Huaxia, South China region.
The spacious conference room was now filled with people. Steaming smoke permeated the entire space, and the bright lights could not illuminate the gloomy faces.
There were bigwigs from the military and high-ranking government officials, but everyone present was very young. It was difficult to see anyone over fifty years old.
At the end of the conference table, in front of the LCD screen, stood a strange man.
With a head of silver-white hair, the man didn't look very old. Judging from his facial features and skin, he looked to be at most thirty-five or six years old.
A full head of white hair, setting off his youthful face, didn't make him look strange. Instead, it gave him a unique temperament.
"Actually, it would be better for more professional people from the military to explain some things, but since everyone has made a request, I will explain it all together."
The white-haired man's voice was very soft and made people feel comfortable.
"Before I begin, let me introduce myself. My name is Chen Gong, and I was a professor at a gene research institute before the apocalypse."
With that, the white-haired man, Chen Gong, turned on the computer and then picked up a stick, pointing to the image that appeared on the LCD screen.
Professor Chen Gong operated the computer, zooming in on a spaceship.
Although they had seen this image before, everyone couldn't help but feel shocked every time they saw it.
"The first thing we can determine is that this is a spaceship from an alien civilization. Obviously, humans are not alone in the universe."
Speaking of this, Professor Chen Gong's face showed a strange brilliance.
"The wormhole was too close to Earth, so even the United States, with its strongest technology and military power, didn't have time to react. The heavily damaged alien spaceship and a massive number of meteorites directly descended on Earth."
"Fortunately, the spaceship was not large, and most of the meteorites burned up in the atmosphere. From the angle of impact, they did not cause damage to the Earth."
"Unfortunately, the alien spaceship released some kind of magical agent that we cannot understand, which can promote the genetic evolution of organisms..."
"Wait..."
Hearing this, a middle-aged man with a gloomy face interrupted Professor Chen Gong. Judging from his military rank, he was a lieutenant general.
"A virus that killed nearly four-fifths of humanity, you say it's some kind of magical agent?"
The lieutenant general's voice was very low and his emotions were somewhat agitated.
"General Qi, I am used to explaining things from a scientific point of view. It's not a virus, it's indeed a magical agent..."
Chen Gong didn't mind, smiled slightly, and continued, "It can spread in the air at the speed of light, causing almost all organisms to undergo genetic mutations. Everyone knows that the evolutionary process of all organisms starts from single-celled life. In fact, we humans and insects have the same ancestors, but we eventually embarked on different evolutionary paths."
"At the beginning of evolution, the genes of all organisms are the same, but in different evolutionary processes, many genes have evolved into recessive ones. Everyone understands these principles."
"Regardless of the alien spaceship's purpose, what it released was a magical agent that can 100% invade various organisms, thereby activating those recessive genes deeply buried within the organisms and promoting their evolution. As for the dead people, including other dead organisms, they were eliminated because they couldn't withstand the genetic mutations."
"Like the gigantification mutation of animals and insects, after all, in this apocalyptic world where everything competes for life and a hundred flowers bloom, having a larger body and more powerful strength is the best way to survive. And..."
"Wait?" A middle-aged man wearing gold-rimmed glasses interrupted Chen Gong's voice.
Even without deliberately trying, he exuded the temperament of someone who had been in a high position for a long time. He was not dressed as a soldier, so he was obviously a high-ranking government official.
"I know that many organisms have undergone genetic mutations. I want to know why we humans who survived the virus have not experienced this gigantification genetic mutation?"
"I don't know. At least with Earth's current biological technology, we cannot explain it." Professor Chen Gong smiled at the middle-aged man and shook his head.
"Humans have not experienced gigantification genetic mutations, but humans have experienced other aspects of evolution."
With that, Chen Gong opened a file and played a pre-edited set of videos.
On the huge LCD screen on the wall, a set of images appeared.
A girl who looked to be about fourteen or fifteen years old, with a somewhat fearful expression, looked off-screen. After receiving the "start" command, she stretched out her hand.
A flame appeared at her fingertip. As the girl pointed at the table in the distance, the flame, like a flamethrower, surged out violently and instantly burned the mannequin in the distance to a crisp.
The scene switched.
Still in that laboratory, with many pieces of equipment placed haphazardly, a thin young man stood in the picture.
Similarly, after the "start" instruction came from off-screen, he began to move.
He cracked a steel plate three centimeters thick with one punch.
He twisted a rebar several meters long and as thick as an arm into a pretzel with his bare hands.
He easily broke a few fingers off a hard alloy steel knife.
He kicked open a sandbag hanging in front of him without looking back.
The young man punched, kicked, and fought, like a fierce tiger and as fast as lightning.
In a few seconds, everything in the laboratory was violently destroyed by him.
Although most of the people present already knew about the existence of human evolutionaries, after witnessing it with their own eyes, a burst of exclamations rang out in the conference room.
"In fact, this is just the power performance after his initial evolution. Including the ability evolutionary who demonstrated fire ability earlier, they have even greater room for success."
Chen Gong paused the video, with a smile on his face, and said, "Human genetic mutations are not reflected in gigantification, but in abilities."
"Based on the evolution that has appeared in humans, we have discovered two different evolutionary directions."
