At the Honey Water Bee base, Luo Yu put the Coral Flower Squid together with the Flower-Picking Bandit bee. Sure enough, the Honey Water Bee really did harvest the Coral Flower Squid like a flower. The moment it saw the squid, it pounced on it with a kiss like a lecher spotting a beauty. What a wicked bee.
"Have you started researching crossbreeding too? But isn't crossing a Honey Water Bee with a squid a little too bizarre?" Chen Bo, who had just finished his morning workout, admitted he didn't understand, but he was deeply shocked.
Could bees and squid even crossbreed?
"It's gathering nectar," Luo Yu said.
"Gathering nectar?!"
"You don't understand. It's called biological nectar." Luo Yu coined the term on the spot. "Honey Water Bees make honey with different flavors depending on the kinds of nectar and pollen they collect."
"And among the enormous Honey Water Bee population, there's a special kind that can collect biological nectar, meaning it gathers nectar from plantlike grass-type mutated beasts."
"I never went to school, so don't you fool me." Chen Bo was taken aback. Was that really a thing? How come he'd never heard of it?
"Now that you've joined the Luo Yu Research Institute, you'll learn. My dad, Luo Shui, learned this at Canglan Ocean University too. It counts as advanced knowledge." Luo Yu spouted nonsense, leaving Chen Bo thoroughly taken in.
Judging by the state of the Honey Water Bee and Coral Flower Squid, they really didn't look like they were mating. One was gathering and the other was being gathered from. Chen Bo fell into thought. Could it be true?
Luo Yu's father... how does he know so much! Chen Bo was envious. Other people's dads... With such a knowledgeable father, no wonder Luo Yu was so outstanding.
"I'm going to record the data." Chen Bo was already a mature test subject. Not only could he record the changes in his own physical data after being stung, he could even write them up as an experiment report for Luo Yu to review.
He was much less trouble than those mutated beast test subjects who couldn't write experiment reports.
The Flower-Picking Bandit talent was absurdly powerful. After absorbing the Coral Flower Squid's nutrients, it took the bee only a few minutes to release them in the form of a special "pink honey."
"The world is vast, and mutated individuals come in all manner of strange forms." It was Luo Yu's first time seeing an individual make honey in such a simple, rough-and-ready way. He couldn't help taking the collected pink nectar to the lab to test its composition.
The test made Luo Yu fall into thought.
The pink nectar contained an extremely high concentration of water-type nutrients, higher than any water-type food sold on Mirror Moon Island!
And...
It also contained the same enhancement factor found in enhancement-type bee venom!
This enhancement factor was the key to bee venom's ability to enhance a particular attribute of a living being.
In other words, this special honey could also enhance the water-type talent of whoever ate it to a certain degree, just like a Honey Water Bee with the "Water Element Enhancement Talent."
After confirming it was nontoxic, Luo Yu personally had a taste. Its sweetness and fragrance were completely beyond anything ordinary honey could compare with.
"The Coral Flower Squid is primarily grass-type, but after the Flower-Picking Bandit converted its nutrients, it produced honey with water-type nutrients."
"Does that mean being grass-type is only a condition for it to gather nutrients, not the main nutritional attribute of the honey after conversion? Aside from being grass-type, the Coral Flower Squid is most closely associated with the water type as a marine creature, so it provides water-type nutrients..."
"Then what if..."
Something suddenly occurred to Luo Yu.
"Then what if I found a Rock Algae Turtle for it to gather from? Could it produce honey with rock-type nutrients?"
The Rock Algae Turtle was a grass-and-rock dual-type, mid-rank mutated beast. Its shell was not ordinary keratin, but a hard, rocklike armor. At the same time, the cracks in the rock were covered in algae. Its main ability was Entanglement, which let it control the algae, making them grow longer and wrap around enemies.
If he gathered from a turtle like that to produce rock-type honey, then fed it to mating Honey Water Bees, would they have a better chance of producing offspring with the Rock Element Enhancement Talent?
No, no. If he could produce that kind of rock-type honey, it would itself have a certain enhancing effect on a creature's rock-type talent.
In other words, could it completely replace an individual with the Rock Element Enhancement Talent and become the key to mass-producing bird mutated beasts with a degree of rock-type talent?
Luo Yu felt as though he had discovered a new continent. Honey Water Bees really were treasures from head to toe.
Although Rock Algae Turtles were rare, high-end restaurants on Mirror Moon Island all kept one or two, because the algae on their bodies were delicious and renewable. A little could be removed, then the restaurant could wait for it to grow back and harvest it again. It counted as a high-end dish.
"Lin Li, are you free?" Luo Yu hurried to the kitchen and found Lin Li.
"What is it?" asked Lin Li, who was wearing an apron and busy preparing lunch. She was still holding two large squid with their flowers removed.
