Life Dungeon Game

Coles remained silent for a moment, neither confirming nor denying.

He Ao understood the answer. He didn't press further, but instead asked a different question, "So you've been dissecting corpses ever since?"

“About three months later,” Coles seemed lost in thought, “Reed found me and gave me a silver metal box, hoping I could figure out a way to ‘put’ this metal box into a living person.”

He remembered the silver metal box containing the miniature kidney in the operating room where Pete had been 'operated'.

"Looks like you succeeded."

He Ao took a sip of coffee and answered softly.

words.

The scene was a little awkward for a while.

After all, Heo had once been lying on the operating table, waiting for Coles to perform the surgery.

However, the awkward atmosphere only lasted a short while, and Coles quickly continued,

"The space inside the human body is limited. It is difficult to fit something completely inside without it looking out of place. Moreover, suddenly inserting a foreign object will inevitably trigger a strong reaction from the immune system."

"So how did you solve this problem?"

He Ao asked with great interest.

"This method is not difficult; any surgeon could come up with it."

"Some organs in the human body have a strong regenerative capacity. For example, after part of the liver is removed, its function is not significantly affected, and it can regenerate to a certain extent," Coles said slowly.

"Some organs, even if partially lost, will not significantly affect the body's normal functions. For example, losing a kidney will not have a major impact on normal life, and removing part of the stomach will not significantly affect digestive function."

He Ao's hand, which was drinking coffee, froze.

“Of course, I wouldn’t stoop to using such methods,” Coles said quickly, seemingly noticing his movement.

"My long-term anatomical experience has allowed me to develop many methods to slightly 'squeeze out space' inside the human body. I have summarized these methods into experience. However, these methods will more or less cause abnormal protrusions on the skin surface, which may compress the box. Reed does not like this approach, but I have always followed it."

He Ao slowly took a sip of coffee without saying a word.

Coles' meaning was clear: he would not harm the 'patient's' original organs, but that did not mean the other 'doctors' in the institute would do the same.

He Ao casually asked, "So, what criteria does the research institute use to select doctors?"

"The doctors at the institute were all selected by Reed. I don't know the specific process, but from my observation, most of them are underground doctors who haven't had a proper education."

Coles answered slowly.

"Then why..."

He Ao raised his coffee cup slightly, making a pointed gesture.

He was referring to why Coles, like those underground doctors, would go to the research institute to perform 'surgery' on people.

He already had a guess in his mind, but he was still waiting for Coles' answer.

“For a deeper secret,” Coles said, leaning back on the sofa.

“I have most of the information on the outer layers of the Mars Project, but with that information alone, I cannot obtain deeper intelligence. So I told Reed that I wanted to go to the operating table and hope to get more intelligence from the patients who had undergone the ‘operation’.”

“Reed outwardly welcomed my actions and opened most of the institute to me, but he never showed me the most crucial ‘patient’ tracking data, and he only assigned me ‘surgeries’ that his doctors couldn’t perform,”

At this point, Coles paused for a moment, "For example, your physical examination showed that your physical condition was extremely poor, and your body was abnormally weak. Even the doctors under Reid were not confident that they could complete the 'surgery' on you without harming you, so Reid sent me to... cough..."

He took out a hand

Pa covered his mouth and coughed, staring at He Ao.

He seemed very interested in why He Ao was so strong despite having such poor physical abilities.

However, Heo did not intend to explain this to Coles.

He placed his coffee cup on the table. The wind outside rustled the fallen leaves from the ornamental trees. He opened his mouth and asked the crucial question.

"So what exactly is the research institute doing?"

"To be precise, I don't know exactly what the research institute is used for. The task of the research institute that I came into contact with was to implant key items of Project Mars into the bodies of 'patients' and then retrieve the items after a certain period of time."

Coles replied.

The key item he mentioned should be that silver box.

He consistently referred to those 'volunteers' who signed agreements and inexplicably ended up on the operating table as 'patients'.

After saying this, he paused for a moment, seemingly hesitating whether to say something else.

Throughout the entire process, Heo remained silent. He knew that Coles would make the right choice because the other party had a 'common interest' with him, a seed that Heo had planted in Coles's mind at the beginning of the conversation.

The evening breeze stirred up more fallen leaves, and as one leaf landed in front of the clear window, it slowly slid to the ground. Coles finally looked up and continued,

"However, I think the institute might be trying to 'cultivate' something."

He looked up at him, gesturing for him to continue.

"This is the process the research institute uses to treat 'patients'."

"First, we open the patient's body, put a silver box inside, then connect some blood vessels to the interface of this box, and then sew up the wound."

"Generally, patients can recover after one or two days of rest. In the first day or two, their energy will be particularly high. During this process, the research institute will provide them with some medications and require them to take them regularly every day."

"The timing of medication depends on the type of box used, and each box requires a different storage time inside the 'patient's' body, generally between one and three months."

