Chapter 4: Experimenting (1)

A few hours later

At night

Caleb slowly tossed on his bed before fluttering his eyes open. 'Damn, I had the weirdest dream' thought Caleb as his eyes adjusted to his surroundings. He looked around again only to confirm it wasn't a dream.

"Looks like things are really happening." Caleb sat up and went to the bathroom. Inside, he saw his reflection in the mirror for the first time in this world. "Ooh... This new body of mine looks good." Standing at a height of 1.8m with dark hair and blue eyes, Caleb appreciated his new look. 

Anyone else in Caleb's situation might have had a meltdown already. Being in an accident a few hours ago (at least that's what it seemed from his view) and transmigrating into a new world, he was rather taking everything in quite well. 

After figuring out how the bathroom systems worked and taking a quick shower, Caleb proceeded to put on a bathrobe and moved to the mirror again. 

'Status' Caleb softly called in his head and the system panel opened before his eyes. Displayed at the forefront of the panel was his unique skill.

[Genetic Manipulation]

Caleb pressed the skill on the panel and a new window opened up.

[User's Genome]

'Hmm... the description from before mentioned being able to manipulate other's genome. Maybe being in contact with the person must be the trigger. In any case, let's see what this genome thing looks like.' Caleb went ahead and clicked on the [User's Genome]

Right after, a 3D holographic display of his genome appeared in front of him. 'Sweet... now let's see what this baby can do.' Going ahead, Caleb began to interact with the genome display before him. Initially, he was unsure how to proceed and was only turning the genome around. He then attempted zooming in and saw the double helix structure of his DNA. The portion he was seeing had a text around him that read:

[Sequence from chromosome 15]

Along the sequence, various portions of it were colour-coded with different colours to show distinct genes and their regulatory sequences. In the brightly coloured regions, each section had different text describing what the gene does. Shifting through the DNA sequence, Caleb stopped on the gene for eye colour formation. 

[Eye colour: Blue]

Expanding on this sequence, he looked at the base makeup of the gene and changed a few bases, replacing them with a new set of bases. 

[Eye colour: Red]

[Apply?] [Yes] [No]

'I see... so by changing the base sequence of the gene, I can change the phenotype expressed. But would the change be permanent or temporary?' He mulled over the choice. But after thinking for a while, he concluded that since it can be changed once, then it can be changed again. Caleb proceeded to press [Yes]

He then waited to see what would happen. After waiting for a while, he felt a slight discomfort coming from his eyes. Focusing on the mirror now, Caleb saw how his blue eyes had changed to red. "Woah... it really worked!" He exclaimed with a smile on his face. Taking a moment to appreciate the new red eyes, Caleb moved back to the 3D display before him and on his home screen, he saw the text about his phenotype change linking to the previous blue eye colour.

[Eye colour: Red] | [Eye colour: Blue]

The eye colour being expressed was highlighted while the other one was greyed out. A thought came into his mind and he decided to try it. He pressed the greyed-out text of the blue eye colour and immediately, the red eye colour greyed out and the blue eye colour was highlighted.

Looking back at the mirror, he saw his eye colour change again. "Incredible... And it looks like the rate of expression is fast. Like a computer, it stores the previous data and allows me to change between between them." As he thought about this, his excitement kept increasing. 'This means I can have as many phenotypes expressed and stored for use.' The more he thought about this, the more different ideas came to mind.

His thoughts then proceeded to the stats he had seen earlier...

[Stats]

[Strength: 72/100]

[Speed: 88/100]

[Perception: 45/50]

[Mana: 500/500]

Thinking about his stats, he focused on [Strength]. This stat in particular can be defined in many ways. What makes up strength? The bones, the muscles, power or a combination of all this and then some? The strength stat had a numerical value of 72/100. 'Is 100 the cap or is it the limit of this body? But why 72 and not the whole 100.' As Caleb thought about this, many ideas as to the reason came to mind. 'One can have strength and not be able to bring out the true reflection of the strength. Applying your strength to anything depends on various factors like force application and stance. Additionally, it could be that this body isn't capable of producing every ounce of strength it was capable of.'

The more he thought about this, the more he felt that the 100 was his body's potential. But what if he could increase this potential and then manipulate his genes to express cells with higher durability and force?

Going back to his system panel, Caleb selected his genome library and scrolled to find the chromosome and sequence that carries the genes for making skin tissues. Looking at the DNA sequence, he browsed through the segment and found the portion making skin cells and their associated tissues.

[Skin: Durability]

However, this portion of the gene had a segment that was greyed out. Curious about its presence, Caleb expanded on that portion and to his surprise noticed something that he had never come across before.

"This...! So that's how it is!" He exclaimed in excitement!.