Life Game In Other World
Chapter 456: Cloning Organs (Major - , seeking monthly passes)

Chapter 456: Chapter 456: Cloning Organs (Major Chapter, seeking monthly passes)

"Artificial organs?"

He Ao gazed at the Kors before him, "Are they from animals... or... "

"Human organs," Kors continued He Ao’s question, "To be precise, human cloned organs."

He glanced at He Ao and went on to explain,

"We all know that the human body develops from a single fertilized egg cell.

"During the whole development process, the fertilized egg continuously divides and multiplies.

"The multiplying cells differentiate into different limbs and organs. For instance, some become skin cells, kidney cells, while others become red blood cells, white blood cells.

"Through this environmental adaptation of differentiation, we finally construct the complex structure of the human body as we know it.

"Generally speaking, it’s almost impossible for highly differentiated cells to change into entirely different types of functional cells. For example, skin cells directly transforming into kidney cells is virtually impossible.

"This is also a way for the organism to maintain its own stability; different cells have highly specialized functions and cannot freely switch over to others. They work together as a whole to maintain the normal functioning of the entire organism."

"In contrast to these differentiated cells that can no longer freely change form, our bodies also contain ’stem cells’, which are either undifferentiated or only slightly differentiated and can differentiate into various types of cells again."

"For example, the hematopoietic stem cells found in our bone marrow can differentiate into red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. Under certain conditions, these hematopoietic stem cells can also differentiate into organ cells."

"The existence of stem cells means that we can ’repair’ some patients’ injured bodies to a certain extent, and of course, we can do some ’cutting-edge’ things, such as ’cloning’."

At this point, Kors glanced at He Ao again. He seemed to want to see if He Ao had understood.

He quickly realized he had fallen into his old habit of teaching and began to explain the underlying principles to He Ao in detail.

He shook his head, streamlined his words, and continued,

"Based on their potential to differentiate from high to low, we classify stem cells as totipotent stem cells, pluripotent stem cells, and unipotent stem cells."

"The hematopoietic stem cells we just mentioned are pluripotent stem cells. Of course, for cloning purposes, pluripotent stem cells are insufficient. We need totipotent stem cells."

"As the name implies, they can differentiate into all types of human cells."

"Theoretically, if we induce a human somatic cell back to a totipotent stem cell and then stimulate the totipotent stem cell to differentiate, we have a chance to ’clone’ a person."

"It seems that this technology has encountered some difficulties."

He Ao spoke calmly.

If the technology of cloning humans had been successful, it would undoubtedly be explosive news, and even after many years, someone should have mentioned it, but there was no related information in the memories combined from his multiple personas.

"The technology to induce somatic cells back to totipotent stem cells is now quite mature, but the difficulty lies in how to induce totipotent stem cells to differentiate outside the body."

Kors nodded and continued to explain,

"At present, the academic community hasn’t even tried to take the ’cloning people’ step. The current mainstream ’exploration’ is cloning organs, which can help treat many organ diseases, and there are no ethical or moral obstacles."

"But this step has stumped Federation biologists for hundreds of years. During the process of inducing totipotent stem cells to differentiate into specific organs, some strange problems always arise."

"For instance, the ’organs’ that grow are not even remotely shaped like organs, or they may have the shape of a specific ’organ’ without the corresponding function."

"And here, it is necessary to mention a top-secret project that Stars Pharma was forced to terminate fifty years ago. This project has not been declassified, and I cannot access it,"

Kors said with a smile, "But my mentor was one of the last batch of researchers recruited for this project. When I was studying under him, I heard bits and pieces about this project.

"Of course, I didn’t pay attention at the time, not until I joined the Mars Project and operated in the Research Institute. Then I remembered the project that I had only incidentally heard fragments about."

"Among those fragments, Stars Pharma seemed to have achieved some kind of breakthrough in ’cloning organs’, even progressing to the stage of ’volunteer’ organ transplant experiments."

