Doomsday Traveler

Chapter 94 Question Mark and Circle

"Practical Manual for the "X-17 Strain" Project..."

Lu Xian murmured the name of the book.

I didn't expect this person to have such a book on him. In this case, I can learn the answers to the questions I originally wanted to ask this person from the book.

Lu Xian opened the book and flipped through it briefly. The book was a little incomplete and messy. Some of the pages had a lot of drawings on them, some whole pages were torn off, and some pages were torn halfway.
Fortunately, there are still intact pages with some written records on them.

Those written records have a lot of marks on them. I wonder if they were made by the dead person?

But why are all these records circled and with question marks?
Lu Xian first glanced at the first page. Only half of the first page was left, and the second half was nowhere to be found.

As for the content of the upper half, it reads:

【Overview】

This project was originally named the "Fungal Evolver" project, and has now been officially renamed the "X-17 Strain" project.

The plan is to ultimately use the "X-17 strain" to complete gene editing, and multiple evolutionary lineages have been formed. After experimental screening, four stable lineages have been identified, including the final feasible solution.

There were probably more long passages of discussion later, but they were all torn out and Lu Xian couldn't see them.

In these two paragraphs, Lu Xian saw two circles and several question marks.

One circle is on the word "strain", another circle is on "four", then "X-17" is a question mark, "gene editing" is a question mark, "pedigree" is a question mark, and "plan" is also a question mark.

The circle should mark the key points, but the question mark is too random, and Lu Xian couldn't figure out what it was mainly about.

Yao Wei also came over to take a look and frowned.

"how?"

Lu Xian asked.

Yao Wei said: "Some of it is hard to understand."

"It's okay, just think about it slowly."

Lu Xian said.

He stood up and said to Yao Wei, "This should be related to the fungus stone and the new humans.

"I just read the beginning, and I can only guess that we new humans are not sure whether we are related to the fungus stone, or what kind of strain it is.

"And the 'four' mentioned in the overview, four stable lineages, could it be referring to four new human species, A, B, C, and D?"

"Is that so?"

Yao Wei's thoughts were already expanding. "So besides people like us, this person, and Luo Ping, there's another type?"

Lu Xian said: "I don't know. Let's go back to the car and take a look."

Yao Wei nodded and said, "Okay, I'll drive, you read."

She just took a look at the words in the book and found it so confusing and difficult to understand.

She had no confidence in studying such obscure things, so she thought it would be better to let Lu Xian concentrate on the research while she would be responsible for driving.

Lu Xian is so capable, he will definitely understand it.

Lu Xian did not refuse.

The two men got into the car and picked up the wolf corpse to keep as food.

Lu Xian sat in the co-pilot seat, took back the dog and the drone, and let the dog charge the drone.

After this incident, Lu Xian felt that his battery anxiety was not a problem at all, but rather had a positive effect, so he felt relieved to let go of his anxiety and always took the opportunity to charge the drone.

After doing all this, he continued reading the book and turned to the fifth page.

The above content is described in another article, which discusses the details.

The first is the gene editing mechanism, which is described as follows:

The X-17 strain achieves genetic recombination by releasing the CRISPR-Cas12k enzyme complex. The gene fragment library it carries includes: 1. Tardigrade cryptogenic genes (TDP protein gene cluster)
2. Metabolic chain of ferritin in deep-sea tubeworms

3. Electric eel sodium-potassium pump polarization gene

4. Cephalopod pigment cells control neural networks

There are indeed several question marks in this paragraph.

Lu Xian confirmed that everything in the book that he couldn't understand was marked with a question mark. That new human, or the other owner of this book, was probably really confused.

However, Lu Xian felt that he was not much better. He just roughly understood that these gene clusters, protein metabolic clusters, were all contained in the strains and would have an impact on human evolution.

Maybe the four directions of the new humans are distinguished from these one, two, three, and four?
So which one was pointing at him and Yao Wei? Which one was Luo Ping and this dead new human?
But it shouldn't be...

There's obviously more to this, but because the page is torn, I can't see it. Maybe there's 567 after that?
The book doesn't even explain the connection in detail.

But fortunately, the evolutionary classification was finally explained.

Turn to the back of this page and you will see the second content, which is about evolutionary lineage.

Lu Xian continued to look down——

The stable evolutionary lineages are currently divided into A, B, C, and D, with 15% genetic sequence differences between the types:
Type A (basic enhanced type)
The density of striated muscle is significantly improved, the proportion of fast-twitch muscle is significantly increased, the tendon adopts a carbon fiber biological woven structure, the trabecula are a honeycomb titanium structure, the joint cavity contains a magnetic fluid lubrication layer, the iris variable focus lens structure, dynamic vision enhancement, cochlear infrasound filter membrane structure, enhanced sound support positioning accuracy, and automatic noise reduction.

……

Looking at it this way, Yao Wei and I appear to be Type A, Basic Enhancement Types. While I can't understand the specifics, the descriptions sound like they're describing someone with immense strength, excellent vision, and hearing.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t read the rest of the content because the lower half of the page was torn off at this point.

Lu Xian randomly drew question marks on it, turned it over to see the back, and saw that it was written on it -

This type of reinforcement structure is special and most people cannot bear it, or it may not evolve completely, causing problems such as excessive metabolism, high consumption intensity, imbalance and deformity, so it is excluded.

"exclude?"

Lu Xian frowned immediately.

There was another big question mark after this paragraph. Lu Xian felt that this question was about to hit his head, and his mind was full of doubts.

"what happened?"

Yao Wei asked.

Lu Xian said: "I see what it says here, we are like Type A basic enhancement type, which is a comprehensive enhancement of strength, physical strength, vision, and hearing.

"But this one ended up talking about a bunch of problems and ruling out..."

"Excluded?!"

Yao Wei didn't understand for a moment.

Lu Xian thought for a moment and said, "Don't think too much. I'll continue reading. These are books from a long time ago. Who knows in what context these contents were written?"

"Ah."

Yao Wei nodded. Although she didn't quite understand, she leaned over to take a look.

Next is Type B (Near-Death Evolution).

From this perspective, he is indeed in conflict with Luo Ping.

The description of the dying evolution type is much simpler than the basic enhancement type:
Mitochondria have a reverse electron transport mechanism, enter a hibernation-like state after cardiac arrest, and increase ATP production efficiency by 3% within 400 hours after resuscitation from hibernation.
Then another paragraph:

The hibernation-like state consumes too much energy, is incompatible with the current environment, and is not adaptable. Therefore, it is excluded.

Therefore, exclude...

Exclusion again...

There are also question marks...

(End of this chapter)