chapter 31

For enemies turned allies the three were quite comfortable sharing ideas .

But each had an aspect they were more passionate about pursuing.

Hence they split up after a while . Scheduling a meeting in the next week .

For plans as grand as a human alliance, development of a civilization elite force , and the collective evolution of human capabilities, they didn't seem in the least intimidated.

Their passion and drive was stronger than their fear of failure.

Jay went to check on the 'buildings' residents , and Eric went out.

Daniel had Soo many things to do . Without folding distance he ran up a flight of stairs . Compared to the fastest baseline humans , Daniel could tell he'd gotten faster. When he got to the thirteenth floor unlike others who'd suddenly find themselves on the fifteenth floor , a line in space ( emptyness ) suddenly opened up from its center like a mouth allowing him entry before closing up and vanishing.

Daniel finally got to see his lab after days of being away . And my was he surprised . Like said before Daniel had used any and all biological material he could find to create his lab . The bodies of the dead the disgusting parts from bugs , the parts of plants and trees and the spores and shots of fungi.

So he expected his lab to look like an abomination, but he probably underestimated himself. Were normal humans failed , his super genius mind succeeded. But it still blew his mind .

Instead of a floor with separate organic devices, it felt more like Daniel had made his way into the belly of a strange creature.

The hard ground was covered in warm springy ,moist and breathing fleshfungi. Out of all the biological material used , plant based was the number 1 , but it seemed the colonizational ability of fungi was just too strong , and the seamless fusion with flesh of mamals( humans) caused the product to resemble fresh. The brown red padding on the floor felt Soo right to Daniel he layed down on it and rubbed his face .

Daniel heard as the whole lab vibrated, and shock in excitement. He designed his instruments without intelligence, but he put in soo many biological instructions ( instincts) that it could probably behave like it was really alive.

Like a dog but less independent.

Daniel didn't know a mutation would occur that would attach all the devices together and create a system . He begun to sweat but didn't feel uncomfortable. It felt just right. To the point Daniel didn't feel like working with conventional technology ever.

But he vomited it out piles and piles of mechanical parts were dumped into the lab with Daniel categorizing then with deathly efficiency. Holding the cold iron really begun to irk him .

Was he not disgusted by the fact that he used innocent peoples bodies to make his lab? Kind of , but ultimately no . Was he going to let them send valuables into the grave ? No . Especially in the apocalypse!.

Daniel was going to build something with these mechanical parts and he was already making designs in his head. But in comparison to biosciences, he was lacking in mechanical engineering. All his mechanical engineering knowledge was related to drones and simple vehicles.

Daniel inspected each and every bio devices ( organ) . These were all rudimentary and prototypical. They might not perform well, but Daniel could learn what was lacking from using them, and probably design better ones .

To answer the question of how he'd switch the bio devices for a better one?

Just looking at his lab now turned singular organism, he extrapolated that a switch or upgrade would work like a transplant surgery were the old would be surgically removed and the new attached to' nerve' endings ( fleshfungi).

But for now there shouldn't be an update at least before a year of thorough planning and research breakthroughs , and at least 6 generations or higher with significant changes through each gen .just like how changes in mechanical parts caused wear and tear , frequent organ transplants would cause overall weakness.

And with all mechanical parts organized, Daniel committed our the living creatures in his body .

The mutated and corrupted worm .

The white heavily furred rabbit that could suspend.

And finally the the metal horned deer.

All in comatose and covered in odourless translucent yellow fluids .

" Time to see what my lab can do . "

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How did Daniel operate bioengineered equipment? Sensory input!

Strokes , pats , proximity to heat signature and auditory information.

His equipment was something only he could use, because only he designed them.

The organisms went through invasive scanning.

And the output of information came in the form of change in equipment shape , oscillation, colour , texture and sound produced.

This wasn't a very user friendly device, but to a super genius mind this didn't matter.

" Interesting, interesting"

The process of scanning took longer and new information was being discovered one by one . There were of course sections of scans that his devices just couldn't replicate as well as conventional technology.

His large fingers fiddled with the input tissue of the fleshfungi equipment (organs) . To outsiders this was straight out of a horror show . Nothing looked remotely ( scientific) conventional or mechanical . Not to mention Daniel didn't have enough equipment to study all three samples simultaneously.

He had a lab now , but not enough equipment.

For the next three days Daniel peformed deep scans on the genetic mutation going through all three living creatures.

He wanted to know if they were replicable .

With the mutated white rabbit with excess fur and a suspension ability, all he uncovered from the scans were a change in the fur coat genes , meaning it's abilities of floatation , 1 , where either not tied to the genes or physical biology of the rabbit , or 2, where an effect generated by a sequence of gene strains working simultaneously together in a kind of 'formation' to form this ability. Either case needed a further study.

The most successful scan that yielded to most results was that of the silver (alloyed metal) antler deer.

Turns out not only were its antlers made from a carbon infused metal alloy similar to steel but more resistant to corrosion , but it's entire skeletal system too was made out of the exact same material.

This gave Daniel the inspiration to pick from this animal the gene strain that led to such a development, and add it to his new human plan . Bones as strong as steel , he liked the sound of that .

