Star Ocean: Starting from the Abandoned Mining Space Station.

Chapter 185 The Process of Exploration

Chen Ming frowned slightly and looked at the content on the photo, feeling very confused.

It's not because those people Zuo Jing died in the laboratory were killed by the laboratory's protective measures.

Rather, it is the quality of this psychic fungal creature that makes human body tissue extremely toxic to them.

This trait does not seem to be a naturally occurring trait.

Just when Chen Ming was confused, Chaofan continued to patiently explain to Chen Ming: "After excessive absorption of high-concentration spore clusters, some fungi will always take root on the corpses of the same kind."

"Although these spores that entered the human body also died soon after taking root on the corpse, they will continue to adhere to various mucous membranes and cannot be expelled by normal breathing."

"Those that remain in the lungs cause damage to the alveoli, pulmonary hemorrhage, coughing up blood and suffocation that ultimately led to the deaths of these individuals."

"It is most likely that the blood leaking out of other parts of the body's tissues will be in a similar situation. There are spores on the mucous membranes of human tissues that have taken root in the same kind of corpses and cannot be excreted."

Chen Ming looked at the dead figures on the left side of the photo, and it was indeed exactly the same as what Chaorhan analyzed now.

These fungi cannot pose a threat to humans unless they act deliberately.

So... was it the Harmony Company that immediately transformed the psychic fungal creature after capturing it?

Then the modified fungal organisms were sent to the plant research station in this galaxy?

Or do these fungi have this characteristic from the beginning?

Chen Ming remembered that the records of the space station laboratory he controlled previously stated that the people of Harmony Company suffered serious losses when capturing this group of psychic creatures.

It can’t be said that mining people went deep into the ground without any protective equipment and encountered these fungi, and then they were choked to death by the high concentration of fungal spores underground, right?

These psychic fungus creatures must have been extremely aggressive towards people from the beginning, so they caused losses.

That is to say, this trait of "human body tissue is highly toxic" is most likely to be acquired later.

So Chen Ming asked Chaofan: "Is this kind of 'root genetic modification' a technology currently mastered by humans?"

"Yes."

"Oh, that's okay."

The doubts in Chen Ming's mind were cleared away, and it was certain that it was a trait specially created by Harmony Company.

However, Chen Ming still asked curiously: "When was this technology developed? Why am I not impressed?"

Chaofan sent a paper and the website where it was published to Chen Ming's terminal, and said: "Technology from five days ago."

"It was released by the research institute of that Harmony Company. The paper states that this technology was obtained from the ruins of that destroyed civilization."

"Oh? Is it something found in the ruins of that civilization again..."

Chen Ming immediately opened the paper, found that he couldn't understand what was written in it, and immediately closed it again.

"Tsk."

Chen Ming smacked his lips and clicked on the endpoint coordinates of the signal sent by the satellite in the orbit of the mechanical planet that he had stored in the terminal.

There must be the remains of a civilization there, and such technology may also exist inside.

Anyway, the situation has been straightened out.

Although the paper was released relatively late, the late release of the paper does not mean that the technology is mastered late.

Maybe it's because of this fungal organism that the Harmony Company's research institute has completely mastered this technology?

Chen Ming regrets that he still needs to continue to develop normally and cannot just drive over with a spaceship.

And it’s useless to go over it. Searching and investigating the ruins is also a big project.

He may not know how much trouble is waiting for him on the road.

Even if Chen Ming really solves all the troubles on the road, the language problem will still continue to bother him.

So Chen Ming glanced at the coordinate position and adjusted the interface displayed on the terminal back. It was better to advance slowly.

If he progresses quickly enough along the way, he might be able to learn a few more things, and he will encounter far fewer problems by then.

But suddenly Chen Ming realized a problem.

He asked Chaofan: "Wait a minute, Chaofan, your technical level in biology is enough to understand such a cutting-edge paper?"

Chaofan suddenly brought back what happened before and said, "According to your needs, I planned a learning route for you that will allow you to use psychic powers to bring out the effects of the Zerg."

"This learning route abandons most of the temporarily unnecessary learning of the same level of technology, just to achieve your goals."

Chen Ming understood instantly and said, "So you did the same thing."

"I don't want to invest too much in biology. What I'm good at is always the research on spacecraft."

"also."

After Chaofan figured out the fungus Chen Ming had on hand, there was really no need to continue studying biology in depth.

Among its additional alpha core bonuses, there is indeed no bonus related to biotechnology.

Studying cruisers was already something it had no choice but to study. If it were allowed to study other creatures for a while, Chen Ming would feel as if he was going to be depressed.

