Chapter 237: The Bionic Alchemical Avatar

Chapter 237: The Bionic Alchemical Avatar

“Your admission notice.” Zheng Yichen placed a notice in front of Lily. The lack of something like an ID card in the Otherworld was really great. Faking identity information was too easy; no extra steps were needed. Afterwards, it was even difficult to be traced. As for using those prophecy-type Mages?

That was for special people. For an ‘ordinary’ girl like Lily, who would bother using that? Plus, this special admission notice was genuine, not fake at all. The issuing Academy had proper records. As long as she took it and her strength truly met the standard, she could enroll!

Looking at the Academy’s name on the notice, Zheng Yichen couldn’t help but click his tongue twice. This Academy wasn’t some small schoolhouse; it was a pretty impressive one in Kaja. There weren’t many Academies in Kaja City to begin with, and even fewer that were ranked. Once something was considered ranked, it meant it was famous among all the well-known Academies.

Of course, while the school chosen for Lily was very good, naturally, the strength test for entry would be much stricter than other schools. That was no problem. With the training from the Ghost Maids and Lily’s own physical constitution, her combat ability now wasn’t much worse than peers from major families. Getting into the Academy shouldn’t be too hard.

“Alright.” Lily looked at the notice, hesitated for a moment, then nodded. She felt staying here wasn’t bad either. Those Ghost Maids were very skilled and had already taught her many power ful techniques, but those weren’t the basics!

“Take your time; there are still ten days left. That’s enough time for me to finish what needs to be made.” Zheng Yichen said. After finishing Irene’s Alchemical Avatar, Zheng Yichen immediately sent it to her. As for the appearance of that Alchemical Avatar?

Patchouli Noelgi… Anyway, both were masters of Magic. Zheng Yichen thought this appearance was very suitable, especially since Irene also had quite an impressive Library. Although it wasn’t underground. Seeing how satisfied she seemed with the Avatar, Zheng Yichen took the chance to ask about a material bottleneck he currently faced.

Irene didn’t say much and simply gave Zheng Yichen the answer. The living material needed for the bionic limbs was a soft-bodied Magical Beast. That Magical Beast was similar to the Otherworld version of a chameleon before, but not as powerful. They could simulate ‘what they saw’ to a great extent.

If they swallowed part of a target’s body, this simulation could be further enhanced, achieving almost complete physical simulation. As for aura and power? Forget that. But despite having such a good Talent, they still couldn’t escape the biggest limitation of soft-bodied creatures: their intelligence was always lacking!

No matter how detailed the simulation, they were still fools… However, such Magical Beasts were quite popular with some Nobles. When Irene said this, Zheng Yichen’s first thought was inflatable dolls. Ahem, upon closer comparison, it seemed like a similar idea. Anyway, the biggest problem was solved. Zheng Yichen also found this soft-bodied Magical Beast.

Because they were soft-bodied creatures, their sizes varied. The large ones that could fully simulate adults were in demand by some people. The small ones were basically useless. So, as long as you looked in the right place, it was relatively easy to find this type of Magical Beast.

After some research, Zheng Yichen discovered this thing seemed a bit similar to ‘taisui.’ Many parts were independent individuals. Not every cell, but parts about half a centimeter in diameter were completely independent. As for finer division, it would cause the soft-bodied creature’s death. Probably because the division was too fine for survival.

“Tsk tsk… this thing… combined with the chameleon’s characteristics, if they could be put together, you might be able to create a strange creature.” After studying the soft-bodied Magical Beast’s diet, Zheng Yichen placed the living specimen in a breeding room. Next to it was the chameleon’s cultivation room. Anyway, this thing was like an earthworm; a broken piece could grow back. Adding nutrients made it grow faster. If not used violently, it wouldn’t break.

Low intelligence? With this characteristic of immediately becoming an independent individual after division, there couldn’t be any intelligence to speak of. If they had intelligence, they wouldn’t be in this state, unless they had a ‘master’ among them. Zheng Yichen had already observed; every part of the soft-bodied Magical Beast was the same, with no special part. That meant a master part didn’t exist.

