Mutagen

Day 138 - 5:21 PM - Aimee's House, Mountain Base, Mount Malabito, General Nakar, Quezon Province, Philippines

"Not all humans are pure human."

Those words made sense.

Even in terms of ancestry and ethnicity, humans were never a hundred percent of anything. Now that the truth about other races was revealed, some humans being not pure was an acceptable explanation.

In fact, some mythological and folklore creatures were known to procreate with humans. The Tamawo was among them. There were also stories of Duendes marrying humans and possibly, having children.

Furthermore, it was not limited to just spirit races, elementals, and demons. Mythological records itself, in fact, stated that even Gods had children with humans. And there were a lot of them. Even Bathala had stories of having three daughters with a mortal woman. The daughters were named Mayari, the Goddess of the Moon and the ruler of Nighttime, Tala, the Goddess of Stars, and Hanan, the Goddess of Morning, in Tagalog Mythology.

The words from Nineteenth opened the mystery of how some abilities of Mutators did not seem to make sense scientifically.

Everyone was in silence, and the Embodiment of Interest continued.

"Many human ancestries involved other races that disguised and lived as humans after the purge. It was not like we can identify all of them without meeting them. Besides, at that time, our focus was concentrated on the fleeing and hiding Gods and Deities. Since those races can barely affect human society, after all. However, it ended up with other races mixing with human bloodlines."

"Even so, it was not really a problem for us."

Nineteenth added as she flipped the pages of the book, and the scene being showed changed.

"It originated even before the purge of the otherworld Gods and Deities. The human bloodline is already mixed with a lot of impurities."

At the time that those Gods arrived, there were already humans on Earth. These original humans were untainted by the presence of the new Gods and Deities. However, their numbers were greatly diminished after the punishment they incurred from the sins they committed, the Great Flood.

Due to the lack of humans, the newly arrived Gods created their own versions of humans to rule over in their territories. And those humans created by the Gods were not considered to be pure humans of this planet. 

Yes, they were humans in their own right. However, being created by the Gods made them more susceptible to magical interference with further influenced their genetics, although to a very small degree. That interference could not be noticed at all but would get passed down from generation to generation.

The appearance of the new humans caused the population of pure humans that were left to become impure.

"At this point in time, pure humans, the bloodline and genes of first humans on Earth, barely exist anymore."

Nineteenth said.

"So, its not only by having children with other races, isn't it?"

Mark asked.

"Yes." Nineteenth nodded. "Although some of the sleeping bloodlines that are now awakened by Mutagen was because of ancestry, there are some that did not. Actually, there is a good example here in your base."

"Who?"

Of course, Mark would ask.

"Since Blood Demons suddenly appeared here, Our Master ordered me to investigate all of your ancestries. One of the Blood Demons in your base that you did not turn into one did not have any Blood Demons among her ancestors."

The words from Nineteenth surprised Mark as he continued to listen.

"I believe you all call her Emi." Nineteenth showed Emi on the pages of her book. "She did not have any Blood Demon ancestor. However, her past ancestors actually worshiped the Blood Demons. One of her ancestors accidentally entered the Spirit Dimension and found himself in the territory of the Blood Demons. The Blood Demon Ancestor personally saved that man who was dying because the border of Spirit and Demon territories was not habitable by humans. He was saved by ingesting a drop of blood from the Blood Demon Ancestor. Of course, it did not turn him into one."

Nineteenth stared at Mark.

"I believe that you know this. Consent is needed for someone to become a Blood Demon if the person is not a child of one. And of course, the human that did not want to become a Blood Demon remained human. However, he gained some immunity to be able to stay at that deadly place. Becoming friends with the Blood Demons and the debt he incurred from the Blood Demon Ancestor, when he was able to return to Earth, he worshiped them along with his future descendants."

Nineteenth then shrugged.

"All of that was the past, though. The Spanish Colonization erased all traces of that religion, although the Blood was passed onto that human's descendants. At the latest generation, there was Emi."

That was quite surprising. It was also no wonder that Emi suddenly behaved like a servant of Mark who was now leading the Blood Demons, unlike Alana that treated him as an equal.

This story, however, confirmed that both Mark and Alana had Blood Demons among their ancestors.

"Well, I guess it that for the explanation of how Mutagen can wake up sleeping bloodlines as a catalist for Mutation."

Nineteenth said, changing the pages of her book once more with a wave of her hand.

"The main reason why I came here is to explain this Miss' circumstances."

Mark nodded and Aimee seemed to be also eager to know.

Looking at Mark, Nineteenth smiled.

"I think, you already have a vague idea but I'll confirm it." She turned to Aimee. "Miss Aimee, you are a descendant of an Eye. A Lost Eye, to be exact."

Mark and Aimee did not know how to react to this. It was both understandable and confusing at the same time.

"What do you mean by Lost Eye?"

Mark asked, which made Nineteenth take a heavy breath.

"It's self-explanatory, Eyes that lost their place."

Nineteenth then started to explain.

Eyes were the embodiment of emotions of the dominating species on a planet which were also the apostles of the Observer. Eyes could take on different forms, depending on their hierarchy and especially, the dominating species of the planet.

An example of this was the Scouts and Destroyers. They were also Eyes but were different from the Embodiments. On the contrary, however, they could exist without needing to rely on the emotions of humans.

