Adam put his thoughts aside, and said to the devil with a mixed look of a grin and grimace, "We're out of the flesh and blood of your true self. You're gonna transform by yourself, or should I help?"
The devil looked a bit pale and stammered, "I-I'll do it."
Adam gave a happy nod, made the cage bigger with a click, and told the devil to get a move on.
"Master, you said you'd help with my deep-down personality, right?" The devil asked. Its energy was dark and powerful, and it seemed on the brink of losing control.
"Yeah, I did."
Right after Adam spoke, the devil's true self showed up in the cage. The master-servant bond was totally gone. He started slamming into the cage, not noticing the powerful electric jolts frying its body.
Adam stepped up to the cage, put his hand on it, and used an electric net to hold the devil's true self still. After a bunch of symbols flashed, tons of electric blades cut from all around, turning the devil's true self form to a skeleton in seconds. Adam collected the loose bits of flesh and used a lightning bolt to crush its skull.
Two months later, in the underground lab.
Adam had nineteen containers for storing ether next to him. Nineteen chunks of flesh with virus injected in them kept taking energy from the thick ether to survive. The condition of the samples showed that the experiments were going well. In the container marked nineteen, the virus sample was starting to look like a human.
Over the two months, Adam had done nineteen live experiments, each one doing better than the last. Even though the subjects always died, their genes were getting closer to being stable.
"Master, the cells of my true self are too strong for regular people," the devil said while munching on energy stones. "Even a little touch can make their whole body shut down. There's no way to turn people into creatures close to apprentices using them."
Since the devil helped Adam willingly, Adam decided to let him out of the cage. Adam let him move around and sometimes even let it go outside to get some fresh air. He also gave the devil the job of getting live subjects.
"That's why I'm making a virus from the cells. After the tissues of the experimental subject break down, the virus will replace everything and create order. That part's almost done. The only problem left is keeping a stable inside environment. The infected people not only change a bit but also live shorter lives," Adam said as he stuck a needle into a subject's vein.
"Virus attack started."
"Subject partly changed."
"Rewriting genes."
"Virus replaces old cells."
Adam's eyes lit up as he heard these notifications. The subject didn't break down, its body reached beyond level, and it even had the power to fight off changes. The experiment could be called a success at this point. All that was left was rewriting the genes and figuring out the best way to infect before calling it done.
Adam turned off the telekinesis field and subject number twenty suddenly opened his eyes. His eyes were lifeless, with tiny dots of purple light deep within his pupils. He stood still in place.
The devil tossed an energy stone at the subject. Just before it hit, the subject raised his hand to stop the stone.
The devil floated in front of the subject, staring without blinking, looking for any changes. After a few seconds, he said, "Master, he's dead. His soul is gone. Even if this thing can move, it won't be smart enough to do what you want."
Adam put in the last bit of the virus and walked over to the machine to watch the changing data, saying, "They don't need souls, as long as their bodies can stay alive. And I have other ways to give commands."
The devil took a few steps back, feeling a bit scared by the look in Adam's eyes, "What kind of ways?"
Adam thought for a moment, then asked, "After you transformed, was your will replaced or just pushed down?"
This was an important question. If it was pushed down, it meant that the two wills were basically the same, just a mental problem. Adam would have to build a big server and a ton of small information processors to get and organize every message from each virus. This would be a huge project.
But if it was replaced, it meant that the devil and his deep-down personality were two completely different beings. After splitting them apart, Adam could use the link between the mutant virus and the original virus to change the deep-down personality and the body of the complete subject, which would work like a server.
The devil had a moment of clear thinking. He figured out that Adam wanted to solve its problem and got excited, "My will was replaced. That jerk isn't me."
Adam spent three days changing how the virus was spread from through blood to through air. Now, once he solved the problem with the main server, all Adam would have to do was break the container with the virus. The air flowing around would spread the virus, infecting all beings without superpowers on the whole island.
The devil's problem wasn't hard to fix. A small change to the soul splitting magic could split the two minds. At the same time, a low-level magic called Soul Convergence from the School of Immortality could gather the soul energy that was torn and scattered.
Adam didn't know how to do soul splitting, but the devil could copy the magic's effect with negative energy.
"Boss, are you sure nothing bad will happen? I'm tearing my own soul?" The devil lost hope when he heard Adam's plan. He felt like he was killing himself.
Adam answered seriously, "Store negative energy in your will before your transformation and set up a trigger. After you change, activate the energy to separate your will from your true self. As long as you can do this, everything will be fine."
Knowing that it couldn't change Adam's mind no matter what he said, the devil reluctantly stored the energy and hesitantly said, "Master... could you..."
Before the devil could finish, Adam stabbed a small knife into his body. The devil's true self appeared on the ground, but before it could jump at Adam, its head blew up.
Adam locked it in place and said three words that didn't make sense. The creepy magic waves covered its body, and the devil's will, surrounded by magic, appeared in the air.
Adam quickly put the now almost see-through and weak devil into an etheric petri dish, turned the energy output to the highest level, then turned around to start making the separate creature.
The whole body of the creature could be thought of as the original virus, but there were still differences. First, Adam had to use the successfully developed virus to replace all its body tissues, turning it completely into a virus creature. Then, he would take out its cells to make more of the virus reagent.
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