“I have studied the drugs provided by those research institutes. Some of them contain ingredients that suppress the immune system, which are used to prevent the immune system from attacking ‘foreign substances’ in the body.”

"In addition, there are some drugs that forcibly catalyze bodily functions, and most of the time, these drugs are used to create stimulants."

"Generally speaking, immunosuppressive drugs can cause significant damage to the body, while stimulant drugs can forcibly energize the 'patient'."

"Besides these two drugs, there are some other ingredients in these drugs that I can't identify, but I think these ingredients may have some addictive properties."

"The institute controls the dosage very well. Generally, many patients will not realize that there is a problem with their bodies until the 'storage' is over and the box inside the body is removed."

"They will discover their wounds, but out of their desire for the generous 'compensation,' they will choose to acquiesce to the institute's actions."

"Most 'patients' are sent home to rest for a period of time after being stored there once."

Over time, the damage to their bodies will gradually become apparent, and they will experience severe discomfort and fatigue.

At this point, Colston paused for a moment and said slowly, "But this does not affect the fact that the vast majority of 'patients' repeatedly participate in 'storage'. They do not know what the research institute has done to them, but perhaps because of the addictive components in those drugs, they will rush over like moths to a flame and continue to participate in 'storage'."

When Coles got to this point, his expression became somewhat ferocious, the veins on his hands bulged, and an abnormal look flashed across his face.

He covered his mouth with a handkerchief and coughed.

He noticed that when he first talked about the 'addictive ingredients' in those drugs, he seemed to already have this expression on his face.

"Feel sorry."

Coles paused for a moment, took out a small pillbox from his clothes, poured out a small white pill and put it in his mouth. Then he took a sip of milk and swallowed the pill.

"I have some health issues... Where were we...?"

His expression returned to calm. "Yes, those 'patients' will continue to be 'stored' in the research institute, and eventually their lives will become weaker and weaker, and they may even die on the operating table. I have encountered many such accidents."

"Doctor, I have a question."

He Ao suddenly asked, "Why do you keep referring to those who participate in the research institute's experiments as 'patients'?"

“A patient is a patient,” Coles said, his eyes widening, thin lines of bloodshot veins appearing in his pupils. “Aren’t they patients too?”

He instantly activated his super memory and stared at Coles's figure.

The old doctor's soul clung tightly to his body, and the illusory shadow was covered with white spots. Thin tentacles extended from these spots and pierced into his throat.

This 'doctor'...maybe...has already gone mad.

He Ao deactivated his extrasensory perception, his expression unchanged. "So, what exactly is in that box?"

"It's an organ,"

Coles leaned back on the sofa, his voice hoarse; he seemed unaware of his recent unusual behavior.

"Organs that are not part of the natural development of the human body and are cultivated."

Some writer's block, a little later.

Chapter 457 Cloned Organs (Long Chapter, Requesting Monthly Tickets)

"Artificial organs?"

Heo stared at Coles in front of him, "Is it an animal... or..."

“Human organs,” Coles continued, picking up where Heo left off, “more precisely, cloned human organs.”

He glanced at He Ao and continued to explain,

"We all know that the human body develops from a single cell, a fertilized egg."

"Throughout the development process, the fertilized egg continuously divides and multiplies."

"The cells that proliferate differentiate into different limbs and organs. For example, some differentiate into skin cells and kidney cells, while others differentiate into red blood cells and white blood cells."

"Through these adaptations to the environment, the complex structure of the human body we have today was ultimately formed."

"Generally speaking, highly differentiated cells are unlikely to transform into cells with completely different functional properties. For example, it is almost impossible for skin cells to directly transform into kidney cells."

"This is also a means for the body to maintain its own stability. Different cells have different highly specialized functions and cannot be switched at will. They are organically combined into a whole to ultimately maintain the normal operation of the entire body."

"In contrast to these differentiated cells that have already differentiated and cannot continue to change their form freely, there is also a type of cell in our body that has not yet differentiated, or has a relatively low degree of differentiation, which can differentiate again into different cells: 'stem cells'."

"For example, hematopoietic stem cells in our bone marrow can differentiate into red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. Under certain conditions, hematopoietic stem cells can also differentiate into organ cells."

"The existence of stem cells allows us to 'repair' some patients' injured bodies to a certain extent. Of course, it also allows us to do some 'more cutting-edge' things, such as 'cloning'."

At this point, Coles glanced at Heo again, as if to see if Heo had understood.

But he soon realized that he had made the mistake of teaching and educating people, and actually began to explain the principles to He Ao in detail.

He shook his head, succinctly shortened his words, and continued.

"Based on their differentiation potential from high to low, we classify stem cells into totipotent stem cells, pluripotent stem cells, and unipotent stem cells."

"The hematopoietic stem cells we just mentioned are pluripotent stem cells. Of course, to meet the requirements of cloning, pluripotent stem cells are not enough; totipotent stem cells are needed."

"As its name suggests, it is a stem cell that can differentiate into all human cells."