Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 2003  Protean Bacteria

Date- 18 April 2321

Time- 14:35

Location- Card World, Southern Region, Blossom District, Sky Blossom City

After introducing some of the pathogens from Marcyʼs blood curse substitute card into Aureliaʼs soul pathways through the grimoire card creation page, Wyatt retrieved the substitute card and stored it in his grimoire. Then, he proceeded to break down the pathogens introduced in Aureliaʼs soul pathways in to their soul pathways using spiritual energy and the card creation pageʼs effect.

Pathogens from Marcyʼs body were single-celled microorganisms that can be classified as bacteria. After Wyattʼs clone in the seed world recruited Dredreʼs help to get him books on the pathogens in the dark realm from the infinity library, from those books Wyatt learned that the bacteria from Marcyʼs body were an improved version of a species of bacteria that were quite famous in the Dark Realm mostly among the demons that referred to themselves as Plaguemancers. In the dark realm, the Plaguemancers have termed these bacteria as protean. The reason protean bacteria was famous among the Plaguemancers was because of its high adaptability. These bacteria have proven to survive anywhere as long as they have a proper supply of soul energy. Well, the versatile nature of the bacteria alone was not enough to make the protean bacteria popular among the greediest and sinisteriest professions of the dark races, the Plaguemancers. They found that when inside their host, bacteria will also share their high adaptability with their host. Allowing the host to survive the toughest and harshest of the environment and attacks. But the problem was that protean bacteria were greedy and lazy, they charged their hosts more than the service they provided. Marcy and her predecessors were prime examples of how the protean bacteria were prone to abuse their host. But the Plaguemancers were no vegetarians, following their practice of plague they used a proven method to control pathogens, which was to rid the protean bacteriaʼs reason for survival and replace it with servitude. The bacteria or any pathogens lived to reproduce and multiply. Their whole being centered around the perpetuation of their species. The same was the case with protean bacteria. The reason they took more soul energy from their host than required was to use most of it to reproduce and multiply. The remainder was used to maintain themselves and their host. However, what if the protean bacteria could no longer reproduce? They would have to use all of their energy to maintain themselves and their host as the perpetuation of their species would only be possible with their survival since they had lost their reproduction or multiplication ability. The Plaguemancers called this method the pathogen castration. They used this method to stop the pathogens they had introduced inside their body, to gain unique effects, from multiplying and becoming the cause of their death. By introducing castrated protean bacteria in themselves the Plaguemancers were able to control the quantity of protean bacteria in their body and also use them to adapt to all forms of damage, gaining resistance to those damages to a certain extent. Because of this even if the said Plaguemancer was from a weaker race with no notable traits or physique the Plaguemancers displayed a strong physique that could cause even demons from higher races turn green with envy.

However, there was a huge drawback to this method. By stealing the ability to reproduce and multiply from a pathogen, the Plaguemancers were putting an end to the growth and evolution of said pathogen. Not that the Plaguemancers did not know of this drawback they preferred it this way. They preferred the pathogen castration method despite its drawback because it not only allowed them to control the number of said pathogen in their body but also made sure that the pathogens in their body did not evolve into stronger versions of themselves this way Plaguemancers would not be danger of losing control over the pathogens in their body and dying in the process. If the number of pathogens in their system were to decrease then the Plaguemacers could always introduce more castrated pathogens into their system. If they wanted a pathogen to grow and evolve they could always use others as lab rats to conduct experiments they did not have to use themselves as the lab rat. Once they have developed a stronger version of the pathogen they can always find better methods to control it and introduce it to their body or go with the traditional method. However, still today in the dark realm no one has found the variant of the protean bacteria similar to one that mutated in Marcyʼs predecessors. The variant of protean bacteria in Marcyʼs predecessor could be considered the most valuable of all the variants of protean bacteria ever developed because Marcyʼs variation of the protean bacteria was capable of carrying the hostʼs traits and physique into their direct descendants. If the dark realm were to know that there was such a variant of protean bacteria available then they would all rush to the card world ditching everything they had. After all, even if the dark realm was more advanced than the card world, they too suffered with the eternal worry of giving birth to incapable and weak descendants. No one could guarantee that their descendants would be as powerful and capable as themselves let alone grow stronger than them. Yes, the ruler-class beings gave birth to strong descendants that might become ruler-class beings but for someone who had achieved ruler class and has ruler-class enemies, that level was not good enough. Even if their descendants could not grow their wealth they wanted them to be strong enough to protect their wealth, this was true even if they were Apex ruler class. As even they could not guarantee that their descendants would be able to protect what they had built. Imagine if such beings learned that there was a way that would allow them to pass their talents, traits, and physique to their descendants. Now those beings would not stop at anything to gain their hands on such a method, which was why Wyatt believed that the variant of protean bacteria he found in Marcy was the most valuable version of protean bacteria in the myriad realms. ..