"Does your family's restaurant have a Rock Algae Turtle? I need one for my research."
"I think so...?" Lin Li thought for a moment, then said, "Leave it to me."
That same day, Lin Li had a Rock Algae Turtle brought from home to the research institute.
After Luo Yu had July beat the Rock Algae Turtle unconscious, he released the Flower-Picking Bandit to suck out its nutrients.
This time, the Flower-Picking Bandit produced a crimson honey, close in color to the Rock Algae Turtle's shell. One look was enough to tell it was honey with some kind of rock-type nutrients.
"So your talent was the strongest one all along." After praising the Flower-Picking Bandit bee, Luo Yu ran to the lab.
"Bzzz..." The Flower-Picking Bandit bee hadn't had its fill.
After a series of tests, he found that the crimson honey did indeed contain a considerable amount of rock-type nutrients. It also contained enhancement factor and could be efficiently absorbed directly by living beings.
Moreover, compared with enhancement-type bee venom, this honey seemed to keep longer. Of course, the cost was rather high too. The Coral Flower Squid, for instance, had nearly died after being harvested once, as if it had been sucked dry. Fortunately, the Rock Algae Turtle was used to being cut and held up easily.
After that, Luo Yu began collecting large quantities of rock-type honey and visited the Ancient Grotto every day. He also kept several Waterfallen Chickens, feeding them primarily on rock-type honey, naturally.
Meanwhile, the Honey Water Bee with the Water Element Enhancement Talent and the one with the Rock Element Affinity Talent produced their first egg.
Originally, after obtaining the Honey Water Bee with Flower-Picking Bandit, Luo Yu hadn't paid much attention to those two. After all, whether their offspring would mutate to develop the Rock Element Enhancement Talent was too dependent on luck. With bad luck, they might not produce one in hundreds of years. Feeding them rock-type honey was much less trouble.
But the two of them seemed unexpectedly capable.
Their very first egg really did inherit a fusion and mutation of its parents' talents.
Of course, it wasn't the Rock Element Enhancement Talent. That wouldn't happen so quickly. Instead, it was...
[Individual talent]: Hardness Enhancement Talent (ordinary talent. An individual with this talent can enhance the hardness of the part of a living being's body that it stings.)
Luo Yu: ?
Luo Yu stared at the Honey Water Bee egg with the Hardness Enhancement Talent and fell into thought.
He suspected this Honey Water Bee was making a dirty joke, but he had no proof. No, wait-what was the difference between this talent and the Defense Enhancement Talent?
"A little, but not much." Luo Yu thought it over. Defense and hardness weren't the same thing, after all.
An Ink Fish was soft, but precisely because of that softness, it was very good at defending against impacts.
Using Defense Enhancement on an Ink Fish would strengthen its body's ability to absorb impact.
But using Hardness Enhancement on it would... turn it into a rock-hard octopus?
"This Hardness Enhancement Talent is suited to mutated beasts with shells or carapaces. But that's not the point. The point is, these two bees really did produce an individual with a new Enhancement Talent."
Or... he could open a clinic. Luo Yu thought it over. Since they were off to a good start, he should keep a close eye on them... and feed them more honey. He shouldn't be stingy with resources.
Feeding the Waterfallen Chickens rock-type honey alone would enhance their rock-type talent, but the effect would certainly be limited.
If elemental talent levels were divided into: no talent (impossible to learn abilities of that attribute), poor (a chance of learning abilities of that attribute only after spending enormous resources and effort), average (able to master abilities of that attribute with some resources and effort), senior level (possessing the aptitude to become proficient in abilities of that attribute), and top level (???)...
By his conservative estimate, raising a Waterfallen Chicken's rock-type talent from "none" to "poor," or from "poor" to "ordinary," would already be very good. Flower-Picking Bandit was only a senior-level talent, after all.
The Waterfallen Chicken that had evolved, however, had a senior-level Rock Element Affinity Talent, on the same level as the bandit's. So trying to enhance one with special honey to that level would probably be difficult.
He didn't know whether a Waterfallen Chicken with ordinary rock-type talent could resonate with the Ancient Evolution Stone, but he would try it for now...
So, if he could combine the Sting Training Method using the Rock Element Enhancement Talent with taking supplements, that would surely be better.
A few days after Luo Yu discovered the effects of the mutated honey.
After several days of research and testing with all kinds of instruments, the researchers still hadn't figured out the essential difference between the Azure Terror Bird and the Waterfallen Chickens that couldn't evolve.
That was to be expected. Hidden elemental talents were generally difficult to detect with ordinary instruments unless there were some obvious signs, such as Chen Bo's Thunderbolt Shrimp awakening an ability on its own.
Mirror Moon Island was a small place, after all, and its research instruments were relatively ordinary.
However, although the tests had produced no definite results, someone had already offered a conjecture.
