Space Odyssey from Abandoned Mining Space Station

Chapter 692: Chapter 209: The Ingenious Uses of Purgatory Core_3

”Moreover, the main reason is the high transportation costs on the Volcano Planet; regularly transporting meat and vegetables that can’t be preserved fresh for a long time is too expensive.”

”Although building a comprehensive cycle system of farmland and breeding farms is costly, it’s a one-time investment and provides continuous yields. If it were up to me, I would definitely choose this.”

Chen Ming had some doubts and asked, ”I recall the military in the Star Zone was pretty corrupt internally. How could such facilities still be maintained?”

”They’re maintained, but only partially, to provide fresh food for the local military upper echelon.”

”The entire facility was mainly rebuilt after I took over, and I expanded it slightly during the process.”

”Ahem... going off-topic, what kind of pet do you want?”

”The animals I breed over there are all modified species with high meat yield, short growth cycles, and short lifespans, not suitable as pets.”

”If you really need one, you can tell me directly, and I can arrange for it from other places.”

Chen Ming, whose frustration over unsatisfactory experimental progress had eased a bit, suddenly turned to Bai Quan and asked, ”Anything?”

Bai Quan quickly ran through the usual pets in his mind, even considering odd ones like spiders and scorpions, before finally saying, ”Should be all good.”

”I want an Aurora Wind Spirit, that kind of giant butterfly that can create auroras.”

”?”

”You want to keep butterflies that live in the atmosphere inside the dome?”

Chen Ming said, ”I heard that the larvae of Aurora Wind Spirits live on the ground, going through a growth period of three to four years before pupation and metamorphosis.”

”And after metamorphosis, it continues to live at low altitudes for about a year, during which time its size rapidly increases to be able to fly to the atmosphere. Keeping it for a few years shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

Bai Quan still looked confused and asked, ”How do you know so much about this creature?”

Of course, Chen Ming knew.

Because the Aurora Wind Spirit was one of the creatures he initially planned to feed to the Insect Queen.

Behind its ability to produce beautiful auroras was its terrifying ability to manipulate plasma.

It was simply the best genetic source for the Insect Queen.

But precisely because it can control plasma, capturing the Aurora Wind Spirit is very difficult.

That’s not the main issue—the main issue is that the Aurora Wind Spirit is now found only on one planet in the Empire’s Prosperous Star Realm, and the Empire has already established eco-protection zones.

It’s impossible to obtain it through normal means.

But Bai Quan here obviously wasn’t using normal means.

After considering for a moment, he picked up the terminal and made a call.

He finally turned back to Chen Ming and said, ”Aurora Wind Spirit is possible, but I can only get its eggs or newly hatched larvae; don’t even think about adults.”

The plasma generated by the Aurora Wind Spirit could potentially damage the dome, so Bai Quan couldn’t allow Chen Ming to keep it.

”Larvae are fine.”

”That’s settled then. I’ll make the arrangements, but let me first say that the dome’s ecological environment isn’t suitable for the Aurora Wind Spirit, and you might end up killing it.”

”No problem, if it dies, I won’t ask for a second one.”

Chen Ming wasn’t concerned about whether the Aurora Wind Spirit lived or died; he just needed to feed the insects to the Insect Queen.

If it weren’t so easy to kill, he’d have a harder time finding an excuse for the Aurora Wind Spirit’s death.

Besides, the Insect Queen had already evolved to a level where it could manifest genes by merely consuming consciousness from a body with completely new genes it hadn’t acquired before.

As long as the Insect Queen could spare a bit of tissue to devour the larvae delivered by Bai Quan,

everything else would fall into place.

Chen Ming’s minimal demands allowed Bai Quan to relax a little.

After the two arrived at the classroom, Bai Quan suddenly said, ”By the way, a few members of the think tank asked me to inquire about a question: how is their previous hypothesis coming along?”

Chen Ming was taken aback and said, ”Are they still paying attention to me? I thought they were just a one-off think tank you assembled.”

”Of course, they’re not a one-time arrangement. However, if you don’t need them, I can have them focus on other tasks.”

”Then I still want to keep them,”

Because the think tank had, from the get-go, identified the massive potential of constructing a Hive Mind Network with the Mechanical Race through the content he presented at the meeting and some basic descriptions of his Spiritual Energy.

The think tank’s logical thinking, expansive mindset, and associative abilities are truly remarkable. Who knows what they’ll come up with in the future?

So right now, Chen Ming didn’t want to dismiss the think tank’s presence.

”They didn’t show up in the first two days I arrived; I thought you hadn’t made arrangements.”

Bai Quan explained somewhat helplessly, ”I was indeed making arrangements, but their continuous personnel transfers take time.”

”They had just joined the think tank, transferred from other departments, and then had to move to your area—it all takes time.”

”They’ll be here in a couple of days; it won’t take long.”

”That works.”

After understanding the situation, Chen Ming said, ”Let’s wait until they come over.”

”Alright, let’s start the class.”

Daytime passed in the blink of an eye.

Night fell again.

Chen Ming returned to the laboratory.

By yesterday, he had basically analyzed the special internal structure of the Purgatory Core.

It was a semi-independently constructed nested structure.

It allowed the same components to perform different functions in various modules.

Although two functions couldn’t be used simultaneously, such a design indeed achieved the most functionality with the least material and space.