But Chen Ming still has a question to ask.

"Are these fungi useful for anything else?"

"It's edible."

"what?"

"It's edible."

"what?"

Chen Ming asked again and again with some uncertainty, and the extraordinary answers he got were unanimous.

But Chen Ming still clearly remembers that he had just seen a biohazard sign painted on the door of that laboratory before. Are these fungi really edible?

Chaofan explained: "The direction of cultivation of psychic fungi at Harmony Company's Plant Research Station is food."

"This fungus reproduces extremely quickly. As long as it can grow normally like ordinary mushrooms, Harmony Company can cultivate a kind of psychic food with stable output."

Chen Ming carefully considered what Chaofan said, and it seemed that there was really no problem.

Even if the Human Empire does not openly acknowledge the existence of psychics, Harmony Company cannot directly use psychic food as a name and gimmick to sell it.

But since the president and boss of Harmony Company know each other well, their psychic food is not false propaganda, and there will be no shortage of sales after all.

So if this psychic fungus can really be cultivated successfully and become psychic food.

It is of very high value to Harmony Company.

Moreover, Chen Ming just saw it written on the report Chaofan gave him.

The radiation from the stars in the galaxy at the Plant Research Station has a consistent effect on many plants.

That is to say, the plants affected by radiation will increase in overall size, have thinner cell walls, and increase intracellular fluid, which means they will change in a direction that is more suitable for eating.

Although fungi are not plants, it is because of those changes in plants.

Only Harmony Company will send the fungus here after modification to try it out.

The result of the attempt seems to be that there is a real possibility of success.

Because Chaofan discovered it based on the data from the space station that Chen Ming got back.

It has been a month since Harmony Company sent the modified fungus to this space station, and it should have been exposed to the stellar radiation.

Moreover, the space station has already applied for the next batch of fungi for experiments, and it was approved on the same day.

If this project does not progress, it will definitely not be so easy to approve psychic fungi.

So...these fungi may have taken an edible shape.

Chen Ming slightly helped his forehead. Sure enough, the fungi should be fed to the Queen...

However, although he had this idea in his mind, he still asked: "Do these psychic fungi have other functions?"

Chaofan replied: "Basically it only has its own function, as a highly offensive biological weapon."

"Although this fungus is not harmful to humans, it is highly transmissible and can cause great damage to the host after parasitization."

"But it also has another very fatal weakness, it is afraid of high-intensity ultraviolet rays, so the location where Harmony Company found it is deep underground."

Afraid of UV rays?

Chen Ming was stunned for a moment and asked: "What about the stellar light?"

"I'm afraid, it's just that the stars in the galaxy at the Plant Research Station are special, and the spectrum contains almost no ultraviolet light, so the Plant Research Station can conduct subsequent experiments."

Chen Ming instantly frowned and said, "It's not even qualified to be used as a biological weapon. If you want to use it as a biological weapon, you must first remove the weakness of fear of ultraviolet rays."

"Otherwise, as soon as dawn breaks, all the biological weapons will die on their own, which is really..."

In that case, he had to really consider the option of feeding the fungus to the Zerg.

Anyway, he could keep some of the samples and consider other uses for these fungi later.

But as Chaofan said, although this thing does not pose a threat to humans, it will still cause big problems if it is released into nature.

After all, these fungi are alive and can hide underground, lurking during the day and becoming active again at night.

If such a biological weapon were used to attack people, it would be eliminated in minutes.

But if it is in nature, it is very harmful to any living creature.

Besides, if an organism is parasitized, the fungus inside the organism is not afraid of the light from the stars outside.

These organisms will become time bombs storing fungi, which is very dangerous.

So Chen Ming thought about it and decided to give the insect queen the shriveled sample he had obtained before to eat, which would have a higher safety factor.

But at this time, the Queen of Insects seemed to have learned some of Chen Ming's ideas through the multi-directional hive mind network.

There was a hint of resistance from its side.

It wants Chen Ming to feed it living psychic fungal creatures, it wants to kill them, to devour them itself.

Although Chen Ming didn't know the significance of this, it certainly wouldn't be a big deal if the insect queen was protected by Chen Ming.

Even if it didn't work out, he would just put the consciousness of the Insect Queen back into another body that the Insect Queen had actively created before.

So Chen Ming satisfied the Insect Queen's idea without much thought.

Maybe the insect queen thought the prey she killed with her own hands tasted delicious.

However, just in case, Chen Ming asked the insect queen to leave the insect nest temporarily.

