A Colossus rushes in at the start

Chapter 6 The Importance of the Research Mastermind

Just now, Patton received an urgent military intelligence report from a friendly fleet, the contents of which left him with only two words in mind—absurdity.

If we had to draw an analogy, Commander Patton's current mood is similar to that of a human hearing someone say, "The duck that was cooked in the pot has flown away."

Keep in mind that the highest level of psionic energy a swarm of creatures can have is only level ten. For an entire planet to travel at faster-than-light speed, how many levels of psionic energy would that require?

The Void God has descended?

It seems the Void God has never made an entire planet travel faster than light!

The solid understanding built up over so many years of fighting the Babel bees was being challenged like never before, and Commander Patton naturally had doubts about this urgent military intelligence.

The commander of the friendly fleet was not surprised by Patton's reaction; he had reacted the same way not long ago. He shook the wings on his back and said, "Commander Patton, I know you find it hard to believe, but this is the battlefield recorder data from Beaufort's fleet. Take a look."

After receiving the battlefield logs sent by the friendly fleet and witnessing the entire process of the nest star's faster-than-light travel, Commander Patton no longer had any doubts about the contents of the military intelligence.

"Nals, is this a new breed of bee?" Patton asked the commander of the friendly fleet.

"I don't know, but whatever that nesting planet is, it can't be good news," Nars replied, his membranous wings fluttering. He continued, "The General Staff has appointed you as the commander-in-chief of the Allied Forces. The fleets commanded by me, Bofor, Gro, and Xunstein will be combined with yours to form a joint fleet. The General Staff has only one requirement: 'Leave that nesting planet for studying the changes in the Babel swarm; exterminate all remaining swarm creatures.'"

"Understood."

Patton accepted the mission, and communication between the two sides was lost. Patton then contacted the fleet's deputy commander.

"Were any gravity-blocking ships in service with the fleet damaged during the previous battle?"

The deputy commander replied, "No, the previous battle only damaged the nano-armor of some frigates."

Commander Patton scanned the damage report sent by his deputy commander with his four eyes, and then issued orders a moment later.

"The Babel Tower swarm has mutated. We have an urgent mission and need to set sail immediately to bring all personnel on leave at Starport back to their ships." The damaged frigate remains in Star City, and frigates will be transferred from the Star City garrison fleet to fill the frigate gaps in the interceptor fleet.

"When will the fleet set sail?" the deputy commander asked.

"After two crystal decay periods."

……

"I miss Earth, I miss my toilet..."

Lu Shang emerged from the toilet he had directed the worker bees to excavate, looking utterly miserable.

The swarm's mastermind studied the human body structure and genes of Lu Shang. Although that mastermind has already run away, the research information is still left on the Nest Star, so the problems of air, food, and water are easy to solve.

The problem is going to the toilet. Although the creatures of the Babel Tower bee colony also excrete, they never use toilet paper after excreting, and they don't even mind rolling around in their own excrement. Naturally, there is no toilet paper for Lu Shang.

Lu Shang only noticed this halfway through his squatting session. So, he could only frantically direct the bee swarm in the toilet to collect some of the soft, gelatinous shells shed by the mutated young bees to use as toilet paper.

This soft, rubbery paper is barely usable as toilet paper, but it's quite abrasive, so much so that Lu Shang felt a burning pain in his backside after leaving the toilet.

"Ouch... I've been squatting for too long, my legs are numb..."

"The bee colony needs a research-oriented organism that can edit genes; we can't wait any longer," Lu Shang muttered to himself with a solemn expression.

Actually, using Lu Shang's clothes as material, it wouldn't be a problem to make a batch of high-density, soft fiber fabric to use as toilet paper.

The problem is that in Lu Shang's bee colony, no organism can perform gene editing; only the hive can make appropriate fine-tuning of the colony's organisms by changing biological hormones.

Originally, Lu Shang planned to solve the problems of the Star River Alliance fleets before addressing the research issues within the swarm, but now it seems he can't wait any longer; if he waits any longer, he fears he might lose his integrity as a human!

He needs bee colonies that can perform mental work!

Bee colonies need it too!

Lu Shang focused his mind, connected to the swarm's psionic network, and issued orders to all the hives on the nest planet.

"Bee colonies need organisms with gene-editing capabilities. Starting today, all hives must learn how to edit the genes of organisms like the mastermind."

Soon, the Hive responded to Lu Shang through the psionic network.

Gene editing is your job, mastermind.

"Stop making excuses! I'm asking you, what if the swarm encounters a powerful enemy that destroys the entire Babel Tower swarm's mastermind in a very short time? What will you do then?"

[If a mastermind is lost, the Overlord will replenish the number of masterminds.]

"What if the Overlord also dies? How will the number of Overlords be replenished? Or are you going to create a new Overlord?"

【…】

All the hives fell silent. If it were so easy to create a Overlord, the Babel hive would have been filled with Overlords long ago.

"The previous division of labor among bee colonies posed a significant risk of extinction, so it must be changed! And we can't wait; we must change it immediately, instantly, and swiftly!"

Okay, we will make the changes.

After a long, authoritative speech, Lu Shang finally convinced his Hives to make changes. However, simply changing the model was not enough.

In terms of hardware, the hive cannot compare to the main brain. Complex thinking, such as imagination and deep thought, is something that the hive and other lower-level bee colony organisms cannot do.

Apart from the mastermind and the overlord, the brain structures of all individual bees in the swarm are simplified designs.

I wonder what the mastermind or overlord was thinking when they designed it this way.

This may be because it facilitates biological control of the bee colony, or it may be due to concerns that a mastermind or overlord could easily emerge within the colony and usurp control. Therefore, a biological hierarchy barrier was deliberately constructed.

Lu Shang, in any case, cannot see the beneficial aspects of this biological design for bee colonies.

For this reason, it becomes very necessary to find a brain template of an intelligent being. Lu Shang first thought of himself, but after thinking about it, he decided against it. He didn't want his genes to be played with by others at will.

Subsequently, Lu Shang thought of capturing some aliens from the Star River Alliance and using their brains as templates.

But after thinking about it, they gave up, since their path wasn't in biology.

The naturally evolved brain may contain a great deal of redundancy. For example, in the human brain, there are actually quite a few patients on Earth with hydrocephalus, where more than 50% of the middle part of the brain has liquefied. Their health in all aspects is no different from that of ordinary people, and they are even healthier than some sedentary people.

Furthermore, considering the incompatibility of social models, and since Lu Shang lacks scientifically developed bee colony organisms to resolve this incompatibility, this approach was also abandoned.

Upon closer examination, it seems that only the brain of the swarm's mastermind is suitable, requiring no adjustments and can be directly cloned for use.

Just as Lu Shang was considering whether he should attack some of the fleeing space bees, he received an alert from other bee creatures in the bee network.

"Huh? The Star Alliance fleet?"

(End of this chapter)