his expression immediately dimmed… If someone had really bypa.s.sed his many orders to not go outside the Hope and had unwittingly brought an outbreak back to the Hope, that person would suffer a fate worse than death!

His feeling thus took a 180 turn when he heard Saburo say that it wasn’t an infection.

Saburo forced a smile. "Since it’s not an infection, then most possibly it’s…" Before he could finish, the pathologist collapsed forward. Everyone in the room dropped their work and rushed to their leader’s side. They talked over one another, unsure of what to do.

Yao Yuan, however, remained calm and squatted down beside Saburo’s repose body. He felt the pathologist’s pulse and forehead… "Fever? h.o.m.o Evolutis?"

It was too early to tell, because many diseases showed symptoms of fever and faint spells. However, to be safe, Yao Yuan asked for quarantine for Saburo and all the consecutive fever victims.

The victims, on their part, sprang up like mushrooms after a fresh rain. They included Barbie, Zhang Heng’s friends Ning Xue and Mao Miao, and a few others from the Black Star close guards, including that female soldier who saved Zhang Heng’s life on the meteorite base. In total, there were 160 plus people in quarantine.

The pathological department, of course, didn’t stay idle even though their leader, Saburo, was unconscious. However, after diagnosis was done on the patients’ samples, the result on the presence of virus came back negative!

At the same time, these patients’ brain activity was shown to be 10 times faster than normal as revealed by the CAT scan performed using the latest electromagnetic medical devices. The mesomeric resonator showed more interesting results. These patients’ genetic coding seemed to be evolving.

Because of their internal increased activity, the patients’ physical bodies needed extra nutrients to keep up. Thankfully, due to the improvement in medical science, the Hope had packets of nutritional tonics available. The patients were supplied with these tonics almost daily. Thus far, Yao Yuan was sure that the Hope wasn’t ravaged by a new virus but instead some of its people were undergoing a new adaptation to life in s.p.a.ce. Yao Yuan was unfamiliar with its inner workings, but these people were evolving into a new batch of h.o.m.o Evolutis!

(The first set of h.o.m.o Evolutis came when the Hope first left Earth. And now it’s happening again. Could it have something to do with the discovery of this planet that’s similar to Earth…? Or is it something else?) Yao Yuan paused to think. Even though the Hope had access to medical devices from the 4th revolution, all of the results came back negative on accounts of sickness, virus, bacterial, or microbial infection. It was extremely similar to Virus X.

Either way, with this happening, everything else had to be put on halt. Even though they still hadn’t fully understood what a h.o.m.o Evolutis was, Yao Yuan knew well enough to know that they would be invaluable a.s.sets to the Hope. The Whisperers could help the Academy greatly, the Perceptors were the best soldiers, the Diviner was helpful as an alarm, the Seekers were perfect for surveillance, the Anima could invalidate the creator’s particle… another All-Rounder would definitely be a welcomed addition, and lastly, a second Deceiver could be kept as an ultimate trump card.

In conclusion, the known h.o.m.o Evolutis had already been a great help to the Hope, and there was a possibility of h.o.m.o Evolutis emerging with new powers.

Even for the normal h.o.m.o Evolutis, who showcased no obvious superhuman skills, they were already exceptional soldiers. Seated in the combat jet, their ability could rival 100 normal jet pilots!

The time between the last patient that was sent into quarantine and the first patient to wake up was 18 days… 1 month and 4 days later, all of the patients were conscious. In total, there were 193 fever patients, and under the aid of the tonics, 172 survived and 21 died.

Another month was given for the patients to recuperate before they were hauled to the h.o.m.o Evolutis Faction for a.n.a.lysis. There were 13 new known h.o.m.o Evolutis: Saburo was a Whisperer, Barbie was an Anima, Mao Miao was a Diviner, Ning Xue was a Perceptor, and the female soldier who saved Zhang Heng was a Seeker. The rest were all Survivors [2]!

Sadly, there was no new All-Rounder or Deceiver…

"159 survivors and 13 known h.o.m.o Evolutis."

Looking at that line in his report, Yao Yuan had mixed feelings. If mankind had better medical technology during the first Virus X fever, the lives of several hundred people would be saved and there would be more h.o.m.o Evolutis around… "Regardless, the truth is that a second batch of h.o.m.o Evolutis is here. Then…

The digging operation shall resume tomorrow!"