DBMEP CH86

Chapter 86: The Base is Very Short on Money. 

It would have been fine if it hadn’t cried. The moment it cried, Xiao Fu realized it had lost even the advantage of its voice.

It used to be a cute little dog with a childlike voice; now, it felt like it could perform a “smashing a boulder on the chest” martial arts stunt at any given moment.

It had transformed from Red Boy into the Bull Demon King.

“Xiao Fu?” Xiang Nanli’s expression was instantly filled with confusion. “What’s wrong? Are you feeling uncomfortable somewhere?”

Xiao Fu and Alpha began communicating via the brainwave signals unique to Omnics.

[How could you lie to me? You despicable war criminal. You have destroyed my trust in you!]

Alpha was never short on sarcastic remarks: [With tires this massive, is this vehicle not the 185cm long-legged handsome guy you asked for?]

Indeed. Height 185cm, length 460cm.

Xiao Fu no longer needed to contemplate which part of Xiang Nanli was the most comfortable to lean against; nor could it nestle in his arms and rub his chin while he worked. And it certainly didn’t need to consider lying at the foot of the bed and sleeping alongside him when Xiang Nanli slept.

Xiao Fu: [#@@#%￥@￥#@#%…]

Xiao Fu transmitted back a bunch of garbled text, clearly infuriated.

Left with no choice, Alpha confessed: [This model can fit a cryo-chamber.]

[So?]

[Maybe it will be useful one day. We are electronic lifeforms; our bodies are merely replaceable vehicles. But humans are different.]

Alpha’s words were brief, but Gospel understood the implication behind them.

[It seems you have little confidence in your own abilities, to the point of calculating that you might need me to flee for my life with Xiang Nanli.]

[Of course I hope that day never comes, but I am not an omnipotent God. Appropriate safeguards are highly necessary,] Alpha replied calmly.

Perhaps, during the long years of searching for Xiang Nanli, learning to face his own incompetence was a mandatory course Alpha had to take.

Was it painful?

Of course.

But compared to losing him, admitting his own incompetence was slightly more comfortable.

Besides, having been by Xiang Nanli’s side for so long, even if Alpha hadn’t learned anything else, his technique of painting grand, empty promises was maturing by the day: [Gospel. You are an upright, brave, and trustworthy Omnic. Although I do not agree with your ideology, I believe in your character.]

And so, after Gospel was silent for 2kb of data flow: [Fine, I can compromise.]

[But give me my voice back!!!]

During Gospel’s three-second pause, undercurrents surged between the two Omnics, but ultimately, they reached a cognitive consensus.

__

Gusu City.

Immortality Tech Biological Research Institute.

Liszt’s lips were rather thin and pale in color. A small mole sat right in the center of his lower eyelid. His eyes were narrow and elongated, making him appear somewhat callous.

For some unknown reason, Liszt always felt the face in the mirror was very unfamiliar.

But he had searched for his own information online, and whether it was videos, news, or even his old student ID, they all featured this exact face—as a top-tier scholar, he left very little data available to the outside world.

Of course, the possibility that the content had all been tampered with could not be ruled out.

But the cost of doing so would be far too immense.

And Liszt couldn’t think of any motive for such an alteration.

Liszt had also found some medication in his suitcase, prescribed for treating schizophrenia. There was also a 25-year-long medical record stating he suffered from sleep disorders and occasionally experienced hallucinations, unable to distinguish between dreams and reality.

And when he woke up, an unfamiliar doctor told him he had undergone hypnotherapy and might forget some things.

Additionally, he had previously turned off the security system at his home and set his single-family villa on fire in a suicide attempt. It was the security team that rescued him.

Liszt had suffered severe burns over his entire body, which would have been an incurable condition hundreds of years ago. But now, stepping out of the Gene Serum bath, he was as good as new.

His face would occasionally ache, a searing, burning pain. The doctor said this was because facial skin was relatively thin, and even after repair, there would be some neurological damage. It was a normal phenomenon, and told him not to mind it.