The Emobiments were immortal. As long as the Observer that created them were still alive, they could resurrect with their memories intact. Of course, given that there was enough energy to recreate their bodies.

Unfortunately, like Gods, while Observers would not age, they could still die. Along with their death, the Eyes would vanish.

It was except for a very rare circumstance.

If the Observer died at a time that a certain emotion from the inhabitants of the planet was overflowing, the Embodiment of that Emotion might continue to exist. Nevertheless, losing their Master, they would also lose their position as an Apostle and would fall to the surface like a mortal.

And from that circumstance, the Eye could live like a mortal until the energy that composed their body ran out. During that span, they could marry, have children, and other stuff. Of course, any descendant would end up as normal because there are some things from an Eye that the mortal species could not inherit.

After all, aside from a few quirks, the appearance and Physiology of an Eye were not that different from the species that dominated the planet they were born.

"So, Aimee is a descendant of someone like that?" Mark asked. "But you said that the Physiology of you Eyes was not that different from the dominating species, here on Earth, humans. Why did Aimee turn out like that?"

There, Nineteenth smiled slyly.

"I believe, I mentioned earlier that us, Eyes, can take different forms. Being the embodiment of human emotions, we initially appeared to be mostly human, but it did not mean that we can only appear like this. Let's take Twelfth that you met this morning as an example. Her spider-like eyes are not just for appearance. She can also turn into a giant nightmarish poison spider with hundreds of eyes that humans might think that she was some devil spawn. Even I and Fourth here had similar forms."

Hearing that, the last scenes of Eriellis flashed on Mark's eyes in which he decided to ignore.

"Then, the Mutagen made Aimee take on the form similar to her ancestor's permanently. Is that it?"

"It was unfortunate, but yes." Nineteenth nodded, looking at Aimee's current appearance. "In exchange, however, she has gained abilities that her ancestor might have."

Hearing all those things, Aimee had mixed emotions. She was glad that the reason why she became like this had been explained, but she could not feel any happiness for turning out like this.

After all, who would want to become a multi-eyed monster that everyone was afraid of? Well, of course, there might be some crazy people that would want that, but not Aimee.

With a down expression, Aimee looked at Nineteenth.

"GRAA... RAAAA?"

She tried to speak, but of course, it was nothing but some incomprehensible roars.

But unexpectedly...

"Any way of turning back to human, you say?" Nineteenth could actually understand her. "I'm sorry, but I don't have any method to do that. Mutagen itself is a new strain of that destructive Pathogen, to begin with, and a lot of it is still unknown."

"Can't that book tell it?"

Mark asked, pointing at the giant book hovering in the air.

However, Nineteenth shook her head.

"This book is actually a part of my existence. I can only show confirmed facts and not the unknown. Besides, Miss Aimee's Ancestor is not from Earth in the first place and my ability can only work on everything that is here on Earth."

"Huh?"

Both Aimee and Mark were surprised by that.

"What do you mean not from Earth?"

"I meant exactly what I said." Nineteenth said as she flipped her book, showing Aimee's Ancestry. "Look at this. This is the sheet that is supposed to show the information about Miss Aimee's Ancestor."

Mark looked at the page. However, aside from the title at the top of the page that said Embodiment of Nostalgia and the ancestry line that led to Aimee, everything else was blank.

Here, Nineteenth explained.

"As long as it is from Earth, I would show in my Book of Information. Even the things that are unknown will show, but it would be either garbled gibberish or pages slattered in black ink. Anything that is blank meant that it did not come from Earth."

Nineteenth then showed a few pages that had what she had said and continued.

"Besides, Earth only had four Observers as of now, and only two governed on the era of human civilization. Because of that, it is impossible for one of the previous embodiments to become a Lost Eye. In the first place, an Observer dying is an occurrence that doesn't really happen a lot. It meant that somewhere in another dimension, an Observer died, and the Lost Eye escaped that dimension for some reason. That ended up being Miss Aimee's Ancestor."

Nineteenth's explanation had some sense. It was very likely that it was what had happened.

Nevertheless, it did not change the fact that Aimee would remain like this.

"Actually," Nineteenth spoke facing Aimee. "Although I have no definite way of turning Miss Aimee back to human, there is one possibility we could try."

Hearing that, Aimee seemed to be eager to know.

That was when Nineteenth looked at Mark, specifically, his right arm.

"If Sir can find a mutation that allows something to turn human, maybe you can get it and give it to Miss Aimee."

That made Mark feel dumb. He never thought about that at all. In the first place, was it even possible for something not human to turn into one because of Mutagen?

The answer was...

OF COURSE!

All sorts of physical mutation appeared because of Mutagen. It would not be surprising if some animal or insect gained a humanoid body after mutation.

The problem, however, was where were they going to find one.

Mark looked at Nineteenth. But before he could say anything...

"Please, don't look at me. I might provide some information similar to our topic this time. However, while I could find what you Sir have in mind, directing you towards the exact location is a different thing. I cannot do that."

Mark shrugged. That response was expected. Nevertheless, Mark turned to Aimee.

The weight on her mind seemed to have lightened after knowing that there was a possibility that she could turn back into a human body.

Now, there was only one thing left to discuss about Aimee's circumstances.

It was her supposed child.