Speaking to Director Yu Lei, who had been visiting frequently for inspections lately, marine ecology researcher Yu Zhifeng proposed, "Could it have something to do with attributes?"
"Generally speaking, when mutated beasts evolve through a special environment like this, their attributes correspond to that environment."
"For example, the evolution of Ice Sea Lions involving Unmelting Ice is a case of an ice-type mutated beast and a special ice environment..."
"This Ancient Evolution Stone should count as a special rock-type environment. But neither this Waterfallen Chicken nor its evolved form is rock-type. So could it have a relatively strong hidden rock-type talent?"
"I agree with that view. We reached the same conclusion a few days ago, but verifying whether it has rock-type talent seems a little difficult. We still haven't managed it," researcher Lin Hai said.
Rock was not one of the mainstream attributes nowadays. So while Mirror Moon Island had methods and channels for helping mutated beasts develop abilities in mainstream attributes such as water, ice, and wind-just as Luo Yu had helped Mi Xiaoyu's Wind-Entwining Worm develop an ice-type ability-methods for helping pet beasts develop uncommon talents such as rock and ground were very rare.
After all, there were hardly any people on Mirror Moon Island who had contracted rock-type mutated beasts, so naturally no one researched related breeding methods.
"It's a shame. I haven't heard of any islands with rock-type bird pet beasts either. Otherwise, we could simply bring some in and try them," crossbreeding granny Bai Dong said.
Of the mutated beasts that had survived to this day, 99.99 percent had mutated toward the water type. The primary attribute of many land and sky creatures was water, while an Earth Penguin that had evolved a ground attribute was an extreme exception.
In short, only sea beasts that could already survive underwater were qualified to mutate other attributes and survive in this era.
The Thunderbolt Shrimp, for example, could already survive in water, so it could mutate an electric type...
"It's fine. As long as they have rock-type talent, we'll uncover it sooner or later. Speaking of which, where's Luo Yu?" Director Yu Lei asked when he noticed Luo Yu was absent.
Researcher Chen Zhuo laughed. "That kid's been obsessed with studying Waterfallen Chickens and the evolution stone these past few days. I told him you were here for an inspection, but he said to wait, that he couldn't get away right now. He should still be in Grotto No. 4, tinkering with those Waterfallen Chickens he raised himself."
"Luo Yu certainly puts his heart into his research." The director smiled. Still, since Luo Yu wanted to take part in the Mirror Moon Celebration, shouldn't he be concentrating on training that penguin? He really did have a lot of energy...
"You'd better work hard. You've been researching the Ancient Grotto for over two months longer than Luo Yu. If he gets results before you do, you old fellows will have nowhere left to show your faces." The director shook his head with a smile.
"That could never happen..." Chen Zhuo chuckled. "If he manages to overtake us, we might as well dissolve the research institute and go work for him..."
He had barely finished speaking when the sound of hurried footsteps approached. From far away, Luo Yu shouted, "Oh my god, they evolved! Several of my Waterfallen Chickens evolved! I found the key factor in their evolution!!"
Everyone: ?
Everyone watched as Luo Yu came running over, dragging a hairless, muscular, fierce chicken that looked ninety percent like the Azure Terror Bird!!!!
[Species]: Water Terror Chicken [Attribute]: Water [Species rank]: Low-Rank Ordinary Species [Life level]: Level 1 [Species ability]: Water Splash [Individual talent]: Dragon Claw (senior-level talent...)
After Luo Yu had fed them rock-type honey for several days, the Waterfallen Chickens had finally evolved!
But the Eye of Data showed that the evolution seemed very weak. It was still a low-rank species, and its ability hadn't been upgraded either. It wasn't an Azure Terror Bird, but a Water Terror Chicken. Aside from being physically stronger, it hadn't changed much. Luo Yu guessed that the rock-type talent developed by feeding it rock-type honey might have been too weak, resulting in an underwhelming evolution. Thankfully, he had tried it on test subjects first instead of letting July try it directly. Otherwise, his potential would have been wasted.
Still, no matter what, they had evolved. That was a huge step forward. The method of evolution was now clear; all he had to do next was find a way to keep improving their rock-type talent.
Rock-type talent + dinosaur descendant + Ancient Evolution Stone = evolution!
And what determined the strength of the evolution was the level of the rock-type talent!
July's path to evolution was open!
The Earth Penguin clan was saved!
"You..." Everyone stared blankly at Luo Yu.
Wait, what?
How had this kid really figured out a method of evolution? He'd only been here a few days?!
"What a beast." Even Director Yu Lei couldn't help swearing. He found it absurd.
He looked at Chen Zhuo, whose expression had frozen.
"???" Chen Zhuo was dumbfounded. He had only said they would dissolve the research institute offhand. The director wouldn't take him seriously, would he?