Keep a distance from the insect nest before eating the fungi sent by Chen Ming to prevent the fungus from spreading and causing problems in the insect nest.

Anyway, the only people on the entire planet who can threaten the Insect Queen are the mechanical tribe, and the mechanical tribe is now all under Chen Ming's control.

These mechanical tribes can even protect the insect queen in reverse, so the insect queen will not be in danger even if she leaves the insect nest.

Perhaps after the insect queen kills and eats these psychic fungi, after the digestion is completed, the next cocoon and evolution will usher in. That night.

It’s time for another weekly record.

Because of the Insect Queen, there is a lot more content in this week's record, but other content is slightly reduced.

After all, in the past week, Chen Ming mainly studied and took care of things after the insect, and naturally paid less attention to other things.

However, Brilliant's exploration of the surrounding galaxies has never stopped.

In the past week, two habitable planets and seven or eight planets with open-pit mines or other resources were also discovered.

Chen Ming can clearly feel that as the scope of exploration expands, the number of valuable galaxies and planets is increasing.

It's just that there are still a few things inside, and it's not worth Chen Ming's excessive investment.

Go to the livable planet as before and catch some creatures to feed the insect queen.

It is enough for the resource planet to leave some simple development equipment and some afterglow individuals to collect resources.

In addition to recording the number of these galaxies, the equipment on them, and the afterglow individuals.

There's not much else to do.

Chen Ming quickly turned off the terminal and lay on the bed.

A week goes by in a blink of an eye.

It’s time for Chen Ming’s weekly recording again.

The past week was just like the previous week, everything went according to plan.

Chen Ming naturally began to record the important events, exploration progress and learning progress of the past week step by step.

The important event of this week was that the insect queen successfully used the highly corrosive blood she evolved after being infected by the fungus to kill the psychic fungus in her body and devour the group of psychic creatures when she almost overturned.

Entered the evolutionary cocoon again.

At this point, Chen Ming finally understood why Chen Ming had to feed the insect queen living psychic fungi.

Because being parasitized by fungi is also a battle in a sense.

It's just that the battlefield is within the insect queen's body.

The insect queen evolved highly corrosive blood during the battle, specifically used to target the fungus parasitizing her body, and finally won the victory.

This time, the queen's cocooning process seems to be longer than before.

Anyway, the queen formed a cocoon three days ago, and it hasn’t reacted until today.

But since Chen Ming didn't need to worry about the insect queen's safety, he now hoped that the insect queen's cocooning time would be longer.

According to Chen Ming's understanding of the insect queen during this period, the longer the insect queen spends time in cocooning, the greater the degree of evolution, and the stronger the ability she will eventually evolve.

Chen Ming wrote down the situation of the insect queen this week before starting to record the progress of this week's exploration.

He had another important thing to record.

During the day today, when Chen Ming and Bai Quan were in class.

Bai Quan suddenly sent an invitation letter to Chen Ming, an invitation letter for his lieutenant general promotion ceremony.

This is considered a formal invitation, and it is also a formal process that must be followed.

The promotion ceremony will begin in one month, giving everyone invited to participate sufficient time.

Although Chen Ming couldn't and couldn't go, he still said curiously at the time: "I thought that this kind of formal investiture ceremony would only invite some people with status at most."

"The Fourteenth Legion is not an orthodox army directly under the empire, but an independent legion, so some of the rules are different from those of the army."

"And there is a banquet after the ceremony, which is an occasion for communication in itself."

After receiving Bai Quan's reply, Chen Ming said no more.

Anyway, this promotion ceremony has little to do with him.

He has already received the benefits from Bai Quan, and the credit belongs to Bai Quan, and it should have nothing to do with Chen Ming.

Moreover, it has been almost a month, and Baiquan has almost approved everything that needs to be approved.

The Stardust class is already heading towards the boss carrying the artificial spiritual nerve.

It won't take long for Chen Ming to get a new cruiser that can best utilize his spiritual power, and a spiritual nerve that can definitely improve his spiritual power.

Of course, this incident did not affect Chen Ming. He continued to study normally during the day.

When it's time to go to bed at night, it's also a normal record.

Anyway, do whatever you have to do.

The record is the record.

Chen Ming just made a note of this incident. After all, Bai Quan must have been very busy in those days, and the study matters may change a little during those days.

Remember in advance so that you won’t be in a hurry when the day comes.

These are the only two important things worth recording.

It’s time to record the exploration progress over the past week.

In the past week, the Afterglow individuals have explored their surroundings for more than 170 light years, which is faster than Chen Ming thought.

