Li Ang certainly couldn't bring himself to transplant a stomach into his own body. After greeting Chaichai, he went to the market and bought several pounds of pig's blood to keep in reserve.
After returning home, he put on a Trait hazmat suit and, in the Breeding Box, cornered several pudgy, arm-sized, pink Nemertean Worms that had fed on Felix's fresh blood.
He took them to the sterile operating room. There, he slit them open and, using the Origin of Life, forcibly transplanted a Blood race stomach into each one, positioning it in the middle of its digestive tract.
A living being's immune system, composed of cells and organs, possesses the physiological ability to recognize its own self. It is quite advanced and comprehensive, capable of attacking bacteria, viruses, and foreign bodies.
This powerful, biologically evolved ability becomes a burden during organ transplants—the immune system will attack non-host organs, resulting in rejection.
Fortunately, with the help of the Origin of Life, one such Nemertean Worm, though writhing and twitching in pain, barely withstood the first wave of rejection.
As time passed, the Nemertean Worm gradually returned to a normal state and began to swim freely in the dish.
As seen through Cat's Eye's Spiritual Sense, a Psychic Response actually appeared around the Nemertean Worm's body. Although very faint, it was indeed Spiritual Energy.
After some thought, Li Ang placed some blood extracted from the Blood Clan into ice mold trays and put them in the freezer. Hours later, he took out the frozen blood blocks, shaped them into small blades, then pressed a blade against the chubby Nemertean Worm's body, lightly slicing open a bit of its outer skin.
The Nemertean Worm naturally struggled endlessly. If Li Ang were to cut it in half now, it might activate its Self-healing Ability and split into two, though the Blood race stomach might not regenerate.
But Li Ang meticulously controlled his strength, slowly drawing the blood-ice blade back and forth across its body, like a blunt knife cutting flesh.
The Nemertean Worm twisted and struggled for a while, trying to entangle Li Ang's arm and stab him with its sharp proboscis. However, the Trait hazmat suit was too thick for its feeble stings to penetrate.
Struggling on the brink of death, the Nemertean Worm finally began to shake and tremble out of biological instinct.
The Psychic Response within it peaked, and the blood-ice blade resting on it began to melt rapidly, turning into a puddle of blood that splattered into the dish.
This was clearly the Blood Clan's innate ability to manipulate blood remotely.
Was this considered... a successful creation?
Li Ang wasn't very satisfied and cruelly continued to torment the vampiric Nemertean Worm, continuously testing the limits of its Blood Ability and forcing it to develop various applications for it.
For example, solidifying blood into sharp spikes and launching them as projectiles;
Reliquefying solid blood;
Remotely extracting blood from weaker creatures, causing their death.
Only when the Nemertean Worm fainted from excessive Energy depletion did Li Ang stop. He imprisoned it in a glass vessel, supplying it with fresh Blood Clan blood to help it recover.
"The Man-made Blood Race Being was a success, but this Nemertean Worm's Blood Ability is quite weak. It could probably only affect the blood within mammals the size of small dogs."
"If used to extract blood from humans, it would likely only accelerate their blood flow slightly."
"This isn't very useful at all," Li Ang muttered. "The Blood Race Nobility are much stronger than this. Could it be a limitation of the host's own physiology?"
After all, a Nemertean Worm was just too small. No matter how much he experimented on it, weighing only a few ounces, it was incapable of exerting much Blood Ability.
After some thought, Li Ang dug out another Nemertean Worm of the same size from the edge of the pond in the Breeding Box. He then inserted a funnel into its mouth and began spooning a mixture of fresh Blood Clan blood and raw pig's blood into its stomach.
"Eat! Eat, damn you!"
Li Ang bellowed at the Nemertean Worm, his face as ferocious as a ruthless old matron from a palace drama, "Hurry up and eat!"
This behavior might seem inhumane, but it was actually quite normal.
Because the Nemertean Worm's physiological structure is quite primitive and simple. It has strong contractile abilities, making its body as elastic as a rubber band, and it also possesses a formidable Self-healing Ability, so he wasn't worried about how he treated it.
