Instead of leaving the Spire Experimental Base after wrapping up the Basilisk pattern experiment, Chen Chen went into another laboratory.
It was a secret laboratory. The Spire Experimental Base by itself was already a secret laboratory, which made the existence of this current secret laboratory an utmost secret.
Inside the laboratory, more than a hundred life incubators were lined up in rows. Many of these life incubators were empty and unused, but a notable amount of them also contained a completely naked young man suspended inside.
Both the appearance and physique of all these young men were remarkably identical and all of them looked like a direct copy of Chen Chen. The only difference was that they were basked inside the life incubator and devoid of any form of consciousness.
Such was the spectacle Chen Chen beheld in this very moment.
To achieve the result displayed by Alice in the movie, Chen Chen launched his absolute secret project here — the “T-virus customization” project.
“To prevent running out of experiment subjects, I made another hundred cloned copies of you. We only used six of them before producing this final complete product… Sir Godfather, please appraise it.”
Little X’s voice could be heard through the earpiece. At the same time, a Black Knight approached with a spiral test tube in hand. The solution inside the test tube was a translucent azure blue like a shining crystal. It was a captivating sight to behold.
“This is the final product, T-009.”
“Which means that this is the ninth version?”
Chen Chen received the solution and squinted his eyes to inspect it. “This tube of T-virus can make me superhuman?”
“Theoretically, yes.”
Chen Chen was not completely certain of it but proceeded to explain anyway, “Compared to the previous half-finished products, the T-009 virus is refined to its utmost limit. A total of 15 RNA errors have been rectified and it should have perfect compatibility with your genes.”
As Little X said this, another Black Knight wearing a large lab coat approached with a stretcher. “Please take a look, this is clone 009, the latest successful subject.”
Chen Chen turned around to approach it upon hearing this. He saw a young man who was a direct copy of himself bound to the stretcher with belts. This young man seemed to be in a dazed state. He was glancing around all directions and smiled at Chen Chen when they made eye contact.
There was a sense of innocence in that smile, one that Chen Chen never remembered having himself.
“His current stage of brain development is equivalent to that of a completely newborn baby.”
Little X explained, “To verify that the T-virus doesn’t negatively affect the host’s consciousness, we kept the brain of the clones intact during the process. We made sure to chart down their electroencephalogram before injecting them with the T-009. Based on our previous findings, we concluded that their thoughts and consciousness are completely unaltered by the injection.”
“That’s good news.”
Chen Chen nodded. “What about the results of the experiment?”
“The T-009 virus fused perfectly with the DNA of clone number 9. Without having his physique directly altered, his strength, agility, never response speed, muscle tissue strength, and immunity strength are all doubled. If he goes through systemic training, there’s no chance of him losing to any T-version Black Knights!”
Chen Chen picked up the experiment statistical report beside him and went through it briefly. “In that case, let’s begin the final experiment.”
With that, he raised his head and looked at the arrangement of hundreds of life incubators. “Extract all of these clones and inject the T-009 into them. I’d like to see what the success rate of T-009 looks like.”
“That’s a wise move.”
Little X agreed. After that, the Black Knights inside the laboratory got to work.
After that, hundreds of “himself” were taken out of the life incubators one after another and put onto stretchers.
These clones were already injected with immunosuppressive drugs like sirolimus, cyclosporine A, and FK506 half a month ago. Therefore, the current immunity efficiency of the cloned bodies had long been suppressed.
The cloned bodies with compromised immunity structure were perfect research subjects for the T-virus.
Before the clones had time to regain consciousness, they were promptly strapped onto stretchers. Little X began making records of the electroencephalogram of the cloned bodies so that they could be compared against the electroencephalogram readings after injecting the T-virus.
The chances of this occurring were low, but if an alteration of recorded brain waves was noted, then it would imply that this drug designed to revamp the condition of the human body carried a certain degree of side effects. Chen Chen would have to tread carefully if he intended to use it for himself.
With there being hundreds of subjects, the experiment progress went by extremely slowly. Little X went ahead and reassigned 25 additional Black Knights as laboratory assistants. With this, the laboratory was operating at full capacity. With Little X’s given orders, all of the clones of Chen Chen were separated into three batches and all of them were injected with the latest variant of the T-0009 virus.
