After returning home from the Dao Academy building, Bai Mo began to ponder what areas he could still strengthen in his current stage.
Based on his observations over the past half-month, integrating Spirit Hubs into one's Life Field was purely a process of gradual refinement, like grinding water.
Only after sufficient use could a Spirit Hub truly merge with the body, instead of merely operating within it without rejection—much like a titanium alloy bone and an original bone. Only then would the possibility of integration into the Life Field arise. Thus, he concluded that he was unlikely to make any progress in this area in the short term.
His physical constitution had also temporarily hit a bottleneck. Further improvement likewise required waiting until he could integrate his skeletal and muscular systems with his Life Field.
As for external aids, he had spent the entire day scouring the database but found no medicines that could enhance his 'cultivation.' Almost all of them were still conceptual designs.
Within such a short timeframe, the only practical item that could be put into production was the Spirit Recovery Pill.
Finally, Bai Mo turned his attention to the items he already possessed. He recalled the red-clothed woman he had saved on a whim while stealing the hard drive. Her blood and specialized Spirit Hub samples had been preserved, and he could now use them for experiments.
With that thought, he retrieved the samples from the cold storage in his home's basement.
Looking at the piles of experimental materials before him, he felt a certain gratitude for having spent a fortune to set up a laboratory in his basement. He no longer had to constantly guard against surveillance, unlike when he was making Spirit Stone candles, where he had to hide every slightly unorthodox move.
Bai Mo enveloped an electron microscope with his psionic power, slowly lifting it from the storage room.
It was a piece of equipment worth over a million yuan, so he moved it with extreme care using his psionic power. At this stage, an electron microscope capable of observing atomic-level structures was still far superior to his Divine Sense, which only had cellular organelle-level precision.
After making all the necessary preparations, he began observing the samples.
"The samples are still active!" Under the electron microscope, Bai Mo was surprised to discover that the silver particles, frozen for over a month, regained a faint activity after thawing.
He immediately ruled out thermal motion, as thermal motion could not achieve such regular movement. Normal human tissue activity was definitely not this potent.
"Could this be a new microorganism?"
Bai Mo began to search his mind for relevant information, but it was clear that none of the biological textbooks he had encountered recently contained any record of this substance.
However, he didn't give up. He continued to try and unearth information from knowledge he had encountered even further back, attempting to find even the slightest relevant detail.
Suddenly, he recalled a hypothesis his biology teacher had mentioned in freshman year when discussing the origin of cellular organelles.
"Some cell biologists believe that organelles within cells are actually other microorganisms that a microbial host has assimilated, generation after generation, until the symbiont loses its independence and becomes a part of the host."
"Could this substance also be in a symbiotic relationship with that red-clothed girl?" Bai Mo began to connect the dots. "Could it be that, under the induction of spirit qi, organelles that lost their independence countless years ago are beginning to regain it?"
"Or perhaps it hasn't reached that stage, and like my mitochondria mutating into structures that can convert spirit qi into spirit energy, this is the result of a mutation in one of her cellular organelles?"
Next, he began to observe the skin cell samples he had taken.
"This cell has a nucleus, ribosomes, endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi apparatus... it seems to have everything. No, wait! There's one thing missing—lysosomes!" Bai Mo seemed to have found a clue. He then observed the surrounding cells and discovered they all shared the same mutation—their lysosomes were gone.
"Then it can be largely confirmed that the silver particles near her heart are her lysosomes. One can infer that these mutated lysosomes 'escaped' from the cells, gathered near the heart, and under the induction of spirit qi, reformed into a new Spirit Hub. The silver substance, then, is the vehicle carrying various mutated hydrolytic enzymes."
"Then, stimulated by spirit energy, the mutated hydrolytic enzymes within the silver substance vehicles are released through the body surface as silver flames, inflicting damage upon enemies."
"This also explains why the silver flames have such perversely lethal power against biological organisms. Original hydrolytic enzymes are specifically responsible for 'cellular suicide,' and their destructive efficiency against cellular structures is extraordinarily high. Now, transformed by spirit energy, the products of these mutated lysosomes are naturally even more outrageous."
"But even if I know all this, how does it help my own evolution?" Bai Mo finally remembered his objective.
He suddenly realized that the girl's body must contain antibodies; otherwise, she would have been the first to die.
"If I inject this sample into my body, I wonder if it will produce the same antibodies, or even the same ability." Such a reckless thought suddenly popped into Bai Mo's mind.
Once the idea took root, he found it impossible to shake off, like a devil's temptation. Even his caution as a researcher regarding live experiments, especially on himself, couldn't suppress his curiosity.
Curiosity and a willingness to court danger were the wellsprings of human progress, he finally convinced himself.
Thus, in the time that followed, Bai Mo procured a white mouse and injected one percent of the sample, mixed with physiological saline, into its body.
Before using himself as a test subject, he naturally sent a white mouse to scout ahead.
Under his observation, the white mouse, which had already undergone slight evolution in the spirit qi environment, began to experience mutual rejection between the injected mutated lysosomes and its own cells after receiving the physiological saline mixed with the sample. The two sides began to battle within the white mouse's body.
On one side were the mutated lysosomes, vastly outnumbered but incredibly potent in cellular combat; on the other were the somatic cells, millions of times more numerous than the enemy but utterly suppressed by them. Bai Mo watched this "epochal battle" unfold through his Divine Sense vision.
The mutated lysosomes continuously secreted evolved hydrolytic enzymes, stemming the endless tide of enemy cells.
Meanwhile, the white mouse's somatic cells were sacrificing themselves almost to the point of death to block the mutated hydrolytic enzymes, constantly being depleted in vast quantities. The mutated lysosomes also began to shrink in volume due to their continuous production of hydrolytic enzymes.
Bai Mo initially thought this battle would continue in a boring war of attrition until one side vanished, but reality once again exceeded his expectations.
After losing a considerable number of cells, the white mouse's body seemed to realize that the substances available for creating new cells were exhausted, yet it was unwilling to fail and die.
The result was similar to what happened to him by the Hawaiian seaside: due to unconscious hypoxia, under the induction of spirit qi, his skin evolved structures capable of breathing. Likewise, the unconscious white mouse, facing a lack of material, saw its existing phagocytes evolve structures for further recycling and utilization of damaged cellular material.
Phagocytes were originally responsible for clearing dead cell debris, but their processing speed was relatively slow.
However, the new type of phagocytes within the white mouse now had a recycling speed almost comparable to the efficiency of the Zerg in novels: what went in one end could be immediately converted into usable material at the other.
"This is practically a Zerg Mother Lair, instantly recycling corpses and instantly producing troops."