Genetic Engineer in a Tamer's World

The dark crater was a graveyard of obsidian scales and green blood, but the silence that followed the slaughter was far from peaceful. It was a jagged, suffocating quiet, broken only by the wet, rhythmic thumping of Neo’s erratic hearts.

Kale Ardentis stood frozen, his eyes wide as he stared at the flickering blue screens of his vision.

The mechanical screech of the system’s glitching was still echoing in his mind, a sound like grinding metal that made his Hexarion Human senses recoil.

When the final prompt stabilised, declaring that the hydra was undergoing a mutation because of the transformation trait, Kale felt a cold spike of dread.

”What do you mean?” Kale unknowingly muttered aloud, his voice cracked and hollow.

His eyes were pinned to the single line of text on the virtual window.

He wasn’t even aware he had spoken. His mind was racing, trying to reconcile the data of his past research with the chaotic biological reality unfolding in his palms. He had spent over a million simulations to stabilise Neo’s base form, yet here was a variable he had not accounted for in his calculations.

The black chameleons weren’t just prey; they were a biological contaminant that had triggered a breakthrough Neo was not yet ready to handle.

Lazek Oberon, standing less than a meter away, stared at his disciple with a perplexed and weary expression. The Fleshcrafter’s black eyes narrowed, his brow furrowing as he caught the word his apprentice had just whispered.

”System?” Lazek repeated the word internally, his mind cataloguing it as another incongruity in the boy’s behaviour.

He had heard Kale shout the word earlier during the height of the hydra’s collapse. It was a term Lazek had never heard associated with any form of magic or Artificing known to the Association.

However, in this dire moment, the Grandmaster could not afford to dwell on the linguistic mysteries of his disciple. His focus was entirely on the writhing, tiny hydra that was leaking green blood onto Kale’s ruined white coat.

To Lazek’s sensory probes, the creature felt like a glass bottle filled with pressurised steam, on the verge of shattering into a thousand biological shards.

Kale realised his mistake the moment the word left his lips. He saw the flicker of suspicion in Lazek’s eyes, but he suppressed the urge to explain himself. There was no time for covers or lies.

He quickly shifted his focus inward, screaming questions into the void of his own mind, demanding the system elaborate on what was happening. He needed to know how a Feral rank creature’s devouring of common lizards could cause such a total systemic failure.

The system’s response was a rapid-fire transmission of biological data that flooded his brain’s frontal lobe. The information clarified the clashing incongruity of the Nemesis Hydra’s current state.

Neo possessed the All Devour trait, a predatory engine designed to harvest and integrate traits. But the Hydra had just consumed dozens of Alpha-rank black chameleons, whose primary trait was transformation.

Transformation was an inherently volatile ability. It required the user to reorganise their cellular structure to mirror other species constantly.

For a creature like Neo, which was already a complex and barely balanced hybrid of seven high-rank genetic sequences, introducing a trait as unstable as transformation was akin to throwing a lit torch into a room full of gasoline.

The hydra’s draconic foundation and the dark octagon’s regeneration were already working at full capacity to maintain Neo’s physical form.

This mutation fear was the precise reason why Kale had not advanced on his previous plan. He had considered feeding Neo various biological pills made from elemental creatures to jumpstart his dormant affinities.

But the Gene Lab simulations had warned him that introducing any extra elements to Neo’s fragilely balanced body was too risky. He had chosen to wait, to let Neo grow naturally through combat.

He never expected that the black chameleons would possess a trait so potent that it would force an integration without the system’s careful supervision.

[Mutation Progress: 14%]

[Warning: Probability of successful assimilation of the Transformation trait is less than 10%]

[Warning: Probability of total genetic collapse and cellular liquidation is 80-90%]

Kale raged in his mind, a silent, frustrated roar that vibrated through his mind. He couldn’t lose Neo. Not here, not in a pit of trash lizards after surviving the World Dragon’s curse.

He asked the system for a solution, his mental voice demanding an answer with the authority of a man who had already conquered death once.

The system buzzed for a long moment, the blue windows flickering as if it was processing an overwhelming amount of information.

Through the Gene Lab function, it began a deep-tissue analysis of the internal biological chaos tearing through the hydra. It mapped the way the transformation trait was unzipping Neo’s DNA strands, trying to rewrite the very marrow of his bones.

[Analysis Complete]

[Identifying Stabilising Catalyst...]

[One viable solution detected: The host must provide a massive influx of Draconic Foundation material to anchor the mutation.]

[Recommendation: Feed the specimen more of the High Rank Dragon’s Blood.]

Kale’s heart hammered against his ribs. He understood the logic immediately. The dragon blood was the glue that held the hydra together. It was the fertile soil in which all of Neo’s other traits were planted.

If the branches were growing too heavy and threatening to topple the tree, he needed to strengthen the soil.

In that moment, Lazek Oberon reached out his hand, his fingers glowing with a violent, dark mana that smelled of sulfur and ozone. The Fleshcrafter’s face was set in a grim mask of determination.

He was about to attempt something drastic, a high-level Fleshcrafting technique designed to purge unstable cells from a chimaera’s body forcefully.

Based on his immense experience and knowledge, it was the only way to save the investment from total loss, even if it meant permanently crippling the creature’s potential.

”Stop!” Kale shouted, stepping in front of the Grandmaster and physically blocking his hand.

Lazek froze, his hand inches away from Kale’s chest. He frowned deeply, his eyes locking onto his disciple with a serious and piercing glare that could have made a Master rank Tamer’s heart stop.