So it turns out I have a psychiatric disorder.

Liszt thought.

With such a severe mental illness, I am still the Chief Scientist at Immortality Tech.

This realization made Liszt feel extremely peculiar.

Holding a can of highly concentrated coffee, Liszt walked toward his workstation. Even though he hadn’t undergone much cybernetic modification, his footsteps were completely silent.

As he passed the workstations, his modified cochlea inappropriately picked up a bit of gossip.

“The Great Demon King doesn’t seem very easy to get along with…”

“Not really. He just doesn’t like to talk. Plus, in his eyes, we might just be a bit stupid…”

“But why did the company dispatch the Great Demon King to our Gusu City branch? Is the person in that position upstairs going to be replaced?”

“This is not something we, with a monthly salary of three hundred thousand, should be considering.”

Without altering his pace in the slightest, Liszt walked past, raised the canned coffee in his hand, and took a small sip.

A bitter taste resembling traditional Chinese medicine spread through his mouth.

Liszt pushed open the laboratory doors. Everyone around him instantly stood up, lowered their heads slightly, and spoke with reverence in their tone: “Director.”

This was Liszt. The first living person to receive the Human Alliance’s highest technological award, Liszt.

As a side note, the very first recipient of this technological award was Xiang Nanli. But he had already been dead for a long time when he received it.

Liszt walked toward the cultivation room: “Progress.”

The usually arrogant and imperious professor held a logbook, following closely behind him: “This is Group 1. We have successfully extracted the active substance from the interior of the Black Silk Spore Fungus in its natural mature state.”

“Group 2. Through comparative analysis, we discovered this mycelium is most sensitive to gamma rays, and exhibits the strongest activity when nuclear radiation intensity is at. It can absorb various high-energy electromagnetic waves and particles.”

…

Group by group, the experimental logs were read out methodically.

Actually, all this data had been compiled and sent to Liszt’s inbox at 10:30 PM last night. But he obviously hadn’t opened it yet.

Rumor had it that Liszt never cared about experimental progress after clocking out; it seemed this wasn’t a mere rumor after all.

Finally, they arrived at the cultivation room.

Blood-red mycelia wove into spiderwebs, hanging on the massive glass curtain wall. The thin threads intertwined like breathing flesh. Newly grown sections were a soft pink, but the majority of it was a rigid, hardened red.

This glass box was truly massive.

The assistant held her breath: “Director, have you heard the news… The people from the Investigation Bureau brought back a kind of medicine from the outside. They say it was developed by people on the surface…?”

Many research institutes scoffed at this. The surface was famously backward. What good things could possibly come from there? It was probably just another scam for funding. In the eyes of these people, even if the world ended, they had tickets to Noah’s Ark. Even if floods surged outside, their homes would be the last to drown. Naturally, they weren’t in a hurry.

But some institutes refused to give up any hope and worked overtime to complete comparative and in vivo experiments.

Liszt: “Hm?”

“It’s an inhibitor,” the assistant continued. “It can be used to suppress the activity of the mycelium within the body, slowing down the infected’s mutation speed.”

Liszt: “Oh.”

The assistant: “A classmate of mine at Taoyuan Group passed on some information, saying the effects are quite prominent. The active mycelium stopped growing immediately. However, this situation hasn’t been reported outward yet.”

She, too, had only just received this news right before Liszt arrived.

Liszt gave an “Mm” and showed no other reaction.

The assistant said somewhat awkwardly: “Director, this seems to be the exact same approach as ours.”

Scientific research is always this awkward.

Everyone’s goal is the same, but every laboratory’s ideas and processes are different.

And when one laboratory discovers the result a step ahead, the efforts and investments of all the other laboratories no longer matter. They are all losers in the competition.

From an economic perspective, this is a zero-sum game.

Their experimental progress had already been very fast; they were literally only missing the final step. But this step required the accumulation of time.

