Bee Empress Shows Her Might!

Just as Luo Yu was plotting his grand scheme to harvest emotional fluctuations, Lin Li arrived in a hurry. "Luo—Luo Yu... you're back." She caught her breath. "Senior Yuwan told me..." "Are you here to see the ghost Honey-Water Bee?" Luo Yu guessed instantly. "It's right beside me." Lin Li turned her head and looked at Bee Empress in astonishment. Inside her Beast Taming Space, her Honey-Water Bee Queen possessed even sharper senses. Looking through Lin Li's eyes, its gaze settled upon Bee Empress, and it felt as though it were beholding the evolutionary pinnacle of all insectoids! An instinct to submit arose naturally; it yearned to offer up everything it had. "This..." Sensing her pet beast's feelings, Lin Li was utterly bewildered. Luo Yu fell into deep thought as well. *Don't tell me the Zerg Empress talent can even cuckold someone else's contracted insectoids? That would be way too wicked.* "By the way, didn't you ask me before whether Honey-Water Bees could evolve again?" Luo Yu suddenly asked. "Yes..." "I've decided to research it with you!" "Ah..." Luo Yu grinned. "So, you see, could Linyue Pavilion provide a bit more support..." The island's funds would barely cover raising an army of Water Demon Beasts. Cultivating a Monarch species required an astronomical amount of resources, so to secure the initial funding to raise soldiers for the Empress, he had to line up sponsors. Once past the early phase, things would be much easier. Luo Yu had his eye on this little heiress. From what he knew, on Jingyue Island, the breeding mogul Wang Defa was the top taxpayer, and Linyue Pavilion was second. "How—how much do you need?" "I might need Linyue Pavilion's Honey-Water Bee farm to cooperate and allow the ten thousand-plus Honey-Water Bees there to breed without any population control! The cost would be covering that..." Although the bees left at Linyue Pavilion's farm were all ordinary individuals, individuals with advanced talents also arose from genetic mutations in ordinary offspring. As long as the base population was large enough, it was actually easier to produce top-tier offspring than having advanced individuals mate with each other. Just like the "Heaven Rewards Diligence" bee before him—both of its parents had been ordinary individuals. Luo Yu certainly couldn't afford the cost of letting over ten thousand Honey-Water Bees breed uncontrollably right now, so he urgently needed a partner. Only with a massive sample size of Honey-Water Bees could he select more and better-suited soul retainers for Bee Empress to boost her strength. No! Luo Yu intended to research the Honey-Water Bee's evolution and make its evolved form Bee Empress's retainers. That way, Bee Empress's retainer legion would become even more absurd! However, he reckoned that a ghost form and a living organism were practically two different species now; even if he found a way to evolve ordinary Honey-Water Bees, it probably wouldn't apply to Bee Empress. If she wanted to evolve, she would likely still have to rely on continuously fulfilling her obsessions. So in the future, aerial opponents were best left for her to deal with. "I suppose that's fine..." Lin Li murmured, counting on her fingers. "Fine? You agreed so easily—do you have any idea how much money that will cost!" Luo Yu suspected she had no clue. "No idea..." "Then how can you say fine? Do you hold the purse strings in your family?" "I don't..." Luo Yu said helplessly, "You'd better discuss it with your family, or wait until I have some research results before pitching it to them." "Okay... There's one more thing." Lin Li remembered something and said, "I heard one of the sheep you bought is about to die. I've never cooked a rock sheep before. Do you need me to help butcher it?" "Honey-roasted whole lamb, mutton hot pot... What would you like to eat?" Luo Yu said, "Spare it, please. It survived all the way from Qianyan Island to Jingyue Island with great difficulty. It's just sick, not dead. "Instead, you could research the culinary compatibility of honey and sheep milk, and find what ratio makes the most delicious combination..." ... Lin Li left regretfully. Luo Yu immediately called over all the Honey-Water Bees with enhancement talents. *Buzz, buzz~* Having been reborn in ghost form, Bee Empress felt excited upon seeing so many of her kin all at once. "Don't worry. Sooner or later, I'll take you to defeat the King of the Sky, the Storm Eagle." Bee Empress was raring to go. Luo Yu: "..." "Anyway, first have them come over and sting me a few times." Empress: ? She looked at Luo Yu in bewilderment, wondering what kind of strange fetish this was. Even so, she complied. Under the command of the Zerg Empress, an insectoid's abilities were drastically enhanced! Luo Yu wanted to see just how much more potent the enhancement-type Honey-Water Bees' stings would become under Bee Empress's command! The next moment, the Honey-Water Bee with the Spirit Enhancement talent received her boost. Its stinger grew massive and thick, gleaming blindingly. "Wait!" Luo Yu called an abrupt halt. "Test it on an inkfish first." "..." After some fuss, Luo Yu stepped up personally. *Hssss—* This sting nearly made Luo Yu snort out a snot bubble. The pain was several notches higher—it truly packed a punch. Yet the very next instant, Luo Yu, who had almost become immune to Spirit Enhancement, felt his mind clear up dramatically, as if he had taken some high-grade stimulant. *Woohoo!