Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 847 Alpha Gene
One or two soft lights hitting the ground will not produce any changes, but when hundreds of soft lights hit the same position at the same time, it is like sunlight focused by a convex lens, and it will instantly "burn" a coin-sized hole on the ground.
Yeger immediately heard a series of "gurgling" sounds, and within a few seconds, inky black sea water emerged from the hole. Then, the entire space began to tremble, and the ground began to show signs of tilting to one side.
Yeager suddenly felt suffocated. He wanted to ask Wilson what he was doing, but he couldn't speak directly. Before he had time to write on the tablet, Wilson started running towards the high wall not far away.
Yeger had no choice but to follow closely.
After running a few steps, Yeger discovered something very strange - although the ground was tilting towards the side of the pool, the high wall was gradually flattening, and the angle between it and the horizontal plane was becoming smaller and smaller.
Assuming that this high wall and the ground were at a fixed 90-degree angle, as the ground tilted toward the pool, the wall should have moved to the top of Yeger's head and become the new ceiling. But now, it was like a piece of cardboard folded at 90 degrees that was slowly flattening.
Finally, when the angle between the high wall and the ground reached almost 180 degrees, Wilson and Yeager "climbed" up the high wall one after another. Yeager looked back and saw that the sea water coming out of the hole had merged with the sea water that had flooded in due to the tilt of the ground, and was flooding towards this direction.
As for the dilapidated "Zokog Kai", it had sunk to the bottom of the pool and disappeared without a trace.
Wilson did not stop, so Yeager could only continue running forward with him.
…
…
Inside the Tower of Babel...or rather, in the underwater city "City No. 2".
Ke Lan and Sanshisan have searched three medium-sized city block ruins. During this period, they were attacked by underwater creatures a total of fifteen times. Without exception, the genetic sequences of these creatures that attacked the two were very similar to Yinglong.
From another perspective, these creatures can be considered distant relatives of the prehistoric species, and they are not the type that are so distantly related that they cannot be related .
Humans and chimpanzees are close relatives in species science, with a genetic similarity of nearly 99%, while dolphins, which are also mammals, have a genetic similarity of more than 80%... According to Ze Luo's analysis, the genetic similarity between these sea creatures and the monster "Seraphim" that evolved from Yinglong's egg ranges from 95% to 97%. According to the "kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species" classification method of human civilization biology, these little creatures that were casually strangled to death by Ze Luo's spatial power can at least be classified into the same "family" as Yinglong's primitive species.
Of course, the premise is that a category can be created specifically for the prehistoric species in this system... But the problem is that the biological classification method generally classifies organisms based on external factors such as appearance and habits. When this concept was proposed, genetics was not as developed as it is today...
But the most important point is that, generally speaking, the higher the genetic similarity between two organisms, the greater the similarity in appearance, body structure, and living habits. These two attributes are positively correlated, so even after the gradual development of genetics, it did not bring about any major changes to biological classification.
The problem lies in the Honghuang species - there is a research report in the Research Institute. Although the authors are just a few junior researchers who have just been promoted, and the highest title of the organizers and instructors is only associate professor, due to the special nature of the topic, the confidentiality level of this report is not low. It was only after Ke Lan became a formal member of the Undead Crew that he accidentally glanced at it while searching for information.
The report does not contain much content. I don’t know if it is because the research is not in-depth enough or it is interfered with by external factors. The content of the report seems a bit vague. In short, it can be summed up in one sentence: the genetic sequences of the existing, known, and observable species are highly similar.
Ke Lan knew very well what the words "highly similar" meant when spoken by a researcher.
The relationship between the primitive species may be even closer than that between humans and chimpanzees.
But this report was ultimately not made public, and was not even published on the institute's internal public website - this is not a big deal, for any normal person with a little basic biological knowledge would have the first reaction to this report being nonsense... After all, the differences between the prehistoric species are so great that it is unconvincing to say that they are close relatives at the genetic level.
What's more, this report does not record in detail which primitive species samples the research team took, what the conditions of the samples were, and under what conditions and in what ways the comparison was conducted... There is no data at all, just one conclusion, just like a student taking a math test, who did not write down any problem-solving process, but only filled in an answer at the end.
Even if the answer is guessed right, it will still make people feel unconvincing, not to mention...
The answer given by this research team is like writing a three after a question asking what one plus one equals.
But after reading this report, Ke Lan couldn't help but think of a story that once appeared in ancient Chinese mythology...
"A dragon gives birth to nine sons, each one is different."
Perhaps, these primitive species are really the same species... who knows.
In addition to this report, Ke Lan also discovered a new term in the internal documents of the institute, called the "Alpha Gene". This is a gene that only exists in the primitive species and the indigenous creatures of Alpha Star. The "Alpha Gene" cannot be found at all in the genetic sequence of organisms on Earth .
As carbon-based life forms, the native creatures of Alpha Planet actually have many similarities with creatures on Earth, but the only thing that is unique to them is this "Alpha gene".
Many people have tried to "hybridize" the native creatures of Alpha with those of Earth, but the vast majority have failed, with only a few successful examples. However, these successful examples all have one thing in common, that is, there is no "Alpha gene" in the genetic sequence of the newly born "hybrid species."
As long as the "alpha gene" exists in the gene sequence, the fertilized egg cannot even form an embryo.
