Chapter 73: Chapter 70 Conners’ New Assistant

John’s memo was simple:

1. Dr. Conners invites you to discuss in detail at the laboratory.

2. The chip foundry on the other side of Earth wishes to further discuss collaboration.

3. Chief Stacy invites you to attend a small official meeting.

As for which to prioritize, that was a no-brainer—of course it had to be Dr. Conners’s side, since this was a matter of life and death.

Upon arriving at the Empire State University once again, there were even more young people on campus, probably because the school year was about to begin.

When Lille walked into the laboratory, he coincidentally saw a man in a suit—corporate lackey!—leaving the premises.

The two exchanged glances but nothing more.

Before entering, Lille overheard a young voice from inside.

"...Professor Conners, was that from the Osborne Group? You refused their invitation?"

The speaker was a boy who appeared about Lille’s age, wearing glasses and looking like the typical "nerd that gets bullied" stereotype.

Dr. Conners, examining some data at the side, said, "Peter, you have to understand that all gifts come with a price, especially from powerful and influential people like them."

Thump thump.

Although the door was open, Lille still knocked.

Professor Conners frowned at the sound of knocking, but his expression immediately softened when he saw Lille.

Dr. Conners walked briskly towards Lille:

"Oh! Lille! You’re here! Just like I thought! The DNA of the Lesser Antillean iguana is perfect for insertion into other reptiles’ DNA!"

He immediately took Lille over to a computer.

The nearby blackboard was covered in a dense array of calculations—unlike in the Cyberpunk World, the computers here were still slightly imperfect.

Some of the models that needed adjustments had to be manually tweaked by the researchers—especially Dr. Conners, whose computer skills were relatively subpar.

Unlike ordinary university doctors and professors, he had been a military doctor and only studied molecular biology after his service. His computer skills were just passable, and he barely managed to complete the model simulations with the help of both man and machine.

"I’ve calculated it several times. DNA insertion in these iguanas is the most efficient: it requires the fewest codons to be inserted, the least number of incisions needed, and the lowest redundancy.

The survival rate is over ten times better than our previous best results, with the highest rate of survivability at 96.5%! I am still looking for a solution with even lower redundancy, but with this probability, we can already start attempting to cultivate transgenic iguanas!"

Numerically, it looked perfect indeed.

The problem was, Lille understood the algorithm but had no idea how it was derived.

Mathematically there were no issues—the pressure now shifted to him. It wasn’t feasible to use Technology Points to send the iguana over, was it?

That thing weighed 3.2 kilograms. Where would he get so many Points on his own?

And whether a living creature could be transported was another matter entirely.

So Lille straightened up, revealing a warm smile, "Congratulations, Doctor, our research has made new progress—

But who might this be?"

Lille turned his attention to the boy, though he already had a notion in his mind.

Conners paused for a moment, then remembered his excitement and introduced the boy.

"Oh... apologies, I’ve been a bit too excited—it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you. This is Peter Parker, my newly recruited assistant.

He will be attending Empire State University next year—Peter, this is Lille Lee, my collaborator."

"Hello, Peter, please call me Lille."

"Pleased to meet you, Lille. Professor Conners has been very eager to share these results with you."

The two shook hands, and Peter was friendly, with a hint of shyness.

After shaking hands, Lille asked, "That was someone from Osborne earlier?"

"Yes," Conners nodded, "they even tried to convince me to accept investment, but I refused. Speaking of which, our next phase of experiments will require a lot of money.

I don’t know why, but they’ve been approaching me more and more frequently—even though I heard they’ve already sponsored another university’s research team."

Peter muttered from the side, "But Professor, we merely need to accept the sponsorship from the Osborne Group..."

"Peter," Dr. Conners called out his name with a touch of helplessness, "it’s complicated, can you please work on today’s data over there for a while?"

"Sure, Doctor."

After Peter left, Conners continued, "Now let’s talk about the next step and the funding for our experiments—there’s a small biosafety lab here, BSL-2 level, meeting the requirements for genetic editing.

