Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 341 Raising Gu
Yuri suddenly felt that Sun Hang was right.

The concentration of the toxin does not seem to affect the final results of the test.

"How about we observe for a while longer?" Yuri said, "If your body still doesn't show any reaction after an hour of intradermal injection, we will start preparing to devour the scarlet spores."

"Okay, my mouth is a little dry. Can you bring me a bottle of water... or a bottle of Fanta?"

"As for carbonated drinks... they should be available in the vending machines inside the Tianshu Tower. However, in order not to pollute the experimental environment, we need to disinfect and filter the containers and drinks multiple times... This may affect the taste and texture of the drinks..." Yuri said.

"Okay, okay, then purified water shouldn't be so troublesome, right?"

"This can be provided to you immediately." Yuri said.

Purified water is a very common experimental material. Although according to laboratory regulations, experimental materials are strictly prohibited from being drunk...but these researchers are well aware that these purified waters, except for the lack of trace elements needed by the human body, are 100% in line with drinking standards. They are even much cleaner than those bottled drinking water sold outside that claim to be deep natural water from a certain water source but are actually bottled with tap water.

Even when Yuri was young, he had drunk glucose solution that was used as an experimental material. Nine hours of high-intensity experiments caused Yuri, who had not eaten for half a day, to suffer from symptoms of hypoglycemia. If he had not had an idea to find a bag of glucose solution in the laboratory cabinet, tear it open and drink it, he might have fainted in the middle of the night in the laboratory where he was the only one there.

Two bottles of purified water without any labels quickly slid into the containment room from another passage. The medical robot's mechanical arm directly helped Sun Hang unscrew the bottle cap and put the bottle mouth to his lips.

"What kind of life is this where everything is provided for you? Even water is fed by a robot?" Sun Hang joked. He just opened his lips and the medical robot, which detected the change in his facial muscles, brought the bottle over and placed the mouth of the bottle accurately against Sun Hang's lips. It tilted the bottle slightly to let the liquid inside flow into Sun Hang's throat.

Sun Hang didn't even need to look up. It felt like he was drinking water from the bottle with his own hands.

"This robot is great." The moment he spoke, the robotic arm immediately adjusted the angle of the bottle and moved the bottle away. "It will definitely have a big market if it is developed into a household robot."

"This... the cost of this robot... together with the supporting electronic sensing equipment and software... is a total of 1.1 billion." A researcher muttered in a low voice.

"1.1 billion? That's okay." Sun Hang said.

Although the researcher's voice was very low, it was still captured by the microphone hanging on Yuri's ear and transmitted to Sun Hang's ears.

"He... he can hear me?" The researcher was slightly startled, and then shut his mouth when Yuri turned his head to glance at him.

"Fifty-seven minutes." Yuri said, "Three minutes left."

Three minutes is neither long nor short. During these last three minutes, Sun Hang's body did not show any dramatic changes. The scarlet spore toxins injected into his skin disappeared completely like a drop in the ocean.

"Let's go."

Sun Hang got down from the recliner, walked out of the containment room, stretched out the arm that had been injected with crimson spore toxin, and patted Yuri on the shoulder.

Yuri subconsciously shrank his shoulders, as if trying to avoid Sun Hang's touch.

"What are you afraid of?" Sun Hang asked, "Didn't they say that the toxin of the scarlet spores will be inactivated in an hour?"

"That's in the absence of a host... We can't rule out the possibility that the toxin is latent. After all, it will change on its own according to the characteristics of the host..." Yuri said.

"What you mean is that this toxin feels that it cannot kill me, so it disappears and lurks in my body, trying to turn me into a so-called 'asymptomatic infected person', and then use me as a springboard to infect more people?" Sun Hang asked.

Before Yuri could say anything, the group of researchers nearby suddenly showed fear in their eyes. Some of them even took two steps back without leaving a trace, increasing the distance between themselves and Sun Hang.

"Since the scarlet spores are so poisonous, you won't be able to hold on for a few seconds... After all, you don't have a physique like me." After saying that, Sun Hang directly held Yuri's hand, and the skin of their palms stuck together without any obstruction.

Sun Hangneng noticed that Yuri's face twitched twice and his heartbeat suddenly became much faster.

Five seconds, ten seconds... thirty seconds passed.

Yuri showed no signs of being poisoned.

"Now you should completely believe it. This poison has no effect on me." Sun Hang let go of Yuri's hand.

"Huh... yes, yes." Yuri let out a long sigh, and his whole body relaxed immediately.

He is just an ordinary person, but he does not have the abnormal "poison-resistant" physique like Sun Hang. If the toxins of the scarlet spores are really transmitted to his body through Sun Hang, then they will instantly change their characteristics, removing the useless "latency" and turning back into the kind of potent toxin that can kill people in a few seconds.

……

Yuri brought Sun Hang to a cold storage - compared to the place where B423 was held, this cold storage was relatively "warm", always maintaining a constant temperature of minus 75 degrees Celsius. There was no need to spray any insulating liquid when entering it, just wear thick enough cold-proof clothes.

On the wall of the cold storage, there were more than a dozen metal cylinders with a diameter of one meter and a height of three meters. After Yuri entered a series of commands on the console at the door, all the metal cylinders turned around, with the transparent side facing the front. Sun Hang could see that most of these metal cylinders contained human corpses. Due to the low temperature, the skin of these corpses was bluish purple, and the surface of the body was covered with a thin layer of white frost.

"Zombies?"

"No, not bodies... These people are still alive." Yuri said.

"Isn't this the containment room for the crimson spores? What about these zombies... these people who have been frozen into popsicles?" Sun Hang asked.

