"Xiao Yu, keep up the good work. If you need anything later, just ask Yu Wan. Don't hesitate."
Meanwhile, after seeing more medical Ink Fish with his own eyes at Luo Yu Research Institute, Yu Lei felt his spirits lift.
The fatigue from staying up nights working for days vanished in an instant.
Now he could hardly wait to travel a few years into the future and witness Mirror Moon Island's thriving medical field.
"Okay." Luo Yu nodded.
"Xiao Wan, I'll leave things here to you. I'm going to report this to the island lord."
Yu Lei patted Luo Yu on the shoulder, then turned to Yu Wan.
"No problem." Yu Wan watched Director Yu Lei leave. "My uncle's going to claim credit with the island lord. Probably something about having 'a keen eye for talent' again."
"The director is your uncle?" Luo Yu asked when he heard that.
"Yeah. What's wrong?" Yu Wan smiled at Luo Yu. "He's just my uncle. Right now, he might be thinking of making you his godson."
"Nothing, nothing." Luo Yu smiled. "That's nice..."
Phew...
Yu Wan patted her cheeks. Only after she and Luo Yu were alone did she feel she could catch her breath.
This day had been too surreal.
She looked at Luo Yu with a complicated expression. Was this boy she had taught swimming lessons really such a freakish talent?
As expected, she didn't understand the world of geniuses.
Yu Wan had heard of all sorts of other geniuses, too. On the Azure Billows Continent, for example, a young scholar had discovered an evolutionary path to a Monarch Species. But those people were all far removed from her, while Luo Yu was right here beside her.
"All right... let's get down to business. How do you plan to expand the research institute?" Yu Wan took out paper and a pen and asked Luo Yu.
Luo Yu considered it. "I want to make use of the wasteland behind the institute and build an Ink Fish farm and a breeding base."
"It doesn't need to be too big. Just build it to accommodate ten thousand Ink Fish."
He felt that if he wanted to study Ink Fish evolution, he absolutely needed a large number of samples.
Even ten thousand might not be enough, but there was no need for a site that was too large... after all, fish wouldn't just be coming in without going out.
Ten thousand... Yu Wan looked up at the sky.
Luckily, Ink Fish had no intelligence, weren't destructive, and were easy to farm...
If they were ten thousand Wave Dogs instead, Luo Yu could go occupy a mountain and proclaim himself king.
After that, the two spent a long time planning the expansion of Luo Yu Research Institute.
Since it was a matter of extremely high priority, a construction crew arrived that very day and officially began work.
Luo Yu got to see what "Beast Taming speed" meant.
With the aid of supernatural powers, many things that seemed troublesome to him were handled by beast tamers and mutated beasts, seemingly even more effectively than with technology.
"They're moving fast," Luo Yu couldn't help saying when Yu Wan came over the next day.
"Time is money, and money is time," Yu Wan said. "The director told their foreman that if they were too slow, they could forget about getting a single project on the island in the future."
"Oh, right, a large batch of Ink Fish will be arriving soon. Most of the farmed Ink Fish on Mirror Moon Island are in the hands of a farmer named Wang Defa."
"He's Mirror Moon Island's farming king and the richest man in Water Moon Village. He has contracts for many farms, including Ink Fish farms. But the Ink Fish farming craze came and went so quickly that he was left stuck with them."
"The Beast Management Bureau bought his Ink Fish farms at a low price. A little over two thousand are still alive. Once your farm is built, they'll be transferred here."
Two thousand!!
Luo Yu's heart warmed at the news.
For the next few days, Luo Yu supervised the work the whole time. The institute was expanding at breakneck speed, just as he wanted.
During that time, the eggs from the Dark Octopus and the Eight-Sword Style Octopus were finally laid.
But after the eight eggs were laid, Luo Yu felt nothing but exhaustion.
Of the eight eggs, not only did none possess both Dark Affinity and Eight-Sword Style, none had inherited even one of the two talents!!!
Despite having parents with two advanced talents, all eight eggs were individuals with ordinary talents.
"I looked forward to this for so long, but without a Breeding Paragon involved, it just won't work," Luo Yu said helplessly.
Without a Breeding Paragon involved, if he wanted offspring with both advanced talents, Dark Affinity and Eight-Sword Style, they would probably have to mate a dozen or even dozens of times before one might appear... what ordinary octopus could withstand mating and laying eggs that often?
Meanwhile, in less than a week, the work was done.
Four enormous fish-farming ponds had been built on the wasteland behind the institute, much larger than the little pond in the backyard. They were surrounded by layers of wire fencing. There was also a marine-life breeding base covered by an enclosed greenhouse.
The two stood side by side, connected to the institute's backyard.
The open-air ponds were suitable for raising Ink Fish on a large scale, while the enclosed greenhouse was fully equipped and suitable as a nursery for breeding them.