The current issue is, the lab hasn’t been used for a while and needs some maintenance—inspection, renovation, equipment replacement...

I’ve made a list of the project needs, excluding the iguana, and it’s going to cost roughly between 200,000 and 350,000 US dollars."

Seeing the bill, Lille was hit with a wave of concern.

"To be honest, this is already a great deal, since Dr. Conners handled the biggest cost, the venue fee."

"The more troublesome thing is," Dr. Conners continued, "the TALEN editing technology might not meet our needs. The Osborne Group hinted that they’ve used a new technology."

"So, if we really start the experiments, we may need to find a new genetic editing method."

"But if that’s the case... it’ll be a bottomless pit."

"About that, I’ll figure something out. Let’s start with renovating the lab—how long will that take, roughly?"

"I’m not sure about that, but it shouldn’t take more than a month." Conners hesitated for a moment, "I’ll have the engineering team speed things up."

On one hand, searching for a better gene-editing solution, and on the other, building the lab.

But how much longer does Lille have to live?

Hard to say.

Over in the Marvel World, the most recent medical report didn’t include all those fancy implanted prosthetics in Lille, generally estimating he might have 4-6 months left.

"That would be best, of course, but Doctor, I have something good here—take a look at this computer’s performance, do you think it would be helpful?"

Lille had brought back many treasures on this trip, one of which was to address the problem of outdated computer performance.

High-performance computers are expensive, but Lille could design his own chips—even make them by hand if necessary.

Chips from the year 2077 with a new architecture, fabricated using a 28 nanometer process.

This chip’s energy efficiency, operation efficiency, and frequency all far exceed the performance of chips from the same era—it’s worth noting that the most advanced chips in 2011 were only at a 32 nanometer process, which wouldn’t even be released for a few more months.

Of course, this place’s foundry level is not limited to 28 nanometers, but these things have to be done step by step.

"This... A better computer would certainly help, but are there computers like this on the market?"

"There will be soon." As he spoke, Lille scratched his left hand, "Professor, do you have any immunosuppressive drugs and anti-inflammatory medication?"

Conners was taken aback, then nodded.

...

Lille’s body temperature was high—

He was supposed to take three of the immunosuppressive drugs prescribed by old Wade every day, otherwise he’d end up like this.

Inflammation causes the body to heat up, skin itchiness, rapid breathing, even slight swelling.

The good news is, immunosuppressive drugs exist in 2011 too, they’re just much weaker than those in the Cyberpunk World.

At worst, he’d just have to take more.

Dr. Conners watched as Lille swallowed the pills like they were candy; he was completely dumbfounded—

"Lille, don’t do anything rash!!"

"I’m not being rash." Lille drank a glass of water. Maybe it was a placebo effect, but he felt a lot better.

"You... "

"You know, body problems, serious health issues mean taking a lot of medicine."

Lille acted completely normal and didn’t plan on explaining any further.

Cyberpunk stuff, Conners didn’t need to know too much.

As he said this, he injected himself with another dose of anti-inflammatory medication.

Conners swallowed hard.

He had thought his own tendency for human experiments was abnormal, unhealthy, but Lille had convinced him not to.

But now it seemed... could this kid actually be the expert?

This scene also left Peter, who was nearby, dumbfounded—was this even human?

"Alright, I have to go now, Professor. Here’s hoping we succeed."

"You... let’s hope we succeed. Be careful when you leave—are you here alone?"

"I came by myself." Lille stood up and couldn’t help but notice the phone in front of the dazed Peter.

This kid, messing around on his phone while working in the lab.

"Peter—what are you looking at?" 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

Peter snapped out of it and quickly covered the phone on his desk, scratching his head sheepishly.

"Uh... you know, online videos."

But Lille had seen it, the video’s title read "Spiderman."

The kid was quite vain.

Lille looked meaningfully at the skinny guy in glasses—the one whose muscular build was not at all apparent, even though a prosthetic eye should have revealed that his muscle mass was clearly above average.

Could it be that the movies didn’t make it clear that Spiderman actually had a superpower to hide his abilities?