Chapter 92: The Problem of Clones

Regarding the issue of cloning, Lin Lei thought it over again and again. In the end, he decided to go find Lucius and ask him directly. This guy had been around the galaxy for so long; he must know some inside information. It was certainly better than him figuring things out blindly on his own.

As the captain of the spaceship, Lucius was usually in the main control room. Finding him was easy, but these issues could not be discussed in public places.

So, the two of them drove their Suspension Car to the Starry Corridor of the spaceship. Now, this place was completely deserted. The Earthlings on the spaceship did not have time to admire the starry sky yet.

“Hey, Lei, why did you call me here? Although the starry sky is beautiful, I’ve been watching it for decades. I feel nothing anymore.” In the Starry Corridor of this Class B civilian spaceship, there was not a single person. Even the light information collectors were missing.

Lin Lei coughed a few times and said somewhat unnaturally, “Of course, I have something that needs your help. You are the only one on this spaceship who can help me.”

“Oh, tell me about it?”

“Do you know of any places in the galaxy that provide cloning services for intelligent creatures? Preferably ones that can handle large-scale operations.” Lin Lei said in a low voice, staring at the starry sky.

Lucius fell silent. He stroked his chin and thought for a long time before saying, “What scale are we talking about?”

Since he asked this, it meant he naturally had connections. Lin Lei felt happy in his heart, but his face showed no signs of it. Not even the tone of his voice changed: “Three hundred thousand! Is that a problem?”

Currently, there were a little over 710,000 humans in total. There were over 500,000 males, but fewer than 200,000 female s. At least 300,000 were needed to balance the ratio.

Lucius sucked in a cold breath. He turned his head and looked at Lin Lei in surprise: “Lei, are you crazy? Thirty thousand is enough to form a legion. If the Star Alliance finds out, although they cannot destroy the cloned intelligent creatures, both you and I, as well as the interstellar company providing the cloning service, would suffer misfortune for eight lifetimes.”

Uh, if Lucius said so, it seemed that 300,000 was considered large-scale. Lin Lei was prepared in his heart, so his face still showed no ripples: “I didn’t want to form a legion. The ones I want to clone are all female humans. As long as their bodies and heads are normal, it’s fine. There is no need to input any special programs. In short, I just want their behavioral patterns to be infinitely close to those of natural humans.”

Lucius became a little nervous. He looked left and right in the Starry Corridor. Only after making sure no one was around did he answer in a low voice: “Even so, 300,000 is too many. As far as I know, in the Third Arm of the Galaxy, almost every interstellar civilization has underground organizations providing this type of service. The ones I know and can connect you with number four, belonging to Orlantis and Apocalypse respectively.”

“So many? It seems the Star Alliance doesn’t manage this aspect very strictly. I have one more biggest requirement. The genes of every female cloned person must be different. They must be as close as possible to the genes of natural humans. Is there a problem with this?”

Lucius said with a difficult expression: “I’m not clear about this aspect. I can only introduce you to them. You have to talk to them specifically. But as far as I know, such clones are very expensive because they cannot be mass-produced. Each one is unique, costing at least several hundred Galactic Universal Currency.”

Crap, wouldn’t this drain all my savings? Lin Lei gritted his teeth and said, “Then please bridge the connection for me. I will go talk to them myself.”

Lucius felt a huge weight lifted off his shoulders. He said solemnly to Lin Lei, “I am just an intermediary. Once you contact them, hide me. If the matter is exposed, you might be fine, but I will certainly have to go to the Star Alliance’s prison to receive education for over two years. And after getting out, I will have to face punishment from the Orlantis Star. The permissions on the Galaxy Network will also be stripped down to the bottom. Then I will be doomed.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t implicate you. After the matter is successful, I will set up a secret account containing 500,000 Galactic Universal Currency. Don’t mind that it’s not much.” Since he was asking someone for a favor, he naturally had to pay a bonus.

