In Sorcerer Norris' laboratory, Glenn placed the two humanoids of same race onto the testing table.

Before the experiment, Glenn had enclosed the testing table as a safeguard for possible unexpected risks. He looked solemn as he took out his sorcery notes and flipped through it. A moment later, he sat onto the chair, lost in thought.

'I've tested Gadflies on frogs and mice in separate experiments. These things were all deformed horribly as a result. According to my guess back then, the mysterious and irregularly-formed small glowing points in their host's cells must be the true form of Life Code and must contain the original life information. Besides, every cell must have its will for survival and these wills constitute the volition of a soul.'

Glenn paused for a second and then shook his head, saying: "Maybe these weak creatures couldn't take it when their form of life information was altered by the Gadflies. Then I've got to do it on humanoids to verify my guess!"

Thinking about this, Glenn rose up and looked at the female humanoid lying on the table.

Glenn stuck out his fingertip and slowly, a Gadfly the size of a rice grain was squeezed out from his skin. Since Glenn's and the Gadflies' souls were connected, the Gadflies were like a natural organ of his. Thus, he wasn't feeling uncomfortable during the process.

Glenn then put the Gadfly into the female's body for it to multiply. She wasn't resisting because Norris had suppressed her mental strength. She was essentially a vegetative being.

Seven days later.

After Glenn had completed other experiments, he came back at the testing table. Using his mental strength, he could feel that there were now tens of thousands adult Gadflies in the female's body.

With such a quantity of Gadflies, Glenn could continue with his experiment now.

Glenn took something off the female's body as specimen first, and then he prepared an intermediate stone to replenish the magical force, which would be running low during the long-lasting experiment.

Glenn looked serious. He took a deep breath and then stroked the subject's belly, which was smooth. He closed his eyes slowly, and the next moment, he strained every effort and energized the Gadflies in the female's body, trying to bring out the Gadflies' best capability in affecting Life Code, an ability Gadflies were born with.

Glenn kept on energizing the Gadflies in the female's body by using his magical force, which gave out mysterious force that affected every cell of hers.

The process lasted for a day. Glenn's face had turned ghastly pale. And fear appeared in his eyes when he noticed the things within the enclosement.

The female's right hand had grown a big mouth in the palm, and the mouth moved towards her neck. It mangled the neck with its sharp teeth after it arrived and later snapped it completely; her tongue had jumped out of her real mouth and was crawling on the table like a serpent; her legs were covered with eyes, thighs with tendrils, and there was something moving in her belly, inflating and deflating it.

Glenn was even more pale now. He murmured: "Sure enough. Energizing the Gadflies without really controlling them would crash the Life Code!"

Glenn calmed himself down a little bit and grabbed many tools and material for conducting cursing sorcery. He then took out the specimen he had taken from her as the cursing medium.

Moments later, Glenn perpetrated some simple cursing sorceries on these things in the enclosement, yet he found that they had no reactions.

Glenn looked intense.

"It seems that her life information has been altered entirely, and these things don't belong to her any longer!"

As Glenn was taking notes about the experimental results and writing down his thoughts, he had an inspiration.

"If life information could be changed, then I would be immune to the curse sorceries which use personal information as a medium. Better still, by using Occult sorcery, hints might be found to modify one's form of life information in the cells to the enemy's, and this way, I could even curse the cursor!"

Glenn was thrilled at this new thought.

Another seven days had passed, and the male subject's body had been infested by adult Gadflies too. After taking a specimen from the male's body, Glenn pulled out a vial of turbid liquid. It was extracted and refined from the cranes, which served as the source to effectively neutralize Gadflies' mutational effect.

Glenn of course had no sympathy to the subject, and injected the whole vial of liquid into the male's body.

"Let's see if this liquid could stop the energized Gadflies from causing the subject's mutation."

A day later, Glenn came back at the testing table, and he looked wistfully at the male who was covered by weird organs and tendrils. However, although the male had undergone mutations, different from the last test on the female, whose new limbs and organs were acting on their own wills and were killing each other, the mutated limbs and organs of the male's were still "listening to" the will of his soul. And when Glenn cursed the male using the specimen belonging to the male, the extra body parts had no reactions as well.

"Maybe if I give him enough of these liquids, then he won't deform at all!"

Without any hesitation, Glenn put another vial of the liquid into the male's body. Obviously, that male humanoid was reacting and soon recovered to his original state.

There was wisdom sparkling Glenn's eyes.

"If someone has an organ capable of producing that liquid, then he could change his form of life information. If that's the case, cursing would not make a difference! And with this organ, the owner could also excel in camouflage and vital organ regeneration."

All these brilliant ideas came to Glenn's mind in such a short time, and because of this, he became hectic. Almost immediately, he had decided to learn anatomy. That way, he could modify and maybe evolve that liquid-producing organ in cranes, and then transplant it into his body. By then, he would be able to create a new sorcery by which cursing would be negated and camouflage would be easily done.

"I will name this great sorcery after me--the Glenn Dissimilation Sorcery!!"

As Glenn was leaving the laboratory, in his excitement, he noticed the demi-human and halted. Somehow, another wonderful idea struck him. It might sound unrealistic, but Glenn was still analysing it for its practicality using his wisdom.

Seconds later, he returned to the male and got out a Gadfly from him. Then, through his soul, Glenn ordered that Gadfly to memorize the male's Life Code information and then he put it into the demi-human's body.

"I'll come back and see the results in seven days." With the Gadfly transfer done, Glenn then went for his mentor to learn about anatomy.

~~~~~~~~~~~

A week later.

Before the testing table, Glenn cursed the demi-human using the specimen taken from the male's body. To his surprise, she was reacting to the cursing!

"Does it mean that Gadflies have memories?"

Having made this huge discovery, Glenn hurried to his dormitory and came back with drops of blood that belonged to Mina--Daughter of Sun. He had conserved them in a refrigerated vessel. Afterwards, he quickly took out a Gadfly from his body and put it into the blood.

According to Mina's own words, she had a body of flames[1]. It was a gift.

Glenn had learned that gifts were sudden mutations made by some living beings in a population. They obtained it when adapting to the environment.

Therefore, if Glenn could change some of his life information, and allowed part of his Life Code have Mina's mutated information, then he would have her gift. If that became reality, Glenn might become the most powerful sorcerer in the sorcerer world, and even no upcoming sorcerers would match him! And the simple reason was that he could copy gifts that he desired and plant it in himself.

However, these were just Glenn's wild guesses. They had to be experimented before they could prove to work. And according to the nature's rules, copying others' gift was subject to fundamental restrictions, and thus was impossible to achieve, or this would break the balance of living beings' existence.

What Glenn couldn't understand was the fact that gifts would just give sorcerers a head start. The higher level a sorcerer was at, the more negligible gifts' role would be. The thing that determined a sorcerer's achievement was knowledge. And Glenn's gift-copying idea was a part of knowledge, which was way more powerful and important.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1]: A body of flame is like a phoenix, which obtains new life by arising from the ashes of its predecessor.