Through research, Zod quickly discovered and confirmed that this was Inhuman genetic material, only the gene was in a dormant state due to the lack of some key substance.
"Terrigen Mist?"
Zod's expression turned meaningful. Compared to mutants, who were notoriously hard to control, the Inhumans were a superpowered population that was relatively easier to manage, and their upper limit was high too, like Black Bolt.
"Still not enough. I need more comparisons."
After thinking it over, Zod called Urd.
As a result, Blade Technology Industries purchased and built twenty private hospitals. This was Blade Technology Industries "giving back to society," deciding to invest part of its money into strengthening America's medical system.
And Zod promised that these twenty new private hospitals would provide one full year of free physical examinations!
These twenty private hospitals were distributed across New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and other places. Their scale was not small either. They were the kind of massive hospitals that could be called top-tier.
Once the charity event of free checkups was announced, many Americans felt that with Zod Heaths' genius in medicine, maybe these hospitals would be even better than the others.
So, a little over two months later, Zod had obtained an enormous number of samples. From them, need more than a thousand types of mutant genes, and close to twenty thousand types of Inhuman genes. You had to understand, the base population was more than nineteen million people. Even after excluding repeated mutant gene types and repeated Inhuman gene types, those numbers were still shocking.
All mutant genes were in a mysterious dormant state, like ancient genetic fragments inherited by humanity. But Zod had a feeling that if he processed them a little, he could activate those mutant genes and make mutants appear in this world.
However, Zod decided to put mutant genes aside for now. Inhuman genes were safer.
With the Black Queen helping with mathematical modeling, supplemented by a standardized human-body data template for simulated deduction drills, the error probability was only 10%10%. That 10%10% came from how complex real human bodies were. Reality was never as ideal as a mathematical model, and mutations could occur at any time.
Then, after running the calculations, the Black Queen quickly stopped.
The key substance was missing. The experiment could not proceed. Nearly twenty thousand Inhuman genes were all like stagnant water, dead and unmoving.
Zod pondered it. If the Inhumans relied completely on Terrigen Mist, then if Terrigen Mist disappeared in the future, would they go extinct?
In the movie version, Quake detonated Terrigen Crystals above New York and activated the Inhuman genes hidden within humanity. But with Zod around, he would not allow something like that to happen.
"Terrigen Crystals. Get me some to take a look."
Zod remembered that to mutants, Terrigen Mist was a poison beyond imagination. If mutants appeared later, he could test it.
Just like Batman, make thorough preparations and never fight a battle you cannot win!
"Looks like I should also arrange for someone to go to Egypt and see if they can dig up Apocalypse…"
Zod thought. If they could not find Apocalypse, that was a good thing. If they did find him, that was also a good thing. After all, a sleeping Apocalypse meant Zod could do whatever he wanted.
Even though the World Serpent had more and more subordinates, in terms of raw strength, even the strongest Ultra Beastman Soldier, Asura Unicorn Beetle Bucky, could at most trade blows with the Hulk for a bit. A few rounds of brute-force brawling, and once the Hulk's power rose with his rage, Bucky would still end up getting smashed flat.
"Mutant genes…"
Zod looked at the more than one thousand non-repeating mutant genes he had collected. They were truly tempting.
But were they Pandora's box, or the golden apple?
Zod could not stop his blazing research enthusiasm, which was basically a death-seeking spirit in a lab coat. He immediately started work on mutant genes.
Sure enough, the situation was completely different from Inhuman genes. After two rounds of calculation, the Black Queen eliminated a large portion of mutant genes that would make people grow scales, become taller or shorter, turn hands into fish tails, and other useless mutations. She also recorded them so that if the same mutant gene appeared again, it could be discarded on sight.
In fact, the number of Marvel mutants was beyond imagination. The Genosha incident alone killed sixteen million mutants.
Why was it like this? Because the mutants you saw were the top 0.1%0.1% of the pyramid. The overwhelming majority of mutants had abilities that were basically side effects, or abilities that could not be used in combat at all. The X-Men and Magneto's followers were the elites among elites. Just look at how badly Polaris and the others got bullied by humans in The Gifted…
So, more than a thousand mutant genes sounded like a lot, but in reality, the useful ones were very, very few.
After the Black Queen's simulation drills, Zod began human experimentation.
As for the test subjects, naturally, Zod had Beastmen soldiers casually grab them from places like the Golden Triangle, the black streets of Brooklyn, the Middle East, and so on.
To prevent things from flipping out of control, Zod even implanted a thought wave in each test subject. If anything went wrong, he could detonate the thought wave directly. Even a mutant at Professor X's level would not be able to withstand Zod detonating a thought wave inside their brain. It was not that Professor X had no way to resist at all, but once it was already implanted in the brain, how were you supposed to fight back?
The results were not ideal. Even though many trash-tier mutant genes had been eliminated in the simulations, once it came to real experiments, there were still a huge number of mutant genes that simply did not work.
The test subjects became deformed monsters, wailing on the hospital beds.
But there were successful individuals too. One became a mutant like Colossus.
Through research, Zod found that his entire body turned into something like metal steel, but it was a biological metal with hardness and toughness stronger than steel. When he entered that state, all his internal organs disappeared. The inside of his body was filled with that biological metal. His weight also jumped from 80 kg80 kg to 200 kg200 kg.
Under Zod's thought wave control, this mutant could not resist and cooperated with the experiments.
His strength was astonishing. He could lift around 50 tons50 tons, enough to trade punches with the Evil God Loki.
That's right. Even though Loki looked like a fragile mage and got smashed around by the Hulk, in reality he still had 50 tons50 tons of strength, even more than little Spider-Man.
The strength of this biological metal also surprised Zod. Its heat resistance reached 9000∘C9000∘C. Even 12.7 mm12.7 mm armor-piercing explosive rounds could not harm him.
Very strong. Then Zod brought in one of the Beastmen soldiers, a big hulking guy, and injected him with this mutant gene.
He successfully turned that big guy into a Colossus-type mutant. As for the original one, he could only be called an Iron Man.
The big guy who became Colossus had even greater strength than Iron Man, reaching around 70 tons70 tons. As for defense, aside from heat resistance not changing, he could even ignore hits from a tank's main cannon.
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