How could Luo Yu not be nervous about the first-generation Breeding Paragon laying eggs for the second time? After all, its first clutch had brought him nine Mercy talents, two Paragon talents, and one new talent!
That was a full twelve Senior Level talents. The breeding king Wang Defa had over 2,000 Ink Fish at his farm, yet they only had eleven Senior Level talents among them.
A short while later, the Breeding Paragon finished laying. There seemed to be eleven eggs this time, five fewer than before, but Luo Yu didn't think she was losing her touch. He figured the male Mercy Ink Fish had run short of stamina.
After all, no field was ever ruined by plowing, but an ox could be worked to death...
Ordinary male octopuses generally died not long after mating. For the Ink Fish to be merely "short of stamina" was already pretty good.
"Useless male octopuses. With that little stamina, I couldn't even set up a harem for you if I wanted to."
Luo Yu shook his head, frustrated that iron wouldn't become steel.
"I'm going to check on the eggs," Luo Yu told Yu Wan, then hurried over for a closer look.
He glanced over this batch of eggs...
Six Senior Level talents and five ordinary talents... The quality had dropped sharply. It certainly wasn't the Breeding Paragon's fault, so it had to be the male octopus's.
Of the five ordinary talents, four had Thick Skin and Tough Flesh, which wasn't worth mentioning. The other had a new ordinary talent, Everyone's Favorite, which came from neither the mother nor the father.
[Individual talent]: Everyone's Favorite (ordinary talent; more popular with members of its own species than an ordinary individual, regardless of gender.)
Among the six Senior Level talents, he'd had rather bad luck this time. Only one offspring had the Paragon talent; all the others had medical talents.
Fortunately, this time the Paragon offspring also had a medical trait.
Although the overall result was poor, he had finally pulled an individual with two Senior Level talents!
[Species]: Ink Fish (egg form) [Individual talents]: 1. Mercy... 2. Breeding Paragon...
"Not bad." Luo Yu nodded. He had gotten something out of it, at least.
This egg might become the "new core" for breeding medical Ink Fish. Pairing it with a Super Antibody talent or something similar later would be more efficient.
Since the Ink Fish with Super Antibody hadn't mated yet, he would split up the Mercy and Super Antibody pair in a little while and find the Super Antibody talent a new mate.
"What's not bad?" Yu Wan came over.
"This batch of eggs has good color. They're all healthy, with no bad or dead eggs," Luo Yu said.
"Oh..." Yu Wan blinked. "You know a lot about breeding. Do you understand other species besides Ink Fish?"
"For example?" Luo Yu asked.
"Humans."
"..."
"Humans?"
Yu Wan patted Luo Yu on the shoulder. "It would be great if you could pass your Soul Talent down."
"When our squad ran into that maritime disaster, I did everything I possibly could as the navigator, but the ship was just too poor, and the helmsman couldn't turn things around. If we'd had a Ghost Ship back then, the fleet definitely wouldn't have taken such a heavy blow. Sigh..."
She shook her head. "You're definitely going to follow the biologist's path all the way to the end. Your Soul Talent is rather wasted on you."
"When the Mirror Moon, the Mirror Moon Armed Fleet's flagship, returns to the island, Uncle Shui Wuyue is bound to be disappointed. Such a promising prospect for commanding a Ghost Ship turned out to be a researcher... There's no way you can take over from him."
"Not necessarily." Luo Yu looked at the fish eggs. "Maybe one day I'll want to go out to sea in search of the Seven Mysterious Sea Regions too... But rather than joining another fleet, I'd prefer to be a captain myself."
"Really?"
"Do you need a navigator?" Yu Wan said. "I've wanted to be a Ghost Ship's navigator for ages."
"..." Luo Yu said, "I need a cook."
"Can you cook?"
"Who can't?" Yu Wan said. "Isn't it just a matter of cooking things through? I'll give it a try tonight."
Meanwhile, at the Chen Zhuo Biological Research Institute.
That evening, at the dinner table.
Chen Bo ate quietly. The table was spread with dishes like boiled shrimp, spicy crab, steamed fish, and shellfish with garlic and vermicelli...
"Eat more. You're still growing." Mother Chen kept putting food on his plate.
His father, Chen Zhuo, held a book in one hand and chopsticks in the other.
"Dad, Mom..." After a while, Chen Bo broke the silence. "Luo Yu asked me to help out at his institute. He said he can't handle everything on his own."
Mother Chen's chopsticks stopped, and Chen Zhuo looked at Chen Bo too.
"..." Chen Bo was silent.
The real reason Chen Bo wanted to go to Luo Yu's place was that the atmosphere at home was too stifling. The extremely high expectations placed on him made it hard for him to breathe.
Even feeding fish at Luo Yu's place would probably make him happier than being at home...
He felt that Luo Yu had smiled more than before since becoming an orphan.
