REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!
Chapter 38: Fusing the V-Virus
A collection?
Of viruses?
Birkin paused. Then he nodded quickly, as though catching up with what he'd heard.
"Of course you can have a sample!"
He crossed to Matthew and handed it over.
He didn't actually believe the collection story. But it didn't particularly matter to him either. Matthew was using him. He was using Matthew right back.
In Birkin's view, the V-Virus had never been the point. The G-Virus was his real work. The V-Virus was a funding vehicle, a way to get more research resources to support the project that actually mattered to him.
As for the V-Virus itself. He didn't especially care what happened to it.
Matthew, for his part, had no idea what was going through Birkin's head.
It wouldn't have changed anything if he had. They were using each other, and both of them understood that without needing to say it. Birkin running a quiet parallel project on the G-Virus? Fine. Whatever research he pursued, the results would end up in Matthew's hands.
And a new compound like this was interesting in its own right. Significant weaknesses, yes, but a few thousand System points and the right optimization could potentially turn it into something worth having.
Back in his room, Matthew looked at the vial. The red-amber quality of the liquid caught the light from several angles. He put it into the System Lab without much deliberation.
"Optimize it."
[V-Virus: Upon injection, the virus restructures the host's DNA and incorporates selected post-infection vampire genetic sequences. Under viral influence, each cell in the body is granted the capacity for volitional decomposition and misting at the host's will.
Advantages: The host gains an extreme regenerative capacity and the ability to phase physical attacks through partial or complete misting.
Disadvantages: Post-injection sensitivity to UV light, allicin, extreme cold, and extreme heat.]
[Optimizable defects: Low intelligence / Blood craving / Heat susceptibility / Extreme cold susceptibility / UV spontaneous combustion allergy / Allicin spontaneous combustion allergy.]
[Upgradeable performance: Regenerative capacity / Mist recombination effect.]
Defects and costs:
[Low intelligence: 100 points to optimize.]
[Blood craving: 150 points to optimize.]
[Heat susceptibility: 1,000 points to optimize.
Note: Optimization does not make heat damage ineffective. It reduces the rate at which it kills you. The same applies to all other susceptibility defects.]
[Extreme cold susceptibility: 1,000 points to optimize.]
[UV spontaneous combustion allergy: 500 points to optimize.]
[Allicin spontaneous combustion allergy: 500 points to optimize.]
"Use two Low-Grade Optimization Uses on blood craving and low intelligence."
"Optimize remaining defects with System points."
[Optimizing all remaining V-Virus defects will cost 3,000 System points. Confirm?]
"Yes."
A significant deduction. Blue light moved through the Lab interface. When it faded, the red-amber liquid had become completely clear.
"Transparent again?" Matthew raised an eyebrow.
The optimized T-Virus had done the same thing. He found himself wondering whether the color of the liquid represented the concentration of defects. Whether a perfect virus was colorless by definition.
He turned this over briefly and decided it didn't matter. A clear liquid was easier to inject than a suspiciously red one.
He looked at the Lab panel and considered the Fusion option at the bottom.
He had already injected the T-Virus. Injecting the V-Virus directly on top of that was not something he intended to do without knowing the compatibility first. RE9's ending was still fresh enough in his memory. The Lake clone's arc was a cautionary tale: inject the wrong things in the wrong combination, and you got a death scene so anticlimactic it would be embarrassing to bring up for the rest of your life. That was Zino's path, and he had no interest in following it.
The Fusion panel looked roughly like a crafting interface with three slots. Matthew put the V-Virus in one slot and his own profile in another.
[V-Virus + Matthew Lawrence (T-Virus host): Compatibility 98%.
Note: 2% probability of fatal rejection response. Catastrophic cellular failure.]
[Cost to fuse: 200 System points.]
Matthew looked at this.
"Two percent chance of exploding. That's not meaningfully different from suicide." He read it again. "I'm paying."
The moment he confirmed, light ran through the interface. The V-Virus sample vanished from the slot.
Inside his body, something settled into place. Not through injection. The System had handled the integration at the genetic level directly.
As the fusion completed, a warmth moved through him.
He closed his eyes and paid attention to what was happening. Then he slowly raised his right hand.
The hand misted.
It happened without effort. Instantly and completely, the way breathing happens. He let the intention move outward, and the mist followed it, drifting away from his body. It stopped before it reached the wall.
He noted the limit: five meters. Beyond that it became uncomfortable, and an instinct told him that ignoring that signal would mean permanent disconnection of the misted portion.
He reformed the hand. Then he looked at the bedside cabinet.
Rosewood, solid construction. The cabinet itself was around twenty-five kilos. With the items on top, closer to thirty-five.
The mist moved out and wrapped around it. The cabinet lifted.
It wobbled.
In his physical form, something this weight was trivial. Less than trivial. He had punched through concrete. But in mist form, the thirty-five-kilo cabinet was clearly a strain.
He set it down and ran a few more tests over the next while.
His conclusion: mist form was a tool for evasion, concealment, and ambush. Not for direct confrontation. The strength differential was too significant.
That assessment didn't diminish his satisfaction with the result. The ability to phase through physical attacks on its own was enough to justify the cost. And fifty kilograms of force in mist form, delivered through the right access point, was more than enough to reach a brain from the inside.
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