My Cellular Prison

Sewage and fungal plaque ravage.

　　Somewhere deep in an abandoned prison ......

　　Snap!

　　A mass of cells wrapped by a plasma membrane actually separated from the surface of a certain corpse.

　　The cell mass is the size of a human forefinger and has the macroscopic appearance of a cloud of white snot.

　　This cell mass seemed to have the ability to think and act independently.

　　However, due to the imperfect nature of the nervous system, there were no five senses.

　　However, when the cell mass comes into contact with an external object, it is able to acquire basic information about the substance through a special means of 'intercellular signalling'.

　　The separated cells do not stay too long and begin to move.

　　Transcription and translation.

　　Actin is produced.

　　This mass of cells the size of a fingertip began to perform an extremely slow 'migratory movement', roughly comparable to the speed at which a snail moves.

　　"No. ...... It's not perfect and not what I want."

　　The cell mass seemed to voluntarily abandon the seemingly intact and strong flesh and continued its search through the prison ......

　　If you can currently have a torch to provide light.

　　You will find hundreds of bodies shed by the cell mass in this one giant cell.

　　......

　　The cell mass did not form on its own.

　　It has a name of its own - Han Dong.

　　A Chinese national, an associate professor at the University of Florence's School of Life Sciences in Italy, he was just 31 years old before becoming this cellular cohesion.

　　On 21 July 2018, he died of lung cancer in his bed in Florence Central Hospital.

　　The ward was filled with flowers, yet they came from his students, not his family.

　　At the moment of death, the pain and suffering dissipated and Han Dong felt relieved.

　　He did not ascend to heaven or fall into hell, nor did he drink Mona's soup, walk on the Bridge of Naina, or experience the so-called reincarnation.

　　What greeted him was only endless darkness.

　　However, his consciousness was always present during this process.

　　"Am I dead or not? After a person dies, the brain will continue to remain active for five minutes ...... but I've already been dead for an hour here, right?"

　　Han Dong's 'sense of time' was extremely strong, and being conscious, he was well aware of how long he had been 'dead'.

　　Han Dong slowly tried to perceive the 'body' and who knows, an image of a cellular mass appeared in his consciousness.

　　There were only two things that could be done.

　　First, the ability to sense detailed information about the objects they touch through intercellular signalling.

　　Secondly, the ability to generate movement through the production of actin.

　　Also just as Han Dong was synthesising actin within the cell for the first time and performing the relevant activity, a system prompt echoed in its mind.

　　"Please select a 'suitable' flesh in the prison, the current maximum weight value is [100].

　　If you are not satisfied with the flesh you have selected, you can send it to the processing room for cell separation.

　　No other prisoner flesh may be moved or transferred in non-cellular form.

　　End of prompt.

　　Another plan view of the prison was generated at Han Dong's level of consciousness.

　　Single-storey structure

　　Two hundred and four cells in total.

　　The floor plan also indicated the corresponding prisoner in each cell through light dots and annotations, with the word 'dead' annotated.

　　In addition, the middle area of the prison shows a room marked in red, called the [Management Room] and locked.

　　The room Han Dong was currently in was the [Processing Room].

　　"A foreign prison? Rebirth after death? What the hell am I?"

　　These questions did not bother Han Dong for long.

　　Having been at the forefront of science for a long time, he was extremely capable of accepting new things.

　　In a short time, he realised that he was an independent group of cells with a protective membrane, although it was not clear how a group of cells could survive and carry consciousness on its own.

　　The fact that cells are the basic unit of life activity is proof enough that he is not dead.

　　"The so-called death crossing happened to me? And, to have crossed over into a collection of cells? How ironic."

　　Han Dong has devoted his life to the study of cell biology and published an article 'On the role of activation and control of cell regulation by means of genetic coding' in the top international journal Cell six months ago.

　　Han Dong, who was rated as an associate professor as a result of this article, was tested for advanced lung cancer during a university-wide faculty medical examination ...... suffered from the relentless encroachment of cancer cells and his future was cut short.

　　He should have died completely as his consciousness faded, but was reborn as a cellular mass of life.

　　......

　　Without much hesitation, considering that the cell mass also needed a replenishment of energy to move properly, the immediate task was to follow the mysterious system's instructions and find 'suitable' flesh.

　　Follow the instructions on the map.

　　Han Dong made his way to the nearest cell through an extremely slow 'crawl'.

　　The migration movement, which was almost identical to that of a snail, took him a full day.

　　Paired with the map in his consciousness, corresponding to the small dot of light symbolising 'himself', he migrated to the next cell by the shortest path, making his first contact with the corpses of the prisoners inside the prison.

　　"It's a good thing I had the map to guide me, otherwise I would have been in real trouble with the complete loss of my five senses ......"

　　The moment he came into contact with the corpse.

　　Han Dong's level of consciousness immediately revealed a complete human profile map, along with detailed textual markings that could be viewed at the level of consciousness.

　　Campbell Frank (formerly an underground black boxer)

　　[Head] Inferior, Weight Requirement: 5

　　Left Arm] Normal, Weight Requirement: 11

　　Right Arm] Superior, "Quick Punch" skill, Weight Requirement: 23

　　Torso]Normal, Weight requirement: 13

　　[Left Foot] Normal, Weight requirement: 11

　　Right Foot] Normal, Weight Requirement: 14

　　A series of data information was fed back to Han Dong's consciousness level.

　　"The prisoner seems to have undergone 'special treatment' before death, thus keeping the corpse from decaying and allowing me to occupy and control it.

　　The previous prompt said that if you are not satisfied with the flesh, you can discard it in the [Processing Room] and pick it again.

　　There are many more flesh to choose from and it is necessary to use one of them to understand the current situation."

　　"Please confirm if you wish to obtain the full flesh of Campbell Frank? Required weight value 77.'

　　"Yes!"

　　In a flash.

　　The mass of cells entered the body through the 'hole' on the surface of the prisoner's flesh, activating the whole body for a short time and restoring vitality.

　　First a ringing in the ears echoes in the mind.

　　Followed by a cold stone touch coming from various parts of the body ...... indicating that the nervous system is all wired up.

　　The simple cell made of black rock and steel came into view and vision was restored.

　　Just when Han Dong was planning to launch an investigation and analysis of the mysterious prison, deducing why he was reborn and what kind of secrets the mysterious prison was hiding.

　　Buzz! The whole person suddenly froze.

　　Han Dong braced himself against the wall with one hand and let out an angry roar while gritting his teeth!

　　"Wow ...... this guy is a retard!"

　　After completely occupying [Campbell Frank], Han Dong was very uncomfortable.

　　Due to the restoration of his five senses thus getting information about his surroundings, something went terribly wrong when he went further and intended to perform complex data processing through his brain!

　　Han Dong, the consciousness being, was the youngest associate professor in the life science faculty of a renowned university, an existence of academic excellence.

　　But consciousness is consciousness, but when the consciousness collected the data through the senses, formulated the relevant processing formula and wanted to hand it over to the brain for processing, there was a big problem!

　　It was like buying a Defiant Eye 2080ti graphics card, yet such a top-of-the-line graphics card was installed in a mainframe with a CPU that was only an old version of the I3 processor.

　　The problem is even bigger because this processor has been in water!!!

　　The system was close to crashing due to the massive amount of data being introduced.

　　Han Dong could only close his eyes and recite the Great Compassion Mantra to minimise the intake of external information and empty his mind as much as possible!

　　Otherwise, this retarded brain would surely die or even 'burn out' due to the introduction of a large amount of data.