Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage

Chapter 853: Progress of Berserk Transformation Research I

CH853 Progress of Berserk Transformation Research I

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“As you know, this facility is dedicated to my Berserk Human research—both into refining my current cure and developing a better cultivation enabler for non-professionals,” Eleanore said.

“After you regained consciousness in the wake of your battle against the Heavenly Tribulation to save Ava, you described Ava’s importance and capabilities. It got me thinking, ‘What if I could use Ava too?ʼ”

“That explains all these drone corpses,” Alex commented, looking at all the deformed bodies in the room.

“You could tell?” Eleanore looked surprised. “Oh yeah, you’re connected to the hive as well.”

“Yes, but not quite because of that. None of these bodies were ever activated. They’re just shells, so they aren’t connected to the hive,” Alex replied. “The reason I noticed is primarily the smell—or rather, the lack of it. If they were real corpses, no matter how well you treated them, they would still smell.”

“Ah yes. I noticed they don’t smell like real corpses too,” Eleanore confirmed with a nod. “I noticed it, but then I forgot about it.”

“Why is that, though? I thought these drones were perfect recreations of a being’s body,” she asked.

“It is part of a protocol I included in a packet for creating bodies I would need later for my own research,” Alex replied.

“There’s no need to deal with the rancid smell of decomposition from a body specifically grown for experimentation. I might as well remove that inconvenience altogether. You probably told Orion or Ava what you intended to use the bodies for, so they included this protocol in the genetic code of the bodies they sent to you,” he said.

“Makes sense,” Eleanore nodded.

Then she returned to the topic at hand.

“Anyway, rather than risk our troops or waste time trying to acquire real Berserk Beasts and Berserk Human corpses for me, I decided to have Ava make them instead.

“Not only would the bodies be fresh and safe to use since I know their exact condition, but more importantly, I can dictate the conditions of the bodies, ensuring they meet my requirements,” she said.

“Have you discovered anything new?” Alex asked.

“Yeah. It’s difficult for Ava to make Berserk creatures,” Eleanore said.

“That’s not new.” Alex shook his head. “Ava has inherent Anti-Divinity properties. So, her body is resistant, or even downright antagonistic, towards divinity.

“As a result, her drones also inherently reject divinity—ergo, the berserk property. They only appear to be Berserk Beasts because they are programmed to store and project berserk energy over the surface of their bodies.”

“So, I was right. Her drones are mostly immune to the berserk property?” Eleanore asked.

“Under normal conditions, yes. But it is possible to pull back this immunity and deliberately allow a drone to become corrupted,” Alex explained. “Even then, you would probably need direct, deliberate contamination.”

“That explains a lot.” Eleanore nodded. “Orion informed me that I would need to provide berserk stones for the drones. I thought it was charging me for the corpses since you didn’t mention needing berserk stones to make them. I ended up paying one low-grade berserk stone for each corpse here.”

“You’re a Sub-Admin. Even if it were going to charge anyone else, it wouldn’t charge you. An analogy for what happened is—If the drones are crafting products, and Ava is the crafter, then the berserk stones are simply crafting materials that you, the client, should provide.”

“Noted.” Eleanore nodded.

“Well, thanks to this ability—or rather, immunity—of Ava’s, I was able to observe the effects of my current cure at different stages of contamination without the safety measures we previously had to add. As you can see, most of them ended in the most gruesome deaths. Some even underwent hazardous mutations whilst they were being cleansed of the berserk property.”

Eleanore continued thoughtfully, “It was almost as if the mutations we see in a berserk creature represent the maximum level of mutation the body could sustain, which is why they stopped at that point.

“But when the cure began cleansing the mutations, it opened up more room, allowing the mutation process to resume, causing an already mutated berserk being to mutate even further.”

“I think this provides more evidence supporting the overactivation hypothesis we postulated previously.” She expressed.

Alex spoke thoughtfully, holding his chin. “The mutagen introduced into the first Combat Warriors by the Heavenly Venerable’s collaborators still flows within the gene pool of the current denizens of this plane.

“And the berserk property targets this mutagen, causing the berserk transformations we see by activating the dormant gene in non-professionals and overactivating the gene in professionals. However, the body can only mutate so much, so the mutation eventually stops regardless of the starting point.

“When you cleared away some of the mutations before all the berserk property in their system had been removed, the mutations resumed, pushing towards that mutation limit.”

Alex’s eyes flashed as came to a conclusion, “By continuously mutating, they can develop a body capable of storing more energy. In that case, the mutation limit becomes the ‘cultivation’ method and rank of the berserk creatures.”

“Did I get that right?” he asked.

“Basically, that’s my conclusion as well,” Eleanore said.

“I see…” Alex nodded thoughtfully. “Is this revelation useful to you?”

“It is still early days, but I believe so.” Eleanore nodded. “Currently, none of the people we’ve cured have progressed beyond the level they found themselves at after the cure. So much so that I’m beginning to believe their current rank is their limit.”

Alex’s eyes flashed with understanding.

“The mutation limit,” he said. “You believe these people now follow the ‘cultivation’ path of berserk creatures. They need to increase their mutation limit, or mutate even further, to be able to accommodate more energy than they currently can?”

“That is my current conclusion from testing various corrupted and cured drone bodies, yes,” Eleanore revealed.

“Hmm…” Alex remained silent for a moment. “That is… inconvenient,” he said.

Alex rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Explaining this to them will be… unpalatable.”

Be they the professionals or the formerly ordinary people who had been cured, it would be difficult to tell them that they would most likely be unable to cultivate and grow stronger.

For the formerly ordinary people, after they were cured of their berserk transformation, they had come to know the joy of cultivation they had never possessed before but had long yearned for.

Now that they had tasted that power, being told they couldn’t grow any stronger would probably crush them.

Similarly, though in a different way, the professionals who had undergone the berserk transformation were also unlikely to take the news well.

Prior to the transformation, they had experienced the joy of cultivation and held great hope of progressing even further. But now, after the transformation and subsequent cure, they had lost that hope. For some, they might even find death to be a better alternative.

“I know that. That’s why I’ve been working on a workaround,” Eleanore said.

“A workaround?” Alex raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“I traced everything back to the beginning,” Eleanore said.

“The beginning?” Alex parroted.

“The mutagen, Alex. The mutagen,” Eleanore said.

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