Compared to Breeding Paragon, More Children, More Blessings was more of a "pity system monster."
It didn't ensure that every batch of eggs would be of decent quality, but it was as if its reproductive ability could be trained. As it laid more and more eggs, the pity system would trigger and give it an offspring with high aptitude.
Besides that, among the hundred-plus remaining Senior Level talents, Bee King was the most common. Nearly fifty bees had it, meaning they could all evolve into queens once they reached level five.
Of the fifty remaining bees, another eighty percent had various elemental affinity talents, giving them the aptitude to comprehend and master abilities of other elements.
Water Element Affinity, Wind Element Affinity, and so on... They weren't particularly rare talents, but their lower limits were reliably high.
Luo Yu wasn't very keen on breeding for elemental affinity talents. He actually thought specializing in one primary element was quite good. Who had the time and effort to develop so many elemental powers...?
Unless the second element was absurdly heaven-defying, like Walking Volcano's Power of Magma, or...
[Individual talent]: Power of the Void (Senior Level talent. An individual with this talent has an extremely small chance of learning a spatial ability...)
Spatial aptitude! Compared to things like water and wind, Luo Yu had found a Honey Water Bee... that could potentially master the Power of Space!
A bee-genius!
For such a powerful attribute, Luo Yu had initially wondered why it was only a Senior Level talent. It ought to be a top-level talent at the very least.
But after comparing them carefully, Luo Yu found that most elemental affinity talents gave the aptitude to "comprehend and master" an element, while Power of the Void only gave an "extremely small chance of learning" it.
Even if a bee learned it, that didn't mean it could master it.
That alone showed how much harder the spatial attribute was to develop than other attributes.
As for the remaining Senior Level talents, they strengthened their possessors in all sorts of unusual ways.
For example, a Honey Water Bee with Clairvoyance might be well suited to reconnaissance, while the Dark Night Assassin talent greatly increased combat power at night.
If the soldier bees under a queen's command all had special Senior Level talents like these, the Honey Water Bee army's combat power could probably increase several times over.
Aside from Enhancement Talent, the four Senior Level talents Luo Yu valued most were the ones he considered highly valuable for breeding.
One was naturally Bee King, which gave the ability to command a swarm. No matter how awesome the other talents were, their possessors still had to obey the Bee King. That was determined by genetics.
Another was naturally the Power of the Void talent. Spatial abilities... Even if the chance of learning one was extremely small, he could try breeding an individual with Space Talent with one that had Intelligence. If their offspring were a little smarter, perhaps their chances of learning a spatial ability would be a little higher too.
Another was naturally More Children, More Blessings, which would likely be central to Luo Yu's efforts to breed top-quality Honey Water Bees.
The last one was also a Senior Level talent.
Individual talent: Flower-Picking Bandit (Senior Level talent. Can steal nutrients from the bodies of grass-attribute mutated beasts and turn them into highly nutritious special honey.)
It was written as Flower-Picking Bandit, but read as the vampire talent.
Although it wasn't as direct as a strengthening-type talent, it could still be considered an Enhancement Talent of sorts. After all, nourishment from food was still nourishment. Making food more nutritious would also help with growth.
In the end, Luo Yu selected roughly eight hundred Honey Water Bees, taking away one-twentieth of her assets.
Among them were also a large number of ordinary individuals, for which he had other uses. For example, he kept those with Intelligence to breed with bees that had Space Talent. There was also Cheerleading Squad: when Honey Water Bees with that talent were nearby, the other Honey Water Bees worked more efficiently.
Luo Yu didn't know how it worked either... Pheromones? Or were these Honey Water Bees so beautiful and handsome that the others worked hard to show off?
There were also individuals that were full of vigor and the like... Luo Yu picked out a few of everything that looked useful to keep in reserve.
"Eight hundred?"
"Are there any individuals with that kind of Enhancement Talent among them?"
"I'm not sure yet," Luo Yu said. "I'll have to go back and run some detailed tests. Right now, I can only make a rough judgment."
"Are you a Beast Taming Master with a Mental Talent?" Lin Li asked curiously.
Beast Taming Masters with Mental Talents all had strong perception, but each person's time and effort were limited. Depending on how they developed their talents, some Beast Taming Masters mastered Telekinesis, while others mastered Telepathy and could converse with highly intelligent mutated beasts. Others possessed all sorts of strange perceptive abilities... and could find unique pet beasts.
Lin Li guessed that Luo Yu was a Beast Taming Master with a Mental Talent and had some ability to perceive particularly unusual mutated beasts, something like "mental resonance."
Many accomplished biologists and biological researchers had Mental Talents, including Luo Yu's and Chen Bo's fathers.
"No," Luo Yu said. "I have a Soul Talent."
A Soul Talent... Lin Li was slightly taken aback. That talent was even more mysterious than a Mental Talent!
The current mainstream way of developing it was merely to leave one's body in soul form and possess a ghost ship!
"So I'm also quite good at finding individuals with unique souls like these." Luo Yu smiled.
Admittedly, whether through mental perception or soul resonance, some Beast Taming Masters with unique talents could find mutated beasts that were a little out of the ordinary. But Luo Yu felt that compared to the Eye of Data, those perceptive abilities were pathetically weak.
After all, sensing something didn't mean fully understanding it. They still had to guess, experiment, and investigate to learn the details of a talent, and they might still come away with nothing. It was nowhere near as straightforward as the Eye of Data, which didn't make incorrect judgments either.
