Star Ocean: Starting from the Abandoned Mining Space Station.

Chapter 178 Black Carapace

With the appearance of the four options [Repair] [Evolution] [Decomposition] [Gene Retrospection] on the panel.

Chen Ming fell into thinking again.

The first three options are easy for him to understand. They are different names for the same function of the biomass spaceship and the ordinary spaceship.

But it was hard for him to guess the effect of the last [Gene Retrospective] just by looking at the name.

But since it was all on the panel and he had seen it, he had to give it a try.

Chen Ming conveniently pressed on [Gene Retrieval].

A new panel appeared immediately, allowing Chen Ming to briefly understand the function of gene retrieval.

To put it simply, it consumes biomass and Chen Ming's mental power to extract the possibility of evolution from genes.

“The possibility of evolution in extracted genes?”

Chen Ming read the sentence displayed on the panel, but for some reason he always found it strange.

But it’s not a big problem. Anyway, the two big words “evolution” are there, so what if we don’t give it a try?

When Chen Ming pressed OK.

Chen Ming's mental power suddenly seemed to be flowing out like a floodgate, and it was being consumed at a speed that could keep up with the extra core bonus he had provided to HR before.

However, the overall consumption was not as outrageous as the need for 100% of his mental power. It probably only consumed about 20% of his mental power.

The moment Chen Ming's mental power stopped flowing out.

It seemed that it was due to the Zerg hive mind network. A somewhat dim and blurry picture suddenly flashed through Chen Ming's mind.

An image that seems to come from memories stored in genes.

There is a creature that is nearly ten meters in size, wrapped in a pitch-black carapace, and looks like a mammoth from ancient times. It is being hunted by a group of Thorne Zerg.

The Thorn Zerg attacked desperately, but their acid, spikes, sharp blades, and almost all attack methods were unable to cause effective damage to this huge black Zerg.

As soon as Chen Ming became curious about the follow-up, the fragments that flashed in his mind disappeared.

Then he saw an option appear on the evolution panel that was originally empty because he had zero knowledge of biotechnology.

[Jet black carapace].

This option just appeared directly on the panel, and Chen Ming did not need to learn related technologies.

This is the effect of genetic retrospection, extracting the abilities contained in the Zerg's own genes.

Or……

The image of the Zerg hunting the giant black Zerg just now appeared in Chen Ming's mind.

What is extracted is the genes of other creatures that the Zerg plundered after devouring other creatures.

It sounded very good, but when Chen Ming thought about it carefully, wasn't it just a blind box draw?

The Zerg can even eat ores and convert them into biomass. It is normal to eat more creatures.

Then there may be genes from many kinds of organisms hidden in their genes.

What can be extracted may not all depend on luck.

Although Chen Ming was lucky this time and extracted an obviously good gene, it might not be the case next time.

It's best not to get your hopes up too much.

Anyway, Chen Ming's idea turned out to be the best, but it didn't work out.

Only in this way will his emotions be very stable when encountering a failure and will not be disturbed by failure.

But since the first one to draw the blind box drew something that seemed pretty good, then [evolution], which is the [transformation] of an ordinary spaceship, must be considered.

Like ordinary spaceships, the evolution of biological spaceships also requires the consumption of nutrients and biomass as materials, and Chen Ming's mental power is required to maintain this process.

A destroyer-level biological spacecraft does not require Chen Ming to consume much mental energy.

That is to say, things like biomass are not easy to obtain under normal circumstances.

But Chen Ming is now on a habitable planet.

Moreover, the biological spacecraft itself can digest a bunch of messy things and convert them into nutrients and biomass to sustain its survival.

So even if there is no habitable planet, Chen Ming does not need to worry about this issue.

So he confirmed that the remaining biomass left by the insect queen after absorbing most of the various tissues and Zerg that had been forcibly created just now was enough to evolve.

First, leave the interior of the spacecraft the way you came before and return to the highest point.

Then he directly selected OK, allowing the biomass spacecraft to begin the process of evolving [Jet Black Carapace].

Chen Ming's mental power began to drain away.

The biomass and nutrients in the giant storage cavity are transported to all parts of the ship's hull along the blood vessels of different thicknesses in the biological spacecraft, relying on their unique blood.

And as nutrients are absorbed, growth gradually overflows from the gaps in the carapace on the surface of the biological spacecraft.

It was exactly the same as Chen Ming's memory of the insect queen, when its mother evolved from a frigate to a destroyer.

The cocoon built by the proliferating organisms gradually enveloped the biomass spacecraft.

Since the Insect Queen is now an integral part of the biological spaceship, Chen Ming temporarily lost contact with the Insect Queen during the evolution process.

It seems that the Zerg seem to be very fragile during their evolutionary time.

