Chapter 89: Biochip (I) — Please Recommend!

“System: Beginning the 1,532,462nd simulation run for biological chip generation!”

If the chip Borne was currently using owed something to luck, then the next biological chip he intended to make was the product of painstaking design. Only after thousands of experiments and more than a million simulations had he managed to push the success rate to 62.11 percent.

Beyond this point, unless he began conducting real fabrication trials with dark matter, it would be nearly impossible to improve the odds any further.

Borne had already thoroughly mastered the masking spellforms and magic arrays, but he had a premonition that using those spellforms to conceal himself and “steal” shadow matter might only work once. The next time he attempted to summon shadow matter from the Fallen Shadow Netherworld, this method might no longer be viable.

As for that place called the Fallen Shadow Netherworld, even Borne had no idea where it was. There was nothing in his memory about it. Apart from the name, he knew absolutely nothing.

This substance, so much like having one’s wishes instantly fulfilled, reminded Borne of a supreme divine-grade spell from later ages: Wish.

The most treacherous spell of them all. Anyone who has used it knows.

Depending on what it created, shadow matter remained in the Prime Material Plane for different lengths of time. The more complex the creation, the shorter its duration, with the absolute limit being twenty-four hours.

Borne was exploiting precisely this trait. He did not need shadow matter to create anything at all; he only needed its capacity for transformation. In truth, it was not a good thing for shadow matter to linger in the Prime Material Plane.

The fifth-circle spell Creation could not be traced to any known inventor, yet it belonged to the School of Illusion. Even before the Eight Schools had been formally divided, it had already been marked as an illusion spell.

That had made Borne intensely curious about its creator. He had searched through a great deal of material related to the spell and found nothing, as though the magic had emerged from nowhere. Inevitably, he began to wonder what connection it might have to that unknown being in the Fallen Shadow Netherworld.

The properties of shadow matter were far too bizarre. If he had not needed it, Borne would never have wanted to learn this spell at all.

And it was also the only spell Borne had never cast again after learning it.

“Beep. Simulation complete. Due to the lack of relevant experimental data, success rate: 62.12%.”

The mechanical voice of the chip rang out in his mind. Borne gave a faint sigh. More than a thousand simulations for an increase of only 0.01 percent. Then he swiftly cleared away all stray thoughts and activated every defensive spell laid throughout the laboratory.

“System, call up the metamagic spellforms.”

During Hussein’s battle with the Defiled Scholar—more precisely, during Hussein’s one-sided beating—Borne had used the chip to record a large amount of data. Though he had not fully derived true metamagic techniques, he had opened another path for himself, using magic arrays to assist in their execution.

He was not applying metamagic to Creation. He was strengthening his defensive spells instead.

After all, he knew absolutely nothing about the monster in the Fallen Shadow Netherworld. No degree of caution could be called excessive.

Once everything was ready, Borne took a deep breath and swept one hand through the air, drawing a white case out of the void.

Hiss...

A faint release of valves sounded. With solemn care, Borne opened the white case. Visible white vapor billowed out, and in the center lay a specially made transparent culture dish.

Bone marrow stem cells.

And they were his own.

Stem cells possessed limitless differentiation potential; they could become the stem cells of every tissue and organ. In other words, they had the potential to develop into a complete individual. Embryonic stem cells belonged to this category.

And these were the raw materials Borne intended to use for his biological chip. To improve compatibility with himself, he had deliberately extracted stem cells from his own bone marrow, and not just once. If not for the astonishing healing effects of holy water, he would have collapsed long ago.

He quickly took out warm water, maintained at thirty-seven degrees, to thaw them. What followed had to be done quickly; once removed, the stem cells could not remain exposed to the air for too long.

Then Borne took out another crystal, clear and lustrous.

A Hua Crystal.

Hua Crystals were the finest portions deposited at the bottom of ordinary crystal veins, exceedingly rare.

Most people could not discern their use, and Borne himself had only learned of them after combing through vast quantities of records. Hua Crystals had the effect of strengthening psionic power.

In simpler terms, they were wires for linking mental force—materials with almost no resistance at all.

Even on Earth, Borne had never seen a biological chip. It was something that existed only in film and television fiction. One of the essential conditions for shaping dark matter was that the user had to see the thing being formed, yet Borne had only ever seen the chip within simulation. Even with detailed specifications, he could not be certain of succeeding perfectly.

Still, he had prepared materials for two mechanical chips as backup. If the experiment failed, then before the dark matter vanished, he would make two mechanical chips as substitutes.

Biological chip technology, through miniaturization and according to the principle of specific intermolecular interaction, integrated previously discontinuous analytical processes in the life sciences into miniature biochemical analysis systems on the surface of silicon or glass chips, enabling accurate, rapid, high-volume detection of cells, proteins, genes, and other biological components.

Biological chips were generally divided into three categories.

The first was the microarray chip.

The second was the microfluidic chip.

The third was an integrated analysis system based on biological chips—also called a lab on a chip, the highest realm of biological chip technology.

And naturally, Borne had chosen the third type: the lab-on-a-chip biological chip.

A lab on a chip could carry out a whole series of complex tasks, such as sample transport, reagent analysis, biochemical reactions, result detection, information processing, and transmission.

Once everything was prepared, he activated the masking array and spellforms. Standing before the alchemical bench, Borne began to chant the incantation. His mental force, guided through his mouth, used the magic array to temporarily conceal the identifying information attached to him.

Then, very quickly, that strange, absurd, and icy sensation struck again. In an instant, the disguise layered over the information in his mental force was dissolved away. Within Borne’s perception, he once more sensed that terrifying unknown being rapidly closing in. Fortunately, it still needed a little time—and that little time was enough.

Soon, a great mass of shadow matter appeared out of thin air in his hand. As the last trace of that black fluid-like substance was drawn out by his mental force, Borne had completely severed himself from the Fallen Shadow Netherworld. Yet through the shadow matter in his hand, he still seemed able to sense the violent rage of that unknown being.

Borne let out a slight breath of relief. The first step was complete. Everything had unfolded as he had expected. What came next was the true critical point.

He would use the shadow matter to shape the stem cells, then infuse them into the Hua Crystal.

Borne slowly closed his eyes and began recalling, in his mind, the sequence of steps the chip had simulated. Gradually, as his thoughts moved, the mass of shadow matter in his hand began to envelop the culture dish and the Hua Crystal on the table.

The black fluid-like substance started to emit a bizarre violet radiance. Borne devoted himself completely to the construction of the biological chip, while the shadow matter, following the course of his thoughts, transformed the objects wrapped within it.

Almost every minute, the great mass of shadow matter shrank by another measure.

As time passed, the shadow matter grew less and less, and the object inside slowly began to reveal itself.

It was a piece of tissue the size of an infant’s fist, resembling human skin. But on closer inspection, one could see that its surface was coated with a thin film.

As the shadow matter diminished further, faint patterns like circuitry became visible upon it, and Borne’s expression turned increasingly grim.

At the very moment the shadow matter was about to disappear, Borne finally opened his eyes. His face was deathly pale.

And yet, the instant he saw that piece of “skin,” what appeared on his face was joy.

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