His plan for the next step of humans was grand , he was dedicated to his vengeance on their invaders , he would gladly rid terra of her weakness of it ment the destruction of his enemies was assured.

Imagine humans that where strong enough to lift a plane , or bus easily without training, humans that could travel at Mach 1 ( speed of sound ) . Humans that could fly , humans with super hearing, vision , and smell .humans that could possibly fly .

He was determined to make all baseline humans 'superman' then probably their fates( humanities ) wouldn't meet its end by the end of the decade. At most Daniel graded superman in the shows as a city level threat. Malevus were a district level threat to the baseline humans , but once he was done , malevus could possibly be reduced to less than a human level threat .

It was time to put the bugs back in their place , under humanities feet.

Daniel understood that not many liked bodies as huge and mascular as he liked his , so he may tone it down in that aspect when designing humanities future. But they will still have to confirm to at least a 'fit'/ 'healthy' looking physique if he succeed, no , when he succeeded.

It wasn't a question of could he do it . He was 100% sure he could come up with the evolutionary path in a year.

It was the other requirements he set that would eat at his time . Cheap easily manufacturable and world wide coverable.

He had read stories were some 'puritins' refused to evolve because of belief . He was going to make sure no one had a choice whether to evolve or not to . They were better off dead if they thought this way.

So with that out of the way the next creatures deep scans showed some concerning results.

This was the giant worm . Daniel was really interested in its elasticity and resistance to kinetic impact. This feature would greatly impact the survivability in engagement (battle) of new humans if it could be harnessed.

And the gene strain did prove that it was good enough , it's just that while 30% of the kinetic impact resistance came from its genes , the other 70 % came from an energy reinforcement, and Daniel could guess that this was the energy unique to that thing Eric panicked about .

It might be a passive reinforcement, but it required the energy from that thing Eric feared .

' I'd need to discuss this during the next meeting with Eric , he needs to explain it to me more .' Daniel thought in passing .

' speaking of which , new humans need strong reproductive abilities to make up for the death toll we have suffered as a species and will continue to suffer . Also we can't allow the female demographic to be held back by labour . New humans should probably hatch out of eggs ' a new thought came to mind.

As time went on, Daniel added more characteristics to the plan of 'new human'

In the end , the only line he wouldn't cross was changing the outward appearance.

No matter whether more limbs made them better , or a snout was better . He could change the enamel of teeth to be made out of better materials than hydroxyapatite, or the keratin of the skin nails and hair to be made out of alloys instead of protein. Those were as far as he'd change the external features .

If Daniel didn't have grand plans for his design he could achieve it in 6 months of focused research and development.

Currently humanity had a set of odd mutations / disorders that gave specific individuals enhanced abilities way before the apocalypse begun . Daniel sought to extrapolate from said research results first , experiment on some people and develop from there .

And for the numerous time , it cannot be expressed how utterly brilliant and genius Daniel was . The comparison shouldn't be made with human geniuses like Tesla , Einstein, James Watson ,Fleming or the fathers of science that came before him.

These human geniuses had lives to live. Funding issues , and frankly speaking lower intelligence. They also needed inspiration.

Meanwhile Daniel was resourceful, based his life on his study and his martial arts practice, and was in the perpetual state of inspiration. An 'Aha' all day everyday .

If Einstein figured the general equation of relativity in 5 years , it'd take Daniel a week to come up with the entire study , publish it and teach it , diving narrower into a new study within the study and develop that too .

His lab was a testament to what he could achieve within a week.

Meaning when Daniel said it'd take him a decade , in human years , you should understand it as the passing of more technological eras .

His goal wasn't to ' give humans powers' his goal was to completely erase the current baseline human genes , and make a new species with the same consciousness and experiences , kind of like what the gaze did to him .

You could say he didn't want to be the only one to go through such blatant disregard of agency .

He wanted to make sure his work couldn't be 'undone ' and that 'baseline' will be what the new human was called.

He didn't know how it would affect power manifestations in the future , but why would he care their extinction was neigh.

After three days of research and development , some very heavy exercise and meals , Daniel grew further 7'2 feet body full of muscles . You could feel the power just by sight and tremble in fear .

In order to make sure he never outgrew the ceiling of his lab , Daniel continually expanded the interior of the pocket space but in trace amounts .

The fleshfungi was also on the ceiling and ground , too fast an expansion and he'd risk shredding his lab.

The colonization of the fleshfungi was quick , due to ints fungus and plant properties.

All it needed was some nutrients gotten from biomaterials.

On the thirteenth and fifteenth floor intersection a thin line appeared and then parted open like a mouth, and out came a hulking black man in short gym shorts . The sweat coating him . He took in a deep breath

" The air here is too humid and hot , summer really is here . "

Today Daniel was going to pick up Patricia and whiskers. He has given her enough time to say her goodbyes . And he was itching to see how much she had improved, unlike him her power was very singular minded, and she needn't perform any research. But his strength will always be higher than hers. All he needed was food to continue growing this body.

But when he got to the second floor he was stopped by someone he rarely spoke to .

" What's up Augustine?"