Luo Yu and July did not stay in the Ancient Grotto for long this time. Sure enough, after half a day, they began to feel unwell and dizzy, so they hurried back to the research institute to wait for their next expedition.
"I need to keep getting stung and strengthen my body!"
Over the past two days, he had only placed the Honey Water Bees with Senior Level talents other than Enhancement Talents into the breeding hives sponsored by the Moon-Facing Pavilion.
As for those with Enhancement Talents, whether ordinary or Senior Level, Luo Yu had yet to pair any of them.
After all, mating and breeding would sap their strength and leave them weakened, making them unable to work.
Work first, then breed after retirement.
So Luo Yu's plan was to let these twenty-odd Honey Water Bees with Enhancement Talents sting him until they no longer had much effect, then let them mate.
Since they were only stinging him and July, twenty-odd bees were enough for now. One was an apprentice Beast Taming Master, and the other was a rookie below level 10. For the time being, they didn't need to be riddled with a thousand holes.
However, now that there was demand for Honey Water Bees with a Rock Element Enhancement Talent, Luo Yu still took one with an Enhancement Talent aside for breeding after returning this time.
He placed a Honey Water Bee with a Water Element Enhancement Talent and one with a Rock Element Affinity Talent in a separate breeding box, to see whether their offspring's talents could fuse and mutate...
In any case, the individual with the Water Element Enhancement Talent was most useful to him and July for improving their swimming ability. It was far less important than the other Honey Water Bees, so it could be allowed to breed first.
If they really could breed Honey Water Bees with a Rock Element Enhancement Talent, then perhaps they could use them to mass-produce avian mutant beasts capable of "atavistic evolution."
When the time came, whether Mirror Moon Island's dinosaur theme park could be built... would depend on a single bee.
"After healthcare and education, even the tourism industry has to rely on breeding."
"I told you breeding was the foremost productive force."
"This guy... really isn't afraid of pain?"
On the second floor, Yu Wan opened a window to let in some air and saw Luo Yu sitting cross-legged and bare-chested in the institute's backyard. Honey Water Bees covered his body, their Poison Stings piercing his skin!
Mm, beside him, a little penguin sat by the pond with a fishing rod in hand, fishing, his body also covered in Poison Stings...
With Lin Li's queen bee helping manage the Honey Water Bees, they had become much more obedient and could now actively cooperate with sting training.
"Strength, defense, speed, endurance, spirit..." For now, Luo Yu had only let these five kinds of Honey Water Bees sting him.
He hadn't let the Honey Water Bees with the Poison Resistance Enhancement Talent sting him or July. After all, bee venom was poison too, and he was afraid that if their poison resistance was enhanced, the venom would stop working.
At present, he was experimenting on ordinary Ink Fish.
As for the individuals with the Life Enhancement Talent, which could promote growth, he naturally left those to July, so he could level up quickly and reach level 11 as soon as possible.
"A mutant beast is one thing, with its thick skin and tough flesh, but how can this Luo Yu withstand it?" Yu Wan shook her head by the window.
The pain of dozens of stings every day was by no means something an ordinary teenager could endure.
What she didn't know, however, was that Luo Yu had lived through the apocalypse and endured the torment of hunger, an ordeal more agonizing and torturous than physical pain.
Compared with the long torment of hunger, the short-lived pain of a few stings to the body was much easier to bear.
"He's ruthless, but I won't lose either." Chen Bo glanced over as he passed by. He had also tried the Sting Training Method over the past two days, and it hurt like hell. Eighteen stings a day were already his body's limit.
But seeing Luo Yu push himself so hard, he decided to try forty-nine stings a day tomorrow. When it came to out-grinding others, he had never lost.
"You're pushing yourself way too hard..." A moment later, Lin Li had her queen bee disperse the enhancement Honey Water Bees.
"It's all right." Luo Yu took the loose research coat she handed him and slipped it on with a chuckle. He had to push himself. Life seemed stable now, but there was no telling when something might go wrong again.
For example, those Calamity Species mutant beasts: every time one appeared, it was like a natural disaster. Even the aftermath of one merely passing through could whip up tsunamis and storms, putting human settlements in danger.
Then there was the Tidal Corpse Transformation. Although Mirror Moon Island had withstood it many times, and having the Mirror Moon Giant Crocodile as a last line of defense was reassuring, the excavation of the Ancient Grotto had thrown the surrounding ocean's magnetic field into greater chaos this time, making the Tidal Corpse Transformation strange as well. No one knew whether an even stronger Zombie Tide might appear.
And then... there were humans.
In fact, during the Tidal Corpse Transformation, zombies were not the greatest threat to every island. The greatest danger was the pirates instead.
They would take advantage of islands being occupied with resisting the Zombie Tide to slip in and burn, kill, and plunder.
With these unstable factors at play, Luo Yu felt that Mirror Moon Island, as it was now, could not be said to have eternal peace and stability. He had to gain the strength to roam the oceans and ensure he could survive at sea as soon as possible.
Of course, after all was said and done, he simply didn't want to experience hunger again. Once he had the strength, even if he drifted at sea, he could hunt sea beasts to fill his stomach.
"What are we eating today?" Luo Yu asked instinctively.
"I developed a new dish today..."
"A new dish?" Luo Yu was startled. He had noticed that when Lin Li made the mainstream dishes she was good at, such as the Moon-Facing Pavilion's signature dishes, they all tasted excellent. But the flavor of her newly developed dishes was rather unpredictable.
"This time, it's honey-marinated offal soup with garlic and chili..."
