At the Space Castle, on the second basement level, Lu Zhiyu stood before a gigantic structure resembling a beehive. Ever since he had started putting his plan into action, he had felt short-handed, so he immediately took the smallest Hive from the Painting Space and placed it on the second basement level. He wasn't an Insect Queen and lacked the Queen's innate mental ability to control the entire Zerg Race and become its supreme genetic controller.
Lu Zhiyu's mental talent was information transmission. In other words, he could use his mental power to transmit vast amounts of information—not something just anyone could do. Everyone who had entered the Zero-Dimension World awakened a mental talent. He had only understood this after observing the Insect Queen.
His talent was different from the Insect Queen's. For ordinary Zerg who hadn't entered the Zero-Dimension World but had awakened by drawing on Source Substance, mental power was merely a special sensory organ. They couldn't transmit information to sense and modify the information encoded in genes as Lu Zhiyu could. Only beings like him and the Insect Queen, who had reached the Zero-Dimension World, could do that.
The Insect Queen's mental talent also differed greatly from Lu Zhiyu's. He called hers Zerg Control, while his own was Information Transmission. Although he couldn't control the Zerg on a large scale like the Insect Queen, he had no trouble using a Hive to create and control some of them.
The Zerg were most terrifying when they had an Insect Queen. Without one, ordinary Zerg posed little threat to Lu Zhiyu. Their intelligence was extremely limited; they simply worked at the tasks assigned to them at birth until they died. That was the Zerg.
As long as Lu Zhiyu controlled the Hive, he could modify the pheromones while it was creating them and produce the kinds of soldiers he wanted, then have them obey his orders. But he wasn't an Insect Queen, and this Hive was incomplete. He certainly couldn't unleash the kind of endless horde the Queen could—at most, he could make a few Zerg servants. Besides, he didn't think much of the Zerg. Their intelligence was too low. Every highly intelligent race possessed a great deal of Source Substance, while the Zerg were split into two extremes: ordinary Zerg and the Insect Queen. And the Insect Queen was far too terrifying.
Lu Zhiyu activated the Hive and immediately saw it devour the large quantity of compounds he had placed inside. Before long, black, slime-covered spheres emerged from within, struggled to their feet, and stood before him.
They all looked like aliens, with black shells, slender bodies, enormous heads and eyes, and antennae. These were the Ant-Men Lu Zhiyu had created. The second-generation Hive was exceptionally powerful. The Zerg it produced were nearly all mature, able to head straight into battle as soon as they were born and serve as an endless supply of expendable troops.
One after another, they emerged. Before long, Lu Zhiyu saw three or four dozen Ant-Men, each nearly two meters tall, kneeling before him as they awaited his orders.
Lu Zhiyu sensed them with his mental power and could barely detect any four-dimensional fluctuations. The Ant-Men's intelligence was frighteningly low; they had almost no self-awareness and only acted according to the missions the Insect Queen had given them. For now, Lu Zhiyu was their highest-ranking commander. Of course, if the Insect Queen of this Hive appeared, she could immediately strip him of control.
Using his mental power, Lu Zhiyu implanted each Ant-Man with work assignments, procedures, and instructions. They immediately sprang into action, filing upstairs from the second basement level and carrying out their assigned duties. Some cleaned and organized, while others built. Each Ant-Man had a task of its own.
Lu Zhiyu let out a breath. With the Ant-Men, he had much less work to do, and he could carry out many things according to plan.
After all forty Ant-Men had been created, the Hive ran out of energy and powered down again. Lu Zhiyu went out and firmly locked the heavy iron door on the second basement level. This thing was dangerous.
With the Ant-Men around, the entire castle seemed to have come alive. They bustled back and forth, cleaning and decorating the place. They made all kinds of furniture and utensils, and the castle's empty shell was finally furnished.
The third-floor lounge had a library whose shelves had been filled, though the room was still empty of books. Lu Zhiyu planned to stock it little by little in the future.
He went around the corridor and walked to the back, where he found Lu Zhiyu reclining in a wooden armchair with a book. When an Ant-Man arrived, Lu Zhiyu immediately stood up. The Ant-Man didn't speak, but the four-dimensional fluctuations from its antennae told him that construction of the castle was complete—especially the prison on the first floor and the laboratory on the fourth.
Lu Zhiyu first went up to the fourth floor to inspect the laboratory, then went down to the first basement level to look at the prison. At the end of a long row of stone cells stood a huge structure resembling an altar. A Guidance Array for a Dimensional Gate had been carved into the floor, but Lu Zhiyu was already skilled enough to draw one with his mental power without any guidance.
The altar was still tightly enclosed by iron bars, making it look like a strange cell. This was a special teleportation array Lu Zhiyu had prepared to capture beasts from the Maria World. Accompanied by two Ant-Men, he stepped onto it. The cell door came down, and he and the Ant-Men vanished from the altar.
Lu Zhiyu stood on a hillside. Behind him stretched a boundless forest, while a vast grassland spread out below. A wide river wound through the valley at the foot of the hill and flowed into the distance.
Beside the river, quite a few animals were drinking. Birds called continuously from the forest. A goshawk flew overhead, and a rabbit in the grass immediately darted away. Lu Zhiyu could see many familiar species, many of which he had captured and brought here himself. Others were unfamiliar; they were new species that had evolved over hundreds or thousands of years as they adapted to different environments across this land.
Flocks of sheep and herds of cattle roamed the grassland, while wolves and jackals prowled for prey. The sky was blue, the clouds white, and the air rich in oxygen. The whole world had the feel of a primeval age, brimming with the vitality of a new beginning.
Lu Zhiyu led the Ant-Men down the hillside toward the foot of the mountain. As they approached the river, the animals scattered, staring curiously at Lu Zhiyu, the two-legged creature dressed in brightly colored clothes.
Lu Zhiyu waded into the river and gazed at the fish swimming beneath its clear surface. He lifted his head, a smile on his face. "This is the Maria World!"
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