Juggernaut: Rise of the Zerg

Chapter 148 The Hoarder

Following the lizardman fleet, Zero quickly discovered the main body of the opponent's civilization.

After continuous observation, he discovered that this turned out to be an island civilization!
Although the whole picture has not yet been glimpsed, based on the two months of continuous exploration and observation by the Zerg, basically no proof of the existence of a large continent has been found. On this vast sea area, there are large and small islands scattered everywhere.

It is estimated that the larger ones can have about one percent of the continent occupied by the Zerg, and the smaller ones are about the same as the initial islands.

Although the area is small, the number is extremely large. There are large and small cities and settlements scattered on it. The docks between the islands are vertical and horizontal, and the traffic is heavy.

This also explains why their navigation industry is more developed than the Saadman Empire.

This is the foundation of their survival!
No guess, the origin of the lizardmen civilization here should be later than that of the lizardmen on the Saran continent. Otherwise, with their survival mode and emphasis on the ocean, if civilizations originated at the same time, there is no reason why they have not yet started Ocean exploration.

For its humanistic heritage, it can basically only rely on observation for the insect swarm that has followed and started to hatch units.

Simply Zero is not very interested in these. In order to quickly obtain the other party's information, Sass is already on his way.

With the current Zerg's strength in the ocean, as long as they don't provoke those sea creatures with deadly parasites, there is absolutely no problem with their safety.

Zero needs it to obtain information and knowledge systems about the other party's civilization. At this point, there is no faster way than directly reading the other party's memory.

Zero is not worried about SARS's journey across the ocean.Even in order to ensure its absolute safety, Zero abandoned the faster flying dragon transportation, but directly arranged for the hatchery to slowly rush to the target sea area.

The Zerg on the Lizardmen's side have started a large-scale hatching in places they can't see.

Among them, the ocean unit is only a part. Below the water surface, the Zerg opened up the space leading to the lower part of the island. Without the knowledge of the Lizardmen, they established a Zerg camp deep under their feet.

If there is no accident, before Sass arrived here, they could reach a rather large number.

There is actually another advantage to using the sea hatchery as a vehicle.

Zero believes that a relatively smooth journey should be able to provide a good environment for Sass to think and learn. Even in the middle of the journey, it can continue to carry out the scientific research it loves, without wasting a minute or a second for the Zerg. The time to contribute is really killing two birds with one stone.

In the past two months, it has further improved the "Eagle Eye" ability obtained from Sommer, which can be regarded as a phased achievement, allowing the Zerg to take another small step forward in their exploration of the microcosm.

Observation alone is definitely not enough. In order to study microorganisms in detail, it is now trying to miniaturize the Zerg individual again, which may enable the Zerg to have the ability to analyze organisms on a microscopic scale.

Before Sass arrived, the Zerg Swarm would not attack the Lizardmen. Zero came here to learn the opponent's technology. Without Sass, it would be meaningless to just kill the Lizardmen.

Without the knowledge of the lizardmen, the swarm quietly accumulated strength in the deep underground on the other side of the ocean.

Benefiting from dormant applications, they no longer need to consume a lot of resources to survive or even waste their lives in idleness after hatching. They only need to enter the dormant state to avoid all this, so that the swarm will not be so burdened.

The abundant creatures in the ocean can provide them with enough hatching resources, and at the same time, the long wait is enough for them to develop the Zerg here to the point where they can wipe out the lizardmen without being noticed.

Zero was not impatient about this. Even if the hatchery in the sea carrying Sass moved forward with all its strength, it would take nearly three years to reach the target sea area.

This is a long journey. Maybe in these three years, the lizard people will have some kind of technological explosion. It is idiotic to want to pose a real threat to the Zerg, but if they can make some progress, it can save Sasha. A lot of effort.

The Zerg in the ocean is constantly expanding its sphere of influence as SARS advances. As the Zerg completes its global exploration, the basic situation on the entire route has been clarified, and the process of expansion is also being accelerated in this situation.

The most obvious change is in the strength of the Zerg field, and every day Zero feels stronger than before.

Zero is looking forward to how far the Zerg Field will grow in the future, but it seems that there is still a long way to go before quantitative changes lead to qualitative changes.

...............

Today, on the mainland, the Zerg has been developing wantonly for two years.

When the lizardmen disappeared, most of the individuals of the Zerg went into a dormant state, leaving only the necessary part responsible for developing the land and supporting themselves.

Under such conditions, the resource production of the Zerg on the mainland has gradually produced a lot of redundancy.Such redundancy would seem wasteful in the present when energy issues are not addressed.

If it is used to incubate individuals only to satisfy the enhancement of the Zerg field, and finally enters dormancy completely, it does not make much sense to be true.

Because in the future, the Zerg will inevitably have stronger units and abilities, and this time will be a greater waste of resources.

In this case, the output of resources forced the Zerg to have a new demand, that is, resource storage.

Zero's idea is to produce a Zerg unit that consumes all the existing redundant resources and stores them in its own body, and then enters a dormant state until it is needed, and dedicates itself.

This will of course cause some energy loss, but living storage is much better than letting it rot or mass-incubating Zerg and then recycling it.

Now that the Zerg cannot self-sufficiently produce, it is undoubtedly a feasible method of energy storage.

For this kind of problem, Saas should have some reserves, and it is not a big problem to realize it.

During the process of the Zerg's conquest of the continents and oceans, an unknown number of creatures were incorporated into their gene pools, and some of them were proficient in this field, and it was not a bad idea to use what they learned now.

