the examinees had completed their basic arrangements, and various forms of civilization now flourished across Xiyuan. There were bio-humans mutated into aberrant beings, fearless mechanical armies, sword immortals sweeping the world with nuclear blasts, and martial emperors subduing six realms by their lone might.

Beneath these grand and turbulent façades, some regions had secretly turned into ghostly domains, others into kingdoms of faith, while some individuals drifted between worlds, weaving intricate plots among the great powers. There was even a faction boldly proclaiming, “Master the strengths of the outsiders to resist them—Xiyuan shall fight the invaders to the death.”

Amidst all this upheaval, the Yan Yue Sect enjoyed an unusual calm.

Ye Han lounged on a soft divan, leisurely munching on spiritual fruit.

Not far away, Luan Shuangyu was busy testing a newly developed genetic serum.

These serums had been specially formulated for the native genes of Xiyuan.

Unlike the gene-completion agents from two days prior, the serum in Luan Shuangyu’s hands now was designed to unlock the ninth tier of the genetic lock.

In theory, once these serums were injected into a native of Xiyuan, the transformed subject would possess strength comparable to the ninth level.

“I say, aren’t you afraid that the natives will reach the ninth level and overthrow your rule as sect leader?” Ye Han finished off the last bite of his fruit and casually tossed the pit out the window.

“Shut up!” Luan Shuangyu snapped, not even turning her head as she dripped the serum onto a palm-sized piece of flesh, her gaze fixed intently on the monitoring instrument, carefully observing the genetic changes within the tissue.

“Need any help from a native?” Ye Han watched Luan Shuangyu’s back with amusement.

He had already shifted the spatial gateway to Hanlan directly to the Yan Yue Sect, utterly disregarding Luan Shuangyu’s feelings, as if this place were his own headquarters. Supplies flowed in and out daily.

Any resources Luan Shuangyu disdained, Ye Han claimed without the slightest hesitation, shipping them all back to Hanlan.

“If you say another word, I’ll kill you right now!” Luan Shuangyu threatened coldly, her face frosty, as the data before her eyes seemed far from ideal and fell short of expectations.

Her native serums could only unlock up to the seventh genetic tier on Xiyuan, still two tiers short of the ninth.

She felt puzzled and frustrated.

Was it this wretch’s bad luck bringing her misfortune?

Luan Shuangyu turned her head, glaring at Ye Han with open hostility.

Page 2 of 3

“Don’t look at me like that!” Ye Han waved his hand a bit sheepishly.

Except for immovable buildings, he had swept the Yan Yue Sect clean—even abandoned and broken weapons in the warehouse were not spared.

Unlocking the gene locks didn’t require spiritual stones, so even the sect’s spiritual stone mines were not off-limits. Ye Han simply had someone remotely control mining machines to extract the ores in bulk.

After these few days, apart from people and some basic food, nearly everything else in Yan Yue Sect had fallen into Ye Han’s hands.

As he put it, since the entire continent would eventually be overrun, the sect wouldn’t be able to hold onto anything—so better it benefitted him than someone else.

Luan Shuangyu merely lifted her eyelids and let it go.

“Hmph!” She snorted coldly, moved to the side, picked up her notebook, and sat down to work through some calculations.

Seeing her dejected look, Ye Han knew her research wasn’t going well. Gritting his teeth, he hesitated and said, “Our Sector 07 is technological, while Xiyuan is rooted in the arcane. The natives have long been steeped in spiritual energy—could it be that the gene sequence mutations are triggered by the spiritual energy?”

The previous serums were mainly for gene completion, but the current ones in Luan Shuangyu’s hands were designed to violently break genetic restraints.

At Ye Han’s suggestion, Luan Shuangyu paused.

Xiyuan natives grew up in an environment saturated with spiritual energy; it was entirely possible there was a discrepancy between the living genes and those collected and transmitted back to her homeland.

The spatial gate couldn’t transfer living beings, and the serums she had were based on gene data collected back home.

Could it really be due to spiritual energy?

Luan Shuangyu exhaled softly, her pen hovering over the paper, unwilling to fall.

The true nature of spiritual energy—this question had never been adequately answered within her faction.

Only the Sixth Sequence had left relevant records.

But Luan Shuangyu did not agree with their conclusions.

The theorists from the Sixth Sequence claimed that spiritual energy was generated by the movement of material particles; these particles were so minute that humans could neither see nor fully comprehend their patterns.

They believed spiritual energy was an energy manifestation of the positive-material world, the only energy in reality capable of colliding with the dark energy of the dark matter plane.

The clash of positive and negative energies thus formed the visible boundary between the “real plane” and the “dark plane,” simultaneously unleashing corresponding abilities.

They themselves existed between the real and dark planes, paradoxical entities with neither soul nor body, mere formless beings composed of dark-plane energy and information from reality.

In their view, not only spiritual energy, but even what philosophy calls matter and consciousness, were ultimately all matter.

The human soul, in essence, was a sequence of data; consciousness itself was but a reflection of the movement of particles.

Page 3 of 3

“What are you thinking about?” Seeing Luan Shuangyu lost in thought, Ye Han raised his eyes and gestured toward the rapidly growing experimental specimen nearby. “Aren’t you going to clean that up?”

The piece of flesh, originally palm-sized, had grown to the size of an arm after being injected with the gene serum.

According to the residual genetic memory, if left unchecked, it would likely regenerate into a crude clone.

Since there were no brain cells present in the tissue, the final clone would at best be a living corpse.

Without the brain’s regulation and control, it wouldn’t be long before the thing, caught between bodily limitations and unchecked proliferation, would explode into a mass of rotten flesh.

This had happened once before—flesh splattered across the entire room.

Ye Han had no desire to relive such a disgusting scene.

“What if we drain all the spiritual energy from a Xiyuan native, then inject the serum in a completely isolated environment?” Luan Shuangyu ventured.

With a slight tilt of her snowy chin toward the flesh, Ye Han understood immediately. He raised his hand and cast a fireball, incinerating the specimen.

“How do you isolate spiritual energy?” Ye Han looked as if he’d seen a ghost, waving his hands at the room. “Every single thing on Xiyuan, inside and out, has been permeated with spiritual energy. Even if you manufacture an isolator back home, how can you guarantee it won’t be infiltrated?”

“Why go to all that trouble? You might as well try to fuse the serum with the spiritual energy itself!” Ye Han rambled on, absentmindedly scratching his ear.

To put it bluntly, if the serum wasn’t potent enough, he figured they should just find a way to strengthen it.

“How do you fuse serum with spiritual energy?” Luan Shuangyu glared at Ye Han, gritting her teeth.

It was true that spiritual energy could permeate everything, but fusing the two was easier said than done.

Across all of Xiyuan, aside from spiritual stone mines—which were unique fusions of special minerals and spiritual energy—she had never even heard of any other such entities.

“Didn’t I just tinker with an enchantment technique?” Ye Han’s eyelids drooped as he suggested nonchalantly, “Why not try enchanting the serum bottle itself, see if you can force spiritual energy into the serum with compression?”

“If it’s just about compressing spiritual energy, wouldn’t it be simpler to just mix spiritual stones directly with the serum?” Luan Shuangyu shot Ye Han a glare of exasperation.

This guy was always spouting nonsense, never serious, just making things up as he went along.