CHAPTER 1080: CHAPTER 89: DETERIORATION

Faced with Jeanne’s inquiry, Tumor Xiang Shan was silent for a moment, then said, "I am thinking about the matters of His Highness Godspeed King. You used to work under that old fellow, Hartman; have you heard anything about the Swift Army? Like, hmm, lists of senior officers or something?"

Jeanne shook her head: "I know nothing about it. The Swift Army is not in the same sequence as the other Gene Bank defense forces. Even the Scientific Knight Order, which conducts frontier physics research at the Godspeed Court, isn’t in the same sequence as those on Mars. His Highness Conquest Heavenly King, who oversees the Scientific Knights, and the Great Knight Commander of the Sanctuary of the Saints, can’t manage the Scientific Knights at the Godspeed Court either."

The Godspeed Court stands as its own entity, so there’s little information about it.

Tumor Xiang Shan remained silent.

Jeanne asked, "Are you interested in the list of the Swift Army? Why?"

Xiang Shan paused in silence and then said, "I am pondering the name of that Swift Army sergeant, Palmer... Is this merely a coincidence?"

"Is there a... problem?"

"Well." Tumor Xiang Shan sighed, "Do you know what His Highness Godspeed King used to do in the old times?"

"What did he do?"

"He was an anti-war social activist." Tumor Xiang Shan showed a recollective expression. "Haya Veight ran several non-profit organizations, opened welfare homes and schools in his hometown. He also widely collected stories from his homeland and other war-torn areas, spreading those stories worldwide. He hoped the world would remember these stories so that war would never happen again. Although he is Yog... the foster son of that Yawgmoth, the Father of Machines, who was always very busy, he learned more from me—in fact, I’ll admit, his organizational style is based on my example. Although I spent more time with Kotoba, Haya imitated me the most. He did it successfully. Not all of his funding came from me and His Majesty the Father of Machines."

Xiang Shan rattled off many unusual words that Jeanne had never heard before. Yet, unexpectedly, Jeanne understood them smoothly.

"Then, he had his own team, mostly war orphans. Due to Haya’s influence, these people became early volunteers for gene modification surgery."

Jeanne nodded: "I see. That Swift Army sergeant is an old cultivator, then? No wonder he’s so strong."

"Impossible." Tumor Xiang Shan shook his head, "It’s not possible. That early Benchmark Man named Palmer was assassinated."

"Uh?"

"Palmer isn’t an especially rare name. Perhaps it’s just a coincidence. But I can’t help but ponder—would that kid Haya actually take the names of his very first partners and pass them as some sort of honorary titles, generation after generation? Are the strongest in the Swift Army always named Palmer, Freyr, or Morgan or something?"

Xiang Shan sighed heavily again: "In that case, that kid’s mental state is quite concerning too. Could he be another madman?"

"Yikes! Passing down dead people’s names from generation to generation? That possibility is quite..." Jeanne didn’t know how to describe it.

Xiang Shan sighed again: "By the way, you also make people worry, girl."

"Uh?"

"Haven’t you noticed yet? You’re dreaming, girl." Tumor Xiang Shan waved his hand.

Jeanne looked down in confusion, and then she saw her own hands. They were the hands of a Natural Person.

Since she was twelve years old, Jeanne had been progressively increasing her rate of transformation. By the age of eighteen, she was fully cyberized.

For Jeanne, using steel hands had long surpassed the time she’d used flesh-and-blood hands. She had no reason to feel familiar with such hands.

This is...

A dream?

Is it an intervention from Xiang Shan?

"The condition is still developing." Tumor Xiang Shan sighed, "Don’t think you have all the time in the world. Our joint efforts these few times, and yet your condition is still deteriorating."

Jeanne woke up with a start.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t dreamt of Xiang Shan. Before realizing the particular nature of this tumor, she had dreamt of Xiang Shan. But at that time, Xiang Shan was only roaring at her in the dreams.

And now, upon falling into dreams, she was actually...

Communicating?

Jeanne held her head. Once again, she was engulfed by this fear. She had almost forgotten this over the past few days. She had fought alongside Xiang Shan for so long that she trusted him enough to nearly forget that Tumor Xiang Shan was a terminal illness to her.

She imagined the sensation of taking a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down.

And then, she saw Li Zheyuan, who was staring at the progress on a screen.

Li Zheyuan said, "Awake? I must tell you now, haven’t you been making good connections with the Neutral City-State? It’s time to think of a way to establish a laboratory. Outsourcing projects to a Neutral City-State merchant is not a permanent solution."

In the City of Ur, Li Zheyuan did have a small laboratory. For experiments that couldn’t be done, he would commission neutral city-state commercial organizations. Many pharmaceutical workshops would delegate similar projects to third-party agencies. Behind these agencies, some were pharmaceutical organizations looking to spread risk. Occasionally, there were even fallen Order of Knights members, disguised, trying to steal scientific inspirations from their neutral city-state peers.

Li Zheyuan was long out of sync with the era, yet a few centuries back, he was the top scientist. Moreover, he had an advantage that others didn’t possess—the genetic backdoor for Benchmark Men, which he designed.

Li Zheyuan knew the neurochemical significance of most specific chemical structures to the brains of Benchmark Men, he knew which receptor would likely be activated on neuron surfaces by certain molecules, what pathways they would illuminate internally, or what signals they would transmit.

In this regard, Yawgmoth didn’t match him.

Li Zheyuan could simply combine that knowledge to obtain "drugs that might produce certain effects." He would select some for third-party lab institutions to study and verify, then get the finished drug formulas, and then manufacture them in his small-scale workshop.

Nowadays, Li Zheyuan didn’t care if anyone stole his research results anymore. His earlier plan was to create an entire pharmaceutical system required for the cultivation of Martial Artists. He still held some exclusive synthesis routes, capable of synthesizing more potent or stable, safer drugs. Li Zheyuan once regarded these as his source of livelihood.

Jeanne shook her head, saying she would find a way as soon as possible.

At that moment, another message from Asgard came in: "Someone is trying to contact you through the Hermo Association’s channels. They didn’t specify the content, but... the Hermo Association did help us before, so do you want to meet them?"