Instinct

"But I don't really care about that, Humins. You should know better than me what our definition of the Zerg is. The Zerg are not those intelligent individuals, but those mass-produced biological combat units, massive Swarm."

Cecil thought for a moment and continued, "As far as I know, the Zerg's combat units are extremely cheap to produce. They only need to create an embryo, hatch it, and then spend some time to obtain a powerful bio-warrior. Given time, their numbers will fill this star field, and even we will find it difficult to fight them."

"Our technology is several generations ahead of theirs. With such a qualitative technological gap, quantity cannot make up for it."

"Humins, although I just said that 'Zerg' is the name given to those biological legions, it doesn't hide the fact that they have intelligent individuals. This allows them to learn and improve, narrowing the technological gap between us."

"But we won't give them that chance, will we?"

"Who knows?" Cecil said, seemingly casually.

"What's the meaning?"

"The Zerg now possess some interesting technologies, which, given their circumstances, are clearly not their own creation. And the origin of these technologies is obvious. Shouldn't we reclaim them? After all, we are the true inheritors of the Original Epoch Clan."

"But I don't think the Zerg will willingly hand over what they have. After all, I gave them a very favorable points redemption policy before, but so far, they haven't exchanged anything for it."

"Is that so?" Cecil frowned slightly, and after a moment said, "There are two possibilities. One is that we have different development paths. Our technology leans towards the mechanical route, and they think these things are of little help to them."

Humins shook his head and said, "Although the routes are different, the theoretical aspects are the same; only the way they are expressed is different. They may not exchange for finished products, but those theories are helpful to them. However, among the things they haven't exchanged are various theories, so this possibility is not valid."

"Indeed, then there's only one other possibility." Cecil agreed with Humins's point of view, "Although they are still weak now, they possess more than we realize. Therefore, they look down on our exchange list."

"I feel that possibility is also very low," Humins shook his head again. "They are an intelligent race; if they could, they wouldn't do things so eccentrically and attract attention."

Humins' rebuttal didn't upset Cecil. She thought about it carefully again and realized that Humins made a lot of sense. Putting herself in Cecil's shoes, if she were Zerg, she would definitely act discreetly. Even if there was nothing useful in the exchange list, she would still exchange for some things instead of going to such extremes and attracting more and more attention like this.

"So it's not that they don't want to exchange them, but that they have no other choice."

Humins nodded and said, "Very likely. Their system probably has some limitations, such as that Gene Lock. If we can master it, we can dissect Zerg units ourselves and understand some of their mysteries."

"That's right, this Gene Lock is absolutely the most core technology. No matter how simple or easy to understand the composition of those biochemical units may be, it's all just empty talk if we can't unlock the Gene Lock."

"It's truly a powerful anti-theft system, both alluring and awe-inspiring."

"Therefore, we, the legitimate heirs, should confiscate them even more."

"But the problem remains: the Zerg won't hand it over willingly. What if the Original Epoch Clan left them something to save their lives? They have no ties now and can run away at any time. If we let them escape, we'll have suffered a great loss."

"Therefore, we can't force them. We should let them develop properly, until they become large and powerful. When they are involved, their weaknesses will naturally emerge, and that will be our opportunity to act. We'll have to rely on you a lot in this regard, Humins. You have the closest contact with them, so you should subtly give them some benefits. At the same time, find their weaknesses."

"Offering some benefits is easy enough, but the Zerg's weakness... their social system is extremely tight, impossible to infiltrate. I still don't even know where they came from, let alone find their weaknesses."

"Actually, we can make a bold guess about this. Given the Zerg's current technological level, their activity range won't be too large. As we analyzed earlier, there must be some Original Epoch Clan Biological Laboratory nearby, and they probably escaped from there. Therefore, even if they didn't come from LKDW399, they're still in a nearby star system."

Cecil thought for a moment, then added, "Although there's no evidence, because of that Thermonuclear Organism, I think the chances of the Zerg originating from LKDW399 are very low. Humins, have you noticed anything else unusual nearby?"

"Speaking of which, there really is one. In the LKDW398 star system, southeast of LKDW399, a race called themselves the Rat-folk rose up. Their development was very rapid; they went from a primitive stage to a technological civilization in just a few hundred years."

"Heh, this speed is already several times faster than the Epoch Clan's back then. I don't believe any race can surpass the Epoch Clan. I can now almost pinpoint where the Zerg came from. It should be this LKDW398 star system."

Why are you so sure?

"Intuition!"

"What?" Humins was dumbfounded. Weren't we just talking about evidence? How did we suddenly start talking about metaphysics?

"That's right, and it's a woman's intuition. I trust my intuition."

"Alright." Humins wisely chose not to argue further and instead asked, "So what is their relationship with the Rat-folk?"

"That's still unclear. I hope you'll pay more attention to these Rat-folk in the future, Humins. There must be some kind of connection between them and the Zerg."

"Is this also intuition?"

"That's right!"

Humins felt the conversation was going nowhere, but since his task was essentially complete, he wisely decided to end the topic. After a few more pleasantries, they smiled at each other and hung up, everything understood without a word.

In fact, after Cecil first asked the question Humins did not refuse to answer, the two reached a tacit understanding. Therefore, Cecil did not hide his considerable knowledge of the Zerg in the subsequent conversation.

However, Cecil and the forces behind her only wanted intelligence sharing from Humins, who was acting as a neutral party. In return, they offered continued support for Humins.