Chen Ming would drive to the highest point to visit every valuable planet.

Take away the creature, leave the afterglow, and send back the data.

Exploit some easily mined resources by the way.

After doing too many repetitive things, the initial freshness wore off, and Chen Ming gradually began to feel bored.

That is, if you discover some new species on a planet, you can raise them for the time being and prepare to feed them to the queen later.

Chen Ming would then find it a little fun to guess what traits the insect queen could show and what abilities it could have.

The learning aspect is the same as last week.

Everything is proceeding step by step, there is not much progress, and the progress is not fast.

There wasn't much worth recording, so Chen Ming wrote casually and lay on the bed.

This week has been a quiet one.

Time is like a wild donkey, it runs without stopping.

Another week passed during Chen Ming's repeated learning process every day.

Nothing important happened this week, and the Queen was still in her cocoon.

However, Huihui has already commanded the Afterglow individuals to expand the scope of exploration to more than two hundred light years.

At this distance, the hyperspace channel has basically been blocked by hyperspace clouds.

Chen Ming's highest point needs to open a path first, so that other small ships behind can enter the interior of the galaxy to investigate.

It's not a hassle, just go and fly around.

But the development itself was as boring as ever.

But from here on, the number of valuable galaxies discovered by Afterglow individuals continues to increase.

Chen Ming even found sky steel ore in a galaxy.

Although there are no definite traces of Alturan Sky Eels, the existence of Sky Steel Ore has proved that there were Sky Eels living here in this galaxy.

Maybe he just went to other galaxies.

So Chen Ming asked Huihuang to increase the exploration of several surrounding galaxies, but so far no trace of Kongyu has been found.

However, besides Kongyu, there are still other planets worthy of Chen Ming's attention.

For example, two planets with high-level resources, and a dozen resource planets with different scales that can easily develop resources.

These planets, like the previous planets, were all arranged by Chen Ming to develop resources.

There should be more galaxies waiting for Chen Ming to do this.

So much so that Chen Ming was thinking about whether he needed to bring back some of the Yuhui individuals who were temporarily stationed on relatively low-value planets to mine resources and move them to other planets.

Although it is not needed yet, as Chen Ming continues to explore, jump to the next location, and further expand the scope of exploration.

Chen Ming's afterglow will eventually run out.

He had to keep some spare.

But when Chen Ming and Huihuang mentioned this,

Although Huihuang didn't say it directly, the three minutes of silence made Chen Ming suddenly feel as if a meaningless question had popped up in his mind.

In short, this is the overall exploration aspect.

And in terms of learning.

According to Chaofan's previous plan, Chen Ming has mastered some biological technologies related to the Zerg by learning only one technology tree.

It was the technology for making shellac that Chaofan specifically specified before.

As for another technology of fast condensation of biomass, after the insect queen ate the energy crystal crab and obtained the insect's own energy crystal, Chen Ming no longer had to learn this thing.

Biomass agglomerates are fully replaced by energy crystals.

Chen Ming can just learn the energy crystal technology related to the energy crystal crab that he stole from Yu Hui before. Through the body of the insect queen, Chen Ming can directly create everything that needs to be created.

In fact, energy crystals also replace the function of shellac to a certain extent.

After all, every Zerg has energy crystals in their bodies, their activity time is greatly extended, and the importance of shellac must also be reduced.

However, shellac, a common nutritional supplement for the Zerg, was still needed when the Zerg fought for a long time, so Chen Ming continued to learn.

And by using the body fragments of the insect queen that Chen Ming knocked off from the empty shell of the unconscious body left by the insect queen, Chen Ming could directly create shellac around him.

To be honest, no matter how you look at this gelatinous bright green food, it makes Chen Ming very appetizing.

It usually doesn't smell like much, but when you poke the surface of the gel, a unique aroma inside will leak out.

Just like what Chen Ming just made in his hand.

Chen Ming has always carried a bit of the insect queen's body tissue with him. It was specially made into a wristband and put on his left hand, like pieces of pitch black scales covering his wrist.

It is convenient for him to use this bit of body tissue to indirectly transform some of the Zerg things he needs at any time. Incidentally, it can also help him test his mastery of Zerg biotechnology.

Just when Chen Ming was recording what happened in the past week.

Chen Ming's other hand subconsciously applied it directly.

The shellac was produced with a slip of the hand, and a little of the skin was accidentally pinched.

Staring at the unique aroma of shellac on his hands, Chen Ming suddenly swallowed his saliva.

(End of this chapter)