Chapter 3: Nascent Stage
LV0: Nascent Stage – Normal humans, animals or plants who have been successfully infected by activated cells.
Activated cells: Special cells extracted from devil algae after going through thousands of mutations due to radiation. It was finally developed and transplanted successfully on the human now known as the Progenitor. Activated cells have strong assimilating power, once it infects the host and gets awakened, it will gradually transform the organism’s original cells and grant them activated capabilities.
Activated capabilities: the ability to create special energy that is different from what normal living things use.
In every legend, myths, animes or novels, those with long lives or great power all possesses some kind or multiple kinds of special energy. These energies are referred to as magic, spiritual power, qi…etc. These energies are different from the biological energy used to sustain life, so humans refer to them as special energy.
This is the theory that Doctor Wang proposed – Theory of Special Energy!
Humans thought about various cultivation systems, such as training the qi, training the mind and condensing qi, training the skin, bones, tendons…etc. However, as logical as these systems seem, nobody has successfully cultivated any kind of special energy. There is no qi, no magic, no spiritual energy, absolutely nothing.
Since it cannot be cultivated, then let’s use science to achieve this goal.
Activated cells are the result of this endeavour. The process was cruel, involving millions of human experimental subjects and also a great amount of luck. However, it really did succeed in the end.
However, the activated cells have a huge side effect, that is…
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On the second day, the sky was sunny and clear. Nobody in New Zealand found anything wrong but the activated cells released by the Progenitor has already deposited themselves inside every living thing. Slowly, is starting to show its effects on various organisms.
Momo has been extremely excited the whole morning ever since Bai Yi promised to bring her to see butterflies in the butterfly park.
“Sharpei, look after the house well!” Bai Yi said.
Sharpei who was initially just as excited as Momo immediately became down and whined sadly. The face that already had plenty of wrinkles seem to be even more scrunched up. Momo immediately went up to Sharpei after seeing him act like that and whispered something into its ear. Momo and Sharpei grew up playing together, just like childhood playmates and friends.
Butterfly Garden is a special place of interest within Hamilton Park. There are a lot of flowers here and most importantly a lot of different species of butterflies. Once they reached there, Momo started running about excitedly within the garden, asking many questions. Bai Yi just followed behind Momo with a satisfied smile on his face. However, within the satisfaction was a trace of heaviness. Momo was already four years old, her eyesight was getting really poor and soon, she will completely lose her sight.
How can heaven be so unfair!
However, Bai Yi did not express his feelings but just played around with Momo in the Butterfly Garden. Though neither of them have yet to notice, the activated cells have already started taking effect in them.
Activated cells are usually in a dormant state when they occupy a host body. However, the activated cells will easily wake from this dormant state as long as it has enough nutrition. Seeing how all the members of Bai Yi’s family are gluttons, the cells would have undoubtedly awakened. These cells have strong assimilating power, once the cells occupy a host body and gets awakened, it will transform the host body’s original cells into activated cells as well.
Bai Yi started to feel hungry but it wasn’t even noon yet. That’s weird, breakfast was quite heavy so why am I getting hungry so quickly? Bai Yi wondered in his heart but looking at Momo running around, he attributed it to the large amount of activity this morning.
Bai Yi did not know but this wasn’t because of the activity but the activated cells in his body has awakened and started transforming other cells in his body.
Activated Capability: The ability to create special energy that is different from biological energy.
The normal cells that are gradually transforming are frantically sucking nutrients from his body and starting to produce special energy. Bai Yi felt hungry so quickly due to the nutrients in his body being rapidly depleted. After running for a while more, Momo who was excited also became tired and walked back. She hugged Bai Yi’s leg and looked at him “Daddy, I’m hungry!”
“Hahaha, it’s all because you were running around so much! But I am hungry too let’s go grab something to eat!” Bai Yi said while laughing. It was already almost 11am, not considered too early for lunch.
The two of them went to a nearby restaurant and started ordering food. Due to the two of them being hungry, Bai Yi ordered extra food this time. With Bai Yi’s current income, ordering so much extra food is actually quite extravagant but he had never ill-treated Momo before.
Once the food was served, Momo immediately started eating. Although her movements were not elegant, they were natural and absent of any stifling or troublesome ‘etiquette’. The plump little girl swallowed like a hungry wolf, causing sounds of cutlery hitting the plate to appear. The people around them looked over and gave a slight smile upon seeing what was going on.
Unsure if it was Momo’s influence, but the people inside the restaurant also seem to have their appetite grow and they ate more than what they ate normally.