Chen Bo thought that had to be why Luo Yu had suddenly seen the light and surpassed him in one leap. Without his parents' constraints, his talent had been free to flourish.
"No," Mother Chen said. "Your goal is Canglan Ocean University. Your most important task right now is studying, not working."
"What help could you possibly be? Listen to your mother," Chen Zhuo added.
"How could I not be of any help...?" Chen Bo argued. "I have a Mental Talent, and I'm developing it in the direction of Telepathy. I can already communicate simply with some mutated beasts and understand their condition, mood, and thoughts. If I go, I'll definitely be a big help."
"Breeding research is tedious and drains your stamina. There's nothing much for you to learn over there, and it won't be good for your future development. Besides, even if you have Telepathy, are Ink Fish intelligent enough to communicate with you?" Chen Zhuo said.
"Also, this is Luo Yu's research achievement, after all. You can't tie up your efforts in someone else's research achievement. You need to find your own path... Barring any surprises, the Luo Yu Research Institute will be busy with breeding experiments for the next one, two, five years... Are you going to spend years breeding pet beasts alongside him?"
"...Maybe Luo Yu will start a new project too, and we can work on it together," Chen Bo countered weakly.
"Silly child," Mother Chen said. "It's not as if there are so many new projects to be had. Having one decent research achievement in your lifetime is already very good. Look at your father; he only has one."
"You're not a little kid anymore. Don't always be so naive." Chen Zhuo shook his head helplessly. "How could he work on a new project while breeding medical Ink Fish?"
"He's just someone your age, after all. His talent and stamina are limited. If he can produce another research achievement, never mind you going there to help-your dad will even take his surname."
Chen Bo sighed. It seemed there was no hope... Luo Yu, oh, Luo Yu, it's not that your buddy won't help you. I just can't get past my parents.
The next day.
Yu Wan went to the director's office and told him she was going to be a bodyguard at the Luo Yu Research Institute.
Yu Lei, director of the Beast Management Bureau, put down his smoking pipe and looked up at his niece. "You? A security guard? Have you gone crazy, or have I?"
Yu Wan said calmly, "Either way, I'm not doing this secretary job anymore! You always said I didn't have a proper job before and wouldn't let me leave. Well, now I have one!"
"Medical Ink Fish are valuable. Even if the island is safe and doesn't need very strong security, you can't fear the ten thousand possibilities, only the one that might happen. I'll feel more at ease keeping an eye on things myself."
"If you still won't agree, I'll..." Yu Wan said, "I'll tell Auntie you've still been secretly smoking!"
Yu Lei: "..."
"Forget it..." Yu Lei sighed. "I can't do anything with you. Fine, then. You'll be in charge of security at the Luo Yu Research Institute."
Yu Wan produced her resignation letter in a second.
That same day.
Yu Wan hauled bags big and small of her daily necessities to the Luo Yu Research Institute. Seeing that his belongings alone outnumbered everything his whole family had used before, Luo Yu couldn't help falling into thought.
She was planning to live at the institute permanently.
"Come to think of it... why hasn't Chen Bo shown up?"
After the institute gained a new employee, a security guard, Luo Yu remembered Chen Bo. Hadn't he invited him to feed fish at the institute?
Just as he thought, the guy looked down on the job of feeding fish.
"You have no eye for opportunity, Chen Bo." Luo Yu couldn't help feeling sorry for him.
Once the paper on the Water Devil Beast's evolution was published, even if Chen Bo was just feeding fish, he could have shared a little of the credit. This was a previously unknown evolution path to a Monarch Species, and yet... the guy couldn't seize the opportunity.
When the time came, even the ordinary-talent Ink Fish at the farm could double in value again. That was also why Luo Yu hadn't rushed to discard the ordinary talents. After all, the bigger the storm, the more expensive the Ink Fish!
Before Water Devil Beasts appeared on a large scale, he definitely needed to stockpile more Ink Fish first, regardless of talent. When the time came, he could simply sell the ordinary-talent ones to their friends on the neighboring island.
"Teacher Yu Wan..." After Yu Wan finished moving in, Luo Yu asked, "Have you ever taken the exam for a breeder's qualification?"
"A breeder's qualification?" Yu Wan wiped the sweat from her forehead. "Why would I take that exam? I'm not starting a business."
"Although I haven't gotten certified, my breeding skills probably aren't any worse than those breeders', right?" Whatever else might be said, she had been a top student back then and had experience going out to sea.
Luo Yu said, "Then would you mind feeding some fish part-time while you're working as a security guard?"
"Is that one of a bodyguard's jobs too?" Yu Wan pondered.
"You can use telekinesis to send the feed flying to the fish pond. You won't even have to leave the house, and you can train your superpower while you're at it." Luo Yu had learned that pitch from a certain pet beast shop.