He must be more careful in the future and not let his bugs evolve without protection.

Originally, if the insect queen evolved underground, she would have been protected by an entire insect nest, but now the only thing that can protect the insect queen is her spaceship.

So Chen Ming asked the Supreme Point to activate the scanning array again to prevent the mechanical clan from sneak attacks.

At the same time, the defenders were sent into the air to be on alert and a second layer of protection was prepared.

In addition, let Hui Hui, who is still in orbit, pay attention to the situation on his side and be alert to some anomalies that he may not have noticed.

Taking the best safety measures he could at the moment.

After waiting for about half an hour, which is much longer than transforming an ordinary spaceship.

A crack suddenly appeared in the giant cocoon of solidified growth.

Chen Ming, who was browsing various information with the terminal, immediately turned off the terminal and looked at the cocoon outside the biomass spacecraft.

Soon, with a crisp sound, a pure black biomass spacecraft emerged from the cocoon.

Its matte black color means it barely reflects any light.

If it were in space without professional scanning equipment, it would be difficult to find traces of it.

Not only the outer carapace, but also the interior of the biological spacecraft has also undergone some changes.

Not only is its heart wrapped in such a black carapace.

As well as the worm queen in the heart, as well as all the zerg that are still active on the biological spacecraft, the originally brown carapace on the body has all turned into this pitch black.

It's just that you can't tell the effect of the new jet black carapace just by looking at it.

So Chen Ming planned to do a hands-on experiment.

Chen Ming hasn't had time to dismantle the robotic arm on the defender next to him.

The insect queen, who had regained consciousness, cooperated very actively and stopped next to the defender who landed on the ground again.

Its body is still powered by drills on giant robotic arms and powerful mining lasers.

Let Chen Ming test the strength of the carapace.

But what Chen Ming noticed immediately was not the strength of the pitch-black carapace itself.

It was the difference between the pitch-black carapace on the biological spaceship and the pitch-black carapace on the Zerg in the picture he just saw in his consciousness.

Chen Ming could clearly see that the pitch-black carapace on the spacecraft was basically a fusion of the extremely strong pitch-black carapace and the Thorne Zerg carapace that could support the biological spaceship's navigation in hyperspace and space.

Rather than simply pulling off the carapace from the pitch-black insect and installing it on the spaceship.

The name displayed in the armor column on the biological spacecraft panel also confirmed Chen Ming's conjecture.

[Biological Armor: Heavy Biomass Spaceship Jet Black Carapace]

As for the actual strength of this heavy jet black carapace, it can be concluded from Chen Ming's tests that it is generally slightly lower than that of dolomite steel alloy.

But except for strength, almost all other properties of the jet black carapace are stronger than dolomite steel alloy.

Unless it is 100% pure dolomite steel, it can completely crush the performance of the jet black carapace.

But the jet black carapace has another advantage, it's cheap.

It only requires the most basic biomass to construct, and there is no other additional consumption.

As for things like biomass, it doesn’t sound good to say the least.

You can get a lot of it just by digging some dirt in the field.

The difficulty of obtaining Baiyun Steel is not at the same level.

Moreover, the jet black carapace also has an advantage that even white cloud steel cannot match.

light.

Although the name carries a heavy weight, the mass of the jet black carapace is only one-third of that of dolomite steel in the same volume.

This is of great significance to the maneuverability of the ship in the universe.

After all, the spacecraft needs to contend with inertia to move, and inertia is only related to mass.

The lighter the spacecraft, the more maneuverable it is during short-distance voyages.

These are the unique features of the dark carapace of the heavy biomass spacecraft that serves as the armor of the biomass spacecraft.

It can only be said that Chen Ming did very well in his first blind box draw.

But that may not be the case next time.

And as Chen Ming opened the previous panel again, he also discovered.

The option of genetic retrospection has usage restrictions and must be used again after one month.

There are restrictions on how to draw the blind box, so it is difficult for Chen Ming to hold his nerve.

But forget it, he doesn't have any expectations for this thing in the future anyway.

He still has to learn this aspect of biotechnology himself.

Try to use a more stable way to obtain the possibility of evolution.

That is to directly extract and analyze the Zerg genes.

Isn't this much more reliable than blind box drawing?

Of course this is difficult.

But now that he has a biological spaceship in his hand, these are all things that he must learn sooner or later, just learn slowly.

The matter of the biological spacecraft has now been completely dealt with.

But Chen Ming was not in a hurry to leave here.

Because the Zerg matter has not been dealt with yet.

So he continued to keep the highest point in orbit around the star.

Then we continued on the planet and spent a few days solving the remaining problems.

The problem is that the bugs that the Queen of Bugs cultivated before are not in his hive mind network.

