Forming a Pirate Crew!

This Many Children, Many Blessings talent, compared to Breeding Exemplar, was much more like a built-in pity mechanic. While it didn't guarantee that every batch of eggs would be of high quality, it functioned almost like exercising fertility—as more and more eggs were laid, the pity guarantee would trigger and yield an offspring with top-tier aptitude. Aside from that, among the remaining hundred or so advanced talents, the Bee King talent was the most common, accounting for roughly fifty bees. That meant once they reached Level 5, every one of them could evolve into a queen. Of the remaining fifty, about eighty percent had elemental affinity talents across various attributes, granting them the aptitude to comprehend and master abilities outside their innate element. Talents like Water Element Affinity and Wind Element Affinity weren't especially rare, but their baseline was solid. Luo Yu wasn't particularly enthusiastic about breeding for elemental affinities. He felt it was fine to specialize in a single primary attribute; developing too many elements would spread one's energy far too thin... Unless, of course, the secondary attribute was ridiculously broken—like the magma power of Walking Volcano, or something like... [Individual Talent]: Void Power (Advanced talent. Individuals with this talent have an extremely low probability of learning space-attribute abilities...) Space aptitude! Compared to mundane water or wind, Luo Yu had found a Honey-Water Bee with the potential to wield space power! A true bee prodigy! For an attribute so formidable, Luo Yu had initially wondered why it was only classified as an advanced talent, thinking it deserved top-tier talent status at the very least. Upon closer inspection, however, he noticed that most elemental affinity talents stated the individual possessed the aptitude to "comprehend and master" the power, whereas Void Power merely granted an "extremely low probability of learning" it. Even if it learned the skill, mastering it was by no means guaranteed. This went to show that space-attribute abilities were vastly more difficult to develop than other elements. As for the rest of the advanced talents, they enhanced the bees in all sorts of strange and unique ways. For instance, the Clairvoyance talent made for an exceptional scout, while the Night Assassin talent vastly boosted combat prowess in the dark. If the soldier bees under a queen's command all possessed such specialized advanced talents, the Honey-Water Bee legion's overall combat strength would easily multiply several times over. Beyond the enhancement talents, Luo Yu valued four advanced talents the most, considering them to have tremendous breeding value. The first was naturally the Bee King talent, which granted the power to command the swarm. No matter how absurd other talents were, they still answered to the queen's authority; that was a rule written into their genetic code. The second was Void Power. A space ability... Even though the odds of learning it were miniscule, he could try pairing an individual with space talent with a Cleverness individual. Smarter offspring might have a slightly better shot at grasping spatial abilities. The third, of course, was Many Children, Many Blessings, which was bound to become the cornerstone of his upcoming efforts to breed supreme Honey-Water Bees. And the final one was another advanced talent. [Individual Talent]: Flower-Plucking Thief (Advanced talent. Can steal physical nutrition from Grass-attribute mutated beasts and convert it into highly nutritious special honey.) Written as Flower-Plucking Thief, but read as a vampire talent. Though not as straightforward as a direct stat-boosting talent, it could still pass as an enhancement talent. After all, nourishment through food was still nourishment; making what they ate more nutritious would only aid their growth. In the end, Luo Yu selected around eight hundred Honey-Water Bees, siphoning off a twentieth of the farm's total stock. Among them was a large batch of ordinary individuals chosen for auxiliary purposes. For example, bees with the Cleverness talent were set aside to mate with the space-talent bee, while those with the Cheerleader talent would boost the work efficiency of nearby Honey-Water Bees. Luo Yu had no idea how that even worked... Pheromones? Or were those bees simply so good-looking that the others worked themselves to the bone just to show off? He also picked several bees with traits like Boundless Energy. If it looked useful, Luo Yu set a few aside as reserves. "Eight hundred of them?" "Are there any individuals with enhancement talents among these?" "I can't say for sure just yet," Luo Yu replied. "We'll need to run specific tests once we're back at the institute. Right now, I can only make a rough assessment." "Are you a Beast Master with a mental talent?" Lin Li asked curiously. Beast Masters with mental talents possessed formidable perception, though everyone had limited energy, and their development paths varied widely. Some mastered telekinesis, others honed telepathy to converse with high-intelligence mutated beasts, and some acquired bizarre perceptual abilities that let them track down unique pet beasts. Lin Li guessed that Luo Yu had a mental talent, granting him a degree of sensory awareness toward atypical mutated beasts—something akin to spiritual resonance. Many brilliant biologists and biological researchers possessed mental talents, including Luo Yu's and Chen Bo's fathers. "No," Luo Yu said. "Mine is a soul talent." A soul talent... Lin Li froze momentarily. That was an innate gift even more mysterious than a mental talent! At present, the mainstream development paths for it were limited to soul projection and possessing Ghost Ships! "So I'm quite good at spotting individuals with unique souls," Luo Yu said with a light smile. To be fair, whether it was mental perception or soul resonance, such gifts could help certain talented Beast Masters pick out slightly unusual mutated beasts. But in Luo Yu's view, all those sensory abilities paled in comparison to the Data Eye. After all, sensing something didn't mean fully understanding it. You still had to guess, conduct experiments, and