Similar to the previous conduct, a large amount of supplement glucose and carbohydrates were injected along with the virus. This was done to prevent the clones from dying from malnutrition before they could even succumb to the effects of T-virus during the process of genetic modification.
All that was left to do now was to wait.
One hour, two hours, three hours…
The clock began to tick away. Soon, the clones had survived for 24 hours. Not only were all of them still alive, but there were also no abnormalities in their vitals detected either.
The vitality of each of the clones began improving rapidly.
From where Chen Chen stood, he could see the skin on the clones beginning to shed. As layers of skin began falling off, they were replaced by a new layer of smoother, delicate skin.
At the same time, the muscles of the clones that were originally loose in structure began tensing up at such a rate that it was visible to the naked eye. As more nutrition was injected, the energy was subsequently extracted from these nutritions by the new genes inside the cloned bodies. The microscopic stature of their bodies was constantly morphing…
Although there was no visible change in their physique, the weight of the clones was steadily increasing. This was caused by an increase in density in muscle and bone structure.
After 36 hours had passed, the first batch of clones had successfully braced the infection progress of the T-0009 virus and allowed themselves to be completely fused into one with the T-virus.
48 hours later, the second batch of clones was reported to have successfully fused with the T-009 virus as well.
After 60 hours, the final batch of clones yielded successful results as well. In all of the 93 clones, not a single failure was reported.
“100 percent success rate…”
A brilliant spark of joy appeared in Chen Chen’s eyes when he saw the results. “X, you deserve all the credit for the unqualified success of this project!”
“Sir Godfather, this is all a part of my due responsibility…”
Little X sounded a little embarrassed, even her voice trailed off as she said this.
“Initially, I figured it was worth a shot if there was at least a 90 percent success rate, I never expected that you’d bring me such a welcome surprise!”
Chen Chen laughed. “By the way, could you show me how much the total expense for developing a T-virus compatible with my genes is?”
“It has been ten months, five days, and eight hours since the launch of the project. Factoring in general cost and material cost, the total expenses come to 350 million U.S. dollars will be spent according to the Namibian market price.”
“That doesn’t sound half bad at all. What about after factoring in labor cost and time-cost?” Chen Chen asked.
Little X replied, “That’s difficult to calculate and we can only go by rough estimations. To research the T-009 virus, we assumed priority over a lot of resources originally designated for other projects. This caused some of the project’s progress to be delayed or result in a failure. Including labor, time, and the losses of some of the other projects, we probably invested somewhere in the range of 10 billion to 15 billion U.S. dollars…”
Chen Chen nodded. He pensively picked up a test tube containing T-009 inside it and stared at the glowing blue liquid inside and could not help but chuckle sensibly.
“Tens of billions of dollars in capital investment is enough to help you trump over any moderately-sized pharmaceutical organization. Only the giants like Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson can try to put together the funds to tackle the creation of a new drug.
“Sadly, there are countless board members behind these pharmaceutical giants. It wouldn’t be sensible to exhaust all of the manpower and resources of a company just for the benefit of one person. This means that so far, I’m the only one in the entire world who has the access and rights to do such a thing. This privilege of having it all to myself…”
Chen Chen could not hold himself back from taking in a large breath with a smile slowly surfacing on the corner of his mouth. “It’s pretty good!”
With that, Chen Chen turned around. “Let’s begin, X. I cannot be any more thrilled to have more power soon!”
…
Half a month later.
Chen Chen stood inside a laboratory, naked from the waist up. This was a completely disinfected laboratory where other than Chen Chen, all of the Black Knights were wearing protective suits to avoid polluting the laboratory environment.
Chen Chen’s skin was a pale white sheet. His expression frail and soulless, even his hair had lost some of its shine and turned yellow. He had lost a considerable amount of weight over the past two weeks.
This was the consequence of an extended period of injection of various immunosuppressive drugs.
The drugs had heavily damaged Chen Chen’s body. His trained physique developed from him taking the NZT-48 had completely wasted away. He had lost a significant amount of mass.
However, Chen Chen did not care about any of that.
“Sir Godfather, the immune system of your body had reached the desired potency, but your body itself…”
“It’s alright, my body can still hold on.”
Chen Chen waved the suggestion away before asking at the end, “Are the facial surgeries on my clones complete yet?”