Although the queen's consciousness has been disconnected from the hive mind network built by other bugs. But the retention of pheromones still allows the queen to continue to control all the bugs in the nest below that have lost their greatest individual consciousness.

Relying on pheromones, the queen eats all the bugs in the nest again, turns them into nutrients, and reproduces again.

Although this will result in the loss of some biomass, the repopulated bugs have value in doing so.

Because Chen Ming's spiritual power also maintains control over these bugs, as if he is controlling some kind of biological armor,

And as the insect queen completed the construction of the new Zerg hive mind network, the feedback from the mind network soon came to Chen Ming.

The recovery efficiency of mental power that each hive individual can provide Chen Ming is somewhat insignificant.

But the feedback provided by all the bugs in an insect nest that is about the same size as a mechanical city has increased Chen Ming's mental recovery speed by about 50%.

And it’s not just a mental bonus, the hive mind network that connects the entire insect hive has another, even more outrageous effect.

Speed ​​up his thinking.

The statement of what this means is very clear.

This is not only about thinking about things faster, but also about learning faster.

Instead, his overall abilities will increase significantly.

It's like his consciousness is controlling all body organs including the brain with 120% efficiency.

Assuming that a person's all abilities are enhanced by 20%, then overall, this person's enhancement is not just 20%. This reason is very clear.

Therefore, Chen Ming is now accelerating his control of the mechanical city.

There is a hive mind network here waiting for him to develop.

It's just that his control progress of the mechanical race is somewhat unsatisfactory.

Limited by Chen Ming's own psychic function and the efficiency of his robots in transporting those dormant mechanical races.

As a result, Chen Ming had already asked the insect queen to replace all the insects in the entire insect nest.

The control progress of the mechanical clan in the mechanical clan city is only more than ten percent.

Fortunately, Chen Ming did not plan to make the next jump and build the next temporary stronghold so quickly, otherwise the control of the machine race would definitely slow down his progress.

In short, all the mechanical races in the mechanical race city are under his control.

The hive mind network of the machine race will definitely provide him with more mental power and the most critical increase in thinking speed.

Chen Ming is a little afraid to think about what kind of effect the bonuses provided by the two hive mind networks of the mechanical race and the Zerg race can have if they work together.

Moreover, the increase in thinking also has an extremely significant impact on his psychic effects.

The most obvious thing is that the number of cruisers Chen Ming can control has increased from three before to four now.

This is one of the benefits of controlling Zerg.

Chen Ming is now more and more curious about one thing, what is his spiritual power?

From controlling spacecraft to controlling machinery, from controlling machinery to controlling biological spaceships.

Even now Chen Ming can directly control living creatures, namely those Zerg.

I don't even understand this kind of psychic statement.

But forget it.

Just know that this is a good thing.

Although there are troubles at the beginning, if the final result is good, then there will be no problem.

Just like before.

First Yu Hui caused trouble, using him as a trigger to attract attention from another dimension.

But in the end, he got a special source of condensed spiritual energy and actual training of mental power.

Now the dangerous Thawne Zerg have escaped from the space station where he once woken up and are breeding in space.

But this incident allowed him to obtain the city of the mechanical tribe, understand the cluster consciousness of the mechanical tribe, and also passively build a cluster consciousness that could feed him back his spiritual power.

Even the Zerg themselves became part of the benefits he gained.

As long as the result is good, it doesn't matter if the process goes bad.

Even if Chen Ming doesn't know what kind of effects his spiritual energy has, as long as he can rely on his spiritual energy to become stronger, it doesn't matter to him what the spiritual energy is like.

Rather, he hopes that his spirit can produce these special effects that he did not expect.

Of course, there seem to be long-term harms caused by the previous things.

The gaze of things from another dimension caused by the afterglow will most likely cause the empire to encounter the situation many years ago again.

And if the Zerg that Chen Ming is encountering now continues to breed in space, it seems to be a threat to the empire.

Of course, if others mentioned the Zerg thing, Chen Ming would definitely deny it. Ultimately, it was the problem of the sector military that first discovered these bugs.

Thinking about the disadvantages of these two things, Chen Ming unconsciously thought about whether psychic energy would bring harm to him.

Chen Ming felt that there must be some.

But if he didn't have psychic powers, he would have died on the mining space station.

His life was saved by spiritual energy, and he had to bear all the harm caused by spiritual energy, no matter how bad it was.

Chen Ming confirmed his thoughts in his mind, and then transferred the issues he was thinking about to what was going to happen next.

In the next period of time, he should not run out like he is now. He should stay in the temporary stronghold and proceed step by step according to the original plan.

Relying on the extreme distance jump, he gradually led the Yuhui army away from the empire's border.