And so, after being force-fed a belly full of fresh blood, the pitiful second Nemertean Worm was immediately inflated several times its size by Li Ang using the Origin of Life.
From the size of a human arm, it swelled to one and a half meters in length and twenty centimeters in diameter.
This Nemertean Worm, now about the size of a python, hadn't even adjusted to its suddenly expanded body before Li Ang pinned it to the dissection table. He sliced it open and, repeating the process, transplanted another Blood race stomach into it.
The experiment was a great success. The greatly enlarged Nemertean Worm's Blood Ability was several times stronger, almost reaching the level of power Li Ang had sensed from the Blood Race Nobility that day.
At full power, it could extract all the blood from a live pig at a distance of seven or eight meters, or it could shoot a high-pressure stream of blood imbued with corrosive Energy, like a high-pressure water jet.
However, doing so would cause a Nemertean Worm at full strength to exhaust its Blood Ability, leaving it lethargic and in need of fresh blood replenishment.
"'With the combined effort of five Nemertean Worms, perhaps I could replicate that blood mirror capable of blocking bullets,'" Li Ang mused.
He placed the second tormented Nemertean Worm into a glass vessel and muttered, "'The only problem is how to command these brainless, bloodsucking Nemertean Worms.'"
Nemertean Worms were indeed literally brainless. They only possessed a ladder-like nervous system, and their intelligence was pitiful, rendering communication impossible.
Their intelligence was clearly insufficient to understand human speech. He couldn't just throw them out in every battle and let them indiscriminately unleash their Blood Ability, could he?
What Li Ang needed was a biological weapon capable of fully utilizing Blood Ability, not a mindless, portable grenade.
Using Ripple Energy directly on a Nemertean Worm can activate its Blood Ability, but that would conflict with the transplanted stomach organ, bringing the worm to the brink of explosion.
And stimulating it with a weak electrical current would throw it into disarray, causing it to indiscriminately release various Blood Ability effects and quickly enter a lethargic state from Blood Ability depletion...
Wait, what if I use Yin Energy to trigger it?
Li Ang considered this, then left the Breeding Box and returned to the bedroom. He plucked Miss Chai, who was giggling foolishly at her phone screen, from the sofa,
and said to her quite seriously, "Chaichai, I've prepared an external accessory for you too."
"Uh..."
Miss Chai, still immersed in a battle of wits with her goofy online friends, took a moment to react.
After two or three seconds, she snapped back to reality, lost her grip on her phone, causing it to fall into a crevice in the sofa.
Her pale face filled with horror, she looked at Li Ang and stuttered, "You... you said you were going out. D-don't tell me you kidnapped a living person for me to use as a substitute?!"
According to Chai Cuiqiao, a Soul could indeed inhabit a living person, much like the Soul that had attempted to possess Shi Qingsong. If a suitable living host was found, the Soul could live much like a normal human—eating, drinking, sleeping, and fulfilling other bodily needs—consuming regular food and water, no longer enduring the unbearable agony of sensory deprivation.
However, such possession would severely deplete the host's health. Within a month, the host would be plagued with diseases due to Yin Energy corrosion. Within three months, they would, at best, be bedridden and unable to move; at worst, they would die outright.
If the Soul was powerful enough (like Miss Chai, for instance), it could switch hosts monthly.
The only thing that made Chai Cuiqiao hesitate was her own moral compass.
Hearing Li Ang's words, a cascade of expressions—joy, horror, regret, pain, melancholy, indecision—flashed across Miss Chai's face. Finally, she seemed to make up her mind, clenched her teeth, and asked tentatively, "The substitute you found for me... is she someone utterly evil, a villain hated by gods and men alike? If she's truly a bad person, I... I suppose I could possess her for a while. But if... if she's not that wicked, then... let's just forget it."
"What are you thinking?" Li Ang looked somewhat puzzled. "I got you two magic wands, like those from *Balala the Fairies*—the kind that go BLING-BLING and light up, you know? Want to try them?"