research to identify the specific talent, which could easily amount to nothing. It was nowhere near as brutally simple and direct as the Data Eye, and it never misjudged. *** "Let's head back to the institute." With Lin Li's Honey-Water Bee Queen managing the swarm, the eight hundred Honey-Water Bees proved remarkably obedient. They were nothing like that unruly school of inkfish, where attempting to pair them up required dodging bursts of ink. "Once we get to the institute, will my main job be managing these Honey-Water Bees?" Lin Li asked, brimming with anticipation. She planned to study diligently at the Luo Yu Research Institute to see if she could uncover a brand-new evolutionary route for Honey-Water Bees in the future! "Yeah." "Scholar Luo Yu, do you think Honey-Water Bees have the potential to evolve even further beyond becoming a queen?" This was the first time she had met a scholar actively researching Honey-Water Bees, and she cared deeply about Luo Yu's perspective. After all, what Beast Master didn't wish for their pet beast to possess additional evolutionary stages? "There should be," Luo Yu said. "Theoretically, so long as the criteria are met, every mutated beast can mutate and evolve indefinitely..." "Then what do you think the evolutionary conditions for a Honey-Water Bee Queen would be?" Luo Yu pondered for a moment before offering, "Spiritual power?" "Compared to ordinary Honey-Water Bees, the queen evolved the command ability to lead the swarm." "Studies indicate that this command ability doesn't rely on pheromones, but rather on a special mental network and bloodline pressure." "However, since Honey-Water Bees aren't naturally mental-type mutated beasts, their exploitation of this mental network is severely limited. If a Honey-Water Bee Queen possessed a mental talent, she might be able to transform that one-way command structure into a reciprocal loop, drawing upon the swarm's power to strengthen, influence, and elevate herself." "Of course, the chances probably aren't high; other researchers have almost certainly looked into it before..." "Oh, a space talent might work too!" Luo Yu recalled that particular bee. "If a queen could develop an isolated space ability, allowing the swarm to dwell within a hive-space of her own creation, perhaps the spatial-mental network would undergo a mutation. Even if it didn't trigger an evolution, it would make traveling and fighting far more convenient..." "Or maybe the key to the queen's further evolution doesn't lie within herself at all, but rather within the ordinary bees she commands. For instance, a contingent of soldier bees with mental talents might collectively establish a stronger mental network. Or perhaps those enhanced bees I discovered could secrete an empowering pheromone that alters biological mechanisms. In sufficient quantities, they might induce a mutation in the queen..." Luo Yu was merely tossing out wild hypotheses. Actually researching such concepts would demand an enormous workload, with zero guarantee of success. He might as well pin his hopes on whether the Retainer Evolution Method could yield evolutionary results, as that approach was far more universally applicable. "In any case, once we reach the institute, you're free to pursue your own research alongside your basic duties. The lab can provide the equipment," Luo Yu said. "Space... physiologically enhancing pheromones..." Lin Li nodded repeatedly. Those were genuinely intriguing angles. Joining the Luo Yu Research Institute might truly teach her something after all. *** Outside the research institute. Seeing that Luo Yu had finally returned, Yuwan stepped out to greet them. "Senior Yuwan!" Lin Li seemed to recognize her; after all, both had been the top graduates of their respective classes. "Welcome! You'll be working at the institute from now on, won't you?" Yuwan stepped forward, clapping Lin Li on the shoulder with a smile of keen anticipation. "I have full faith in your cooking skills." "I've already left tonight's ingredients in the kitchen." Lin Li blinked, utterly bewildered. *???* *Didn't I come here to be a research assistant?* *Why does this sound like an interview for a chef...* "Could you please not exploit the newcomer?" Luo Yu couldn't help but chime in. "We are a legitimate research institute." With that, he turned to Lin Li as well. "Xiao Li, dinner is in your hands. Go easy on the honey tonight, okay? If that's tough, honey-mustard is fine." "Alright, fine..." Lin Li held her forehead. "I suppose I should be glad you enjoy my food. But in return, whenever I invent new dishes in the future, you'll both have to be my taste testers." "Deal," Yuwan chuckled. "Oh, right—you might need to make enough for four tonight." "Four?" Luo Yu paused, puzzled. "Aren't there only three of us?" Yuwan pointed toward a nearby corner. "Researcher Chen Zhuo's son came by as well. He's doing his homework under the streetlamp over there, saying he wants to help out around the institute too. He's been waiting for you all day, so we can't very well let him starve, can we?" "Ah..." Luo Yu was taken aback. That really did make four. The kid had finally come after all. Things were truly looking up for the Luo Yu Research Institute. He gave it some thought. Forget a research institute—a lineup like this could be dropped straight into One Piece to assemble a pirate crew and set sail. Navigator: Yuwan. Cook: Lin Li. Translator and research assistant: Chen Bo, who could communicate with wild mutated beasts—an invaluable asset during ocean voyages. Sometimes sea beasts blocked a ship's path without genuinely intending harm; understand their needs, and a bloody conflict could be averted altogether. A translator fluent in beast language was indispensable on any voyage. *And then there's me: a Ghost Captain and helmsman capable of piloting a Ghost Ship?* Luo Yu fell into deep contemplation. How was this a research institute roster? It was practically an elite sailing crew! Once he bred the ideal Monarch Species and powered up through the Honey-Water Bee training method, he really could put together a fleet... Of course, it would be a proper merchant fleet, not a pirate crew... As for the name, they could call it...