"Let's go back to the research institute."
With Lin Li's queen managing the swarm, the eight hundred Honey Water Bees were much more obedient. Unlike with that group of Ink Fish, he didn't have to guard against ink attacks while trying to assign them mates.
"Once we get to the institute, will my main job be managing these Honey Water Bees?" Lin Li was looking forward to it. She planned to study hard at the Luo Yu Research Institute and see whether she could eventually find a new evolutionary path for Honey Water Bees!
"Mm."
"Scholar Luo Yu, do you think Honey Water Bees have the potential to evolve further after becoming Bee Kings?"
This was also her first time meeting a scholar who studied Honey Water Bees, and she cared a great deal about Luo Yu's opinion. After all, what Beast Taming Master wouldn't want their pet beast to have the potential for more stages of evolution?
"Probably," Luo Yu said. "In theory, as long as the conditions are met, every kind of mutated beast can keep mutating and evolving indefinitely..."
"Then what do you think the conditions for a Honey Water Bee Queen to evolve would be?"
Luo Yu thought for a moment and said, "Mental power?"
"Compared to ordinary Honey Water Bees, queens have evolved the ability to command the swarm with the 'Command' ability."
"Research shows that this Command ability no longer relies on pheromones, but on a special mental network and bloodline pressure."
"However, because Honey Water Bees themselves aren't mental-type mutated beasts, their development of that mental network is very limited. If a Honey Water Bee Queen had a talent for mental power, perhaps it could change this pattern of issuing commands in only one direction, and also use the power of the swarm to strengthen and act upon itself, achieving something greater."
"Of course, there's not much hope of that. Researchers have probably looked into it long ago..."
"Oh, perhaps Space Talent too!" Luo Yu thought of that individual.
"If a Bee King could develop an 'independent space' ability and let its swarm live in a 'Beehive Space' of its own creation, perhaps the spatial-mental network would undergo a mutation. Even if that didn't cause it to evolve, it would make fighting and traveling more convenient..."
"Mm, it's also possible that the key to a queen's further evolution doesn't lie in the queen itself, but in the ordinary Honey Water Bees it commands. For example, a group of Honey Water Bee soldiers with Mental Talents could build a stronger mental network together. Or could the kind of individual-strengthening Honey Water Bee I found release a strengthening-type pheromone that alters physiological mechanisms? Once there are enough of them, it might cause the Bee King to mutate..."
Luo Yu was just making irresponsible guesses. Researching any of this would take a lot of work, and there was no guarantee of success.
He might as well look forward to seeing whether the Dependent Evolution Method could bring about an evolution. That was more broadly applicable.
"In any case, once you get to the institute, besides your basic work, you can also do some research of your own. We can provide research equipment," Luo Yu said.
"Space... physiological strengthening-type pheromones..." Lin Li nodded repeatedly. They were quite interesting ideas. By joining the Luo Yu Research Institute, she might really learn something.
Outside the research institute.
Seeing that Luo Yu had finally returned, Yu Wan came out to greet him.
"Senior Yu Wan!" Lin Li seemed to know Yu Wan. After all, both of them had been the most outstanding graduates of their respective years.
"Welcome. You'll be working at the institute from now on too, right?" Yu Wan stepped forward and patted Lin Li on the shoulder, smiling expectantly. "I have faith in your cooking."
"I've already put tonight's ingredients in the kitchen."
Lin Li was bewildered: ???
Didn't I come here to be a research assistant?
Why does it sound like I'm applying to be a cook...?
"Could you not exploit the newcomer?" Luo Yu couldn't help saying. "We're a legitimate research institute."
With that, he also looked at Lin Li.
"Little Li, we'll leave dinner to you. Go a little lighter on the honey today... If you really have to use it, honey mustard would be fine."
"All right..." Lin Li pressed a hand to her forehead and said, "I should be happy that you like my cooking, but... when I develop new dishes after this, you'll have to help me taste-test them."
"No problem." Yu Wan smiled. "Oh, right, you might have to make enough for four today."
"Four?" Luo Yu paused and asked, "Aren't there only three of us?"
Yu Wan pointed in a direction. "Researcher Chen Zhuo's son is here too. He's doing his homework under a streetlamp. He said he wanted to come help at the institute too, and he's been waiting for you all day. We can't let him go hungry, can we?"
"Oh..." Luo Yu paused. That did make four.
The kid's finally here.
The Luo Yu Research Institute was looking up.
He thought about it. With this lineup, never mind a research institute-they could form a pirate crew and set sail on the set of One Piece.
The navigator, Yu Wan.
The cook, Lin Li.
The translator and research assistant, Chen Bo, who could communicate with wild mutated beasts. That was important on a voyage.
Sometimes sea beasts blocked the way without intending to hurt anyone. If they understood what one wanted, they might be able to avoid a major battle, so a translator who understood beast speech was indispensable to a fleet too.
"And add me, the ghost captain and helmsman who can control a ghost ship?"
Luo Yu sank into thought. This was hardly the lineup of a research institute; it was clearly the lineup of an elite fleet. Once he had put together a team of Monarch Species to his liking, developed them with the Honey Water Bee Training Method, and gained enough strength, he really could form a fleet... A legitimate merchant fleet, of course, not a pirate crew... Its name would be...