Chapter 18: Mutation Testing (1)

Chapter 18: Chapter 18: Mutation Testing (1) —x— Subject: Blaze Darwin (Subject Code: J#117) Race: Undead Status: Reanimated Class: Walker [Attributes:] — Strength: Walker-Class — Agility: Sprinter-Class — Durability: Walker-Class — Intelligence: Alpha-Class [Evolution potential: 79%] [Hunger Level: 4%] [Regeneration rate: Mediocre] [Decay Rate: Halted] [Mutation: Onyx] (No additional slots available) [Horde: 1/2] Special traits: — Sentient Rot — Necrolink — Corpse vault —x— Even consuming an elite-level nucleus didn’t trigger evolution? Blaze scratched his head. The feeling of something dripping down his arm made him realize he hadn’t retracted the claws, and scratching his head made blood ooze out of his freshly healed wound. These things are sharp! He was pleased and displeased by the claws at the same time. While they would prove useful in combat and tearing apart flesh, they were a nuisance otherwise. Even touching his body had turned into a problem, not that he’d touch himself in that manner. Is there a way to turn off this... mutation? Blaze thought, flexing his fingers. The claws were like an extension of his fingers. There were no hidden joints or anything else that could trigger them. However, apart from their length, they resembled the claws of a canine, curved and sharp like knives. An idea hit him. Perhaps there was a way to hide them. He couldn’t retract them, but perhaps he could sheathe them! Blaze stared at his hands, feeling every bone and joint under his palm. He was looking for something, anything new, a tendon or cartilage lodged inside. Tsk, this will take a while. With his patience running out, Blaze pressed his palm against the wall and pushed with all his strength. At first, nothing happened, but there was a sudden click when he put more force at the base of his fingers. Pop! Following the sound, the claws disappeared inside his fingers just like they had appeared. Curious, he pressed the base of just the index finger, and the claw reappeared, but only for the index finger. The rest remained unchanged. Not bad, but I won’t have time for this during combat. It was unlikely he would get the time to press his fingers during a fight. Not when the undead were evolving at such a pace. Blaze realized he needed a quick, manual trigger to use his claws at a moment’s notice. Thankfully, he had the time to come up with something, since no zombies were coming for him. Still, he didn’t want to leave it all up to luck. Fester, keep watch outside. The undead rat obeyed, hopping outside. I need something that can push and pull all five joints simultaneously on command. It has to be strong as well, and flexible to an extent. With that taken care of, Blaze turned to see if the surroundings had anything to offer. Unfortunately, nothing fit the specifications. Then his eyes fell on the crawler’s corpse. Blaze remembered how quick the crawler was while jumping off the walls. Its muscle strength was out of the world, but just the muscles weren’t enough to give it such a powerful output. All that muscle would be useless without a strong tendon to support it. Blaze popped his claws once more, having found what he was looking for. He crouched next to the corpse, and began his dissecting experiment, starting with its forearm. The claws sliced through the crawler’s hide with ease, revealing the fibrous muscles, toughened bones, and most importantly, the tendons. An ordinary person would have puked from the putrid smell, but zombies were different. It didn’t matter whether the body was rotting or smelling, for them it was all the same. Blaze used two fingers to hook and lift a tendon, before using his finger from the other arm to tug at it. He didn’t need to be gentle since the tendons were strong, especially within a creature like the crawler. The tendon was linked with the elbow joint and snapped with the slightest pressure from the claw. He repeated the same process on the other side, cutting from its anchor point at the base of the crawler’s palm. He laid the cord beside him before repeating the process again, till not even a single tendon remained inside. It took some time to do it, but with that done, he turned his attention to crawler steel-like bones. Blaze sliced open Crawler’s thigh. He wanted a strong bone to work as a trigger, and what bone would be better than the femur? Well, his claws were. Soon, his hands were drenched in the crawler’s rotten blood. The carefully carved fragments of the femur bone lay on the side, along with the tendons. Even after all that, the Onyx claws didn’t dull or chip from anywhere. Finally... Blaze groaned, having completed gathering the stuff to create his rundown masterpiece of a trigger. Now he just needed some tools, but even that was taken care of by Amanda’s first-aid kit that he was carrying around. I wanted to use it in case my stomach opened up again, but this is a better use of it. Once again, he retrieved the suture kit along with tweezers and scalpels. After arranging everything in place, he got to work. The claws of the right hand ripped through the left palm, exposing the half-rotten muscles and bones. Blood didn’t gush out, just a few droplets drizzled out. That was the advantage of being a zombie. No matter what Blaze did to himself, he wouldn’t feel any pain or resistance from the body. Blaze didn’t have time to dwell, either. His regeneration had improved after consuming the nuclei, and he had to be quick and began cutting into the flesh right at the base of the fingers. So that’s how the natural triggers look. As Blaze dug deeper, he found a strange calcium deposit at the base of all the fingers. He pushed one upward, and the claw popped out of his left arm. Using the suture pin, he wrapped half a tendon around each trigger, then hollowed out a channel to his wrist, making space to place the tendons within the muscles. As the wounds began to heal, he quickly placed the bone fragments on top of the natural triggers such that the lower half remained in contact with the trigger, while the upper half remained exposed above. Then he used another tendon to attach the exposed bone fragments to the exposed tendons around the wrist. Blaze looped it around the thumb’s bone fragment twice more before securing the knot with his teeth. Time for the truth... He flicked his fingers apart, and the claws popped out with a snap. To ensure the trigger wouldn’t give away, he hit the concrete wall and the claws tore through it like a knife through butter. Satisfied with the result, Blaze flicked his wrists and the claws retracted inside. He tried the trigger a few more times before nodding. It wasn’t perfect or smooth, but it was efficient, and that would do for now. Time for the right hand and the legs. Gosh... this will take a while.