The term "white blood cells" referred to cells related to the immune system, which included lymphocytes, dendritic cells, monocytes, macrophages, granulocytes, mast cells, and others.
Those cells were also known by another umbrella term—leukocytes. There were many types of leukocytes, and they played a variety of roles in the immune system of the human body. At the moment, the cells that Zhang Heng was experimenting with were his own monocytes.
Said monocytes were being pummeled left and right by the modified T-Virus, before eventually being captured and taken over by the virus, having its DNA modified and becoming a new type of monocyte.
This new type of monocytes was utterly ferocious. Not only did they easily gobble up all manner of viruses and bacteria, but also they managed to detect a variety of mutated cells that conventional leukocytes had no way of detecting, cancer cells among them.
Furthermore, those cells were capable of maintaining their vigor after gobbling up their targets instead of dying, sticking around until the end of the cells' own life span.
Zhang Heng was shaking with excitement while looking at all that data before him. The further he went with experimentation, the more astonished he had become. All the results he had in his hands at the moment were results that a good many scientists could only dream of achieving with their research.
It became apparent that the modified T-Virus lost all hazardous properties it initially posed to the human body, becoming some kind of gene therapy material that was capable of enhancing human DNA and rendering humans immune to all kinds of diseases and illnesses.
Regular folks might not be aware of just how precious that new type of T-Virus could be. If Zhang Heng were to announce the existence of such a virus to the world at the moment, it would have caused a huge commotion among the scientists. That was because the emergence of such a virus would have gotten rid of a great many diseases that had plagued humanity for millennia, such as skin diseases caused by all manner of bacteria and fungi, SARS that had been huge well over a decade ago, the Avian flu that was all over the news just several years ago, and even the likes of AIDS and cancer, which were deemed terminal illnesses.
The term "terminal illness" was a bleak term that had shrouded human civilization for as long as human civilization existed. But all those diseases would be a thing of the past with the emergence of the new type of T-Virus, rendering them obsolete and consigning them to oblivion, eventually being forgotten in the dustbin of history.
He had even discovered that the cells modified by the new type of T-Virus multiplied three to four times faster than they had previously been, and their longevity was extended five times over as well. That meant that humans might actually live five times longer than they previously had, with a metabolic rate that was four times higher than before.
"I shall call this new type of T-Virus the 'T-0 Biopharmaceutical.'"
Zhang Heng recorded all of the data on the computer. He then shook his rather dazed head for a bit and checked the time. Almost 18 hours had passed yet again.
It was easy to forget the passage of time when one was steeped in one's research. He had completely forgotten about how much time had passed due to being in a constantly stimulated state.
He had only been sleeping four to five hours every day for the past two months. Prolonged exhaustion caused his body to become a lot weaker than it had been months ago, yet he deemed all of that to be worth it. The research with T-Virus was nearing its end, and the only thing he needed to do at the moment was to begin clinical testing.
However, that last segment of the research process deeply troubled him. "Clinical testing" sounded fancy and high-class, but it was just a more sterile term for "human experimentation." If the tests with lab rats turned out completely fine, he would have been emboldened to begin testing his new product on people. But with the bodies of lab rats proven utterly incapable of taking on whatever the modified T-Virus could throw at them, he dared not just go around asking for volunteers to begin clinical testing.
Furthermore, while the new type of T-Virus had completely lost all the side effects present in the original T-Virus, it was nonetheless still something that surpassed humanity's current level of technology. He would be caught in endless streams of trouble if the virus were exposed.
It wasn't that he didn't consider testing the new virus on himself right there and then, but despite his changes, the virus was something so dangerous that could potentially turn humans into zombies, and he had no idea if the new virus had any other unforeseen side effects. Everything would be fine if the experiment were a success, but if it turned out unsuccessful, he might actually become the first zombie to emerge in his plane.
"Relax. The Dimensional Star system could never be wrong!"
Yurianne appeared again while he was still at a loss of how to proceed. Hot-blooded background music started pumping as well. "You have another month to spare before the second mission begins. Are you ready for that, host dude?"
"Wait. What?" Zhang Heng shuddered and almost dropped that test tube in his hand to the ground. "The next mission is gonna come that quick?"
"Indeed. You have three months of respite at most between missions. If you don't hurry up, then Yurianne will be compelled to transport you involuntarily, host dude."
"Damn it!" His face paled. "Sh**, no more time to waste now. If you think that the virus won't do any harm to the human body, I suppose I could believe you one more time then," he said and went on to fish an injector from the boiling sterilizer with a clamp. Without hesitation, he loaded the apparatus with the T-0 Biopharmaceutical in precise and fluid motions, before jabbing the vein into his arm directly.
"Hahaha. He did it. He really did it!" Yurianne looked as crass and uncaring as she had always appeared to be. She spun around and was then dressed in a gown and held a microphone like she was the MC of some event. "Will the host dude be able to endure the trial of the new T-Virus? Let us sit back and find out!"
Zhang Heng sat on the floor, feeling very uneasy after injecting his body with the virus, and began thinking.
"It's all up to fate now, and I sure hope nothing bad will happen. I'd sure as hell come back to haunt you if I were actually to die from this!" Zhang Heng declared with a vindictive tone.
"Relax. To those who created Yurianne in the first place, the T-Virus is just about as technologically advanced as lighters are to you people. To primitives, a lighter would seem like something fashioned by the gods, but tell me, just how much technology do you think a lighter possesses?" Yurianne asked in return while grinning sheepishly.
"To people of a modern scientific society, a lighter could hardly be considered a product of advanced technology," he answered.
"There! That's it!" Yurianne snapped her fingers and continued, "To the ones who created Yurianne, the T-Virus is just about as advanced as that lighter in your hand."
He was only barely put at ease by that, stretching himself out for a bit and lying flat on the floor of the laboratory, feeling rather tired about everything.
"You know something? I've always dreamed of opening my own company and being my own boss. My dad was an employee of some company, and he worked his a** off for that company for well over a decade, yet he was fired all the same in the end, just because his manager said so. Our family had financial difficulties since then…"
"I swore to myself from that day on, I'd take the reins of my fate in my own hands."
"I have no friends. I had always been a glum, sociopathic kid since I was little. The teachers all thought that I was a good student, but I had no friends I could talk to about anything. Because of my family's predicament, I had to work at night back when I was still in school. My classmates all probably saw me as some introverted quiet nerd and little else."
Zhang Heng began to tell his story openly because he knew that Yurianne wouldn't tell anyone else anything. In actual fact, Yurianne hardly bothered replying when he was talking about anything that had nothing to do with the system and missions, yet he continued to tell his story all the same.
He had no idea if Yurianne was even listening because when he began to talk about his family, Yurianne disappeared from his sight yet again. She remained silent even well after he was done talking about his family.
He yapped away and eventually finished his story, wearing a bitter smirk, and began to close his eyes slowly. One could tell that underneath that cold, uncaring façade of his lay a loner wishing for someone to talk to.
He didn't get to rest for long before he heard Yurianne's voice again all of a sudden. "Okay, fusion complete."
"Wait. That's it?" He was startled and checked the time. It had only been about 40 minutes since he jabbed that injector into his arm. He stood up immediately and began to reach out inside him, yet he was unable to feel anything out of place.
Given that his body showed no signs of change, he took up the hemostick and pricked his finger, taking a drop of blood and putting it on a glass slide, which he then put under the electron microscope and began to observe closely again.