"But my teacher had signed a confidentiality agreement, and he wouldn’t tell me the contents of the project. However, I followed the clues and found the family of the ’volunteer’ who had participated in the project."

"Most of these volunteers come from poor families and can’t afford the expensive medical bills, so they become volunteers. The confidentiality agreement is irrelevant to them. That’s how I easily learned about the details of the project."

At this point, Kors’s tone became somewhat emotional,

"First off, I found out through the families of these ’volunteers’ that almost all the initial volunteers who participated in the ’experiment’ died, none lasting more than a year."

"I found some agreements that the original volunteers signed, as well as descriptions of the situation from their families, and roughly reconstructed the events that took place."

"About fifty years ago, Stars Pharma very likely managed to induce the differentiation of normally shaped organs with normal functions, which was a groundbreaking achievement. The group quickly pushed the project into human trials."

"But reality quickly threw cold water on the entire project."

"These induced organs were prone to failure and had a much shorter lifespan than normal organs. Once transplanted into patients, the most they could live normally was a few months before dying due to rapid organ failure, most didn’t live past a year."

"The group must have researched this issue, but they ultimately failed to solve the problem. The poor clinical results forced the group to halt the entire project."

"But they didn’t completely abandon the project,"

he said, his implication now quite clear.

He Ao looked up at him, "So you think the ’cloned organs’ project merged with the Mars project, and that some outcomes of the Mars project solved the organ failure issue in the ’cloned organs’ project?"

Why would the Research Institute place cloned organs inside those ’volunteers’?

Clearly, those organs were not cloned for the volunteers.

At that moment, He Ao’s thoughts paused, and an idea surfaced in his mind.

"I don’t know how they solved the problem,"

Kors said slowly, "but they must have relied on those ’patients’ bodies, that silver metallic box, the medicine given to the ’patients’, all of which I suppose contain some key ingredient I am unaware of."

Indeed,

He Ao looked out the window where frail patients were slowly heading toward the hospital that grew a gaping mouth under the night sky.

The ’volunteers’ recruited by the Research Institute were actually ’living bioreactors’.

From Kors’s narration, ’culturing’ those cloned organs inside the body caused severe damage and significantly shortened lifespans.

In other words, the Research Institute’s hefty ’volunteer stipends’ were like ’death-buying cash’ paid to those who volunteered out of financial need.

He Ao remembered the streams of people he witnessed entering the Research Institute for the first time in Pete’s memory.

Many people in this city, like Pete, lost their source of income due to unemployment but still faced high loans and immense financial pressure.

"As to the purpose and source of those cloned organs, I have no idea. What I’ve had access to is all I know. That’s everything I know," Kors rasped out, sitting across from him. Speaking so much in such a short time seemed to burden his body, too; he took a sip of milk.

He Ao came back to reality and continued to focus on Kors. It was time to wrap up this Q&A session.

He took out a vial filled with a milky liquid from his pocket, something he obtained from ’Shadow’.

"Do you recognize this?"

he asked softly.

"It’s ’Life Elixir,’"

Kors eyes lingered on the vial, "This is a drug the Research Institute trades, which is said to quickly restore Life Force. According to Reid, even severely wounded individuals on the verge of death can rapidly recover from their injuries after taking this elixir. It seems to be a byproduct of the Mars project but doesn’t extend life."

"Does the Research Institute have a lot of this elixir?"

He Ao asked.

"Not much," Kors shook his head, "This potion is very rare, basically priceless. The research institute generally uses it to compensate some powerful individuals or to barter in the underground black market."

"Is that so,"

He Ao glanced at the potion in his hand and put it away.

Given the physical exhaustion from the ’Nightwalker’ Talent Sequence, this Life Elixir should be very useful for the ’Shadow’, which is why he had been reluctant to use it, only taking it out when he was on the brink of death.

After he had fully put the potion away, He Ao looked up again and asked, "Where does the research institute usually hide something like this ’Life Elixir’?"

