Chapter 523: Compatibility! The Gap Too Wide to Overcome!
There were no problems encountered during the fusion of the mark as if a handful of water had simply merged back into the sea without causing any waves or splashes.
Everyone was still nervous as they watched Su Mo, who was lying on the machine.
They finally breathed a sigh of relief after Su Mo sat up as if nothing had happened less than five seconds after the fusion.
“The fusion was so successful that we did not encounter any problems at all. We were even able to identify the basic gene fragments and anchor points for fusion.
“We just have to analyze the data and we’ll be able to build a detection mechanism!
“We can use the machine to analyze whether a person has a fusion potential!”
Yan Xiaqing could not hide her excitement as she repeatedly tapped on the machine’s buttons to read the hard-earned data and began to perform a series of complex calculations.
The modernized machine was able to analyze everything, including neural responses, except for the forbidden mysterious realm of consciousness.
“Fusion potential?
“Does that mean not everyone can fuse with a mark?”
Su Mo frowned as he touched the slightly bulging mark on his arm and recalled the feeling of how the mark was fused to him with the help of the system.
The mark that he had received through the system felt as if he was born with it and like it was a part of him.
He could change the position of the mark by will and carry out “networking” to interact with the detection equipment in Freedom City.
However, a mark that had been fused by external force could not freely change its position and it would be permanently embedded wherever it was fused on the body.
Su Mo went deep in thought about the mark and discovered something.
This kind of self-integration was indeed the most pitiful among the three methods provided by the previous system.
Cracked Mode!
The information about Alec that was stored in the previous mark had disappeared. Almost everything, from the existing template to the potential contribution points, had completely vanished!
Everything had disappeared at the moment of fusion.
The name of the person and type of imprint at the bottom had even changed.
The name had changed to “Su Mo” and there was an eye-catching red word behind his name…
Human!
That would mean that he could not fool anyone and he would be caught before he could enter the gates of Freedom City.
In other words, it would cause an unprecedented commotion in Freedom City!
“Correct. It’s similar to a blood transfusion where you can’t mix type B blood with type A blood. During fusion, there are also specific problems that could occur.
“To be safe, it would be best for us to choose a suitable template for the experiments until we have more experimental data and fusion data.
“Otherwise, there might be unbearable consequences for us if we trigger a problem or accident that is beyond our expectation!”
Yan Xiaqing’s complete attention had been devoted to processing the increasing data.
Su Mo nodded and turned his gaze to the mark on his arm after hearing her reasonable explanation.
Seconds later, the green light identified by the system shot out and directly hit the mark on Su Mo.
[Mark of the Imposter (Green; Cracked; Risk: High)]
[Description: This is a cracked imprint. There is a high probability that another party with a higher-level mark will be able to notice the abnormality and the mark cannot pass through any detection equipment nor can it contribute points. Please be cautious to avoid potential risks.]
[Mark Load Limit: Less than or equal to Level 2]
[Template Contained: None]
[Template’s Talents: None]
[Template Conversion Count: Once]
[Template Duration: 7 days, 00 hours, 00 minutes (Every 100 contribution points will extend this duration by three days. When the number of contribution points decreases to zero, if the user is situated outside their territory, the user will instantly die. If the user is within the territory, there will be a seven-day buffer period. If the user’s wealth level does not exceed 100 points by then, the user will by default be demoted to mercenary status.)]
[Mark Wealth Level: 100 Contribution Points]
[Mark Fixed Assets: None]
[User: Su Mo (Human)]
[Comment: Take this mark into the opponent’s territory if you want to provoke your opponent!]
The new mark had completely deleted the huge loan that Harl had, and likewise, all the other add-ons had been removed.
Su Mo rubbed the back of his head as he saw the three dazzling words “None” and the 100 contribution points, then quickly switched to the upgrade interface.
[Upgrade Method 1: Reconstruct the mark firewall to protect abnormal information contained within the mark. This firewall can resist the snooping of another party within three levels of the user and can ignore any detection equipment and be used normally.
Note: The probability of discovering the mark’s abnormality increases synchronously for each level when faced with a powerful party that is at least three levels higher. At the same time, once the firewall is discovered, it will lose all effectiveness, and the upgrade will cost 3480 survival points.]
[Upgrade Method 2: Restore the information saved by the mark, reset the abnormal information, return the imprint to the original user identity, and mask the current information to achieve a disguise.
Note: This upgrade method will consume high levels of energy, thus the requirement for survival points will increase to a certain extent and the upgrade will cost 50,000 survival points.]
[Upgrade Method 3: Specified modification of abnormal information in the mark. This upgrade method allows you to mask and modify any abnormal information you choose to achieve a specific purpose.