As far as Lin Lei knew, although the salary paid to Lucius by the Sapphire Company was high, as the captain of a spaceship from a Ninth-grade Civilization, his annual salary would definitely not exceed 20,000 Galactic Universal Currency. So, the money Lin Lei gave was not small.

Indeed, upon hearing the remuneration, Lucius’s expression improved greatly. He patted his chest: “Don’t come to me for such things next time. I’m old. I can’t handle the excitement.”

Lin Lei sighed and said, “I have no choice. The current situation of my race is really not optimistic. I can only take this desperate measure.”

Lucius nodded, indicating his understanding. He patted Lin Lei’s shoulder and said in a low voice, “Just wait for now. There will be a reply within three days at the latest. By then, we should have reached the triple system of Orlantis.”

After saying this, he got into the Suspension Car and drove away as if fleeing, fearing that he had really been scared by Lin Lei.

…

Three days later, the spaceship arrived in the synchronous space in the outer space of the Orlantis triple system as scheduled, and began transporting Earth Humans to the Chaxula Plateau.

The diameter of the Orlantis triple planet was 14,000 kilometers, slightly larger than Earth. The average density of the celestial body was also slightly higher than that of Earth. The gas composition structure of its atmosphere was very similar to that of Earth’s atmosphere, but the oxygen content was slightly higher, reaching 24%.

The Chaxula Plateau on it was located in the northern temperate zone of the planet, but the latitude was relatively high, close to the northern cold zone. The average temperature was relatively low, which was not favored by the Orlantis People. Therefore, there were fewer native residents of Orlantis in this area, and conflicts basically did not occur.

“To be honest, I am very satisfied with this place. The scenery here reminds me of my home planet, Earth!” Lin Lei sighed and said to Yan Siyu, who was standing next to him.

Yan Siyu had naturally stayed on Earth. To be honest, the Earth of 2020 was actually not that good. Pollution was everywhere, garbage was everywhere. This was a common disease of civilizations that had not yet left their planet and were in rapid development.

But no matter what, Earth was still beautiful. In the eyes of Yan Siyu, an Aostarian, every Life Planet was beautiful, including the Black Prison Star.

“Earth will get better, Lei. I feel that you have a lot on your mind. Can’t you tell me?” Yan Siyu had often seen Lin Lei staring into the Void recently, with his brows often furrowed, which made her feel heartache.

Lin Lei turned and smiled at Yan Siyu: “It’s nothing. Just a new challenge.”

Lucius had already helped Lin Lei contact a biological research company in Orlantis. Coincidentally, the base of this company was on the Orlantis triple planet.

Of course, the so-called biological research company was only a surface disguise. In fact, the company’s biggest business was providing large-scale cloning services. As long as you paid, they would do anything!

Lucius introduced Lin Lei to them and immediately retired, taking the secret account Lin Lei gave him to go and enjoy himself elsewhere. The person who came to handle the business for this company was a thin old man.

Yes, he was indeed very thin and quite short. If not for his silver eyes, Lin Lei would have almost suspected his race.

It seemed that even in high-level civilizations, not everyone was perfect. There would always be a few unqualified products.

Of course, this only referred to appearance. Lin Lei did not dare to underestimate the old man’s shrewdness.

“Sir, is it you who wants to cooperate with us to research the behavioral characteristics of intelligent creatures?”

Well, this purely profit-driven relationship had turned into a noble research activity. Even Lin Lei had to roll his eyes. He was meeting with this cloning company alone this time, so he didn’t have time to use excuses. He got straight to the point: “For the figure of 300,000, under the Rule of the race, the genes must have sufficient randomness, and they must all be female. Give me a price!”

The old man did not expect Lin Lei to be so straightforward. He was stunned for a moment, blinked, and immediately lowered his voice: “300,000 is our maximum output for one year! If we are caught, we will all be in trouble!”

Lin Lei knew this was him trying to raise the price on the spot. Those doing this business, fearing being caught, might as well just go home and farm.