* The exhaustion built up from days of traveling across the sea and practicing ghost ship techniques vanished in an instant. This potency... "Next one." Luo Yu took a deep breath. Bee Empress ordered an ordinary Honey-Water Bee with the Strength Enhancement talent to sting him. Down went the stinger... *Boom.* The muscles on Luo Yu's arm bulged instantly, looking just like Master Roshi from Dragon Ball powering up to fire a Kamehameha, giving Luo Yu quite a fright. Fortunately, it was merely due to a temporary surge in strength. After a while, it gradually returned to normal. Yet a noticeable amount of power lingered, giving Luo Yu a clear permanent boost to his physical strength. Too strong... "Next, let's try enhancing breeding capability..." Luo Yu led her before two Honey-Water Bees and gave Bee Empress a meaningful look. Bee Empress nodded, then gave the two Honey-Water Bees a signal of her own. Immediately... the two Honey-Water Bees began mating right on the spot... completely heedless of their surroundings. *Holy crap...* What shocked Luo Yu even more was that after mating, without having to gestate for three or four days at all, the female Honey-Water Bee flew straight to the hive and laid eggs!! From mating to laying eggs took only a few minutes. Incredible. Did this just enhance a bee's reproductive ability to the level of a housefly?! Only houseflies could lay eggs within minutes of mating. Moreover, Luo Yu checked the stats of the newly laid egg. It actually had dual ordinary talents! While not an advanced talent, inheriting both parents' talents made its stats remarkably good! Breeding Exemplar Plus? Bee Empress's insectoid-enhancing ability was practically all-purpose! From combat power to talents, and even reproductive capability—everything could be boosted. With Bee Empress at the institute, the breeding rate of the Honey-Water Bees could skyrocket from here on... "Come on, let's go test Flower-Plucking Thief." Luo Yu adored Bee Empress more and more. Once Flower-Plucking Thief was enhanced, the turtle honey could be upgraded too. *Bzz, bzz, bzz...* However, faced with Luo Yu's new request, Bee Empress suddenly went limp. Luo Yu realized that Bee Empress had only been reborn into this world a few days ago and was still a Level 1 baby bee; repeatedly using her "Command" ability drained her energy. "What a pity you're a ghost. Otherwise, you could have a Honey-Water Bee with Endurance Enhancement sting you a few times to boost your stamina," Luo Yu said. "No matter. I'll take you out to eat in a bit. Once you're full, you'll have your strength back." ... *I might as well run the Ground Penguin evolution experiment first.* When Luo Yu returned this time, he had originally planned to get some sleep. Traveling had been exhausting, and he needed rest. However, after being jabbed by that supercharged enhancement sting earlier, he felt wide awake, without a shred of fatigue. He had learned from the Director that over the past few days, the island had caught quite a few Ground Penguins and kept them in the Ancient Grotto. Right now, he was dying to know what a Ground Penguin + Earth Element Talent + Ancient Evolution Stone would evolve into. This was a vital preliminary experiment before planning July's evolutionary path. These wild Ground Penguins probably didn't have earth element talents right now, but hadn't they bought a batch of gems that could enhance earth element talents when worn? Equipped with these gems, they would likely meet the preliminary conditions for evolution... What was more, he had other secret weapons! Having made up his mind, Luo Yu recalled Bee Empress and prepared to find food for her along the way. Inside the research institute, Yuwan watched Luo Yu rummage hurriedly through his backpack for bottles and jars, preparing to head out, and was utterly puzzled. "Didn't you just get back? Where are you going now?" "To the Ancient Grotto. Along the way, I'll harvest some emotional energy in the wild to feed Bee Empress," Luo Yu said without looking up. "Harvest emotional energy in the wild? Are you going to slaughter and torture wild mutated beasts?" Yuwan froze. "How could I?" Luo Yu produced a sealed bottle of sheep milk. "I'm going to gather the emotional fluctuations of wild mutated beasts with this." "Is this... rock sheep milk?" Yuwan said painedly, "You spendthrift! You're going to feed milk to wild mutated beasts? This stuff is so expensive!" Luo Yu shook his head. "I wouldn't waste something so recklessly. I'm just going to let the wild mutated beasts get a whiff of it." Yuwan was speechless. "You expect them to be filled with gratitude just from smelling milk? Do you honestly think wild mutated beasts have never had good food?" Luo Yu gave a chuckle. "Take a whiff and you'll understand." With that, he tossed Yuwan the sealed sheep milk produced by the "Fermentation Master." [Individual Talent]: Fermentation Master (Advanced talent. As the milk it produces sits over time, the taste deteriorates dramatically, but the nutritional value increases.) This bottle of milk had been fermenting past its expiration date for several days... Luo Yu had started gathering it before he even returned. That smell... Puzzled, Yuwan opened the bottle of rock sheep milk. The next instant— A pungent, rancid stench violently drilled into her nostrils. Yuwan's eyes instantly rolled back. Her stomach churned violently, her throat convulsed, and sour bile surged up from her gut, nearly making her vomit and faint right on the spot. Empress: Detected breakdown emotional energy from Yuwan +10. "Y-Y-You're going to feed shit to wild mutated beasts..." Propping herself against the table, Yuwan choked out those words before sprinting madly toward the bathroom.