"In the ’Insurance Vault’ at the very bottom of the research institute," Kors answered bit by bit, then he paused for a moment and added, "All of the research institute’s data archives are also in that vault."

"Thank you for informing me."

He Ao stood up with a smile.

"No problem."

Kors felt relieved and quickly stood up as well; he just wanted to leave this place as soon as possible.

But He Ao’s next words made his heart tense up again.

"I have two more small favors to ask of you."

—

The Stars Supreme Hospital was still brightly lit against the night sky.

Even late into the night, many of the hospital departments were still functioning normally.

He Ao and Kors walked together slowly along the road in front of the Stars Supreme Hospital.

The road under the night sky was crowded with various small vendors.

These vendors were lined up under the dim streetlights.

"Orange juice, sour and sweet, nutrient-rich fresh-squeezed orange juice."

Shouts like this emanated from the road ahead.

People dressed simply, seemingly relatives of patients, gathered around the stalls buying orange juice.

The orange juice was very cheap, one large can cost less than 2 federal coins.

There were also a few fresh oranges and a small juicing machine on the stalls, seemingly indicating that this orange juice was squeezed from fresh oranges.

But in reality, the stall owner never touched those oranges or the juicer; they just kept pouring orange juice from a big bucket beside them.

The customers also tacitly refrained from asking whether the juice was freshly squeezed.

Fruit in the Federation was a natural product and very expensive, with ordinary families buying fruits one or two at a time.

The vitamins needed by the human body, along with people’s demand for fruits, mostly came from buying blended fruit juices.

These juices, both in nutrition and flavor, were almost no different from freshly squeezed ones.

The only difference was that they were industrially blended products, where a variety of ingredients and water were mixed together, without a single fruit involved in the entire juice production process.

But these ’juices’ were cheap, far cheaper than fruits.

And orange juice was one of the cheapest among these ’juices’.

Almost all the juice sold along the way was orange juice, and there were many buyers.

As he passed by, He Ao bought a cup of orange juice.

After taking a sip, he found it very sour.

The taste was significantly different from freshly squeezed juice, easily distinguishable as the cheapest kind of industrially blended juice.

Kors walked alongside He Ao in silence.

After returning to the hospital, Kors got He Ao a doctor’s coat and even lent him his pass card.

This was the first request He Ao had just made.

The security system at Stars Supreme Hospital was largely automated; many places required appointments for entry, and some areas were off-limits to ordinary people.

But this was no obstacle for Kors who was now a ’professor’.

With Kors’s pass card, He Ao could access most areas of the hospital.

This hospital must have something special about it, and behind those soulless corpses, there must be some secret.

He Ao needed to see for himself.

He didn’t return to the outpatient building but went first to the emergency room.

The emergency room’s signs shone with red light in the night.

Some people’s gazes fell on He Ao, but he pretended not to notice and walked straight in.

The emergency room was quiet that night, not many patients, mostly accidents with non-severe injuries.

After a round in the emergency room without finding anything particularly special, He Ao went to the intensive care unit next door.

There weren’t many patients in the intensive care unit, most with stable life signs.

He Ao searched and found nothing, quickly leaving for his next stop, the in-patient building.

The in-patient building was one of the busiest places in Stars Supreme Hospital, with people coming and going like water.

······

"Bitter... so bitter..."

The elderly man receiving an infusion opened his mouth, his voice hoarse and muddled.

"Dad, drink some orange juice, something sour will make it less bitter."

The son by his side quickly fetched the orange juice he had bought and fed it to the elderly man.

A red light on the bedside lit up faintly, a reminder to the patient,

’It’s time to pay.’

······

He Ao left that ward and went to the next.

In this ward, an elderly man had fallen into eternal sleep.

His children surrounded him, their faces a mix of pain and relief.

He Ao activated his Super Memory, eyeing the elderly man’s body.

The soul, faint like a Phantom Shadow, was beginning to dissipate.

At that moment, a strange force began to act upon the elder’s Soul, like drawing thread, it started ’extracting’ the elder’s Spirit.