Vol 13: Chapter 11-2.
Zheng’s team was shocked. Xuan frowned and bit his finger. “Why do you say that? The monster is currently powerful, similar to the one you described. If it is still considered incomplete, then its full power is beyond imagination and much more than what our rewards are.”
Evelyn asked. “What rewards? The murals said the design of the golden mask had flaws. It couldn’t evolve the wearer to the intended stage. Firstly, the beings lose control over their emotions. They will act according to their present desires. Secondly, they have to absorb human blood to maintain their life force. And the last flaw is fatal. They have no resistance toward sunlight. A minute amount of sunlight will kill them."
Zheng suddenly took out the gold fragment from the ring. "That wouldn"t be due to this little piece right? How did you even manage to get this piece off him?"
O"Connell took the gold fragment and smiled bitterly. "While the monster was chasing after us, Jonathan sneaked into the town to steal the mask. However, the monster seemed to have an invisible connection to the mask. He went back to attack Jonathan at once. I am not sure what happened. The building caught fire and Jonathan came back with this fragment."
Zheng smiled. "I basically get it. You can see how powerful the monster is if Jonathan only managed to steal a fragment. I have to keep my things in my hand if I don"t want him to take it away."
Jonathan smiled modestly.
Zheng asked. "Is he going to overcome the flaws with this fragment?"
Evelyn shook her head. "No. That is only the first step. The murals indicated he also needs a large diamond to gather sunlight then shoot a beam into the forehead of the mask. He will evolve again to the same stage as the saints. There is only one such diamond in this world."
Zheng said. "That wouldn"t be the one Jonathan got from the pyramid right? How did he know that you have the diamond?"
O"Connell nodded. "Right. That"s the one. Jonathan bragged about his diamond in a game of poker while we were with the archeologists."
Zheng rubbed his brows then turned to Lan. "Still no results from the scan?"
Lan shook her head. "No. The zombies scattered throughout the city. There are no trace of the monster. I have to put the hotel under surveillance in case he attacks the hotel."
Zheng nodded then looked at Xuan. "Any discovery on the monster"s cells?"
When Zheng retrieved the Spear of Osiris after the explosion, there was a piece of the monster"s flesh stuck on the spear. This flesh was wriggling like it wanted to fall off the spear.
Xuan nodded. He took out a gla.s.s bottle from a large leather bag. "I had the guards of the hotel bought me a set of laboratory supplies. These tools are rather simple but some data are easy to gather also. To begin, this piece of flesh is a complete organism on its own."
A piece of pink meat was moving inside the gla.s.s bottle. There were several tiny eyes and tentacles grown on the meat. Its size was bigger than when they initially obtained it.
Xuan continued. "Its size was very small initially. I then cut off a third of it for experimentations. However, once I poured cow blood on the meat, it absorbed the blood then grew to this size. Various organs also began to emerge from the meat, such the organs for vision, and smell. This meat can be considered a complete organism at this point."
He took out several more gla.s.s bottles. A piece of meat was floating inside liquid on each bottle. "I submerged the meat with different liquids. In concentrated sulphuric acid, the meat quickly dissolved. However, this bottle consists of diluted sulphuric acid. Take a look here."
They followed Xuan"s finger. Inside the bottle was a small ball filled with holes. The holes were bubbling at a slow pace. "The meat evolved to resist the corrosion of the acid in a short period of time. It turned its outer layer into a form of isolation. The cells on the other layer are dead but its inside is still alive. Alkaline solution yielded similar results. But saline solution as a different effect. See the evolution in this bottle."
Xuan pointed to a gla.s.s bottle. A thin slice of meat was floating on top of the saline solution and breathing. It looked like a marine species.
After showing all the bottles, Xuan said calmly. "Understand? This meat is different from ours at the most basic level. We can speculate that the creators of the golden mask intended to give the wearers control over their genes. However, the experiment failed and the genes gained control over the hosts. Every cell became an individual organism. The aggregation of these cells became the monster. The monster doesn"t have control over its evolution anymore. These cells will evolve on their own when they sense danger. As long as a single cell is still alive, the monster is still alive."
"What a rank B difficulty mission. One mistake and we won"t even finish it. Luckily there is no time limit and no penalty for not completing it. Otherwise we might just wipe here."
Everyone was silent. The movie characters basically didn"t understand much of what was said. Though they get that the monster was difficult to kill. If luck wasn"t on their side, countless monsters might emerge from his meat.
Zheng pondered for a moment. "This is indeed difficult to deal with. But I think it might be a chance. Why didn"t the meat pieces separate from the monster"s body? Why didn"t they attack and devour each other? Do you still remember the fight? The meat returned to his body after I smashed him. Which means this piece might lead us to the monster."
Xuan gave him an approving look. "Correct. There"s a high chance of finding the monster using this piece of meat. However, I want to do one more experiment first. Imhotep, dehydrate it. I am curious if the cells will evolve to a form of life that doesn"t require water."