Star Ocean: Starting from the Abandoned Mining Space Station.

Chapter 184 The second cocoon of the insect queen

For the Zerg, the parts of the genes of all the creatures that are eaten that are useful to the Zerg will be preserved in the Zerg's own genes.

The Zerg can evolve these traits.

Of course, these traits can also choose not to evolve according to the will of the insect queen who controls the insect colony, or they can be displayed individually in a certain type of insect individual.

Even the insect queen can take back all these characteristics of the Zerg that have evolved related traits.

Zerg are exoskeleton creatures after all.

It is assumed that a certain kind of bird has a hollow skeleton, an innate characteristic that is one of the foundations of bird flight.

If the Zerg eat this kind of bird and then evolve this kind of skeleton, will their lives be lost?

However, even if the traits are controlled and withdrawn by the queen, the things contained in the insect's genes will not change.

Everything is hidden deep in the genes, including of course the "hollow skeleton" genes that Chen Ming hypothesized.

It’s just that as the complexity of genes increases, the genes in front of the Zerg will become difficult to mine.

And as the Zerg community expands and reproduces, many queens will gradually lose their memory of these genes during iterations.

It will be even more difficult to evolve various genetic shapes that may have evolved due to the external environment.

The genetic insect queen that has just been eaten recently can evolve at will, but the genes that were once hidden deep in the genes.

It can only rely on the stimulation of the external environment to allow the insect queen to first find the existence of these genes on a certain individual, and then express these genes on all Zerg individuals.

Just like combat, or extremely harsh and harsh environments.

For Chen Ming, there is a third way to evolve the Zerg, which is to use his psychic power to retrace his genes once a month.

However, in a practical sense, this should be regarded as the second method, which extracts the traits inherent in the gene, but the efficiency can only be said to be unflattering.

In short, when Chen Ming learned that there were these large insects on the habitable planet, he took the initiative to send Yu Hui to catch a bunch of them.

Chen Ming's idea is simple.

Anyway, the Zerg can obtain genes by eating it. There is no problem that the genes just obtained are contained in complex gene chains. The Zerg Queen can evolve at any time.

Then simply find more creatures to feed the insect queen.

Like the giant bugs on the habitable planet that Chen Ming caught last week.

Some of the unique creatures found on the habitable planet last week.

They were all fed to Chen Ming to the Queen of Insects.

Once valuable genes are extracted, evolve them, and if they are of no value, leave them alone, even if this leads to an increase in genetic complexity.

The traits evolved in combat are themselves designed to adapt to combat. Zerg individuals that cannot evolve suitable traits, or evolve traits that will affect combat traits, should have died long ago.

And although the Zerg have been coming here for so many years.

But since they were forcibly killed by humans and became endangered creatures, it has been proven to a certain extent that their evolutionary ability is definitely not feasible with specialized targeted methods.

With the lessons learned from the past, Chen Ming felt that it would be better to use more scientific methods to evolve the Zerg.

Just wait until he has enough ability in biotechnology to analyze and test the Zerg genes.

Directly use physical means to extract Zerg genes, analyze the abilities contained in each gene fragment, select the useful ones, and then let the insect queens extract and evolve from their own genes.

What Chen Ming is learning now is also the crystallization of the empire's biotechnology.

Since the Empire was once able to specifically target the Zerg race and kill them until they were on the verge of extinction.

Correspondingly, in terms of cultivation, the Zerg race will surely gain new brilliance.

Although Chen Ming cannot do this now, he will always be able to do it in the future as his study of biotechnology deepens.

And he always feels that compared to relying on the Zerg itself to evolve in battle, direct feeding and nearby evolution are actually more efficient.

Moreover, it can satisfy his ideas to a certain extent.

After Chen Ming learned about the laws of Zerg evolution from the Insect Queen, he already had several special ideas about the Zerg.

For example, he fed the quite large number of crystal crabs he had on hand to a few insect queens.

As long as the energy crystal crab eats normally, it can use its own secretions to create a self-storage material on its back that naturally contains energy.

At the same time, this kind of crystallized carapace is also an ordinary energy storage material of extremely high quality, which is even more useful than various artificial materials and artificial devices.

It's just that the crystal crab is an omnivorous creature, and its usual diet mainly consists of various rocks and mosses in caves, so its eating efficiency is extremely low.

The Zerg are just the opposite, they can eat anything.

And the Zerg itself has something similar to a crystal crab carapace.

That is, the biomass stored after digestion and transformation by the queen worms.

If the Zerg absorbed the genes of the crystal crabs, Chen Ming would not dare to think about the advantages that would come from combining the two.