“Yes, all of the clones have gone through the appropriate facial surgeries. I can guarantee that appearance-wise, they don’t hold any resemblance to you.”
Little X answered, “Also, these clones display phenomenal learning ability. After their faces have developed properly, we can begin hiring expert-level teachers to start teaching them the fundamentals so that they can grow into the elite research team desired.”
Chen Chen nodded faintly.
This was the solution Chen Chen came up with after giving the matter heavy consideration.
At the end of the day, these are his contemporaries. If they turn out to be unintelligent Black Knights then so be it. The chip could still be implanted to them and they could pass as Black Knights.
However, things became more complicated if they turned out to be intelligent clones.
This was why Chen Chen came up with this idea.
First, have these clones go through facial reconstruction surgery to change their appearance. After that, tutors would be enlisted to pass on all sorts of knowledge to them so that they could become fine researchers which Chen Chen was in short supply of.
Of course, Chen Chen would not allow them to be involved in matters of the military concerning civilians where Chen Chen drew the line.
After the short conversation with Little X, Chen Chen approached one of the life incubators and began climbing the ladder beside it.
Chen Chen stood on the edge of the life incubator and took a deep breath before hopping into it.
The inside of the incubator was empty. There was no water or any other substances. After Chen Chen had hopped inside, a mechanical arm quickly swooped down from the ceiling and fitted the hatch over the life incubator.
There were several slots built into the hatch with various pipes passing through them. These pipes included respirators as thick as a fist as well as gigantic nutrition injection needles. In one swift motion, Chen Chen put the respirator around his mouth and took several breaths before signaling a thumbs up for Little X outside the life incubator.
After that, Chen Chen picked up several needle heads and inserted them into the veins on both of his arms.
After completing all these steps, large volumes of faint yellow liquid began flowing into the life incubator. The solution was maintained at an average temperature of 36.5 degrees which was ideal for the human body.
The faint yellow growth medium slowly submerged Chen Chen over time. By the time it was done, Chen Chen had his eyes shut and was completely submerged in the growth medium. His body soon began to float automatically inside the growth medium until he was suspended in the middle of it.
Chen Chen subconsciously curled up with his hands around his knees, a posture similar to that of a fetus in a mother’s womb….
“Sir Godfather…”
Little X seemed to have said something in a low tone but as it is, all Chen Chen could hear was muffled buzzing sounds.
However, Chen Chen seemed to understand what Little X was troubled about. First, he shook his head and soon followed it up with a gentle nod before finally becoming idle.
With that, Little X stopped hesitating. Chen Chen soon felt a chilling sensation coursing through his left arm. It seemed as if something was flowing along the tubes and into his blood.
Chen Chen knew that it was the T-virus. Only a couple millimeters of it was enough to drive human civilization into the ground.
From here on, time slowly passed him by…
Several hours later, the Black Knights slowly went out of the laboratory, completely sealing it afterward. All of the lights inside the laboratory slowly dimmed out as it was sealed as if afraid of disturbing the slumber of the man inside.
There was nothing but dead silence inside the laboratory Chen Chen resided in. The faint glow of the electronic display of various machines seemed to magnify the darkness around it and added to the desolate ambient.
Amid all this, the silhouette of Chen Chen could be made out through the glass of the life incubator. He was curled up into a ball and his eyes were closed peacefully, resembling the form of a fetus inside the life incubator. Occasionally, his chest would rise following the tempo of his breathing.
The atmosphere outside the laboratory was the direct opposite of the quiet ambience inside as several hundreds of Black Knights were posted around the Spire Experimental Base. The orders they received were direct — stop any members of the Spire Experimental Base who disobeyed the warnings and attempted to approach the laboratory Chen Chen was residing in. In drastic situations, the use of lethal forces was permitted.
Meanwhile, Little X already had all of the entrances to the Spire Experimental Base sealed tightly. All of the research team personnel inside the Spire Experimental Base were closely monitored at all times as well. Should there be any abnormal activity detected, a crew of Black Knights would be immediately dispatched to apprehend the culprit.
The scientists inside the Spire Experimental Base were oblivious of what was going on, but they sensed the atmosphere inside the laboratory growing thicker and heavier as if there was a dark cloud hanging over their heads. No matter what they did, they made sure to pay extra caution…
