“Here we go.” Jules said, with a calm and steady voice.
Now that he had completely exterminated Felix’s immune system, he was attempting to have his bacteria replace it. He did so because it was in his best interests that the humans, he would use to farm magicules in the future wouldn’t just die from the first disease they encountered.
Therefore, after having failed at concealing his bacteria from the host’s immune system, he was forced to destroy it. This meant that it was now vulnerable to diseases. Since his bacteria were able to fight off other cells, Jules theorized it would be possible for him to establish an immune system within the host’s body. But this wouldn’t be a simple process. After all the human immune system was an incredibly complex mechanism forged by millions of years of evolution. He, on the other hand, was attempting it on the spot.
Along with Xena’s help, he quickly established that there were three things he would need to achieve in order to create a fully functional immune system. The first one was the ability to determine what is foreign to the host and what isn’t. The second one was to determine if that foreign substance was harmful or not. And lastly, it had to be able to eliminate it if it indeed was harmful.
He quickly realized, however, that even with Xena’s help he still might not be able to succeed on his first try. This because Xena lacked that data necessary to fully predict how its current propositions would turn out. Therefore, Jules asked her to create the ideal experiments that would create the most feedback possible regardless of the outcome.
Shifting his attention back to Felix he began to set up the new immune system. Jules was extremely focussed throughout the entire procedure. Although he was following Xena’s instructions, it didn’t change the fact that this was an extremely complicated process.
Luckily for him, the procedure wasn’t very long. It only took him about 10 minutes to complete the procedure. He even added some mud to Felix’s wound, this way it would be more likely for him to get infected by something. As it was the best way to try out that new immune system. On top of things, it seemed that the mud helped slow down the bleeding, which was rather good. At this point, he could only wait until he got results. He decided that it would be a good idea to wait for them before continuing his experiment with the other two humans.
Having completed what he wanted to do; he went back to his hut to conduct some new experiments. But before that, he instructed Xena to come up with an escape route for him in case his defenses failed at any point. And of course, after a very short wait, a familiar voice sounded out and transferred the blueprints to his mind.
The escape route wasn’t anything amazing, it was just a simple tunnel that leads from his hut to a large tree that was roughly 500 meters away (~1600 feet). The only thing special about it was that it had cleverly concealed ends and a structure that could be easily collapsed from the inside. This would allow him to leave a zombie in it behind as he was escaping to have it fall onto any pursuers.
After adding it onto his zombie’s ‘to do’ list he began his new experiment. This time around he wanted to focus more on the slimes that he had made. As they currently were, the slimes had no autonomy and only occasionally jiggled. They didn’t do much besides being entertaining to play with. However, Jules had found out he was able to control them if he focused on it the same way he focused on his bacteria; this was because these slimes were made of them. Sadly, even if he gave them orders, they had absolutely no ability to do things without supervision, unlike his zombies.
Therefore, he wanted to see if Xena had the ability to control them. After all, he used his mind to control them and since Xena seemed to be connected to his mind, then perhaps she could control them.
‘Hey Xena, can you try and move that slime around? Try and make it go outside.’
‘[Order confirmed. Attempting to establish connection to
‘That’s a surprisingly fast reaction time for an extremely slow connection. I wonder how quick it could become if I find ways to increase the connection speed.’
Feeling extremely pleased with how this turned out, Jules got Xena to take control of all the slimes he had. In total, he now had 8, at this speed he was able to make roughly 4 a day. Worried that after a while the sheer number of slimes could take a toll on Xena’s processing power, Jules decided to ask her about it.
‘Xena, how much of your processing power does controlling a slime take?’
‘[Slime control estimated to take less than 0.000001% of total processing power available per slime.]’ She responded.
This was a crazy figure, it meant that she was able to control over 1 million slimes at once! This came as quite a surprise to him; he wasn’t even sure he would ever reach such a huge amount of slimes.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
After hearing this Jules had decided to resume his experiments. Amongst various things, he found that he was able to combine or split slimes together to create different sizes. He found that if they became smaller than a marble then they became increasingly tougher to control. He found himself completely unable to control them accurately once they became smaller than a water droplet, he supposed that it was due to the fact that they represented a tiny portion of all the bacteria he controlled. And that once it became too small relative to the rest, it became increasingly difficult to control. However, this didn’t seem to pose a problem to Xena. She was able to control them no matter how small they became, which was rather impressive.
However, Jules learned each individual slime no matter its size took Xena the same amount of processing power to control. Therefore, it wasn’t a very smart idea to make them become too small because large slimes were clearly more useful than small ones.
