In the scripted mission world, the Blood Clan seems to develop their underlings only through The First Embrace Ceremony, where the Blood Clan feeds their blood to ordinary people.
Following logical reasoning, either The First Embrace is a mysterious ritual with supernatural power, or there's something special about the blood of the Blood Clan.
Felix's blood had already been drained by the Nemertean Worms, so he was set aside for the time being. However, the bodies of several Blood Race Nobles were still brimming with blood.
For safety's sake, before dissecting the Blood Race Nobles, Li Ang specifically set up what looked like a rudimentary plastic-curtain sterile isolation room near the lake and used laboratory vessels to seal and preserve all the blood.
Ever since becoming a Level 10 player, Li Ang had harbored a question in his heart.
What was the nature of supernatural abilities?
If the Ripple Energy, which could corrode the Soul and enhance one's physique, could still be forcibly explained with materialist thought as "activating the body's intrinsic energy by guiding blood flow through breathing," then how does one explain abilities like the Flesh Cutter, which could make an enemy's flesh disappear into thin air?
The spatial scaling of the Automated Pet Box?
The enforced levitation from No One Can Defeat Me In My BGM?
With humanity's current scientific framework on Earth, it's difficult to explain the operating principles of these supernatural elements. However, this doesn't mean that science is powerless and useless in the face of the supernatural.
Science is a system of orderly knowledge based on verifiable explanations and predictions about the form, organization, and other qualities of objective things. It studies the objective material world, enabling humans to make accurate assertions about objective reality and understand its internal connections.
As an ordinary Eastern adolescent with a naïve worldview, Li Ang, like the vast majority of his compatriots on this land, refused to believe in the existence of Personality Gods.
Theology, from its inception, was a tool—a mental framework spontaneously generated by societies for survival, continuation, and expansion, used to unify values and ideas among different individuals.
To accommodate the simpler-minded members of society, this framework had to be monotonous, dogmatic, and exclusive. Only thus could it prevent people, especially the numerous simpler minds, from falling into confusion and disarray.
Li Ang scorned this spiritual framework. Compared to science, this framework seemed backward, outdated, dull, utilitarian, and morally dishonest, encouraging self-deception.
Even after being selected as a player in the slaughterhouse game and witnessing all sorts of unthinkable things, Li Ang still hadn't abandoned his trust in rationalism and materialism.
Science, like theology, mysticism, and metaphysics, is a tool humans use to understand and transform themselves and the world. In some areas, science might even seem less advanced than theology, mysticism, and metaphysics, perhaps because it is overly cautious and intricate.
The only difference is that science does not posit an absolute "truth," nor does it have a Personality God in its theories to explain everything unexplainable.
Scientific research means constantly engaging in self-doubt, conjecture, hypothesis, experimentation, verification, inference, and analysis. It involves aligning theories with observational results and then, once again, engaging in self-doubt, conjecture, hypothesis...
This process is endlessly repeated, striving to approach relative truth in the real world.
Compared to other arrogant and dogmatic tools, Li Ang still trusted science more—just as he trusted cold and impersonal mathematics.
Until he found the Blood Tribe Corpses, Li Ang lacked sufficient conditions to explore the nature of complex supernatural factors.
Both the "Flesh Cutter" and the "Automated Pet Box" had natures too profound to be effectively analyzed using scientific theories.
However, the Blood Clan, born with supernatural abilities, opened a brand-new door to a new world for him—a door connecting rational materialism to supernatural elements.
"All clothing on the Blood Clan bodies was normal, consistent with Modern Earth's conventional suits. Before the autopsy, it was stored in the inventory for isolation and should be incinerated after the autopsy is completed."
"Judging from the autopsy results, all four Blood Race Nobles exhibited mild hollowing of the marrow in their flat bones, a scarcity of red bone marrow tissue, and had livers and spleens smaller than those of normal humans. This suggests a degeneration in the Blood Clan's hematopoietic ability, rendering them unable to produce their own blood and necessitating the consumption of human blood to survive."
"Based on the blood type examination results, all four Blood Race Nobles, along with Felix Miller, are AB universal recipients. The possibility of a genetic defect within the entire Blood Clan cannot be excluded. Blood parameters, such as red blood cell counts, were normal."
"In the dermal layer of most of the skin on the Blood Clan bodies, hair follicles differing from normal body hair were found. These follicles were larger and driven by arrector pili muscles. It is speculated that these enlarged follicles can be triggered under special conditions, forming black fur consistent with a half-human, half-bat form."
"No special organs have been found that would allow the Blood Clan to manipulate blood from a distance or to release Blood Ability."
"Ripple Energy has no special lethal effect on blood or flesh once separated from a corpse."
"Like Felix, all four Blood Race Nobles possess small, pouch-like digestive organs. The development of these organs varied, and the possibility that they are the Blood Clan's energy source has not been excluded."
"According to the feedback from Cat's Eye's Spiritual Energy detection, these small pouch-like digestive organs exhibit a strong Psychic Response. Ripple Energy has an extremely strong repulsive reaction with these stomach-like pouches, suggesting that even a small amount of Ripple Energy could induce their explosion."
Considering the information obtained so far, could the source of the Blood Clan's power be these small stomach-like pouches...? Is blood the currency of the Soul?
If the stomach-like pouches are the source, then how does The First Embrace Ceremony work? Observations from laboratory equipment show no signs of special viruses, bacteria, or mitochondria in the Blood Clan's blood cells.
Or does the stomach-like pouch itself hold mystical significance? Could a ritual induce the growth of a similar organ within a Blood Slave?
TCH. So annoying. It would be much less troublesome if Felix hadn't died. Relying on guesses alone is too much of a bother.
Felix, you're so weak! Absolutely pathetic! You couldn't even kill a mere worm. What was the point of you?
Li Ang sighed. Calm down.
Dressed in a full protective suit, Li Ang tossed the scalpel into a stainless steel square tray. He wrapped the five stomach-like pouches and the five Blood Tribe Corpses separately in plastic sealed bags and packed them into his backpack slot.
He then stepped out of the surgical isolation room to disinfect and clean the protective suit.
Regardless, with these five stomach-like pouches—the source of the Blood Clan's power—Li Ang could use the "Origin of Life" to attempt some savvy operations previously impossible.
For instance, Man-made Blood Race Beings.