"The scarlet spores, like its toxin, are difficult to preserve and must be preserved in a living host... These people are actually the 'seedling beds'," Yuri said.

"Are there crimson spores parasitic in these people's bodies?" Sun Hang walked closer and observed the "seedling beds" inside through the thick glass.

The states of these seedbeds were all different - some looked like normal frozen human corpses, some had a layer of dark red fungal blanket-like substance covering their skin, and some had most of their bodies normal, but clusters of long bacilli were growing out of their mouths and noses...

Yuri was right, these people were the breeding ground for the crimson spores.

Rather than saying that they were human beings, Sun Hang felt that they were more like rotten tree trunks that had fallen in a damp place in the forest. Fungi had completely corroded them from the inside out, leaving only an empty human-shaped shell.

"The growth rate of scarlet spores will become very slow when the temperature is below minus 65 degrees Celsius. But even so, the preservation time of the seedbed is unlikely to exceed ten years." Yuri walked over and said.

Sun Hang noticed that many of the metal cylinders were empty. These empty containers were either prepared for "new seedling beds" or the "old seedling beds" that were originally contained in them were scrapped and disposed of, thus vacating the space.

"Although these 'seedling beds' are all infected with crimson spores, we have divided them into more than a dozen different strains based on the different mutations of the crimson spores." Yuri pointed to the label on the metal cylinder, "The number, time, origin and general characteristics of these strains are all written on it."

“Are there big differences between different strains?”

"Very big... because their hosts are also very different." Yuri said, "The 21-year-old young man and the 39-year-old middle-aged woman infected by strains 17 and 29 are both ordinary people; the 26-year-old middle-aged man infected by strain 26 is a 45-year-old middle-aged man who is an infected person and a former monster hunter; the 35- and 36-year-old skeletons infected by strains 36 and 40 are completely transformed monsters."

Sun Hang walked to the metal cylinder marked "forty". Just as Yuri said, the "seedling bed" in this metal cylinder was a humanoid monster - it had a human head, torso and limbs, but its back was densely covered with arms. Judging from the size of the arms, these arms seemed to be babies' arms... But now the surface of these arms was covered with mottled crimson moss. At first glance, they looked like some kind of tubular worm living in the deep sea.

However, Sun Hang could hardly feel the memetic fluctuations of this monster... Now, to put it bluntly, it was just an empty shell of a monster with a weird appearance.

"Cing 4703. Baby-eating monster. It first appeared in the year in the lunar calendar, Suzhou." Yuri introduced, "It broke into a maternal and child health care hospital late at night, killed two nurses on duty, and devoured four newborns who were being cared for in the hospital... In the next three months, it committed crimes many times, and the death toll rose to people."

After a pause, Yuri continued, "After that, it disappeared for a while. It was not until the 4711th year of the lunar calendar that it appeared again in a small town in the countryside of Suzhou. It broke into the house of a woman who was about to give birth, cruelly cut open her belly, and took away the baby inside... The next day, the strange creature was captured and after a preliminary study, it was escorted to the headquarters of the Tianshu Tower in Chunming City.

"In the 4715th year of the lunar calendar, after approval, Bing 4716 was removed from the list of contained objects and sent to the Crimson Spore Research Project Team as an 'experimental material'. In the th year of the lunar calendar, Bing was contained as a nursery for Crimson Spores until today."

"So, is there anything special about this strain?" Sun Hang asked, "Is it related to the Bing858 used as the seedbed?"

"That's still unclear." Yuri shook his head. "We still haven't figured out many of the characteristics of the scarlet spores... Our current equipment can't even observe the complete mutation process. Eighty percent of the known mutation processes are based on computer deductions..."

Yuri walked to the metal cylinder marked "No. 17" and said to Sun Hang: "If you want to devour it, I recommend strain No. 17, because it is the most 'primitive' strain among the current strains, and has hardly undergone any obvious mutations."

"Didn't you say that the nursery of scarlet spores cannot be preserved for more than ten years?" Sun Hang asked in confusion, "Where did this 'original strain' come from? Or is it 'relatively original' compared to other strains?"

"The seedbed can be 'updated'... Seedbed No. 17 is not a natural person, but a clone." Yuri said, "We cloned many 'No. 17's. When the previous seedbed fails, we will transfer the strain to the 'new seedbed'. Since the old and new seedbeds are almost identical, the strain No. 17 will hardly mutate."

"Is that so? I thought these seedling beds were executed prisoners you picked from prison." Sun Hang nodded. "Then the original body of 'No. 17' is the unlucky guy who was first found to be infected with the scarlet spores?"

"No... When we found the first infected person, he was already a pool of blood, and we were unable to collect his genetic data at all. The genes of seedbed No. 17 came from a temporary investigator who was unfortunately infected after arriving at the scene. Because he entered his genetic information when he joined the company, we were able to clone him."

"How about making a platter?" Sun Hang said thoughtfully, "We should try the original ones and the new ones as well. Only in this way can it be considered healthy."

"Platter?" Yuri was stunned, obviously not understanding what Sun Hang meant.

"That is to say, extract a part of each strain and make a platter." Sun Hang glanced at him and said, "Have you ever ordered takeout? Have you ever eaten the kind of two-combination rice or three-combination rice?"

"Ah? But if we do this, it is likely to cause conflicts between different strains..."

Before Yuri finished speaking, Sun Hang interrupted him again: "Speaking of platters, I suddenly have a better idea."

"A better idea?" Yuri suddenly had a bad feeling.

"Raise the Gu!" Sun Hang raised a finger. "Put all these different strains on a new seedling bed and let them fight each other. The winner who can survive and occupy the new seedling bed will definitely be the strongest strain... That's the principle of survival of the fittest."

(End of this chapter)