Immortal

A Chapter by Feng Zi

Chapter 6 – Immortal

Feng was eating.

And he ate silently. Slowly. Solemnly. His eyes did not wander about the cafeteria. Nor did they stare down at his food. His eyes were closed.

And with each swift yet precise fluid movement of his wrist he took in food from the metal tray into his mouth. Then, both his hands would return to the table and remain there, whilst his jaws chewed on the food slowly, before bringing food to his mouth again.

There was an eeriness about Feng, which the other inmates quickly picked up and left him alone.

The entire row of tables and benches where Feng sat was empty, apart from Feng.

It did not bother Feng.

He was busy rooting out the flaws in SoulScript V2.0. And whilst doing so, he had ran a hardware which was programmed to eat. Literally. Which meant that Feng have had the entire eating process automated.

Him chewing, lifting the food and swallowing … they were all done subconsciously and the actions were totally precise – to the point where no strength was overspent.

It had freed up the time for Feng to focus onto more important issues. For one, there was the need for Feng to breakout of the prison. He couldn’t possibly hunt down the silver-masked assassin if he was stuck in the jail all the while.

And Feng wasn’t patient enough to wait out his sentence. His sentence, it was unlimited. In other words, there wasn’t an end to his sentence. There were two routes – him dying in prison, or the guards could release him fifty years after if he was good in jail.

Abruptly, Feng frowned.

Everything about him stopped functioning suddenly – the fork and spoon in his hands clattered to the floors, the food he was swallowing half-way was spurted out into the air before him and the back muscles sitting him up gave way, resulting in Feng collapsing onto the floor behind the bench.

A group of inmates had gathered about the fallen Feng, moments before Uncle Hong and three other patrol guards pushed their way through the crowd to Feng.

“Jun Tian – Jun Tian, are you all right?”

Uncle Hong slapped at Feng’s cheeks to wake him up, but to no avail.

Meanwhile, Feng’s mind was racing with thoughts - billions of terabytes of data zipping past Sector 153 which calculated as furiously as it could. Already, Feng’s thought process was at least two hundred times swifter than the average man.

Feng was impatient, and had switched off almost all of his bodily functions in order to transfer much of the brain’s capability to the calculations – leaving, of course, the life-support functions intact.

But nevertheless, it had taken him a full fifteen minutes before he could derive a proper answer that he was satisfied with.

Feng was immortal.

What had caused ageing? What causes cancer? What led to the distortion of one’s healthy frame into that of an aged man?

It is estimated that a base sequence is mutated every billion nucleotides of the human DNA every minute.

Yes, regardless of how accurate DNA replication in the human body was, mutations were inevitable. An accumulation of these unavoidable mutations over eight decades of living would result in death. The deterioration, the degeneration, the wasting away of the DNA in a human is the root cause for ageing.

What if – what if Feng removed the root of ageing? What if Feng took away the mutations?

In the past fifteen minutes, Feng had interrupted the replication of DNA and copied his entire DNA sequence into Sector 151 where his memories were stored. This was equivalent to depositing an ancient mummy or relic in a museum – it will never be destroyed for millennia to come.

Feng then constructed the amino acid sequence for the polypeptide which would form the enzyme – Immortalase.

Immortalase served to double check not once, but thrice, the sequence of the newly replicated DNA and ensured that it was flawless.

As such, how could mutations even occur? As long as Feng possessed invision, he was immortal.

Feng dusted the pants of his grey prison overalls as he picked himself up from the floor. He then looked up to Uncle Hong and shrugged.

“I’m all right.”

“What happened?” One of the guards asked.

“Uh … uh – I just felt tired and fell asleep.”

Uncle Hong rolled his eyes in disbelief.

As a newcomer, Feng was issued light tasks. Of course, Feng could easily finish the hardest tasks, that was, but the guards wouldn’t have had believed him and Feng definitely didn’t mind.

As usual, Feng programmed another hardware which set his task – the screwing of caps onto toothpaste tubes, into automation. That freed up even more time – at least six hours a day, for Feng.

Feng then began to assess the situation he was in, as well as to plan for his revenge.

First of all, there was the silver-masked assassin. Now that Feng rethought that night when he was assaulted by the assassin, Feng uncovered certain details that he had not given ample thought before.

