The Martial Unity

One of his greatest concerns was the environment when he was undergoing such a profound change. He couldn’t just do things like replacing half his body with evosapien physiology out in the open. Such a procedure was bound to compromise his immune system and other systems in his body to a great degree, such that contamination and infections were an inevitable part of the process for him.

There was no crew, but once he informed the director he intended to make use of the cocoon-like medical chamber, he was sure that he would get the best doctors and medical specialists at hand overseeing his transformation.

He generally preferred absolute isolation for his training, but this time, it was worth it to go with a medical team on standby to save his life in case things turned for the worse.

What he was attempting was as extreme as the Body Evolution process of the Squire Realm. He couldn’t take any chances as he was gambling with his life and things even more important to him than his life, such as his identity and Path.

“Alright, now I need to flesh out a proper plan and path forward for this radical change.”

Unlike a lot of his lesser projects, like with pluripotent matter, he couldn’t afford to just jump in with this one. Once he started, the risks of something going wrong in an incomplete state were too high. This time, he needed to have extreme clarity and direction at each step of the process.

“I also need to have contingencies for everything that can go wrong. I will have to spend a lot of time using the Eye of Prophecy to vet these scenarios and create extremely good counter solutions.”

It was at moments like these that the Eye of Prophecy showed why it made the entire world chase after the Silas Clan to get their hands on it. He could avoid blunders and dead-ends, as well as highly risky paths, thanks to this technique and pursue the most successful paths.

“The first step will be due to the thymus-evosapien integration that the Divine Doctor told me about.”

The thymus was the organ that trained the immune system on what stuff was a part of the system that was not supposed to be attacked. Rui needed to add the evosapien cell to that organ to train new T-cells and teach them that evosapien cells were a part of the body and not an alien enemy.

He sat cross-legged at the center of the chamber, directing his attention inwards towards the thymus, which was situated between the lungs under the trachea.

It was a small organ, no more than a gland. He observed it in depth with the help of his powerful senses and his Martial Soul.

Within its depths, the white blood cells were directed along what resembled a hurdle race or a training marathon. They were pulled from site to site and were subject to different kinds of cells within the human body.

Bit by bit, these T-cells, which lacked their receptors, slowly learned to develop receptors that could identify friendly cells and distinguish them from foreign agents.

Those that failed and attacked the friendly cells were killed as faulty cells. Those who passed all tests were regarded as fit for service and immediately commenced their immune system duties within their bodies.

“Interesting…” Rui murmured as he continued studying the thymus in depth with a curious expression. “If I had to integrate a new evosapien cell into this organ, I can’t just throw it in.”

The organ was quite small in the first place, meaning it truly didn’t have excess space. There was no room for an additional testing site to add his evosapien cell.

“I definitely can’t replace one of those testing sites with an evosapien cell.”

That would make whatever was previously there no longer something T-cells were trained to avoid. He would develop an autoimmune disease where his own immune system was attacking him.

“I will need to modify my thymus a little,” Rui concluded. “Modify the organ as a whole and make it larger to include an evosapien cell.”

Modifying an organ to include new functions was beyond most people, but for a Martial Sage, especially one like Rui, it was well within the realm of possibility. After all, that was precisely how someone like Sage Zentra functioned. His Martial Path was deeply compatible with the Sage Realm, which allowed him to do all kinds of wacky things with his Martial Body.

Rui could and didn’t need to go that far, but he certainly could modify an organ.

He immediately began, activating his Realms of power and using his Martial Soul to exert indirect control over the thymus. The subconscious mind that ran the body had great control over much of the minutiae that the conscious mind didn’t bother with. With the Martial Soul, he could use electrical and chemical signals to cause changes to occur within the thymus, making it so that if it were to be harmed, it would regenerate and heal in a different way compared to before.

Then, he redirected his gu towards the thymus, just chipping away at it a little, causing some damage to occur at the boundary of the organ. He used his Martial Soul to make sure that the damage remained highly limited.

Then, he triggered the healing of the gland, causing it to grow back what it had lost.

Except, it was different.

He added the evosapien stem cell to the healing part, while ensuring that it touched the training path that all T-cells went through, so that they would be exposed to the evosapien stem cell as they went through it.

The process took half an hour as Rui chose absolute care and caution over expedience, ensuring that he almost sculpted the thymus gland back to perfect health.

When it was set, he watched with excitement as baby T-cells were ushered towards the evosapien stem cell, touching and interacting with it before learning that this strange alien cell was a ’friend’ too.