Hmm? Maybe he could try research in this area! Zheng Yichen pulled out a sticky note from his Personal Space, jotted this point down, and slapped it on the glass at the entrance of the breeding room. The writing quickly faded. The sticky note was specially made by Zheng Yichen. After writing content on it with a pen containing special ink, the words would disappear quickly.

Then, only by injecting Mana at a specific frequency would they reappear. Other non-matching frequencies were naturally useless.

Anyway, he also had the material for the bionic limbs. Zheng Yichen’s subsequent research became even simpler. After cultivating enough of the main material, he first let these soft-bodied Magical Beasts simulate human limbs, then scattered their pitifully weak consciousness. The form was then fixed at the current stage. Moreover, after thorough research by Zheng Yichen, aside from the different cellular structure, whether it was muscle fibers or other parts, there was almost 90% similarity!

The remaining differences belonged to the characteristics of the soft-bodied Magical Beast itself. Such differences would only appear when injured or severely attacked. Normal touching or observation couldn’t detect them. Soft-bodied Magical Beasts? Low intelligence, but their recovery power was generally strong. Luckily, they didn’t have the weakness of some soft-bodied creatures on Earth, like fear of salt. Soft as they were, their bodies were quite substantial, with low water content.

“Hmm… the limb parts are ready too. Next is programming.” Zheng Yichen scratched his head. Since he had to rely on external stimuli to drive these bionic limbs that only had passive instinctual reactions left, as long as someone dissected these modified bionic limbs, they would find that aside from the muscle parts, the bones, tendons, and such were all Alchemical Products!

Because of such a complex structure, a well-made Alchemical Avatar needed a central hub capable of coordinating these structures to truly operate the Avatar!

Programming, Zheng Yichen scratched his head. On Earth, it always seemed so distant. After crossing over, it was always so close. Zheng Yichen had learned programming in school, although it was just the simplest stuff like calculators. Even that had made his head hurt, and he gave up. Now… although it wasn’t entirely Computer-related, he actually understood it!

So, truly, nothing is difficult if you put your heart into it, it just depends on whether you want to use it and learn.

The trickiest programming part took Zheng Yichen a whole week to finish, including the checking part, removing those incorrect connections!

“This really isn’t a corpse you dissected, is it?” Lily looked at the skinless human body soaked in a Culture Tank in front of her. Apart from the muscle color being a bit off, too pale, it was almost indistinguishable from a human.

“Stop joking. I stopped dissecting days ago.” Zheng Yichen gently flicked Lily’s head. As for dissection, after collecting enough data, Zheng Yichen immediately stopped. He also checked on the situation at the Castle. Not checking was fine, but checking gave him a shock. In such a short time, dozens of fresh corpses were stored there. So many people liked to court death!

Anyway, he didn’t need them anymore, and there were no Undead Masters at home. Zheng Yichen directly had the Ghost Maids dig a pit and bury all those corpses.

“Why doesn’t it have a little dick? Did you make a female one?” Lily asked after watching for a while.

“Ahem! Because it’s not needed!” Zheng Yichen pulled a long face. Precocious little girls really asked questions without restraint. What’s the use of that thing? Even if it was a simulated thing, there was no transmission of feelings or other factors. After all, this was the initial, first-edition Bionic Alchemical Avatar. Having a body structure almost identical to a human’s was already good enough. Transmission of feelings? Nope! Can’t do it!

In that case, what’s the use of that extra lump… When Zheng Yichen used an Avatar, he primarily felt his own Projection state, not this body. Flaws didn’t matter at all. As for later when he became more powerful, they’d cross that bridge then.

Speaking of the Projection issue for controlling Alchemical Avatars, Zheng Yichen had also asked Irene some questions last time, clearing up his doubts. Since normal people using a Projection Spell easily consumed their Soul, while those Alchemical Avatars Zheng Yichen mostly drove with Projections, didn’t they drain their own Souls doing this?

Irene’s answer was simple… they didn’t use Projections, but these Alchemical Avatars were chosen from materials with characteristics that could bear their mental imprints. Being able to bear this meant having an Alchemical Avatar or not was the same. It sounded a bit strange to Zheng Yichen. This seemed a lot like the ‘refining’ described in Xianxia novels?