Compared to those completely clueless laboratories, they possessed a natural advantage. At the very least, by obtaining the sample and analyzing it, they might be able to directly reverse-engineer the formula.

But to Liszt, the formula actually wasn’t important. Because he had already simulated it a long time ago. He knew the answer; he just wasn’t exactly sure how to procure those raw materials.

The assistant whispered, “It’s a research result from the surface; maybe it’s a smokescreen from the evil Divine Court. Why don’t we… pre-emptively register it?”

Pre-emptive registration. Being the first to publish a paper or file a patent registration. It was a very common commercial tactic, especially when research directions aligned. It wasn’t even considered particularly dirty.

Doing so was to maximize the profits of this research.

A drug might only cost 10 credits to produce, but with a patent, a corporation could sell it for thousands, tens of thousands, or even more based on market demand. Currently, the validity period of a Human Alliance patent was 70 years.

The returns brought by investment were so alluring.

“We are scholars, not merchants,” Liszt replied. “Cost, profit, and loss—these are things for the investors to consider. Even if they lose everything and go bankrupt, that is merely their investment failure, and it has nothing to do with our research. Do not do such despicable things. What is more precious than money and fame is the state of mind of a scholar.”

This state of mind held a different meaning for everyone. For example, indomitable courage, or the firm belief that one will inevitably succeed.

The assistant thought, It’s definitely because Liszt doesn’t lack money that he can say such beautiful, pleasant-sounding words.

But on second thought, she herself only earned a fixed salary, plus some commissions and subsidies at most. Thus, she nodded in agreement.

Liszt stared at the petri dishes before him. After a long while, he spoke: “Have you used the samples yet?”

“Group 7 went to do it; I’ll ask them right now.”

The data was quickly transmitted back.

The effects of this unknown inhibitor were excellent. At the very least, the mycelium within the test subjects—who had been lying in hospital beds waiting to die—had actually stopped further growth. It maintained a bizarre equilibrium.

The head of Group 7 lowered his head slightly: “The dosage of the delivered samples was very small. We contacted other research institutes to conduct tests in different directions, and we are sharing the research reports.”

“Mm,” Liszt replied.

A few minutes later, he continued: “Send me the data brought by that investigator.”

Carrying the canned black coffee, Liszt sat in his office. He opened his work email and clicked into the compiled surface investigation report.

The report recorded a surface settlement named Eternal City. It stated that this settlement was occupied by members of something called the Survivor Base.

And the origin of the base was a cryonics project of a certain major corporation from six hundred years ago.

The investigator believed that the developmental level of this city was still relatively primitive, but they indeed possessed unknown biotechnology. Photos of the Fungus Cows were also attached.

“The base members possess a friendly attitude, are clearly aware of the Human Alliance’s existence, and are willing to submit to the Human Alliance. Threat Assessment: E. Development Potential: A. Eternal City Livability Index: 3.9 stars. Specially approved 1 million credits as funding.”

Liszt murmured: “600 years ago… Donghuang Heavy Industry?”

There weren’t many people left who still remembered this segment of history.

Considering that the ruins of Donghuang Heavy Industry had previously been discovered near Gusu City, this guess was surprisingly reasonable.

The remainder of the file contained the precious inhibitor samples and a small executable program.

The report stated that this was the experimental log…?

Hmm, according to Scavenger’s scan, this program was extremely safe; its size was only 255 bytes.

Hesitantly, Liszt opened this small program.

The blue light of the screen reflected off his glasses.

It was actually a letter.

[Respected Leaders:]

[Hello!]

[It is a pleasure to meet you in this manner.]

[The base is very short on money and intends to sell the manufacturing method of the inhibitor.]

[We can waive all attribution rights! Meaning, it’s absolutely fine for you to publicly declare that you researched it yourselves! Of course, that will cost extra.] (Note: This line was bolded and in red)

[To make an offer, please click this link: [Link]]

[Please attach your contact information. Once your offer is approved, we will send a reply letter at our earliest convenience.]

[Announced by: Survivor Base]

Liszt: “…”