At the end when he called for the bill, Bai Yi got a shock. He didn’t expect the two of them to eat so much, and it seems like they weren’t even full yet. Bai Yi already felt like something was wrong, really wrong. This kind of appetite was clearly abnormal but Bai Yi could not think of the reason why.
In the afternoon, the two of them once again went to the Butterfly Garden to play. However, in less than two hours, the two of them felt extremely hungry again. As more and more cells got transformed, the production of special energy will also increase, causing the two of them to get hungry more rapidly.
“Daddy, I’m hungry again!”
“I don’t know why either, but we got hungry so easily today. Let’s just go home and I’ll cook a big meal for us.” Bai Yi rubbed Momo’s head and said gently.
“Ok!”
Bai Yi drove the car to a nearby food market and bought various ingredients. Along the way, Bai Yi was incredibly hungry and Momo wasn’t any better, her face scrunching. Even ghosts won’t believe you if you were to say that this kind of hunger and appetite was normal. However, Bai Yi chose not to say anything so as to not worry Momo. Worry about other things later, filling up the stomach comes first. This indescribable hunger can probably only be understood by those who went on a hunger strike.
Parking the car outside, Bai Yi immediately carried the bags of ingredients and rushed inside his house. The moment he opened the door, Sharpei ran out and whimpered grievously. Bai Yi looked around the house and discovered the place to be in a mess, any food that can be found by Sharpei was basically already all consumed.
Even Sharpei was like this!
Bai Yi suddenly had a bad premonition in his heart, but he did not think too much and said to Sharpei: “Sharpei, help Momo to bring the ingredients in, I’ll start cooking now.”
Sharpei immediately ran out to the car and helped Momo drag in the bags of ingredients one by one. Bai Yi had already proficiently switched on the fire and started cooking. Due to the unbearable hunger, Bai Yi decided to start steaming a pot of rice in the rice cooker before doing anything else.
The whole afternoon until 7pm at night, Bai Yi has essentially been cooking and eating without pause. The only reason why Bai Yi stopped was not because they were full but all the food in the house was already consumed. Even so, Bai Yi felt like he was only 80% full and the energy in his body was still rapidly being depleted. He would become even hungrier in a short period of time.
Due to having sufficient nutrients, the normal cells in Bai Yi, Momo and Sharpei got transformed at a faster rate than normal. With more and more activated cells in their body, energy was being consumed at a faster rate and they were getting hungry quicker as well. Their stomach was like a black hole, no matter how much they ate it would rapidly be digested and nothing would be left.
“Momo, Sharpei, let’s go to the food market!” Bai Yi isn’t an idiot, he knew that there was something wrong. However, earlier on he was too busy cooking and did not have time to think about this. Now that there was no more food in the house and the hunger showed no signs of stopping, it seems like he needed to buy even more things. No matter what, filling up the stomach comes first!
Without even entering the food market, Bai Yi already found the atmosphere to be strange, it was too lively!
It was completely different from the emptiness in the afternoon, the food market now was packed like a can of sardines. Every shop was filled with countless people crazily buying food. There were even some who just started cooking by the side of the road and eating ravenously. The smell of the food made the hunger even more unbearable for the people around.
Surprisingly, they were not the only ones affected!
Bai Yi got a shock in his heart, looking at the crowded road in front of him, he slowly drove the car forward squeezing through the crowd. Along the way, the buying and selling of ingredients was extremely fierce and the price of food also increased rapidly. The atmosphere continued to escalate and there it seems almost uncontrollable. By now, unless you are stupid everybody had realised that something was wrong. This unimaginable appetite and hunger was definitely abnormal.
The shopkeepers apparently did not think too much, or rather thought about it but didn’t care. Business flourishing is a good thing, this unimaginable hunger and appetite caused large numbers of people to buy food in a frenzy. They didn’t even have time to be happy, who will think about the implications behind this scenario? Worry about shortage of food? It was impossible that the food supply would run out!
Bai Yi went to the front of a shop, as one of the head chefs of Waikato University, Bai Yi came here frequently to select and order ingredients. Moreover, he had to order large amounts of ingredients every time so he was quite familiar with the boss of this shop.
“Hi Santos, where is Woolf?” Bai Yi called out to a store assistant.
“Hi Bai Yi, what are you doing here? Ordering ingredients for the school again? It’s a bad time now though.” The black store assistant greeted Bai Yi after seeing him.
“Not ordering ingredients for the school this time, I am looking for Woolf.”
“Boss is inside.” Santos pointed inside the shop and then turned around to deal with other customers. He was familiar with Bai Yi as he is a regular customer here and did not stop him from going inside. Bai Yi held Momo’s hand and walked inside the shop and Sharpei also intelligently followed behind.