Legend of the Cyber Heroes
Chapter 246 - 246 26 Evolu Cells

246: Chapter 26 Evolu Cells 246: Chapter 26 Evolu Cells This happened in an extremely short span of time.

Even a Hero’s dynamic vision couldn’t fully capture everything.

Among the eight or nine Heroes present, only Xiang Shan, Tao Enhai himself, and a Hero named Bai Man managed to react.

No one expected that Tao Enhai, spurred by anger, would move involuntarily.

He lunged towards Xiang Shan.

From the initial stance, he seemed to want to grab Xiang Shan’s shoulders.

— Ah, according to this person’s habits, what should follow are reprimands and questions…

in a senior’s tone?

Xiang Shan even remembered these details.

Even though he still didn’t know who “Doctor Tao” was, he had indeed retrieved these from his memories.

“Understanding the behavioral patterns of this person” was deemed more important than “the memories shared with this person” — a choice probably made by Xiang Shan over two hundred years ago.

The real experiences shared with friends were converted into files and transferred to hard disk racks.

Today, those memories had long vanished with the quantum hard disks.

What remained in Xiang Shan’s brain was only the “knowledge necessary to differentiate friend from foe.”

Thus, the current Xiang Shan knew that this “Doctor Tao” was an ally.

Honestly, Xiang Shan quite understood Doctor Tao’s current reactions.

He himself disliked the technology known as “Personality Mask”—both genuine and fake.

At least until ethics and legal constraints defined a baseline, this technology should not be misused.

And the modern era happened to be a lawless one.

Then, Xiang Shan realized another thing.

The state of this “Doctor Tao” might not be very good.

He took a wrong step right from the start.

The brain nerves had issued a wrong command to the Prosthetic Body.

Due to the intense emotions bolstering the command’s priority, the Prosthetic Body’s self-correcting mechanism was completely overridden by the command.

This Doctor Tao would crash to the ground at supersonic speed.

Xiang Shan swiftly adjusted his posture, lowered his body, and attempted to catch this “old friend.”

However, he felt as if a layer of “film” covered not just his hands…

no, his entire body.

He was moving against a sturdy “film.” This “film” completely enveloped him.

Every movement he made had to fight against this invisible barrier.

This layer of “film” was not a sonic barrier.

It was called “Performance.”

Xiang Shan’s Prosthetic Body could only move so fast, only as fast as it was capable.

—My past self must have been much faster.

Xiang Shan mused.

Then, amidst sharp sonic boom noises, Xiang Shan collided with Tao Enhai.

With his left hand, Xiang Shan caught Tao Enhai around the waist, rolled around on the ground several times to dissipate the terrifying force, and finally stopped in a half-kneeling position.

—This feels terrible, will need to replace the parts in the elbow and shoulder again…

Xiang Shan thought to himself.

In a cloud of dust, the stunned Group of Heroes watched the old Hero who had suddenly made a move.

Tao Enhai shook off Xiang Shan’s hand, “So you did react…

makes sense.

If your way of thinking is close to his, it indicates that some structures of your brain are highly suited for Martial Studies techniques.

Yes, you definitely should have such high reactions.”

With one hand, he grabbed Xiang Shan’s left shoulder: “You have great Talent.

If you were willing to practice your skills diligently, you wouldn’t need to resort to these crooked paths and could become a Famed Hero.

You should have the chance to surpass that person!

But what are you doing, huh?”

The doctor was very angry: “I beg you, please let that old man rest in peace!”

In that moment, the entire cave fell silent, leaving only the howling wind outside.

The Underground Pixiu was the first to speak: “Old Hero, what do you mean by this…?”

Tan said, “Pixiu!

Stop talking!”

His hand was trembling slightly.

Only Doctor Tao’s assistant Lucius was greatly shocked and exclaimed, “Master!

Calm down, calm down!

You must not have intense emotional fluctuations!

Intense bioelectricity will accelerate the progression of the Evolu cell disease!”

It was then that Doctor Tao released Xiang Shan.

But his prosthetic eye still locked onto the man.

Xiang Shan, meanwhile, had more memories triggered: “Evolu cells?

Disease progression?

Has this thing…

has this thing also become a weapon?”

Evolu cells are the world’s first Benchmark Man Yawgmoth Voigt’s neuronal sheath tumor cells.

Perhaps due to the defects in the initial gene therapy, the body of this genetic genius developed numerous tumors, both benign and malignant.

However, since Doctor Tao had found a multitude of diagnostic tools for Benchmark Man from animal experimental data and the world’s best medical team was monitoring his condition in real-time, almost all disease foci were removed immediately.