Another idea Chen Ming had was the Alturan Sky Eel, the source of Sky Steel.

Sky steel, which can be said to be the most top-notch material among advanced materials, is a necessity for manufacturing hyperspace channel systems and is also a necessity for spacecraft manufacturing.

Now that Chen Ming is running around with a bunch of afterglows all over the star field, he needs this kind of material very much.

But he did not have a stable source of sky steel, so he had no choice but to buy it at a high price.

Although Chen Ming could buy it from Xinda Company based on his relationship with the factory director, the company is currently mainly engaged in arranging the mining space station.

They want to rebuild the mining space station at a new location to facilitate the subsequent development of Sky Steel.

Therefore, at present, Sinda Company can only rely on some mining spacecraft to collect a small amount of sky steel. It may not be enough for its own use, and its partners must provide some.

Chen Ming definitely has no share.

So when a large amount of expenditure needs to be used to purchase Sky Steel.

Chen Ming was thinking, if he could feed the empty fish to the Zerg, would there be some unique output and effects?

It’s just that empty fish is a little difficult to deal with.

At present, Chen Ming only knows of two places where Kongyu exists.

One is the galaxy where the mining space station is located, which is managed by the company.

The other one is over at Yuhui.

They caught several empty fish when Afterglow raided the sector military outpost.

Chen Ming knew which galaxy Yuhui had sent Kongyu to, but it was not that simple to bring him out.

Therefore, Chen Ming has to think about the Kongyu matter again.

Although the two ideas of crystal crabs and empty fish are good, they are not of the combat type. They should not greatly improve the combat ability that the Zerg species needs most.

However, Chen Ming has never seen a powerful combat creature with his own eyes.

The only powerful creature he had ever seen with his own eyes was the mammoth-like black Zerg in the Zerg genes.

Of course, having never seen a powerful creature doesn't mean that Chen Ming doesn't know that there are powerful creatures.

Because when he was studying biology, he also knew about many ecological reserves, or ecologically protected planets, within the empire.

These are basically from the empire's pioneering era, where planets with unique creatures were discovered, and some creatures were included as examples in the empire's biology textbooks.

Each of these unique creatures deserves special protection in their own way.

For example, Chen Ming knew about a giant butterfly that lives in the atmosphere. Butterfly colonies have the ability to produce auroras on a large scale.

Let the entire planet be shrouded in aurora all year round and surrounded by a magnificent environment.

Therefore, in addition to being an ecological protection planet, this planet is also a good tourism planet.

Although the butterflies on this planet seem to have nothing to do with combat effectiveness.

The biology book only gave a brief introduction to this species, and did not explain that this butterfly has aggressiveness and strong fighting ability.

But if you think about it carefully, you can see that something is wrong.

The cause of the aurora is the glow of plasma generated by the ionization reaction of the flow of charged particles entering the planet's magnetic field.

It is the same plasma as the plasma burst propulsion and plasma weaponized entanglement on the Brilliant Class.

Therefore, these aurora butterflies actually have the terrifying ability to control powerful charged particle flows and even plasma.

Although in the empire it became an animal for people to watch in a zoo.

But if their genes can be ingested by the Zerg, how can the Zerg evolve?

This is just a unique creature that Chen Ming has briefly learned about.

Within the empire, there are many such ecologically protected planets and more unique and powerful creatures.

So Chen Ming's current plan is to try feeding the crystal crabs to the queens first to see the effect.

Of course, he did so. It was not difficult to send the Crystal Crab from the temporary stronghold to the Insect Queen.

After confirming that the crystal crab has enough effect, or the insect queen shows some potential, he will try to find other interesting creatures.

Of course, it is through serious means. Things like poaching are not popular in the prosperous star field.

even. After Chen Ming's fleet visited the space station that was held hostage by Zuo Jing,

Chen Ming still had some thoughts in his mind about feeding the fungal psychic creatures he had recently acquired to the bugs.

We still have to wait for the performance of the Insect Queen first, and look at the progress of Chaofan.

Let's see what Chaofan can come up with.

See whether it is more valuable to grow the fungus yourself or to feed it to the queen.

But just after Chen Ming finished recording what he had just done this week.

He suddenly received news from the Insect Queen.

The queen has formed a cocoon.

Chen Ming immediately took over a bug in the Queen's hive through the Zerg hive mind network.

We went to the insect queen's biological spaceship, which no longer needed to be buried deep underground, but nested directly on the surface.

The insect queen had already eaten the energy crystal crab a few days ago, but she didn't expect that it would only start to form cocoons now.

