Alfonso lay shirtless on his side on the soft bed on the second floor of the laboratory building, fast asleep. He might have once been a dashing and spirited man, but now his face was pale, emaciated, and bore only a hint of pain.
“This is the first time I’ve seen the boss’s face…” Walton said to Leslie beside him, pursing his lips.
Todd half-squatted by the bed, looking at the two rows of small, evenly spaced wounds on the knight's spine, carefully disinfecting each one with the medical alcohol in his hand and applying medicine powder.
These are all puncture wounds caused by the "dragon bone" parasites sucking spinal fluid from their hosts. Although they are considered minimally invasive, the wounds are extremely deep. If not treated properly, they can cause myelitis and even paralysis.
Adelina sat on the edge of the bed, wiping Alfonso's forehead with a damp cloth, and asked worriedly, "Lord Todd, when will the boss wake up?"
“Normally, it takes three to four hours. But I find it a bit strange. I only anesthetized the ‘armor’ on his body. He didn’t inhale any anesthetic gas through his mouth or nose, so why did he fall into a coma?” Todd looked puzzled and carefully examined Alfonso again. Apart from the wound on his spine, what worried him most was Alfonso’s physical condition.
Due to long-term reliance on the 'dragon bone' for daily activities, the knight's limb muscles have gradually atrophied. This is similar to a normal person who has relied on a wheelchair for a long time, only to find that they can't use their lower body when they finally get out of the wheelchair.
After explaining to Adelina, Walton, and Leslie how to help the patient with strength rehabilitation, Todd returned to the laboratory's main hall and focused his attention back on the 'Dragon Bone' parasite he had just removed.
Inside the huge wooden barrel, a male and a female parasite lay quietly in the nutrient solution. The 'skeleton' that was originally used to bind and support the host's limbs slowly contracted segment by segment.
Using his supernatural abilities of "X-ray vision" and "eagle eye," Todd repeatedly examined the strange, enormous parasite. The outermost layer of the worm's body was a horn-like skin as hard as steel, and inside was a space similar to an "air sac," which could be technically called a "skin-muscle sac." Below that was a layer of soft skin and muscle.
This three-layered parasite not only withstands tremendous external impacts, but its skin sacs and muscle layers also provide a certain degree of cushioning, protecting the host's body.
Looking further inside, Todd saw something strange: grayish-white medullary tissue that looked somewhat like human nerves. This nerve-like substance permeated the entire interior of the parasite, even including the sharp hooks used to pierce the host and extract nutrients.
Upon seeing this, Todd pondered for a while and proposed a bold hypothesis. Could the ether, originally intended only to anesthetize the parasites, have entered Alfonso's spine through the parasites' nerve endings?
If this hypothesis is true, then the fact that the knight fell into a coma even without inhaling ether can be explained.
However, this assumption is just that—an assumption—and it appears that it cannot be proven at present.
Um?
Todd looked at the female parasite's tail vertebrae and saw some egg-like objects. Filled with curiosity, he put on gloves and, praying that the parasite wouldn't wake up at this moment, carefully reached his hand towards the male and female parasites' copulatory tubes.
First, use your hand to open the male insect's copulatory umbrella, then pull out the copulatory spines, and finally squeeze the female insect's reproductive tube with your hand to expel the eggs one by one, which can be seen by the 'X-ray vision' ability.
There were six white insect eggs in total, about the size of a date, and the larvae inside could be vaguely seen when held up to the sunlight.
It appears that the 'dragon bone' parasite reproduces through heterogametic reproduction (a reproductive method in which the parent produces sexes), and its eggs are viviparous (a reproductive method in which the larvae have already formed inside the eggs laid by the female).
Todd found the glass troughs originally used to cultivate rose buds in the laboratory. He first disinfected them with about 70% alcohol and rinsed them 3-4 times with sterile water. Then he created a darkroom in the laboratory to block out sunlight. He then sealed the entire space with wax paper and glass to create a sterile environment. Finally, he used sugars, coconut milk, oxygen absorbers, and biological amino acids to make the "double lactose peptone culture medium" commonly used for embryo culture.
Place the 'dragon bone' insect eggs inside and observe them every 2 hours.
After doing all this, Todd remembered another parasite he had kept—the "Hive".
After the Battle of Watchtower against Frankenstein, Todd took the severed Hive parasite back to the lab and cultured it.
Now, the "honeycomb" has grown to six times its original size in the culture bottle. From its appearance, it looks like a giant black jellyfish floating on the water. Its tentacles below continue to grow, with the longest one even reaching more than a meter in length, piling up at the bottom of the culture bottle.
The 'Honeycomb' is completely different from the 'Dragon Bone'. Its reproductive method is 'budding reproduction' (first, a child individual splits off from the edge of the mother body, and then gradually grows larger).
On the tentacles beneath the jellyfish, black, worm-like nematodes emerge (used to infect the host and turn it into a puppet), and over time, these nematodes can grow into new 'honeycombs'.
While the 'Dragon Bone' larvae were growing, Todd first analyzed the 'Honeycomb'.
The experimental subjects were four white mice. A small "honeycomb" was transplanted onto the spine of one mouse, and three black nematodes belonging to the former's mother were fed to the remaining mice.
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