Space Odyssey from Abandoned Mining Space Station

Chapter 538: Chapter 177: Pitch-Black Shell

With the appearance of the four options on the panel: [Repair], [Evolution], [Decomposition], [Genetic Traceback].

Chen Ming once again found himself deep in thought.

The first three options were easy for him to understand—they seemed to be different names for the same functions as those of a Biomass Spaceship and a regular spaceship.

But the effect of the last one, [Genetic Traceback], was hard to guess just from its name.

However, since it was on the panel, and he had already seen it, he had to give it a try.

Chen Ming casually pressed [Genetic Traceback].

A new panel appeared immediately, providing Chen Ming with a brief understanding of the Genetic Traceback function.

Simply put, it consumes biomass and Chen Ming’s spiritual power to extract the potential for evolution from genes.

”Extract the potential for evolution from genes?”

Chen Ming read this line displayed on the panel aloud, somehow feeling it sounded peculiar.

But it wasn’t a big deal; after all, with the word ”evolution” there, how could he not try it?

When Chen Ming pressed confirm.

His spiritual power suddenly began to flow out as if a floodgate had opened, consuming at a speed almost comparable to the additional core boost he previously provided to HR.

Yet the overall consumption wasn’t as outrageous as the 100% spiritual power requirement, consuming roughly only about 20% of his spiritual power.

And at the moment when Chen Ming’s spiritual power stopped flowing out.

Perhaps due to the Insect Race’s hive mind network, a dim and blurred image suddenly flashed across Chen Ming’s mind.

An image seemingly stored in the genes, a memory.

A gigantic creature, almost several meters tall, completely shrouded in dark armor, resembling an ancient mammoth, appeared to be a type of Insect Race, being surrounded by a swarm of Thorn Insect Race hunting it.

The Thorn Insect Race desperately attacked, but their acid, spikes, and sharp blades, almost all their methods, could not effectively harm the dark, giant insect creature.

Just as curiosity about what happened next arose within Chen Ming, the scene vanished from his mind.

Then he saw that an option appeared on the previously empty evolution panel due to his zero biotechnological knowledge.

[Dark Armor].

This option simply appeared on the panel, not requiring Chen Ming to learn any related technology.

This is the result of Genetic Traceback, extracting the abilities hidden within the genes of the Insect Race itself.

Or rather...

The image of the Insect Race hunting the giant dark creature re-emerged in Chen Ming’s mind.

Extracting the genes of other organisms that the Insect Race had devoured.

Sounds pretty promising, but when Chen Ming thought about it more, isn’t it just like opening a blind box?

The Insect Race can even consume minerals and convert them to biomass, so eating more organisms seems quite normal.

Who knows how many kinds of organism genes might be hidden within their genes.

What might be extracted seems entirely dependent on luck.

This time, Chen Ming had good luck, extracting a noticeably valuable gene, but who knows about the next time.

Best not to hold too much hope.

Anyway, that’s Chen Ming’s thought; it’s great if it works, if not, that’s fine too.

This way, if he encounters failure, his emotions remain stable and won’t be affected by failures.

However, since the first blind box draw netted something seemingly decent, [Evolution], which means [Transformation] in ordinary spaceship terms, must be considered.

Like regular spaceships, the evolution of biological spaceships also requires consuming nutrients and biomass as materials, needing Chen Ming’s spiritual power to sustain the process.

A Destroyer Level biological spaceship doesn’t require much spiritual power from Chen Ming.

Biomass is something that is typically hard to obtain under normal circumstances.

But Chen Ming is on a habitable planet now.

Moreover, the biological spaceship itself can digest all sorts of odd things, converting them into nutrients and biomass to sustain itself.

So even without this habitable planet, Chen Ming doesn’t have to worry about such issues.

Therefore, once it was confirmed that the leftover biomass was sufficient for evolution after the Insect Queen absorbed most of the hastily created various tissues and organisms back.

He first left the spaceship, retracing the previous path, returning to the Supreme Point.

Then directly chose confirm, initiating the process of evolving [Dark Armor] for the Biomass Spaceship.

Chen Ming’s spiritual power began to drain away.

The biomass and nutrients inside the giant storage cavity flowed along the blood vessels of the biological spaceship at varying thicknesses, delivered throughout the ship by its unique blood.

And as the nutrients were absorbed, the gaps in the biological spaceship’s armor gradually exuded growth substances.

It was identical to the scene Chen Ming recalled from the Insect Queen’s memory, when its mother evolved from a Frigate to a Destroyer.

The growth substances formed a cocoon, gradually encapsulating the Biomass Spaceship within.

As the Insect Queen is now integrated with the biological spaceship, communication with the Insect Queen was temporarily lost during evolution.

Looks like the Insect Race appears quite vulnerable during the evolution process.

In the future, he must be vigilant and avoid allowing his insects to evolve without any protection.

If the Insect Queen were evolving underground, she would have the entire Insect Nest’s protection, but now it’s only his spaceship that can protect her.

Thus, Chen Ming had the Supreme Point restart the scanning array to prevent the Mechanical Race from launching a surprise attack.