When Chen Ming observed the current appearance of the insect queen through the Zerg's compound eyes and hive mind network.

You can see that it is the same as before, the entire biological spacecraft is wrapped in growth.

If you get close to the cocoon, you can hear the heavy and slow heartbeat of the biological spacecraft inside the cocoon.

Chen Ming deliberately made a trip to the highest point of the hyperspace channel, which had been running around in the past few days, to return to the Queen of Insects and scan the cocoon. The result was the same as last time. The growths that made up the cocoon resisted the scanning of the highest point. Except for a little bit of the shell of the biomass spacecraft, the place further inside was completely dark.

It was this darkness that made Chen Ming feel a little more hopeful.

After waiting for more than a day.

The insect queen made movement again, and it successfully emerged from the cocoon.

Although the biomass spacecraft outside the insect queen has not changed much, it is still covered by a streamlined black carapace.

However, when Chen Ming was distracted while studying and controlled a bug to enter the interior of the biological spacecraft, Chen Ming discovered that the evolved biological spacecraft was different from the previous one.

Originally, there were some fluorescent cocoons inside the biological spacecraft that could provide extremely small amounts of illumination.

Provide some lighting for the bugs inside the biological spaceship to illuminate the dim environment inside the spacecraft.

Bugs with night vision and thermal vision capabilities only need this little lighting to move freely in the dark environment inside the spacecraft.

Now, these fluorescent cocoons have all been replaced by some luminous crystals with bright green colors that always feel full of radiation.

Of course, there is no such thing as radiation.

These crystals are the biomass converted from the Zerg's digestion, and are actually condensed after the insect queen expresses the genes of the unique glands used by crystal crabs to condense their back shells.

These things are self-storage materials that can store energy just like the carapace on the back of the energy crystal crab.

It's called [Thorne Zerg·Biomass Energy Crystal].

This thing has a unique meaning to Chen Ming.

Because Chen Ming's ability still has an unsolvable problem.

Transmission of energy.

For Chen Ming, almost any energy storage material, including artificial batteries and other things, as long as he uses spiritual energy to transfer it, all the energy stored inside it will be completely dissipated.

Only the only exception, self-storage materials, which naturally carry their own energy, can still retain energy under the influence of Chen Ming's spiritual energy.

Even if the energy is used up, it can be recharged using some ordinary methods.

The energy that is subsequently stored can also be transmitted over long distances by relying on the carrier of self-storage materials.

According to Chen Ming's previous understanding, the self-storage material of the energy crystal crab's shell is already much more powerful than most of the artificial energy storage materials he has learned about.

A typical energy crystal crab back shell can store two to three times the energy of the same volume of energy storage devices or energy storage materials.

And these Zerg energy crystals condensed into glands evolved by the Zerg by absorbing the genes of the energy crystal crabs are even more terrifying.

Just pick one up and it will have five times the energy reserve of the top artificial battery on a cruiser of the same size.

At this point, Chen Ming already felt that the name of the batch cultivation plan of crystal crabs he had previously thought about could be changed.

Changed to a batch breeding plan for crystal worms.

Let the insect queen produce some insects specifically used to produce these insects that can produce energy crystals.

Cultivating such insects is definitely simpler than crystal crabs, as only the queen is needed.

It is easier to raise than crystal crabs. It can eat anything. If it cannot be eaten, it can be converted into shellac by specialized nutritional insects.

Harvesting materials is also easier than the energy crystal crab, and it can even spit out the energy crystals on its own initiative.

Just like the Worm Queen had just done.

Chen Ming saw that the insect queen actively discharged these energy crystals from the flesh and blood of the biomass spacecraft when the brightness of these energy crystals was gradually charged and reached its highest level.

Let some bugs responsible for the transportation work be sent to the giant storage bag that has shrunk several times because the biomass for storing fluid is no longer needed.

Such bugs can be mass-bred and mass-produced, and almost everything can be used as food for the bugs, transformed into such powerful materials.

Chen Ming has already foreseen how important it will be to the development of Chen Ming's colony in the future.

As long as the Insect Queen is around, Chen Ming doesn't even need to be responsible for collecting it.

What he has to do is to find ways to put these materials into practical use and use them for trade within the empire in the future.

However, it is still early for trade and so on, and studying the practical application of biomaterials does not mean simply replacing batteries with self-storage materials.

There are many complex processes involved.

Chen Ming is confident that he can achieve results within a year.

But don't think about it now. The technical level he currently masters is simply not enough, and Chaofan also has things to do.

So after identifying the insect queen, Chen Ming calmed down and checked to see if there were any new changes in the insect queen.

