Homo Sapiens

January 11, Year 20.

A week had passed since Christine and Anthony were captured.

On Bantun Island, Li Qingye looked at the report in his hands with some surprise. Although he wasn’t clear on the pair’s situation, he still gave the order:

"Phil, make arrangements to have those two transferred over here."

"Yes, Boss."

The report contained some extremely important information, giving Li Qingye a clearer understanding of the internal situation in America.

Christine and Anthony were not subordinates of the Black Ship. The two organizations were not the same but were on equal footing, both affiliated with an organization called the City of the Summit.

Based on the intelligence gathered so far, the City of the Summit was located within America—or rather, the two were one and the same, merely two sides of the same coin: one overt, the other covert.

Among the subsidiary agencies under the City of the Summit, three had been confirmed so far: the Black Ship, Knight, and the Franklin Foundation.

The Black Ship’s business was global intelligence operations; the CIA itself was just a part of its subordinate structure.

Knight was the agency Christine and Anthony belonged to. This organization wasn’t purely an intelligence agency but a special support unit, specializing in assisting the other subsidiary agencies of the City of the Summit.

The Franklin Foundation was composed of core executives from companies like ABCD. This organization’s primary purpose was to attract smaller and regional consortiums. Conglomerates like Samsung, Fuji, and Temasek were secret members of this foundation.

Christine and Anthony, the two captured this time, belonged to an intelligence support team within Knight. Although they didn’t know much, the intelligence they did possess was clearly crucial.

Previously captured members of the Black Ship, and even Victor, the Southeast Asian Black Ship Governor who was under surveillance, had not yielded much intelligence about their superior organization.

「The next day.」

Christine and Anthony, long since reconditioned, sat vacantly before Li Qingye.

Meanwhile, Li Qingye was examining the pair’s genetic sequences.

"Interesting. The power of evolution truly has limitless possibilities." He swiveled in his chair, looking as if he had just spotted a delectable meal.

On the biological computer’s screen, the genetic sequences of Anthony, Christine, and Li Qingye himself were all displayed.

Having undergone a comprehensive genetic modification, Li Qingye’s genes differed from those of a natural human.

The Jianmu Factor could disable the restrictive effects of the Genetic Lock sequences within human genes. Through his in-depth research over the years, he had discovered that his abilities didn’t stem from Neanderthal genes.

If Neanderthal genes truly concealed great power, they wouldn’t have been outcompeted and eliminated by modern Homo sapiens.

To put it simply, the genetic sequence of modern Homo sapiens is like a maze hiding all sorts of things. The Jianmu Factor that Li Qingye obtained from Neanderthal genes is a kind of explosive device. It can destroy the maze’s walls to access what’s hidden inside. However, not everything within is a treasure; some of it could be traps and monsters.

As for why something like the Jianmu Factor could arise from Neanderthal genes...

Although Li Qingye still hadn’t figured out the fundamental reason, he had guessed at a few possibilities.

There were two crucial points.

First, both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens belong to the Human Race. Although a certain degree of reproductive isolation had developed between them, they could still interbreed with a certain probability.

Second, the interbreeding of the two disrupted the original genetic sequence of Homo sapiens, introducing the variable of Neanderthal genes and causing issues in the genetic sequences of some Homo sapiens.

Many people know that the descendants of interbreeding between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens are the Caucasian and East Asian populations among modern Homo sapiens.

Furthermore, many studies have shown that this "contamination" from Neanderthal genes has led to numerous genetic diseases in Caucasians and East Asians. This is the negative side.

However, many people overlook another consequence: the Neanderthal genes also brought some benefits, namely an increase in intelligence.

So why would "contamination" from Neanderthal genes increase the intelligence of Homo sapiens? And why is it that East Asians, who have the most "contamination," have the highest intelligence levels among modern Homo sapiens?

Li Qingye’s answer was: genetic stability.

When a species’ genetic lineage has been passed down for millions of years without interference from outside genes, its genetic stability becomes extremely high, forming something akin to a Genetic Lock.

This is perfectly illustrated by modern agriculture.

The development of human agricultural technology can be roughly divided into four stages: the selection of naturally superior breeds, the crossbreeding of similar species, genetic modification, and gene customization.

Why has crossbreeding technology begun to fall short when compared to genetic modification?

It’s because crossbreeding can only use genes from similar species; it cannot utilize genes from other animals, plants, and microorganisms. In terms of available genetic diversity, the two aren’t even in the same league.

For example, some plants naturally lack salt-alkali tolerance genes. Even if you manage to find one or two related genes, can they possibly compare to plants that naturally thrive in saline-alkaline soil?

The interbreeding of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals brought immense disruption to the genetic stability Homo sapiens had maintained for millions of years.

This was both a crisis and an opportunity.

Over tens of thousands of years of interbreeding, the unfavorable individuals were eliminated by the natural environment. The beneficial genes in the remaining individuals became increasingly concentrated, and their intelligence naturally began to rise.

It wasn’t until about ten thousand years ago that the intelligence of Homo sapiens began to approach that of modern humans. This is the reason human civilization began to develop at that time.

Otherwise, Homo sapiens had existed for hundreds of thousands of years. Why did they wait until about ten thousand years ago to enter a civilized stage?

Clearly, that period of major interbreeding with Neanderthals was what spurred the increase in intelligence for modern Homo sapiens.

So why hasn’t the current era of globalized interbreeding led to further improvements in humanity?

First of all, many people have a simplistic understanding of the word "crossbreeding," thinking that as long as you crossbreed, you can produce superior offspring.

But in reality, anyone who has worked with agricultural crossbreeding knows that you must select two varieties that possess different advantages, and even then, the success rate is not high.

If a modern Homo sapiens, who has already been refined through multiple generations of crossbreeding, were to interbreed with a primitive Homo sapiens, the most likely outcome would be an offspring with a relatively good physique but average or even low intelligence.

Are you really after the physical strength and low intelligence of a primitive Homo sapiens?

The advantage of modern Homo sapiens is clearly intelligence. If you truly want to achieve hybrid vigor, you must find a partner with similarly high intelligence. Only then, over generations of interbreeding, can individuals with even higher intelligence emerge.

This is the fundamental reason why the so-called "era of globalized interbreeding" has not produced any significant hybrid vigor.

The parent stocks for crossbreeding must both have their own advantages. If a parent stock has no advantages, or even has serious disadvantages, then hybrid vigor is out of the question.

Li Qingye used the Jianmu Factor to disrupt his own genetic stability, gaining abilities that surpass modern Homo sapiens. This is analogous to the first generation of genetic modification technology in the history of agricultural development.

In other words, modern humanity is still in a hybrid era of selecting naturally superior breeds and crossbreeding, while Li Qingye has already entered the age of genetic modification.

This was a version update. The two were simply not on the same level.

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