Note: The survival point cost will fluctuate according to the specific abnormal information chosen and the difficulty of modification. The upgrade costs: ???]
‘D*mn it! A new mark upgrade costs only 20,000 survival points and it costs more than double when I fused the mark on myself? It costs 50,000 survival points to restore the information?
‘This is outrageous!’
The firewall cost seemed reasonable, but as soon as Su Mo glanced at the second upgrade method, he could barely contain his urge to complain.
Fortunately, Su Mo read the third upgrade method which allowed him to specifically modify any information. He clenched his fists and calmed down.
‘System, I choose specified modification of the identity of the user!’
The most suspicious information was of course the last one. The eye-catching word “human” was brightly shining in the information. There would definitely be problems if the Demon clan were to perform inspections.
There would still be room to confuse others as long as he could cover up the fact that he was human.
[Specified Modification of Identity of User]
[Validity Period: 30 days; Cost: 1800 points]
[Validity Period: 60 days; Cost: 3500 points]
[Validity Period: 180 days; Cost: 10,000 points]
[…]
[Validity Period: Permanent ; Cost: 21,000 points]
It turned out that it was easy to take advantage of the game.
However, to gain the upper hand against the system was wishful thinking.
Su Mo glanced all the way down the options and saw the permanent option, which cost the same as modifying the user of the mark. He was left with no choice but to close the panel.
‘Fortunately, covering up the user’s identity won’t cost me a fixed amount of 21,000 survival points. I’ll have to bring five people here within a month and according to the charges that would cost…
‘9000 survival points!’
It would not be necessary to cover up the mark within their own territory and there was no need to worry about exposing themselves.
According to the Demon clan’s personality, it was highly unlikely for a high-level mark holder to be sent as a spy inside their territory just to provoke them.
Therefore, it was only necessary to regularly visit Freedom City to purchase the template duration, template conversion counts, and other values to bring back for the others to be fused.
The specific modification would only be required for those who would sneak into Freedom City.
Before the Fire Exchange completely dominated the early stage, it would be best to have quality over quantity. It would be sufficient to send only a few people.
According to the survival points cost per month, it was still feasible.
“Okay, since we’ve already confirmed the anchor points, those detected with these genes in their bodies will be able to fuse with a mark.”
It was not tedious work to manage and organize the information. Excluding the difficulty of the detection process, it only took five minutes for Yan Xiaqing to successfully process everything.
The moment when her voice could be heard, the remaining consciousnesses that were initially calm began to shake almost immediately
It was evident that they were all nervous.
“We’ll start the detection process with all of you!”
Su Mo pulled the machine forward to the side of the brain box and took a deep breath as he opened the brain box for Yan Xiaqing, who was trembling from nervousness.
In a few seconds, the slime surrounding the brain revealed the crimson brain inside after feeling the outside air.
“Who…who do we start with?”
“Let’s start with Lu Kuan! Don’t be nervous! We’ll have a mark for each and every one of you as long as you’re compatible with it!”
Su Mo comforted the researcher scholars who had already died once and turned to the monitor after Yan Xiaqing skillfully inserted a thin needle into Lu Kuan’s consciousness in the brain.
Unlike the complex genetic sequences of the human body, the number of anchor points that need to be matched for the fusion of marks was only 13, which was considered not too many.
He was not sure what these anchor points represented, but the visual program on the monitor began processing as soon as information had been accessed from the brain and showed the meaning of each anchor point.
Lu Kuan’s information matched extremely quickly for the first five anchor points and the progress bar filled up almost instantly.
These five anchor points represented that the two people come from the same source, and they were all standard carbon-based organisms.
But starting from the sixth anchor point, the matching progress started to slow down.
These anchor points represented the key factors for the presence or absence of the possibility to receive a mark.
Five minutes passed silently under tension.
When the matching circle turned to the eleventh cycle, there was a long buffer period.
The brain belonging to Lu Kuan in the box started to shrink rapidly. It was unclear whether it was because of the pain from the matching or the anxiety of not finding a corresponding signal.
“This is bad. It’s about to fail. Lu Kuan has no corresponding anchor point, but he’s been searching independently and he’s almost about to trigger danger.
“Should we wake him up?
The slime inside the box started to scream and tremble as it felt the constant energy demand from Lu Kuan.
A huge red exclamation mark appeared indicating that Lu Kuan’s current state had reached its limit on the upper right corner of the screen.
Su Mo paused momentarily but did not halt the screening immediately.
Instead, he moved his feet and brought some psychic water that was previously placed on the side, and gently dripped it onto the slime.
The slime’s convulsions were relieved instantly with the additional energy supplied to it. The energy supplied to the brain also increased.