He also found out that they were very good at digging, this is because individual bacteria would dislodge dirt particles a then pass it on to the next one until it was ejected out of the slime. Looking at a slime dig was an extremely mesmerizing process; the dirt was floating to the top of it and then falling off. The best thing was that Jules could control where the dirt was ejected. Therefore, he could have large slimes dig trenches and eject the dirt to the sides and complete the trench within minutes.
It seemed that his slimes were also able to carry things inside them without damaging them. In a way, they were living shock absorbers. Jules thought that this would make it a rather convenient way to carry fragile stuff in the future.
At this point, Jules had tested everything that came to mind. As a result of having discovered the slime’s abilities he got them to dig the escape tunnel.
With this done a whole day passed and before anything noteworthy happened.
Mia slowly opened her eyes, waking up from her rather deep sleep. Feeling quite groggy she noticed there was a rather strong pain being emitted from the back of her head. The pain felt rather dull yet imposing. It was one of those things that the more aware you were of it, the more painful it would get.
After slowly coming to her senses and trying to ignore the pain, she took a look at her surroundings only to notice that she was in an unfamiliar place. It seemed that she was in a sort of cheap tent that hadn’t been properly maintained. It was rather dim within it, as only very little sunlight could make its way through the walls. However, what stood out to Mia the most was the pungent smell. It was horrendous and made her want to throw up on the spot. It felt like a mix between decaying flesh and blood. The warm and humid atmosphere within did not seem to help in any ways either, if anything it actually made it worse.
The first thing she wanted to do was to get out of there. But when she tried to sit up, she quickly found out that it wasn’t going to be possible. The reason was that both her hands and feet were tied to the bed she was resting in. This instantly caused her to panic, why was she there and why couldn’t she leave? She violently tried to tear off her restraints but found herself to be unsuccessful.
By the time she had stopped both her wrists and ankles were severely bruised and bleeding. It really seemed that she didn’t hold anything back. And for some reason, she couldn’t remember any of the events that lead to her current situation.
Having given up on breaking free of her restraints she decided to take a more careful look around herself. Quickly enough she noticed two other figures resting on beds near her, both of which also seemed to be tied down. One of them was missing an arm whereas the other one clearly seemed to have multiple broken bones. Compared to them Mia felt rather lucky that she only had a painful headache.
Having her curiosity peaked by the two individuals also lying down in the room, she attempted to figure out who they were. However, it seemed that she was having trouble identifying them due to the darkness. Yet, she could clearly tell that they seemed extremely familiar. Annoyingly, every time she tried to search her memories for them her mind got cloudy making it impossible to recall who they were.
“Got damn it, if only Ross and Felix were there, then I might be able to escape.” She grumbles under her breath.
‘Wait…’ She thought after looking back at the two individuals. ‘Could it… No... I… It… Ro… Felix…?’
Suddenly as she seemed to connect the dots, an extremely powerful wave of pain gushed out from the back of her head. At the exact same time all the memories of what had happened beforehand flooded in her mind.
“NOOOOO!!! FELIX!!! ROSS!!” She screamed at the top of her lungs with an unceasing flow of tears flowing down her face. The shock of seeing her closest friends in such a state on top of suddenly remembering how they became that way was plenty enough for her to lose her composure.
After her initial scream she just quietly sobbed occasionally calling out their names. Amongst her self-cursing and pitiful noises, she did not notice that somebody had walked into the tent.
“It seems you’re awake. I heard you all the way from my place.” Said that person causing Mia to jump in surprise.
Mia couldn’t see that person clearly, but she could tell from her voice that it was a woman.
“Who are you? What are you going to do with my friends?” Mia replied, still sobbing.
“My name is Jules. As for what I’m going to do to you and your friends, you’ll figure that out soon.” The woman answered back.
“You better not be thinking of harming them otherwise…”
“Otherwise what?” The woman interrupted. Although Mia couldn’t see her face, she could tell that there definitively was a smug smile on it.
“At least show yourself, you coward.” Mia exclaimed. If she was going to die, then she might as well keep her honor till the end.
“As you wish. “The woman replied while reaching for the fabric covering the entrance. And in one swift move, she tore it off letting an abundance of light flow inside.
“Ah!” Mia exclaimed as her eyes weren’t used to the sudden brightness.
She slowly opened her eyes to adjust to the light. She gradually began to see more and more of the person standing in front of her. However, instead of revealing anger or surprise, Mia’s expression slowly turned to that of terror.