Space Odyssey from Abandoned Mining Space Station

Chapter 521: Chapter 172: Reciprocal Nourishment of Hive Mind and Group Consciousness_4

Then, Chen Ming couldn’t resist reaching for those still alive and dormant mechanical bodies.

Immediately, he discovered with surprise that these dormant mechanical bodies seemingly weren’t affected by external factors, even when his robot had already touched the casing of the Mechanical Race, it was the same.

These dormant Mechanical Race seemed to only be triggered by combat.

Of course, Chen Ming wasn’t reckless enough to expose his robots directly on the city’s streets, or in front of those still active Mechanical Race.

He only wanted to take away a few living Mechanical Race to confirm if the one he controlled earlier was an exception.

Chen Ming easily took away several dormant Mechanical Race, just like he would with other mechanical corpses, transporting them directly to the Supreme Point.

Inside the Supreme Point, there were many devices that could interfere with the normal operation of mechanical bodies, so Chen Ming didn’t need to worry about them suddenly going berserk.

As the Mechanical Race were transported to the Supreme Point.

The robot Chen Ming sent to verify the location of the insects’ landing was still on its way.

So he simply went to the warehouse, where these dormant Mechanical Race were.

To avoid damaging these dormant mechanical bodies, Chen Ming decided to directly control these few mechanical bodies himself and watched their panels intently.

Just like with the previously slightly damaged mechanical body.

The consciousness section on their panels also changed from [Individual Consciousness: Sub-individual (Dormant)] to [Individual Consciousness: Sub-individual (Anomalous)].

This was both good and bad news for Chen Ming.

The good news was he would not have to worry about the Mechanical Race he controlled being influenced by the ”Queen Bee” of the Mechanical Race.

The downside was, without the assistance of the collective consciousness, the mechanical bodies he controlled behaved a bit ”dumber.”

Wait.

Chen Ming suddenly felt something might be amiss.

With the increasing number of anomalous sub-individuals of the Mechanical Race he controlled.

These anomalous sub-individuals seemed to be building a hive mind network among themselves.

They were sharing their computational power with each other.

And then Chen Ming discovered another unique aspect.

When he controlled these Mechanical Race as anomalous sub-individuals, his Spiritual Power seemed to not be consumed.

Chen Ming’s Spiritual Energy could control many things.

But to control anything, he would have to continuously expend his Spiritual Power.

Even when controlling the spaceship with Dusk’s help, he would at least have to allocate a bit of Spiritual Power to control the ship.

Although the continuous consumption was minimal, it was necessary.

However, when he controlled these few Mechanical Race, which averted their normal consciousness to anomalous Mechanical Race.

Aside from the initial consumption of Spiritual Power, there was no continued depletion of it.

Yet Chen Ming could still issue commands to them normally.

This seemed rather odd.

Chen Ming temporarily set aside other matters and focused his Spiritual Power on himself and the Mechanical Race, observing closely.

Just as Chen Ming concentrated his awareness.

The next moment, his eyes suddenly widened.

Because these Mechanical Race not only did not consume his Spiritual Power.

They were even feeding it back to him.

After these Mechanical Race transformed into anomalous sub-individuals, their fragile and anomalous consciousness was offsetting the consumption of his Spiritual Power as he controlled them.

”Could this be...the influence of hive mind?”

Chen Ming understood.

After he controlled these Mechanical Race, as they turned into anomalous sub-individuals.

These Mechanical Race established a new hive consciousness, centering on him.

He was the ”Queen Bee.”

Chen Ming immediately began checking his own consciousness state; apart from the feedback of Spiritual Power from these anomalous sub-individuals, there was no other change.

But Chen Ming was still concerned about whether these Mechanical Race would inversely affect his consciousness.

However, he quickly realized he did not need to worry about this.

His Spiritual Energy instincts would help eliminate all dangers.

If there were really issues, he could definitely detect them in advance and directly sever the link with the Mechanical Race, or eliminate the weak consciousnesses of the anomalous sub-individuals.

But if there were no problems...

Chen Ming subconsciously swallowed.

The fact that the consciousness of the Mechanical Race could feed back into his Spiritual Power spoke volumes.

Through the tower’s surveillance, Chen Ming took in the appearance of the entire decaying city, swallowing once again involuntarily.

He would claim this city.

The Thorn Insect Race on this planet must be cleansed.