Once the director gave the order, the speed of execution was frightening. That same afternoon, after the farming base had begun to take shape, a steady stream of Ink Fish was brought in from all directions across the island and released into the enormous ponds.
"But can you take care of so many Ink Fish?"
Yu Wan stood beside Luo Yu. "Shouldn't you hire an employee specifically to feed them? There's a longtime employee at the old Ink Fish farm. Do you want them?"
"With the number I have right now, if it's just feeding them, I can manage. It won't take much effort," Luo Yu said.
"But after the institute's expansion, I will need some employees. I'll pass on the longtime employee from the farm, though. I need 'elites.' Once I'm done with this busy period, I plan to hold a job fair. At the very least, anyone who wants to work here will have to pass the Breeding Qualification Assessment."
Yu Wan nodded. "All right. If you need anything, you can come to me. After all, my uncle told me to take good care of you. So, Researcher Luo Yu, when will you have time? The farm and breeding base are nearly finished now. When are you going to take a look at the Beast Arena? Your appointment letter came through quite a while ago. I can take you to the arena's infirmary so you can get familiar with it, which will make things easier when the Ink Fish start their internships there."
"Tomorrow. Today, I want to take a look at these new Ink Fish first," Luo Yu said.
More than two thousand Ink Fish would keep him busy observing for a while.
Before long, everyone else had left.
Luo Yu brought the little penguin before their loyal army of Ink Fish.
"Wuji!!!"
At the sight of so many Ink Fish, July was already sick of them and couldn't summon any interest in fishing.
As expected, wild fishing was more fun when you didn't know what the prey would be.
"Let's see..."
Luo Yu, on the other hand, began examining the more than two thousand Ink Fish with great anticipation.
He disregarded the Ink Fish with ordinary talents.
Among them, there seemed to be rather few Ink Fish with advanced talents-only eleven.
By his reckoning, an advanced talent was a one-in-a-hundred qualification, so there should have been at least twenty for this batch of Ink Fish to be considered up to standard.
That drop rate was a little low...
Fortunately, the eleven advanced talents included eight different ones. It could be called an assembly of talents, greatly increasing the genetic diversity of the Ink Fish at Luo Yu Research Institute.
Of these eleven talents, there was the old friend Dark Affinity, which he would set aside for now.
"Ice Element Affinity" ×2.
[Individual talent]: Ice Element Affinity (advanced talent; possesses the aptitude to comprehend and master ice-type supernatural abilities.)
Like Dark Affinity, it was a very mainstream elemental talent. It reminded Luo Yu of the image a certain divination prodigy had shown him: an Ink Fish wielding eight white ice blades...
He figured that only one with both the Eight-Sword Style talent and the Ice Element Affinity talent could achieve that... he could try breeding one later.
"Gu King" ×2.
[Individual talent]: Gu King (advanced talent; can strengthen its own toxicity by eating the ink sacs of other Ink Fish.)
It was a talent similar to Cannibalism, except that Cannibalism raised the individual's life level, while this one raised its toxicity.
"If only I could bring both talents together in an Ink Fish... unfortunately, Iron Pincer Shrimp and Ink Fish can't crossbreed."
"Isn't there an operation that can take a living being's talent and transplant it into another living being...?" Luo Yu said helplessly.
[Individual talent]: Mental Overload (advanced talent; possesses powerful mental strength and the aptitude to awaken telekinesis.)
A rare psychic-type talent...
[Individual talent]: Berserker (advanced talent; after being injured, all attributes increase greatly, and the individual enters a frenzied combat state.)
The talent looked good, but unfortunately, unless an Ink Fish evolved into a Water Devil Beast, its base stats were too low. Even in a frenzy, it would be handing itself over for free.
[Individual talent]: Water Element Immunity (advanced talent; grants immunity to water-element damage that does not exceed the individual's own level.)
A god in a civil war.
[Individual talent]: Danger Sense (advanced talent; possesses a powerful sixth sense and can sense approaching danger in advance.)
Could he observe its condition to predict natural disasters like earthquakes and storms and take shelter ahead of time?
[Individual talent]: Super Antibody (advanced talent; the individual is completely immune to ordinary-level and King Level zombie viruses.)
In the present era, humans and mutated beasts generally had a degree of resistance to viruses. Even if they were bitten or scratched by zombie sea beasts, they wouldn't become infected and turn into zombies.
However, that only applied to ordinary zombie sea beasts. The viruses carried by some monarch corpse beasts comparable to Monarch Species could still potentially infect more vulnerable living beings and turn them into zombies.
[Individual talent]: Dominion (advanced talent; a born leader whose bloodline has a certain suppressive effect on weaker members of its species...)
When Luo Yu saw this, he felt as though he had found something extraordinary...