Because they were in different dimensions, Akashi did not stuff these live "rabbits" into her cargo hold this time. Instead, she once again put the Manjuu to work, summoning ten of them.
The Manjuu carried one "rabbit" on their heads and held another up with their tiny wings. Fewer than twenty "rabbits" were easily transported back to the little house where Su Luo and the others were temporarily staying.
The supplies had arrived, but the Manjuu's work was not over. Since Akashi intended to breed some "rabbits," the Manjuu still needed to build her a cage for raising them.
Besides, Akashi was not going to personally gather food to feed the rabbits she planned to raise. It was foreseeable that the Manjuu's next assignment would remain arduous!
Inside the house, Azi sat quietly beside Su Luo. She held a Manjuu in one arm and ate the strange-looking fruits Su Luo had picked from that fruit tree with her other hand.
Although Azi said she had eaten them before, and the tree had told Su Luo that its fruits were not poisonous, Su Luo still felt it was better to be cautious. After all, hearing was one thing; seeing was another.
So... the Manjuu in Azi's arms, which had nothing much to do, still could not escape the task of testing for poison.
Fortunately, the fruit really was not poisonous. Not only was it harmless, it was quite tasty.
Only after the Manjuu confirmed the fruit was safe did Su Luo give some to Azi.
Azi had always been obedient. She sat quietly while Su Luo fed fruit to the Manjuu, merely watching in silence and swallowing, but she did not try to snatch any. She was very well-behaved.
Watching Azi obediently eat the fruit, Su Luo somehow felt as though he were back in the harbor, playing with the little ship girls. Well, the little ship girls were also obedient and adorable. The only bad thing was that someone was always teaching them to lure Su Luo toward some older ship girl's dormitory!
Su Luo sighed. With no one trying to squeeze him dry, being able to quietly feed a good child was truly relaxing!
After letting little Azi eat some fruit to fill her stomach, Su Luo went to prepare roasted "rabbit." Akashi could not eat the fruit, while Su Luo had eaten two himself. They tasted good, but they were not very filling. Meat was still more substantial. Little Azi was still growing, so she should eat more meat.
"Azi, sit here and don't run around. I'm going to roast some meat for you, and I'll be back soon. Also, remember not to disturb Sister Akashi. She's thinking about something, understand?"
Su Luo pointed at Akashi, who was off to one side writing and drawing on a board, and gave Azi those instructions.
Azi obediently nodded, indicating that she understood.
Seeing Azi sit there munching on fruit, her little face, washed clean with Akashi's help, was not especially chubby but was still adorable. Su Luo smiled at her, then headed outside.
Azi's large eyes remained fixed on Su Luo's figure. Only after he left the house and turned to one side, vanishing from her sight, did she withdraw her gaze.
Akashi was researching the energy problem of Su Luo's Super Gene system.
Although she also wanted to return to the harbor as soon as possible, the problem was that if she wanted to go back, she either had to start researching how to convert cube energy into the kind of energy stones produced by the game-making machine and then supply the machine with them, or take the Commander with her and clear the game made by the game-making machine.
Both would take time.
The current situation was that they had no idea whether the surrounding environment was safe. Akashi could not guarantee that no other danger would appear during the time she spent researching, threatening her Commander's safety!
If she could not protect her Commander, what was the point of rushing to research how to return to the harbor?
Moreover, Akashi believed that their companions in the harbor would never simply sit around and wait. Even if she did not research a way to bring the Commander back, the harbor would surely find a way to retrieve them!
The Commander would not abandon his fleet, and the fleet would not abandon its Commander either!
Therefore, Akashi had always known what the key thing she needed to do now was.
The key was not figuring out how to go back. The key was to protect the Commander's safety first.
Akashi activated her Super Gene system, used her ability, and monitored the amount of energy the cube was outputting.
Previously, Akashi had never paid attention to the issue of her cube energy output. After all, the energy supplied by the cube was practically inexhaustible. There was no need to worry about running out, so even if some was wasted, it did not matter.
But Akashi now took this issue seriously. Her Commander's Super Gene did not have a cube supplying it with energy! That meant that every bit of energy he used was one bit less!
Therefore, energy waste had to be strictly avoided.
Although Akashi's Super Gene did not possess any special offensive abilities, that did not mean Akashi could not attack.
The way the ship girl phantoms summoned by Su Luo attacked gave Akashi inspiration. What if the Super Gene system's special ability was not offensive? No problem—she could simply gather energy into a ball and smash it at the target. As long as enough energy detonated, the attack would still be effective!
Akashi immediately put the idea into practice. She controlled the cube's energy output and recorded exactly how much energy it provided. Then, she used her Super Gene system to manipulate that energy, compress it into a ball, and hurl it at her chosen target: a tree outside.
That tree was quite far away. After all, the Commander was beside the house dealing with those "rabbits," and Akashi was worried that the explosion might be too powerful and affect him.
When the ball of energy exploded, however, the result gave Akashi a fright.
It was not that the explosion was too powerful.
It was that it was far too weak.
Based on the energy output from the cube just now, the blast should not have been so weak at all.
By a rough comparison, the energy loss rate was at least over eighty percent!
This energy efficiency was simply too...
Akashi clicked her tongue. She roughly understood why her Commander had drained all the energy from that energy stone in such a short time.
It was not the Commander's fault. This world's energy efficiency was simply far too low!
Akashi could not help thinking of the Navigator's sub-unit currently inside the commander's Super Gene system.
Navigator TB was essentially an auxiliary intelligent personality—in plain terms, an artificial intelligence. Navigator TB's main body was located at the Star Sea Base! Her main body was an extremely powerful supercomputer, normally powered by Energy Cubes.
Akashi imagined what would happen if the Navigator conducted, in this world, the incredibly calculation-intensive work she normally performed at the Star Sea Base. Given this world's energy efficiency, the Navigator's energy requirements during calculations...
Akashi silently shifted her gaze to the sun outside the window, which was already nearing the horizon.
"Even all the energy the entire sun could provide would probably be used up in an instant!"
She had to find a way, absolutely had to find a way! If they did not solve the commander's energy supply problem, he would never have the ability to protect himself in this world!
(The game mentioned that TB's main body was at the Star Sea Base, though that was in Test Site β.
But the factions in Test Site β had split apart! Meanwhile, in the player's harbor, all factions got along amicably in great unity. That theory on the Azur Lane wiki roughly meant that the harbor was similar to Valhalla, and that the Commander in Test Site β was a projection of the harbor's Commander. But this book would not consider that.
Test Site β was the only one among the Sirens' many test sites where a commander existed, but the commander was clearly fragmented, something like memory loss. The situation in the harbor was different from that in Test Site β. In Test Site β, the commander ran around rescuing people and saving the world! In the harbor, the commander was basically throwing parties every day! So the harbor and Test Site β were probably not the same place. Still, we would not consider that. Just treat the harbor as the future after Test Site β achieved its perfectly unified happy ending. Anyway, the story vaguely mentioned that the original world had already mastered time.)
Before you continue