However, after three minutes of stalemate, Lu Kuan’s brain suddenly trembled and the needle inserted inside his brain automatically popped out.
“He failed.
“He chose to give up on his own!”
As the leader of the group of research scholars, Lu Kuan’s failure was completely unexpected.
Both bodies had the same potential to become a god, which made Su Mo inadvertently ignore the probability and just assume that most humans would have the compatibility to receive a mark.
But in fact, this probability was significantly lower than imagined.
“Let’s move on to the next person?”
“Let’s begin!”
Yan Xiqing was aware that the failure of Lu Kuan was bound to cast a shadow of anxiety over the next person.
However, she did not hesitate to insert the needle into the next brain as Su Mo’s fingers pointed at Su Deben’s brain.
It was still the five anchor points that were successfully detected in an instant, and the speed started to slow down at the sixth anchor point.
Unlike Lu Kuan who struggled for a while, Su Deben accepted the failure at the ninth anchor point and directly ejected the needle, lowering the probability of success once again.
“Is there a problem with our machine? It might be due to them not having a physical body, which led to the unsuccessful matching, right?”
Yan Xiqing pondered on this for a while, then shook her head.
“It’s possible, but it’s highly unlikely. There are many undiscovered mysteries in the human body. What we’ve discovered is probably only a droplet in the vast ocean. However, even if the screening is affected by the physical presence of a body, we must accept that if we’re unable to find even one anchor point, it won’t be a 100 percent match, and we’ll have to accept failure. We won’t be able to afford to test the limits at our current stage!”
Yan Xiqing stabbed the needle directly into her brain after speaking as if to prove her hypothesis.
In the next second, the robot lost complete control, and the anchor points on the screen began to be detached synchronously with the constant beeping sound from the monitor.
The five familiar anchor points succeeded instantly. However, unlike the previous two whose progress stuttered and slowed down, Yan Xiaqing’s speed in matching was terribly fast.
It only took less than a minute for her to reach the eleventh anchor point that Lu Kuan had failed before.
After four or five minutes of stalemate, when Su Mo thought that she was about to fail, the eleventh green dot lit up unexpectedly.
And in less than five seconds, the remaining two points were also lit up.
“Success?”
Looking at the green tick on the screen, Yan Xiaqing returned to the robot body excitedly, trembling before Su Mo could react.
“It matched! I actually matched!”
Having a completely corresponding anchor point meant a possibility for resurrection.
At this moment, even if she had to be considerate about the others’ feelings, Yan Xiaqing could not control her excitement and her whole body kept twitching.
At the same time, her success in matching meant that there was no problem with the machine.
The following tests continued under a depressing atmosphere.
Half an hour later, the list of compatible consciousness was filtered out. Su Mo nodded and turned toward the old sofa in the garage to sit down.
Lu Kuan, Zhuo Junfan, and Ji Yang, who had graduated from the same school, all persisted until the eleventh anchor point but failed.
Su Deben and Su Wei, both father and daughter were not able to escape the hands of fate. They both pulled the brakes and failed on the ninth anchor.
Yan Xiaqing, Bai Yiqi, and Ouyang Guo were cousins, two of them passed the test without much struggle except for Bai Yiqi who got stuck at the twelve anchor point.
Unexpectedly, Ai Jianqiang and Ai Jianfeng, who were proficient in machinery and construction, the two brothers also passed.
Their detection speed was the fastest among all of them. It basically took less than 30 seconds to pass the test perfectly and get a chance to match!
Four succeeded out of ten people, and the pass rate was quite impressive at 40%.
“Su Mo, are we going to test the other villagers?”
“Let’s do it. Get Chen Shen to gather the people and bring them over in batches. I need to get exact data and a list of those compatible!”
Not everyone would be compatible with a template and not everyone had the chance to become a “god”, which undoubtedly disrupted Su Mo’s previous plans.
Time passed as more and more people went through the scanning process and the data began to drop significantly.
The ordinary villagers had a lower probability of matching anchors.
From morning to noon, all the villagers had completed the test but unfortunately, only 119 people passed.
At first glance, this number was not small, but if the base of more than 1,000 people was considered, this probability was only. . .
9%!
13 anchor points were like a gap too large to overcome, but it would eventually separate all those who were struggling in the final days into two different categories and create a gap that would be difficult to cross for a lifetime.
Just like in primitive tribes, some primitive people were born tall and strong, so they were good at hunting, and some primitive people were born short and could only do some dirty work.
Luck was one of their capital.
From a personal point of view, Su Mo hated this kind of probability, which depended on luck to determine one’s future.
However, from a practical stance, this was an event that they would inevitably have to face if they were to move forward as a collective group.
There were countless buried landmines and they could explode anytime if Su Mo did not handle the situation well.