The only pity is that the institute failed to obtain the genetic samples of the Alpha people, so it is impossible to determine whether the "Alpha gene" exists in the Alpha people. In addition, the "symbiont" experiment is completely under the control of the Undead Crew, and the institute is not allowed to intervene, so the institute has not made any breakthrough progress in the research of the "Alpha gene".
Ke Lan didn't even know whether this "Alpha gene" existed in his body.
There is another short paper about the "Alpha Gene" . The gist of the article is that the "Alpha Gene" originated from the primitive species, and the "Alpha Gene" occupies a very high proportion in the genetic sequence of the primitive species. As for why the indigenous creatures on Alpha Star will carry some "Alpha Gene" to a greater or lesser extent, it is because the ecology of this planet has been permanently "polluted" by the primitive species.
According to the article, the "Alpha Gene" named after the planet is not actually a native thing on Alpha, but an "outsider".
Ke Lan also remembered one thing. For tens of thousands of years, the native creatures on Alpha Star had not shown any obvious signs of evolution or mutation, as if their genes were "locked". For this reason, there was once a saying that "Alpha Star is actually a large biological testing ground"...
Now that I think about it, this seemingly absurd statement seems to have some truth to it...
What about the Alpha Civilization? Assuming this is correct, what role did they play?
Is he the creator of the test site? Or the manager? Or the observer? Or... the experimental subject?
…
Ke Lan was thinking about these things while walking through the ruins, and didn't even notice that Thirty-Three had stopped.
"Ke Lan, I sensed a large mass of Nino alloy again." Thirty-Three said.
"Large mass? Could it be the scattered parts from those modified warships?" Ke Lan asked.
"No, it's much bigger than that...unless, unless the entire battleship sinks here." Thirty-Three shook his head, his facial muscles tense, and his eyes filled with a look of excitement and nervousness.
"Could it be that the main body of a 'Zhenhai-class' cruiser sank here?" Ke Lan was stunned for a moment. He looked around and continued, "With the scale of this ruin, it is impossible to bury a cruiser, right? Unless..."
Unless you first move the ruins away, dig a pit under the ruins, bury the wreckage of the cruiser, then fill the pit, and finally move the ruins back to their original place...
This kind of thing seems ridiculous just thinking about it.
"Where?" Ke Lan simply stopped thinking about these possibilities and asked directly.
Seeing is believing. No matter how many random thoughts you have in your mind, it is not as reliable as digging it out and taking a look at the real thing.
"It's at twelve o'clock where I'm standing. Thirty-five meters."
The place Thirty-Three was talking about was a relatively large ruin. Although it was relatively large, it was at most equivalent to a collapsed 20-story building. It was absolutely impossible to bury a cruiser.
Ke Lan stepped over the rubble and debris on the ground and walked into the ruins.
"This building looks very different from other ruins." Thirty-three bent down and picked up a piece of debris. "Look, there seem to be many patterns painted on it, as well as words from the Alpha civilization. This piece of debris should have fallen off the wall... Well, it just happens to fit in with this gap in the broken wall... There are also patterns and words on the wall that are almost being worn away."
This building is indeed unique - the architectural style of the underwater city, or in other words, the architectural style of the Alpha civilization, is mainly simple, especially those residential areas and functional buildings used for living. The style is extremely clean and neat, and there are rarely any writings or drawings on the walls - this is why relics with Alpha civilization text can be sold at high prices.
Scarcity makes things valuable. If relics with text on them could be found everywhere in various ruins, then research institutes and various consortiums would not offer such a high purchase price.
But there is one exception.
"This piece of ruins should have been an altar or a temple," said Ke Lan.
"I think so too." Sanshisan nodded in agreement. "Only in religious buildings can you find a large number of documentary relics... These relics have the highest returns, but they are also very dangerous . There are traps everywhere, and hunters who enter them are often dead... In my impression, those large temples are at least B-level relics."
"That's right. And the words written on these walls are all prayers used to praise the 'great gods' they believe in." Ke Lan nodded , "This is an extremely standard religious building."
"Speaking of which, since it has collapsed like this, there shouldn't be any danger, right?" Sanshisan whispered, "Besides, the scale of this 'temple' is not that big..."
Those large temples that "start from level B" are usually super-large buildings or building complexes where a single temple can be counted as a relic, and this "small temple" in front of us should be an affiliated building of an Alpha city. Compared with the temples on Earth, the former is a famous temple in a treasure mountain, a large temple with strong incense, while the latter is a city god temple built next to the vegetable market.
"If there is any danger, it should not pose a threat to us." Ke Lan was still quite confident that Ze Luo was here. As he walked in, he used his big hand condensed by the power of space to flatten the ruins.
Soon he pushed to the position where Thirty-Three said "large mass Nino alloy was sensed", but the problem was, there was nothing there.
"Is it really underground?" Ke Lan was stunned for a moment, and couldn't help but think of the ridiculous scene he had just imagined of burying the battleship in the ground.
"Yeah, underground, and... very big." Thirty-three murmured - after Ke Lan flattened the ruins and the obstacles were cleared away, his perception became even sharper.
"Then... dig three feet into the ground!"
They worked immediately and soon a big pit was dug out. About one meter deep at the bottom of the pit, a round gate made of pure Nino alloy appeared in front of the two men.
"This is what you sensed, right?" Ke Lan said, looking at Thirty-Three.
"Yes... there are words written on this door. What do they mean?"
"Hive."