"First, the awakening of abilities. The abilities that have been discovered and counted are divided into seven types: metal, wood, ice, fire, earth, wind, and lightning. We now call these people ability evolutionaries."
"These people all have the exact same thing to say, that they can feel a magical energy filling the space, and by absorbing and using this energy, they will show the same ability as the girl who breathed fire just now."
"The second evolutionary direction is physical evolution. This is easier to understand: immense strength, god-like neural reactions, and physical speed. These people are the most common evolutionaries."
"After our investigation and research, including dissection experiments, we found that the cell activity and nerve reaction speed of the evolutionaries have undergone amazing changes. This is also the root cause of their power and speed mutations."
"The physical fitness of ability users is somewhat enhanced compared to before, but not as exaggerated or perverted as evolutionaries; the physical fitness of evolutionaries is amazing, but they have no abilities."
"However, we believe that with the enhancement of abilities or the leapfrog evolution of physical fitness, ability users and evolutionaries may be indistinguishable after reaching a certain level of strength in the future."
"There is also another type, which is the extremely rare super-ability evolutionary. Please look at the screen..."
After talking eloquently for a long time, Chen Gong began to continue playing the video.
The scene switched, no longer that laboratory, but a heavily guarded warehouse.
Dozens of alloy boxes, of varying sizes, were placed in the bright warehouse.
Various frantic sounds rang out, and the alloy boxes, large and small, vibrated from time to time. Hundreds of fully armed soldiers stood guard at a distance.
A young woman wearing glasses appeared in the picture, and a voice-over sounded at the same time.
"Are you ready? If you are, I'm going to release the mutated vicious rats."
"No, I've had enough of these disgusting mutated vicious rats. Release a mutated dog."
"Are you sure? We only caught one mutated dog, but we can't call it a 'dog' anymore. It should be called a 'wolf' now."
"Don't you know how I survived? Although it was eventually poisoned to death by insects."
"Okay. Everyone else prepare. If there are any accidents, be ready to shoot the mutated beast."
An alloy box, with a huge internal force colliding and vibrating, slowly opened. In the violent frantic sound, a calf-like mutated dog rushed out and went straight for the young woman who was slowly approaching it.
The camera focused on the young woman's slightly charming face. Her eyes flashed with a strange light.
"Ugh..."
The frantic dog barking turned into a whimper. In the shocked gazes of everyone in the conference room, the mutated dog, whose paw could have turned the young woman into meat paste, pounced violently and then landed gently, just like an obedient pet, lying on the ground, wagging its tail at her.
The picture froze on the mutated dog being petted by the young woman.
In the shocked gazes of most of the people in the conference room, this mutated dog, which had eaten its owner, skin and bones, after the mutation, seemed to have become a good friend of humans again.
Of course, there were also some people who always maintained their original expressions, like General Qi, obviously he already knew these things.
"This is a superpower. We also classify this mutated evolution into the category of ability users. The known superpowers include mental control like this woman, as well as super-metric dynamic vision, super-sensitive smell, hearing, and other sensory superpowers, including a superpower that can quantify the life index of all living things."
"So far, only three cases of superpowers have been discovered. Of course, this is only for me, or there may be more superpowers in the military and among ordinary people, but for various reasons, everyone is unwilling to speak out."
Chen Gong spoke eloquently, his face radiant.
"A few super-ability users can't solve the problem."
General Qi, who had been silent for a long time, spoke. After a moment of silence, he said again, "The outside of the military region has completely turned into a primeval forest. The surrounding cities have basically been occupied by insects and beasts, and they are still mutating and evolving. I want to know, will the military's weapons become less and less effective against them in the future?"
"That's for sure." Chen Gong nodded without hesitation.
"Insect mutations are the most troublesome. With their numbers, it's enough to put us in a passive position. The endless stream of attack methods, the terrifying toxicity attacks, not to mention that some organisms have continued to evolve and mutate, and have reached the point where they can block and avoid ordinary bullets."
"In fact, the more troublesome thing is plants. Mind-altering devil flowers, vines that turn flesh and blood into nutrients, fungi that spread toxic fumes like a plague, and so on. The wilderness is now completely a primeval forest, completely a paradise for mutated beasts and insects. And we believe that the unknown energy fields that interfere with satellites and electronic communication signals originate from these mutated plants."
"In the war against mutated insects and beasts, without satellite positioning support, wireless signals cannot be effectively transmitted over long distances. Unless we find a better way, we will be blind in this protracted and arduous war."
"Everyone must believe me, the damage caused by thermal weapons to mutated beasts and insects will become lower and lower."
"High-explosive bombs, armor-piercing bombs, cloud-explosive bombs, and even missiles, these thermal weapons certainly still have an attack effect, but without the help of satellite positioning, and the outside world is completely covered by plants that cannot be burned, and then think about the number of mutated creatures, how can we strike accurately, and where will we have endless ammunition to continuously strike like this?"
"Nuclear weapons are a double-edged sword, and I suggest that the military must be cautious. Nuclear weapons may kill many mutated creatures, but we are 90% sure that nuclear radiation will not only kill many humans, but it will definitely cause mutated creatures to undergo even more terrible mutations and evolution."
The huge conference room was filled with smoke and silence. Only Chen Gong's voice echoed.