However, Chen Ming does not plan to take away too many mechanical tribes and insect queens on the planet in the short term.

After all, the existence of mechanical cities on this planet is real.

Although the city has lost the supply of resources and has declined, and there is still a lot of damage.

But it is, after all, a city that has already been built.

There are many things that Chen Ming needs right in the city.

Even if Chen Ming cannot read words, using a city does not require him to understand the words of another civilization.

Therefore, until he finds a suitable location for the construction of his colony, this mechanical tribe's city can be used as a temporary stronghold, which requires the mechanical tribe to maintain the city.

It is not impossible to even use this city as a permanent stronghold. Chen Ming can use it as a bridgehead for communication with the empire.

If something really goes wrong and someone beats him up, the worst he can do is run away or just abandon this place.

Anyway, the city didn't feel bad if he lost everything he picked up from the beginning.

In addition to the mechanical race, it is actually best for the insect queen to continue to develop on the planet.

On such a large livable planet, no one comes, and the resources of the entire planet can be used.

Given time for the Thorn Zerg to continue developing, Chen Ming didn't know how far they could grow.

There is actually another reason why Chen Ming made this decision.

It was when he rebuilt the insect nest a few days ago that he discovered an extremely unique place in the hive mind.

All sub-individual consciousnesses in the hive mind do not only exist in the body, but also exist in the hive mind network at the same time.

The death of their bodies does not mean the death of their consciousness.

As long as the hive network still exists and does not carry too much consciousness, then after the Zerg body is reshaped, the consciousness of the hive mind individual will be stuffed back into the reshaped body.

Then the same goes for the mechanical race that is also a hive mind.

Only then did Chen Ming understand why the mechanical race died and showed no sign of resurrection after being repaired.

Obviously, Chen Ming needs to use the honeycomb network of the mechanical tribe to split a new consciousness body inside the network and insert it into the body of the mechanical tribe.

It's just that Chen Ming currently doesn't control a large number of mechanical tribes, not even if he controls the entire city.

Because the mechanical race is somewhat special, the consciousness required to support the activities of their mechanical bodies is completely different from that of the Zerg race.

So although Chen Ming can let the insect queen create new Zerg individuals, he cannot create new mechanical individuals. He still needs to control more mechanical individuals.

If it's just these, it's nothing.

It can only speed up the progress of re-cultivation or manufacturing of the Zerg or Machine Race.

But the key point is that Chen Ming's psychic energy can be remotely transmitted and manufactured remotely.

Previously, Chen Ming could not use transformation to transmit Yuhui's individual body over long distances because Yuhui's individual consciousness was independent and extremely powerful.

The process of transformation and reconstruction of the transmission will kill them.

The mechanical race is different from the Zerg race in that their consciousness will not die due to the destruction of the body.

This means that Chen Ming can dismantle the mechanical race and decompose the Zerg race.

Then build the mechanical body of the mechanical race and the insect body of the insect race in a new place.

The consciousness of these sub-individuals of the machine race and the Zerg race will be stored on his hive mind network, and with the help of his spiritual energy, they will cross the vast distances in the universe and appear where Chen Ming needs them.

As long as Chen Ming has a queen-proliferated tissue on hand, or masters the manufacturing technology of the mechanical race.

Then he can create machines and bugs out of thin air wherever he wants.

Of course, Chen Ming's psychic power can still only create machinery.

The Zerg are still limited by their biological nature and can only use the tissues of the queen to transform to complete this step, and this also requires Chen Ming to master many complex biological technologies.

So this is why Chen Ming plans to let the insect queen and the mechanical tribe stay on this planet temporarily.

The Machine Race needs to remain in control.

The Queen needs to continue to develop.

He still needs to continue learning.

They all still need time.

That's why he made this decision.

Chen Ming thought about the matter again in his mind.

Confirm there is no problem.

He temporarily put aside this matter that did not require his continued attention.

Unless there is a foreign enemy here on the planet, the creatures on this planet have no resistance at all in front of the machines and Zerg.

It was impossible to pose a threat to them, and there was really little need for him.

Anyway, he will definitely leave a defender here before leaving.

It will certainly come in handy when necessary.

Speaking of which, Chen Ming suddenly thought that he had never seen a mechanical spaceship in a mechanical city, and he didn't know what the situation was.

But this is nothing. Maybe we will encounter them in the future. The mechanical tribe is not as rare as the Zerg tribe.

Then that's pretty much it.

It's time for him to go back and get down to business.

Chen Ming originally came here just to confirm the situation of the mechanical clan, but he accidentally spent almost a week here.

Next, he must return his attention to what he needs to do most now, finding a colony.

(End of this chapter)