CHAPTER 2066  POSSIBILITIES

"…That's interesting," Rui remarked. "I'm a Martial Master, but will you be fine?"

"I armed this particular vessel with anti-hypnosis measures," he lightly replied as his eyes never once left the specimen. "However, ordinary human staff cannot be allowed to directly lay eyes on it without being compromised and untrustworthy."

Rui's eyes narrowed. "Creating a training dungeon out of this will be annoyingly difficult if it's this hostile to anything that even looks at it."

"It can be overcome," the Divine Doctor replied. "However, I will need time. Lots of time to research it."

Rui turned to him with a pointed look. "How do you intend to approach researching this specimen? I will not perform experiments or endeavors that compromise the health of the specimen by anything more than an insignificant amount."

"I have no intention of compromising the alien specimen, I am certainly not foolish enough to get rid of one of the most promising keys to my greatest ambition," the Divine Doctor clinically reassured Rui. "However, this constraint will slow down. I would be able to accelerate my research if I had countless specimens of this species, but alas, we can only play with the cards we have dealt. Thus I shall have to limit my experimental research to micro samples."

"Experimenting on micro-samples is permissible, but how much will that delay your progress?"

"Hard to say, however, I would surprise myself if I'm able to make much progress within a year," he calmly answered Rui. "Conducting experiments of samples of different tissue to put the pieces of the puzzle together to understand the creature is a truly difficult task, but it is a matter of time. The creature is alien, not its matter."

Rui nodded. "That makes sense. Get me up to speed on the insights you have collected so far."

The Divine Doctor stirred at his words. "Well, I only had the creature for a few days before you woke up, thus do not expect highly rigorous insights, but the first conclusion that I came to the moment I learned of its alien origin was that the creature must be extraordinarily adaptable and survivable for how physically fragile it is."

It didn't take long for Rui's powerful mind to understand the line of logic that the Divine Doctor was implicitly using.

"The fact that the alien is not only able to survive but also thrive in a world that isn't its native home is truly remarkable," Rui realized. "If you displace any creature from Gaia and throw it into a random planet in this vast universe, the probability that it will be able to survive is extremely low but this creature…"

His eyes narrowed at the alien lifeform. "…It had absolutely no problem doing just that."

"Just so, young inheritor." The Divine Doctor nodded with a hint of appreciation. "Thus, it is highly likely that this specimen has an innate adaptability and survivability that is nigh unprecedented within our world. Perhaps the only creature that can match it as far as adaptive evolution goes is the Abyssfeeder. The only other possibility is that its native alien world is extremely similar to ours, within ten percent of a perfect match. But such a scenario is astronomically unlikely. Thus, it was unlikely."

Even Rui had to admit, it was too absurd to be plausible. The probability that there existed a world extremely similar to Gaia such that an alien from that world could survive on Gaia without any problem was probably more unlikely than anything else Rui could parse.

"However, your binary perspective seems oversimplistic," Rui countered. "It is possible that the true reason it is able to survive and thrive in our world is because of a combination of the two possibilities you have speculated. One can plot out a distribution of the configuration of the combinations of the two reasons. Perhaps the alien world is only a fifty-percent match with ours, but the alien flora lifeform possesses just enough adaptability to our world."

The Divine Doctor stirred at Rui's words. "That is indeed a possibility. However, given that it has been able to survive in the chaotic and erratic Beast Domain for a millennium, the inference still stands. There is no doubt that this creature possesses an incredible ability to adapt and integrate into alien ecosystems to a degree that I have never ever seen in my entire life. The fact that it's able to dungeonify after absorbing a powerful esoteric substance is proof of that."

Rui had to admit that his analysis was sound.

"Regardless, I intend to measure its adaptability and survivability by conducting experiments and tests on various samples," the Divine Doctor remarked. "I will begin with a top-down analysis and study its structure, the various types and distribution of tissue, and their apparent functions. Only after I have gained a thorough understanding of the aforementioned matters will I increase the resolution of my scientific inquiry."

"…I suppose you are in complete control," Rui remarked, closing his eyes. "What else do you need?"

The Divine Doctor considered his question. "…I will need a team. This is not something that I am able to embark on myself as quickly as I'd like to. Experienced, brilliant researchers. Ideally, I'd like you to be a part of my team, but I already know that you would refuse."

Rui snorted lightly. "I'm a Martial Artist."

"It is both fortunate and unfortunate that you are." The Divine Doctor heaved a sigh. "I need people of your caliber for them to be able to help me beyond grunt work."

An idea popped into his head as a smile emerged on his face. "…I think I know just the man for the job."

The two of them conversed for a while about the specifics of the alien lifeform.

Rui was glad that he was able to get the Divine Doctor on the job. A process that would probably take a decade had been cut down to a year. If anybody was qualified to learn the secrets of the alien lifeform, it was the Divine Doctor. (C) content.

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