Star Rank Hunter

Chapter 297: Up Close and Personal With The Zebra Virus [Part 1]

Thanks to Wheeze, Cillin obtained a lot of data related to the Zebra Virus. Black Viper hadn’t yet arrived to a unified solution, and countless theories were floating in the RAS as well. Long story short, they knew the general direction they should be facing, but not the exact steps to take to reach their goal.

Everyone knows that finding the original virus was critical to the research, but where would they find such a thing? If what Neo said was true—that the original viruses had all mutated already—would they be stuck at this point forever?

Cillin quickly looked through all the information he obtained. Although Neo’s assumption was logical, he was the one who had to make up his own mind and choose a solution.

The people of Black Viper were geniuses in this regard; he would never be able to come up with some of the solutions they thought up. In the end though, all these solutions needed to be tested for their effectiveness. Besides that, Cillin came to realize that many of these people had changed their original solution after they were infected by the Zebra Virus. These researchers usually had weak constitutions, natural disabilities or incurable sicknesses, so they all died not long after they were infected. Before they died, they left behind many precious and accurate records that were incredibly beneficial to the research of the virus. Although their loss of life were much bigger than the RAS, the gains were also proportional.

It was data they had exchanged with their life.

After he was done reading, Cillin spent some time to organize his thoughts. Black Viper had contributed at least a thousand types of detailed proposals, while the RAS contributed three main ways to solve this. He mixed them together and began simulating experiments inside his mind. It was an exhausting task to say the least, and one that almost no one could believe was possible. After all, how could a human parallelly simulate over a thousand types of proposals in their heads solve them in just a short time?

Whenever a simulation reached an end, a solution was filed away as usable or discarded. The discarded solution wasn’t necessarily wrong, it was just impossible to carry out within a short time. Neo’s proposed solution was one such example. Even if the Zebra Virus could be cured in three hundred days, the death toll would’ve reached an astronomical number.

Therefore, Cillin only picked out the parts he thought he could use and set them aside. He would then evaluate their feasibility, combine them and create an ultimate solution.

It was the only choice. Someone had to compile these data, and people like Neo would never accept another person’s viewpoint or give up their own to support others.

Wheeze watched Cillin with extreme displeasure as he worked. It missed the days at GAL where all he did was steal food from Cary’s cabinet, patrol its territory and bully its squadmates from time to time. No one cared if it went on a rampage during a mission, and there were no nobles to tell it what not to do because it belonged to one of the four…

On the ground, Wheeze sighed deeply when it thought up till this point. Cillin just couldn’t not deal with this virus even though it was so dangerous! Why did he even bother when someone would deal with it eventually? At worst some more people would die, that’s all.

Wheeze didn’t care if a bunch of people he didn’t know perished, vice versa. Sure, it was a selfish cat, but so what? Whoever said it was wrong to be selfish? And why would it care if someone told it being selfish was wrong?

A long time later, Cillin opened his eyes and looked at Wheeze lying dispiritedly on the ground. He grabbed it by the stomach and started walking outside.

“Where are we going?” Wheeze asked weakly. Its tail was lowered, and its eyes were half-open.

“Black Viper.”

“I don’t wanna!!” Wheeze struggled out of Cillin’s grasp and lay low on the ground. It looked positively immovable.

“You’re really not going?” Cillin didn’t move from his spot.

“No! Not even if I’m dead!”

“Then I’ll go there myself.”

“...”

In the end, Wheeze chose to follow Cillin before he went far, but Cillin’s pants was spaghettified again as a result. Not only that, it was in such a foul mood that even the fish biscuits Cillin offered it was… touched as a matter of course, but it never spoke or looked at him throughout the process.

Cillin spoke to Gen Xingming and co. before he left. Although he didn’t tell them the real reason, he subtly hinted that they should return immediately to their homes immediately after the wedding. While the three princes were a bit too playful for their own good, they always knew when to turn serious. That was why they all decided to do as Cillin said even though they didn’t give him a response at the time.

After bidding Gen Xingming and the others goodbye, Cillin walked to the parking lot with Wheeze between his arms. He was surprised to find someone waiting for him already.

“Gleason Dodge!” Cillin said. Clearly, the boy had been watching them all this time, and he decided to wait for them here after seeing that they were about to leave.

As usual, Gleason Dodge was surrounded by a tonne of bodyguards: Overt, covert, visible, invisible. It was pretty crazy.

“Are you heading to the eleventh star region to find a solution?” Dodge asked.

“How do you know about the virus?” Cillin was surprised Dodge’s knowledge. It also proved that Dodge was connected to the heart of the Gleason Family, or there was no way he would know about the virus.

“The core of the upper nobles was already informed. The news hasn’t been spread yet because the emperor had ordered a temporary lockdown.” Dodge investigated Cillin before, so he wasn’t surprised that the disciple of Guan Feng and a close friend of the Gen Family would know about this.

“In that case, why are you waiting for me? I’m sorry for my impoliteness, but as you can see I’m in a hurry. Please tell me what you want directly.” Cillin wasn’t afraid to clash against Dodge even if the boy did find out that they were the ones who spied on him last time.

But Gleason Dodge shook his head. “I’m not here to look for trouble. I just want to inform you that this planet is a good place to start if you’re really looking for a solution at the eleventh star region.”

Gleason Dodge brought up a star map of the eleventh star region and pointed at a planet.

“I was at the eleventh star region before the virus appeared there. However, an ion storm and terrible magnetic field interference caused by a solar flare anomaly forced me to alter my original course. But I know of a planet in that area that was affected by the solar flare the most.”

“You’re saying that that planet may have something to do with the virus? When did you pass by that area?” Cillin asked.

Dodge told him the date, it was pretty close to the date the patrol discovered the virus. It wasn’t far away from the planet the virus was originally discovered, but it wasn’t close enough to be suspected as ground zero either.

“What made you think that the solar flare has something to do with this?” Cillin asked again. Dodge’s guess was as good as blind. Unusual solar flares happened all the time, but none had ever resulted in a virus outbreak until now.”

“It’s just a guess. I don’t care if you believe me or not.”

Cillin paused for a second before asking a different question, “Is there anything else you wish to say?”

Dodge glanced at the dispirited Wheeze on his shoulder and asked, “Have I seen you both before?”

“What do you think?”

“... Never mind.” Dodge turned around and beckoned his people to leave.

“Thank you for your information,” Cillin said. But Dudge didn’t turn around or even react to his thanks.

“Tsk, look at him acting all cool and stuff!” Wheeze vented.

After Cillin entered the spaceplane, he rubbed the gray cat’s round head and said, “Alright, be good. Once this matter is settled, I’ll go to Xi Kai and see if we can find out how Sigma’s companions were able to travel across star systems. If everything goes smoothly, we’ll head back to GAL and check out how everyone’s doing.”

“Really?” Wheeze’s ears perked up, and its eyes was shining.

“Of course.”

“Liars will turn into feces!”

“Yep, liars will turn into feces.”

“Pinky swear!” Wheeze raised its front paw and extended a nail.

Cillin: “...”

He did as Wheeze said and shook its nail twice. Then, he started the spaceplane and left the planet.

Not long after Cillin and Wheeze was gone, a robot appeared where the spaceplane was parked.

“Leader Feng, he’s gone.”