Refining some kind of XX immortal artifact or XX dao artifact, imprinting it with your own mark, then you could control it as easily as your own arms and legs.

Zheng Yichen expressed his desire to learn. Irene’s response then was even simpler: Zheng Yichen’s strength wasn’t enough. He needed to increase his Mental Energy by at least five times first.

Five times the Mental Energy… Zheng Yichen recalled the conversation and knocked his own head. His Mental Energy grew quickly, but increasing it to five times the current amount would take no short time.

Time… Compared to the Witches who had lived for hundreds of years easily, Zheng Yichen had only been in the Otherworld for less than two years. Too short.

Not being able to achieve foundation building in a day, abstaining from grains in two, forming a golden core in three… he felt really ashamed.

“Hmm, Bionic Alchemical Avatar trial version, naming… Ugh, so troublesome. Forget it, just Number One is fine.” Zheng Yichen scratched his head. He’d always been bad at naming. Thinking of a good name was just too hard. Keep it simple. If the test succeeded, this area would definitely need vigorous development in the future. Study himself?

Well, Zheng Yichen had such thoughts, but before his own skills reached a sufficiently high level, he better not start this. Starting it, he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to control his hands later. Speaking of which, it would be great if he could find a fresh Dragon Clan corpse…

To be reasonable, if a species like the Dragon Clan, which had clearly evolved more comprehensively, could evolve additional transformative parts, that would be perfect. But thinking about it, this Otherworld was quite realistic. Species changes always involved the weak being assimilated by the strong. It was like modeling clay; being able to pinch it freely meant it was too soft.

Switching to a piece of iron or steel, trying to flexibly mold it into other shapes was too hard. Unless some technology could affect such hard materials at the molecular level, only then might it become even easier to knead than something like modeling clay.

Checking the state of this Bionic Alchemical Avatar, after cultivation, most of the rejection caused by the hard Alchemical material parts had been eliminated. The active body parts all came from Magical Beasts, so they wouldn’t be overly eroded or affected when joined with Enchanted Material. However, growing together was impossible.

The rejection came from these junction points. After all, the operation of the ‘internal organs’ and ‘blood’ flow inside the Bionic Alchemical Avatar had to rely on the Alchemical parts to drive them. As for the blood, it was indeed blood, but Zheng Yichen had prepared it; most of it was nutrient fluid, specifically circulating to replenish the consumption of those active parts.

For replenishment, there was spatial expansion inside the Alchemical bones. Whenever the ‘blood’ flowing in the blood vessels was consumed, the heart would pump out new blood to refill it. Hmm, artificial blood production…

With many such designs, this Bionic Alchemical Avatar was not 100% close to a Human, but maybe 60-70% internally close was about right. Externally? Once the skin was applied, who the heck could tell? Except for the lack of a little dick when undressed…

“Then why not directly make it female?” Loris asked. “Wouldn’t that reduce the chance of discovery?”

“Uh, what about the chest?”

“Flat is fine too.” Loris’s tone remained even, pointing at the pectoral muscles of this still skinless Bionic Alchemical Avatar. “What you made here could completely be replaced with female chest muscle structure. Being a bit flat wouldn’t be a problem.”

“But the problem is this dragon is male. Even if I can’t feel the body’s condition when using it, I’d still feel weird in my heart.”

“Too young.” Loris said calmly and didn’t say anything more. Zheng Yichen stewed for a while, silently considering Loris’s words in his mind. This Bionic Alchemical Avatar could now pretty much ignore most Detection Magic spells, but a problem arose: if it encountered some simple Detection Magic, like spells that only detected the target’s appearance state, then trouble could easily happen.

Ugh, a major redesign is too troublesome. Guess I’ll add something down below.

On the day before the admission test deadline on Lily’s admission notice, Zheng Yichen finally completed most steps for the Bionic Alchemical Avatar. He also patched up all the bugs he could find. Whether there were new ones, he’d discover them during actual use. Now it was finally ready for use!