The issue of energy conversion efficiency should be regarded as another big issue. It cannot be solved by the current Sass. What it can do is to transform it as much as possible to meet the needs of the Zerg.

It takes a long time to cross the ocean, and it has enough time to do it, and Zero has never lacked patience.

Time moved forward bit by bit, and three months passed in a blink of an eye.

Everything about the Zerg has been going on as planned, and the events have been lacklustre.

Regarding the research results of SARS, in terms of basic science, even with the assistance of the Zerg field, it can only be regarded as a slight improvement. In just a few months, it is really difficult to make any achievements in terms of scientific and technological research.

However, in terms of talent utilization, two types of bugs that specialize in assistance have hatched.

One is the further miniaturization of the Zerg.In order to study smaller organisms, this kind of bug was modified by Sass to become smaller.

In fact, Zero has an idea about this, that is to transform this kind of bug into an existence that can split itself, but Sass can't do it yet.

Smaller insects mean stronger mobility at the micro level, which is of great significance to the progress of SARS knowledge. If it is combined with another scientific research insect species whose eyesight is still improving, SARS has actually been considered the most advanced. Basic probing skills.

The next step is to study step by step, even if the speed is a little slower, there will be results in the end.

In addition, the large Zerg unit called the storage by Zero was also successfully hatched by Sass.

This process does not happen overnight, and it is necessary to test and eliminate, and finally leave the insect species that can meet the needs, but these are the only ways for each new insect species to be born, and there is nothing good about it.

The important thing is never those bugs that are abandoned and turned into resources. Compared with transformation, this is more like an artificial choice with a direction specified by zero.

This worm species has no combat ability at all, and is a true pure logistical unit. They can expand their body size through continuous eating, and convert energy into fat and store it in their bodies like ordinary creatures.

Of course, this is not without an upper limit, and it is impossible for them to eat indefinitely.

When their size expanded from the normal Zerg size to about five times their original size, due to some biological mechanism that Sass did not understand, they had to stop eating and enter dormancy.

If force-fed, it will die quickly afterwards.No guesses, this should be caused by the so-called excessive obesity beyond the limit of body load.

During this process, they can swallow a large amount of food into their bodies for storage, and a considerable part of it must be lost, but the exact proportion is impossible to measure.

Thinking about it, the loss should not be too exaggerated. If we only compare the change in body size with the volume of food eaten, the conversion rate is about 15.00%. able to reach saturation.

It sounds like more than 80.00% is wasted, but it is not.

Even if the sugar content in food is extremely high, it must contain some unutilized substances, and they will not participate in the energy supply of organisms.

In addition, the process of converting sugars into fats consumes a certain amount of energy, and it is not a small consumption to supply the size of the Zerg from small to large.

Moreover, due to the high calorie value of fat, the volume of fat is smaller under the same mass.

All in all, this conversion ratio is still barely satisfactory to Zero. Today, the Zerg finally has its own biological granary!

After they finish their final feeding, they will directly go into a dormant state, minimizing their own consumption. This is very important, and it is also the most important factor for the emergence of this insect species.

If there is no dormancy, the food they swallow will eventually be converted into the energy they consume, which is not worth the loss.

In this way, at least until the swarm starts its own energy revolution in the future, this worm species will be a very important member of the swarm.

And the Zerg no longer need to worry about food storage and corruption. With the vastness of the continent and the relatively scientific farming techniques learned from the Lizardmen, the Zerg should be regarded as a step forward in terms of sustainable development. stride.

As long as the environment of the entire planet has not suffered a devastating blow and is still suitable for crop growth, they don't have to worry about energy issues until they develop to a certain level.

This can also prompt the Zerg in the ocean to further speed up the pace of development, which can be regarded as lifting some of their shackles. Although they still cannot develop indiscriminately, they can reduce many concerns because of this.

As for the research on energy, Zero Estimates thinks that it should wait until SARS's understanding of the world, that is, the basic technology, improves a little bit, and then it is possible to do it in combination with its own abilities.

To what extent, Zero can't predict. By then, perhaps the current unit will be eliminated, but this is definitely not a goal that can be achieved in the near future.

Speaking of energy, we have to mention another crucial research, that is, using foreign objects to strengthen ourselves.

The firefly at the beginning has now been thoroughly understood by Sass over and over again.

During this period of time, Sass has basically figured out the mechanism of their application of "saltpeter", and now they have become a member of the gene pool, ready to be used at any time.

However, how to change this application from "saltpeter" to other substances can only get a reference from the fire worm, and the difficulty is so great that it cannot be compared with the previous one.

Unless the swarm can find another creature that ingests other substances from the outside world to strengthen itself, and use Sass' ability as a template to add it to the gene pool as if imitating a firefly, otherwise it will be impossible to truly master this technology. It takes longer.

Zero feels more and more that Sass' ability should be regarded as a shortcut.

It's like when playing a game, obviously without the high-value attributes required to clear the level head-on, but in the end, by virtue of the pathfinding talent, he found an unknown path, directly bypassing the mobs and the final boss along the way, from another The narrow exit passed the dungeon unscathed.

Compared with players who are unable to clear the level at all, they have gained a lot of advantages, but compared to players who have cleared the level positively, they have lost a lot of rewards for clearing the level.

The knowledge that Sass is doing now is like returning to the front of the dungeon after clearing the trail, preparing to start from the mobs again, and dignifiedly start to penetrate the dungeon from the front to get the final complete reward.

Of course, this requires a lot of hard work and hard work, but the final result will inevitably be more substantial.

When the Zerg really came to this point, Zero believed that many of the problems he was facing today would no longer be problems.

(End of this chapter)