In the seclusion of his laboratory, Xie Ling was engrossed in the delicate manipulation of a rare and tricky Gu known as Form Glass Gu.
Bearing the semblance of a spider and the ethereal transparency of glass, the Form Glass Gu held the ability to mold and shape glass into any desired form the host wants. It, however, came with the heavy downside of requiring an incredible amount of patience for any detailed work along with the strict food requirement of glass at exactly 63.8 percent transparency.
Xie Ling is using it to form the various chemical, medical, and biological tools necessary to truly start his genetic modification plans.
If his tools were even one millimeter askew, a subtle misalignment in their entirety, it would cause the instrument to give inaccurate information, in turn possibly causing him to waste days' worth of labor.
As raised the meticulously crafted tool to his eyes, he scrutinized its surface, searching for any bumps or dents that might hinder its functionality. A sigh of relief escaped his lips as he pondered, "At first I was worried that reading DNA would take months' worth of my time, on account of this world not having any computers to run the bulk of the reading required to decipher the information carried within DNA. However, this world more than makes up for it, with the existence of information path. With it, I can analyze the changes to the creature's DNA while it is going through transfiguration. Those wolves over at Qing Mao Mountain, at best could be called defects, I rose their power level through forceful editing, leaving much of their potential left untapped. A true evolution would take a normal beast and instantly make it myriad beast king, only one step away from touching Beast Emperor rank."
Turning to one of the many large glass tubes behind him, he brought his attention down to a Gu carrying the form of a human arm. With a frown, he continued his thoughts, "Since attainment is unique to this world, none of my skills and experience back on earth has provided me with anything of that sort. At first, I had hoped that I might have a knack for blood path, but when I try to use Blood Path Gu I don't feel anything described as intuition. Well almost nothing, I can think of hundreds of ways to implement them for my experiments, however, that's knowledge based on the genetic modification I've done back on Earth, not attainment. Fortunately, as long as it's not a killer move, most of my implementations with their use work perfectly, like producing nigh-unlimited amounts of 'kidney cancer'."
As he continued to analyze the Gu, his left eye slowly began to vibrate before speeding up and next bursting like a balloon. Straightening his back with an even heavier frown, he released a pained groan, "Hawk Eye Gu lasted far shorter than I predicted."
To his left, a desk held a piece of parchment containing the schematics of the fundamental capabilities of Human Blood Heart Gu, and on the bottom of the paper were words written in red, 'Gu is not compatible with the body of someone who has modified DNA - time till heart self-destructs is unknown.'
Pulling the remains of the Gu from his eyes socket, Xie Ling carefully inspected every damaged piece with his mind working like a machine, "Gu worms that modify the body, work just fine because they don't come into contact with the Awakening Serum or consume my blood. However, Human Blood Heart Gu so far has lasted 5 months, this is likely due to three factors:"
"First, it's a blood path Gu with the design to take in all blood types regardless of how strange and unique."
"Second, it's likely also a human path Gu, as long as you're a human, modified or normal, it should work."
"And lastly, it's been many years since my body was last modified or rather awakened, leaving practically very little to zero Awakening Serum running directly through it, meaning at best my blood only contains the remnant effects of Awakening Serum. Therefore the Gu itself doesn't experience a change to itself as it does when I pour Awakening Serum directly on it."
Inside Xie Ling's mind, the Predator interrupted his thoughts, "You neglected to mention that our heart was also used as a refinement material."
The Scientist quipped, "That's because when a Gu is successfully refined, whether it be with subpar ingredients or the finest of goods, it will either turn out exactly the same - or on the off chance become an entirely different Gu."
Fang Zao opened the door before walking in with a Human Blood Heart Gu, he did this without knocking because he had been informed that wasting any time would be equivalent to betrayal.
Presenting the Human Blood Heart Gu before Xie Ling, Fang Zao stated with reverence, "May this bring you a long and prosperous life."
Ever since Xie Ling had taught this man how to more skillfully use his many refinement path techniques, instantly bringing a 35% to 70% increase to all his refinements he has been treating Xie Ling like a master.
Reaching his hand to pick up the Gu, Xie Ling gave an astute compliment: "Within a week you were able to refine a Gu using 'hepatocellular carcinoma cells' one of the most common types of liver cancer. Although we don't know what its ability was, due to it strangely dying ten minutes after it was refined, it's still an impressive achievement."
"This servant doesn't dare ask for praise, when you taught me how to more elegantly spread my mental energy by forming shapes inside my head and making the Gu follow those shapes, I was able to decrease my break time by a whole 20 percent."
Ripping out his old Human Blood Heart Gu while simultaneously replacing it with the new one, Xie Ling stated, "When one is introduced to a new environment the number of variables that they have to process increases exponentially. This breeds two things: first, the chaos that comes from an increase in variables. And secondly, the anxiety that one feels when they lose the ability to predict what will happen next."
Turning his attention to the paper on his desk, he continued, "Reducing the world to its building blocks, or rather to primitive shapes, will give you're brain more space, reducing stress and allowing for you to either perform more tasks at a given moment or be ready for when something unexpected takes place."
"Which coincidently is also how the production line system came into play. Although I doubt they thought that deeply about it before they first used it."