So Lin Lei did not take his words. He directly stated his specific requirements: “300,000 females. It is required that they grow to a physiological age of about 20 years old. During the growth process, continuous information stimulation must be applied to the brain to promote the formation of adult human values and worldview. Can you do it?”

The thin old man was a bit unable to react. He quickly waved his hand to stop Lin Lei from continuing: “Wait, wait. Tell me first what you want to use these 300,000 clones for? If it is for military use, there is no discussion.”

“Of course not for military use. It is for reproducing the race. So I require maximum randomness of genes within the framework! I don’t require perfection, only genetic diversity, making them look more like Earthlings, and able to integrate into Earth Civilization as quickly as possible.”

Lin Lei could not hide these things at all, so he simply told everything.

Seeing that Lin Lei was not joking, the thin old man finally began to consider it seriously. After a long time, he answered, “Everything else is not a problem, but your requirement for genetic randomness within a reasonable framework is very difficult! Because I do not understand Earth Humans, the genes of organisms often trigger chain reactions. Random changes will lead to unpredictable deformities.”

Lin Lei did not expect the problem to be stuck here. He thought for a long time before saying, “My race only has a population of 700,000. The genetic library of the entire race is very scarce. Without the injection of fresh genes, the development potential is limited.”

“Young man, you don’t understand cloning. Even with our technology, we can only allocate on the basis of existing genes, and the success rate is not high. Remember, genes can only be transplanted entirely; we cannot create them out of thin air! At least our technology cannot do that.”

This made Lin Lei depressed. He remained silent and asked the System in his body in his heart, “Do you have a method to create genes? I need extremely excellent gene fragments?”

The System had once changed his genes, and it seemed very successful, so Lin Lei asked this.

“The creation of a gene fragment out of thin air requires 1% of the Level 3 Strengthening reserve as the basis for high-intensity computing, and it must be based on the racial gene library.”

Obtaining the racial gene library was easy. A few days later, when the Star Alliance injected body-regulating nanobots, the gene library of the 700,000 people combined could be obtained.

In that case, Lin Lei said to the thin old man, “Then we can only try our best to achieve randomness. Regarding the gene library of my race, I will give it to you in a few days. You must guarantee to destroy it entirely after the cloning is completed.”

“Of course, this is our business ethics. Then let’s talk about the price. The total price depends on how much of the gene templates we use during cloning. The price of one template is 10,000 Galactic Universal Currency, and subsequently, 100 Galactic Universal Currency is charged for each cloned individual. There is also an information template. One template is 500 Galactic Universal Currency, and 50 Galactic Universal Currency is charged for each input individual. The specific number of templates is decided by you.”

Of course, the more templates, the better. Lin Lei did not want soldiers; he wanted the future mothers of humanity. He currently possessed 200 million Galactic Universal Currency, and the use of templates was certainly better the more the merrier.

Lin Lei quickly calculated in his mind. For 300,000 individuals, it was 45 million. He used 4,000 gene templates, which was 40 million. For the information input templates, this was much cheaper. Lin Lei decided to use 50,000, which was another 25 million. In total, it would cost 110 million Galactic Universal Currency.

From this, it was easy to see that a simple body was not worth much. What determined the value was the uniqueness of the genes and the uniqueness of the thoughts.

“I decide to use 4,000 gene templates and 50,000 information input templates, and require cross-input to maintain diversity. The uniqueness of individuals is the biggest requirement. I don’t want to encounter two identical people some day. Regarding the specific gene information, I will provide it to you as soon as possible.”

The thin old man shrugged and said, “I really don’t understand you. If you only use a set of standard templates, you can save more than half the money. But you are the customer, and I will try to meet your requirements. Remember this address. This is the external reception place of our company. When you go to this location, someone will take you to our production headquarters.”

After giving Lin Lei a communication address, the thin old man left Lin Lei’s spaceship alone.