We’ll talk about the rest later.

After all, Chen Ming still remembered that Sinda Company had just developed an antimatter reactor that was stable in large quantities and more powerful than all the current power generation equipment in the empire.

Energy crystals seem to have some wonderful cooperation with antimatter reactors.

Therefore, since antimatter reactors have not yet been applied in batches, it is not easy for energy crystallization to be mass-produced yet.

Let’s talk about the two promising things in the future.

On the insect queen's biological spaceship, apart from the most obvious changes in the energy crystal, only some structural details have been optimized.

The overall changes are not big. It seems that the crystal crab mainly promotes the cocooning and evolution of the insect queen.

The other creatures that Chen Ming fed to the insect queen before were of little use.

But when Chen Ming observed the details of the Queen's changes.

He suddenly noticed that the insect queen had recalled all the Zerg who had gone out to collect various kinds of food.

And directly absorbed most of the bugs in the nest, leaving only some bugs responsible for the defense of the nest.

The insect queen began to cultivate a new generation of Zerg with crystal crab genes.

Two days passed in the blink of an eye.

In the bodies of all Zerg individuals, under the control of the Zerg Queen, an energy crystal that can store a large amount of energy is condensed.

It can greatly extend the activity time of all Zerg individuals outside, and improve the combat effectiveness of Zerg individuals to a certain extent.

There is no doubt that more energy reserves mean a stronger body.

However, the condensation of energy crystals may also cause some negative effects.

For example, when the Zerg fights with the enemy, the energy crystals on the Zerg corpses may be snatched away.

But compared to the negative effects of some additional energy consumption, the improvement in the quality of the entire Zerg race is obviously more important.

And sufficient energy means that the speed of Zerg expansion will increase again.

The speed of evolution of the insect queen will definitely accelerate again.

Chen Ming is looking forward to the day when the insect queen evolves into a cruiser.

If necessary, he can even actively sacrifice a cruiser, just like the mother of the insect queen he currently controls, converting the artificial cruiser into a biological cruiser.

Since the day when the insect queen re-evolved the insect nest.

Another four days passed in the blink of an eye.

The research equipment Chen Ming bought before finally arrived.

There was absolutely no case where Chen Ming deliberately delayed the progress in order to give Chaofan time to research biotechnology, and had to wait until Lao Wu and others had gathered all the equipment before notifying him, causing delays.

In short, Chaofan has almost studied and understood the situation of this group of fungal psychic creatures in the past week.

Therefore, biological research can indeed be put aside for a while. It is time for Chaofan to study what it wants to study.

Chaofan's research results were written down by Chaofan at a level of knowledge that Chen Ming could now understand in biology, and sent to Chen Ming's hands.

However, Chen Ming did not watch it for the first time, but continued the morning lesson with Bai Quan.

It wasn't until noon, when Chen Ming was eating and resting, that he put the terminal with the document open next to him and contacted Chaofan.

But before he even looked at it, Chaofan came to a direct conclusion and said: "These psychic fungal creatures are actually almost harmless to humans."

"?"

"what?"

Chen Ming quickly swallowed the food in his mouth to avoid choking.

He had clearly seen these fungi killing several people on the left before. How could they not be harmful?

Chaofan directly adjusted the content on Chen Ming's terminal to a page of photos, which were photos of the damaged culture room in the laboratory that Chen Ming had taken when he controlled the space station.

Several dead bodies were lying there.

"Based on my research, I found that the genes of this psychic creature have been modified by humans."

"They have been implanted with some special root genes, which are genes that cannot be modified twice. As long as they are modified, the species will die."

"This gene has only one effect. Human body tissues are highly toxic to them."

"So the spores themselves died after killing those people."

"And, since they are psychic beings, even fungi do have a modicum of consciousness."

"They actively move away from things that are dangerous to them."

"So that's why I think it's almost harmless to people."

"And look here."

Chaofan explained, marking a special device on the photo.

"It was this device that emitted a large amount of fungal spores in an instant, causing the death of those few people."

"Under normal circumstances, the concentration of spores in the air is not high. Once the spores come into contact with human skin tissue or the mucosal tissue of the nasal cavity and oral cavity, they will die directly."

"Dead fungi may cause some minor illnesses such as upper respiratory tract infections, but they are definitely not fatal."

"To reach a lethal number of spores, you're almost inhaling pure spores."

"So I seriously suspect that humans on the space station used special devices to deliberately collect extremely high concentrations of spore clusters for emission."

"This is an attack method specifically used on that space station to target intruders."

(End of this chapter)