One – who was the assassin? Sure, he had on a silver mask. But what did the silver mask mean? Was it the assassin’s signature outfit, or was the silver mask the signature outfit of an assassin network instead?

Two – how strong was the assassin? To be able to murder without the shedding of blood … to be able to kindle a fire with gloved hands without fuel … was that magic? A year before, Feng would not have had thought it possible. But now … even Feng was capable of scaling walls on his two feet. What more was possible?

Three – why did Feng not die? As skillful as the assassin was, the possibility of him missing his mark and not finishing Feng off was minimal. Unless, Feng thought, the assassin was wounded. He would then be incapable of accurately deciding if Feng’s nervous system had been thoroughly wasted away. And then there was the possibility that it was Feng’s nervous system that had a unique structure, and therefore, the assassin had incorrectly judged the magnitude of the strength that was required to kill off Feng.

As such, only 70% of his nervous system was wrecked off. Feng thought this to be more probable.

Even so, where was Feng to start? Could he pit himself against the assassin? Or must Feng become even stronger?

It was a great headache to Feng. After the sudden disclosure and revealing of the underground world to Feng, he could no longer tell what was reality and what was not. What were the true limits of a human body?

More importantly, what were Feng’s true potentials?

Feng was urinating in one of the toilet’s cubicle, when he was surrounded and subsequently cornered. It was after dinner and free and easy time for all. Feng was about to shower and rolled his eyes when he noticed the group of inmates.

“I will count to ten. Leave.” Feng started with a warning, even before the gang could begin on their task.

Ten..

The leader of the dozen men stood forth and flexed his biceps menacingly. “Kid, we are from the Red Snake. I am Boss’ right hand man.”

Nine.

All dozen men were clothed in shower robes. And the leader thrust open the bottom of his robes, revealing that which was beneath. He didn’t don on any underwear, of course.

“Suck it.” He barked an order.

“Seven.” Feng counted, but was replied with two fists planted squarely in his chest.

“Six.” Two more in his face.

“Five.” Feng did not retaliate when one man shoved him to his knees and pushed Feng’s face before their leader’s thighs.

“Two.” Feng did not cease counting. “One.”

Feng left the toilet after his shower and returned to his cell, where he sat himself in meditation.

It wasn’t long before the bodies of the dozen men were discovered.

“Jun Tian.” Uncle Hong stepped into the cell an hour later after the men were driven off to the nearest hospital.

“Feng.” The seventeen year old corrected him.

“Feng.” The guard nodded as he sat down before Feng solemnly. “Did you do it?”

“I assume you have evidence.” Feng spoke, still in the midst of his meditation. He needed every second he could muster to increase the magnitude of his chi. And whilst executing the circulation of chi about his body, he was at the same time, strengthening and nourishing his body cells as well. With each circulation of his chi, his cells grew even livelier and active.

As of current, each cell of his body could easily take the burden of the work of three cells of an average man. In other words, his cells had thrice the power of that of the norm. His heart could beat three times slower, skipping two beats, when the heart of the average man beats thrice. Feng could breathe thrice as slowly as the norm. Feng could …

“I have evidence, Jun – Feng.” Uncle Hong started. “There are those who saw you leaving the restroom at around the time the men were assaulted. And one of the conscious victims had claimed that it was you, Feng.”

“Wrong choice of words, Uncle Hong. It was I, that was assaulted, not them.” Feng took in another deep breath and began a new circulation of chi about his frame.

“You mean to say, you were assaulted and you retaliated in self-defense?”

“Yes.”

“But there was no need to – to make a bloody mess out of them right?”

“They would have made a bloody mess out of me.”

“Feng, I know that you may be angry with them, but there was really no such need to waste all four limbs of each man. If you hadn’t know of it at that time you finished them off in the toilet, I will tell you so directly – everyone of them will never be able to move a single of their limbs from tonight onwards.”

“I know.” Feng replied coldly.

“Then why?”

“You know the answer.”

“All right then, do have a good night’s sleep. But do be on your guard tomorrow. I don’t think Red Snake will leave you as you are. Good night, Feng.”

“Good night.”

prev chapter