Subsequently, with gene therapies developed by Yawgmoth, cancer no longer occurred.

In this process, Yawgmoth donated his tumor cells.

These cells could divide infinitely and would not die off due to excessive divisions.

This was an excellent experimental platform.

In early 1951, a poor African-American woman born in the Federation was diagnosed with cervical cancer.

She was treated at a hospital—merely because it was one of the rare institutions willing to help African-Americans.

During her treatment, doctors removed a piece of her tumor tissue for ex vivo cultivation.

The cultivation was hugely successful.

This woman’s cancer cells could divide rapidly and unrestrictedly under laboratory conditions.

However, the treatment of her own cancer was not so successful.

She passed away at the end of 1951.

Perhaps it was because the woman had been infected with various viruses.

This made her cancer cells not only capable of replication, but they also replicated a bit faster than typical cancer cells.

This was an intangible wealth.

The cells were named “HeLa” cells, an abbreviation of the impoverished woman’s name.

The discovery of HeLa cells permitted humanity to use real human cells instead of closely related primates as experimental subjects without ethical concerns.

These real human cells could be used to test radiation and toxins, or to infect with various viruses.

Also, tasks like testing and producing vaccines could rely on these human cells.

The doctor who successfully cultured this strain of cells generously shared the woman’s cells with colleagues worldwide.

They appeared in petri dishes in biological laboratories everywhere, becoming a crucial cornerstone of the modern global pharmaceutical and chemical industry, generating tens to hundreds of billions of US dollars in value.

Unfortunately, the woman’s husband, children, and subsequent descendants did not receive any benefits.

Instead, parts of their family’s DNA privacy are being studied over and over again by biologists around the world—whether they like it or not.

Xiang Shan vaguely remembered—was this memory from Demon Sect, or did he just remember it himself?—that Yawgmoth always considered this incident a “significant stain on the advancement of biology.”

Thus, he personally oversaw a new donation procedure.

He employed a large legal team and signed a complex but universally enforceable donation agreement.

This agreement ensured that any of his descendants within five generations could terminate this donation if they felt it invaded their privacy.

However, the agreement also ensured that his descendants could not obtain excessive material compensation from research institutions, regardless of their opinions.

Of course, Xiang Shan also knew another fact—Yawgmoth created this donation agreement only as a positive model for the biological community.

To prevent real descendants from interfering with the progress of human science, he would never have biological children.

If he ever felt the need for affection, he would adopt.

“Heh, he was really noble back then…” Xiang Shan felt a severe headache.

Something was “boiling” inside his skull: “Has this thing also become a weapon?

Was this thing also made into a weapon?”

Evolu Cells, derived from “evolution,” meant exactly that.

Their original owner hoped that these infinitely proliferating Benchmark Man cells could become an ideal experimental platform for human cells, like HeLa cells.

“Wasn’t it joked about many years ago?” Doctor Tao, calming himself through meditation, disdainfully replied, “‘This thing absorbs electrical energy too efficiently, afraid it might turn into a massive monster like Godzilla if thrown into a nuclear power plant’—such statements…”

As he spoke, Doctor Tao realized something was off.

The tone of the man in front of him was too much like that of an old friend from the past—he couldn’t help but treat this guy as if he were Xiang Shan!

Anger surged in him again.

But this time, without needing his disciple to remind him, Doctor Tao began to meditate on his own to suppress his anger.

It even took Xiang Shan a second or two to accept this shocking fact.

He patted the side of his own head.

One had to admit, the world indeed changes.

Soon, Doctor Tao regained his composure.

He said, “You must not think our generation was so noble just because you read some memories.

We are all human, the same.

The third generation of Evolu cells can produce tiny spores.

They only need a bit of moist air and electricity to reproduce themselves.

They can paralyze power institutions and electronic devices.

Of course, if they enter the human body, they can also erode the brain and lead to death.”

Xiang Shan looked Doctor Tao up and down: “Your motor nerves have been severely eroded.

Are you able to move freely only because of the prosthetic body’s posture correction algorithm?”

Doctor Tao snorted, which was a form of admission.

“So, you need to undergo a brain separation surgery, discarding the brain stem?”

“Yes, the brain stem, the motor center in the cerebellum, isn’t so important for Cybernetically Enhanced People.

The organs we rely on for living are gone; there’s no need for these nerves to command them.

We don’t have muscles either.

As long as we don’t use the expensive prosthetic fibers made of artificial muscles, there’s actually no impact.

Even some functions of the cortical margin can be replaced by computers.” Doctor Tao snorted, “For humans, the neocortex is the most crucial part.

Keeping this part alive, there’s still hope.”