The Last Gentleman-Chapter 258: Different Mad Shells
Within Yi Chen’s biological knowledge prior to his death, viruses possessed relatively simple structures and typically exhibited life activities only within living cells.
Now, as a virus himself, he possessed a complete consciousness and could even perform ‘Air Creeping’, minutely manipulating this viral body and even utilizing abilities he had as a human.
After spending several hours adapting from human to virus,
Yi Chen completed a thorough review of his own structure, marveling at the exquisiteness of this viral shell, which was arguably superior to the human body.
Mainly comprising two major parts:
The Trait Capsid that presented as an icosahedron
and the Absorb-Brain enveloped within
The Trait Capsid primarily consisted of the following three important components:
1. “Spike”: Structured like tentacles, distributed at the connecting points between each face.
These tentacles rooted in the capsid made direct connections with the nerves of the Absorb-Brain inside, allowing Yi Chen to control them directly.
He could move through the air by floating the tentacles and quickly parasitize different types of patients. For instance, in the case of a patient with a rocky structure, he could control the tentacles to harden into drill-like shapes.
2. “Outer Shell”: Totalling 108 faces of the icosahedron, each face could effectively capture and direct light inward, achieving a type of wide-spectrum panoramic imaging, allowing Yi Chen to take in all his surroundings at a glance.
3. “Inner Shell”: The most durable inner layer that acted as a buffer and protected the Absorb-Brain
The Absorb-Brain wrapped inside the Trait Capsid could be considered as a precursor to the Madness Brain.
A nascent brain structure still in the stage of knowledge absorption, essentially integrating all organs and the brain of a normal life form,
capable of performing various life functions and also serving to receive external information and perceive efficiently.
Unlike other Mad Shell Viruses,
the virus Yi Chen transformed into still carried traits from his human form, with the overall Absorb-Brain wrapped in a thorny Iron Chain that he could even control to extend the chains out of the body along the spike structure.
Furthermore, deep inside the Absorb-Brain was compacted with Death Aura, painting the virus black instead of the flesh color typically exhibited by Mad Shells. Such appearance looked quite fearsome.
“It seems they want me to experience the entire process of a madman’s formation, to return to the Old World in viral form before the lockdown, to experience the detailed process of infecting life forms, absorbing knowledge, and evolving the Madness Brain, thus deepening my connection with the pathogen of the Old World, understanding the essence of infection.
When this special Mad Shell Virus of mine advances to a madman, it may be the time when the physical body outside breaks through its limits, interesting.”
Yi Chen did not rush to invade as a virus but instead observed the current environment,
as he subjectively moved the tentacles on the surface of the capsid, adorably floating through the air.
Gradually, he descended from his altitude,
the closer to the ground, the more airborne bacteria there were, some bacterium even thousands of times larger than Yi Chen.
These bacteria also possessed self-awareness, and upon discovering Yi Chen’s virus, which resembled a mayfly shell and was much smaller than them, they squeezed the air stored inside their bodies and swiftly fled as if they had seen the Reaper.
“It seems that Mad Shells are quite famous in the Old World;this should save me a lot of trouble.”
Yi Chen focused his gaze on the ‘crowd’ below,
the differences between individuals were significant, not just in terms of skin color but more so due to structural changes brought about by different illnesses.
Although most resembled the human form, some had additional arms, tails, wings, or even unimaginable tumors, sieves, channels, and other pathological tissues;some even appeared semi-liquid, crawling on the ground.
There were also many fully parasitic individuals, like the ‘Shell-Backed Person’ Yi Chen saw.
The body responsible for crawling had lost its autonomy, and the giant snail shell on its back was stuffed with a parasitic life form, hundreds of soft spikes piercing into the person’s spine and back of the head, controlling it to move, eat, and perform other daily actions.
Being new to the area, Yi Chen didn’t insist on selecting a special patient.
He locked his gaze on a young man who looked almost human, with no extra proliferating tissue except for some blisters at the corners of his mouth, and commenced the infection.
With the young man’s normal breath,
Yi Chen followed the inhalation process, trying to reach the brain directly from the nasal passage,
but as he drifted into the cavernous and hairy cavity of the nostril, pairs of pus-filled red eyes suddenly opened, glaring intently at Yi Chen, the solitary intruder.
The herpes virus cluster residing in the nasal cavity immediately launched an attack on the intruder,
but as they gathered, Yi Chen, this independent virus, vanished right under their eyes.
Because the target was missing, the defense mechanism also began to slowly release.
What they did not know was that, in the instant they converged,
Yi Chen retracted all its tentacles into the Absorb-Brain, achieving perfect invisibility through optical refraction via a hundred and eight sides of the Trait Caspid and mimicry of the current nasal cavity environment by the Absorb-Brain structure.
Continuing along with the host’s breathing process, it easily passed through the nasal cavity and arrived at the brain region with its nano-level miniature volume.
The skull region was also densely covered with herpes,
and the clear, thick liquid oozing from between the herpes even soaked the brain, causing it to turn yellow, swell, and become distorted, with the outer layer of the brain also covered in terrifying red spots.
But their inspection mechanism still failed to detect Yi Chen, this special Mad Shell Virus.
Drifting into the brain,
Yi Chen entered the domain of the brain that was most familiar to him and in which he excelled, soon breaking into the deep!
Whoosh!
A mass of tentacles grew out from the Capsid, bringing with them iron chains of spikes that could extend,
piercing,
whipping,
extracting,
tearing,
like a great general entering enemy camp alone, killing half of the herpes viruses in the brain core region in a short time.
When the remaining viruses tried to counter encircle, a pitch-black Death Aura was released from within Yi Chen;the herpes viruses it touched disintegrated instantly, completely dying.
Before the herpes on the outside of the brain could arrive,
Yi Chen had already taken root in the brain’s core region, injecting its genetic material into it, swiftly completing the neural connection, and broadcasting throughout the host’s body via neural electrical currents.
As soon as any herpes virus dared to approach the brain region,
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Yi Chen would perform a “targeted enhancement” on the host’s immune system, authorizing the use of the herpes virus samples it had just killed to the host, and could cleanse the entire body of herpes within a few minutes.
“So… let’s all get along well! I will not stay in the host’s body forever;once I have absorbed enough knowledge, I will leave. As long as you are obedient enough, I will spare the host’s life.”
The Mad Shell Virus is very special;it does not proliferate but is always a single entity.
Having seized control of the central nervous system, Yi Chen finally began the most important part – “knowledge absorption.”
While absorbing the host’s memory, it also instilled in the host a strong ‘thirst for knowledge’, prompting him to promptly go to a nearby city for educational purposes.
However, Yi Chen was different from other Mad Shells,
He would not neglect the host’s flesh;although he would reduce sleep time, the host still needed to eat, maintaining a good mental state at all times.
This continued until the host could no longer find sources of knowledge or the absorption speed decreased.
In addition,
during the parasitism, Yi Chen would also “educate” both the host and other pathogens within the host’s body.
Even if Yi Chen was to leave the host, they would tirelessly learn. In the future, when encountering Yi Chen or hosts that Yi Chen had parasitized, they would call him ‘teacher’ and completely obey.
Yi Chen could also quickly assimilate the knowledge they learned on their own, maximizing its value.
This method was far superior to the conventional Mad Shell.
The education aspect was also something Yi Chen had learned from the Orphanage.
From this moment on, Yi Chen’s initial profession of “student” began to change, and the related living text was slowly being rewritten.