"..." Luo Yu's vision went dark. He looked at Lin Li, her long, wavy hair dyed light gold and decorated with a little white flower and a bee hair clip, and felt a pain in his balls.
How could such a pretty girl make such vicious, dark cuisine?
Honey, minced garlic, chili, and offal-could those things even be combined?
He had thought that after transmigrating, he wouldn't have to eat bizarre dishes like cumin insoles and salt-and-pepper belts anymore... but there were still more!
"Could we stop developing new dishes all the time...?" Luo Yu said. "A few classic dishes on the menu are plenty."
Lin Li looked troubled. "But the guardian deity is too picky. It doesn't like eating the same dishes..."
"The guardian deity... the Mirror Moon Giant Crocodile..." Luo Yu had almost forgotten. The Mirror Moon Celebration was fast approaching, and food offerings were an indispensable part of it. Lin Li wanted to take part this time too.
"The Moon-Facing Pavilion's dishes have won the guardian deity's approval many times, right?"
"Then have you seen the guardian deity, the Mirror Moon Giant Crocodile?" Luo Yu asked.
Honestly, he was quite curious about how powerful the island's guardian deity was, but unfortunately, the island had never made that information public.
During the Mirror Moon Celebration, the guardian deity stayed underwater, and ordinary spectators could only see his eyes.
But the winners of the celebration could see the guardian deity's true form and receive its blessing.
"I have." Lin Li recalled, "When I had just become a Beast Taming Master at fifteen, I made a dish that satisfied the guardian deity. My Honey Water Bee and I received its blessing because of it!"
"A blessing... speaking of which, what exactly is the guardian deity's blessing?" Luo Yu asked curiously.
Lin Li said, "Well... it doesn't seem to be fixed. I heard it depends on the guardian deity's mood that day."
"I heard that one year, the guardian deity didn't get to eat any food that suited its taste and was very angry. In the end, it only gave a verbal blessing to a rookie Beast Taming Master who had performed very well that year."
"It verbally wished her success in her studies... and that was it."
Luo Yu: ?
Holy crap, the guardian deity was that perfunctory?
"Oh, I think that rookie Beast Taming Master was Senior Yu Wan!"
"But she didn't seem to get into Canglan Ocean University afterward, so the blessing was a failure."
Luo Yu: "..."
"Of course, in my case, the new dish I developed made Lord Guardian Deity very happy. It was very kind to me and changed the blessing into a wish, asking me what I wanted."
"What did you say?" Luo Yu asked curiously.
Lin Li looked at the Honey Water Bee queen flying beside her and said, "I told the guardian deity I wanted my Honey Water Bee to get a little stronger..."
"Then it gave me a sparkling ice crystal and told me to feed it to my Honey Water Bee."
"After that, my Honey Water Bee's venom mutated..."
"It can instantly freeze an enemy's nerves and leave them unable to move..."
Luo Yu looked at the Honey Water Bee.
[Species]: Honey Water Bee (Bee King form) [Attribute]: Water [Species level]: Low-Rank Ordinary Species [Life level]: Level 20 [Species abilities]: Poison Sting, Command [Individual talents]: 1. Bee King... 2. Wind Element Affinity...
"I see... then do you know the guardian deity's exact species level?" Luo Yu asked.
Lin Li's Honey Water Bee actually had excellent talents, with two Senior Level talents. Its Wind Element ability also seemed to have been developed rather than left untapped, just like Chen Bo's Thunderbolt Shrimp.
That made sense. If Lin Li hadn't already discovered how good its talents were, she certainly wouldn't have contracted it.
After hearing Lin Li out, Luo Yu felt that the Mirror Moon Giant Crocodile really did have some tricks up its sleeve. It had actually been able to mutate the Honey Water Bee's venom into an ice-element toxin!
As far as he knew, the Mirror Moon Giant Crocodile had water, ice, and light attributes, but he particularly wanted to know its exact species level.
Luo Yu guessed... Upper-Tier Monarch Species?
Or had it... already reached Abyss Level?!
Although the Mirror Moon Giant Crocodile was an evolved form of the Upper-Tier Common Species White Crocodile, it hadn't evolved through normal means. It had encountered the Sea of Evolution and soared into the heavens through that fortuitous encounter, so there was only one Mirror Moon Giant Crocodile in the entire world.
It really might be Abyss Level!!!
After all, Mirror Moon Island had developed peacefully for so long. Without a powerful backer, that would have been unlikely.
If the Mirror Moon Giant Crocodile really was Abyss Level, then Luo Yu rather wanted to take part in the Mirror Moon Celebration too.
It would be best if he could make a wish in person.
"Level...?" Lin Li shook her head and said, "Most people think the guardian deity should be an Upper-Tier Monarch Species, but I think it may have already reached Abyss Level..."
"Why?" she asked.
"No reason. I just want a basin of the guardian deity's blood. Would it give me some?" Luo Yu licked his lips. One of the conditions for condensing Commander Heterogeneity was a basin of Abyss blood...
Lin Li: ???
"You want to assassinate the guardian deity? If you succeed, share some with me. I'll have Lin Li make me some maoxuewang with the guardian deity's blood," Yu Wan, who had come to hang out laundry, interjected after hearing their conversation.
Lin Li was frightened. "..."
Why was everyone at this research institute so disrespectful to the guardian deity? She could understand Yu Wan, who had been screwed over by the guardian deity and was only grumbling about it, but what was Scholar Luo Yu planning? She felt as though she had boarded a pirate ship...