Industrial Cthulhu doesn't believe in the end times.

Chapter 111 Real Aquaculture Techniques (4.8k)

The instruction was for Jiang Yi to synchronize the data to the research area, but in reality, Su Xun came directly after finishing his work.

From afar, he saw the person standing beside the experimental field waiting for him.

"Old Xu, it's been a long time."

"Yes, it feels like half a lifetime has passed even though only a few days have gone by."

Xu Huan was also full of emotion. The two shook hands and walked together into the research area.

"The Commander-in-Chief should take a good look at our work; we've recently made quite a few discoveries."

Looking at the old man in front of him, Su Xun was somewhat moved. He said, "Don't call me Commander-in-Chief in private. Just call me Little Su."

After gaining superpowers, Xu Huan's spirits improved, and even his wrinkles diminished, making him look more and more like the person Su Xun remembered from his previous life.

Back then, the old man always called him "Little Su," but now that he was calling him "Commander-in-Chief," Su Xun didn't feel it was a respectful title at all; he just felt like he was being teased and mocked.

"Okay, okay, I listen to you."

The two continued forward, and the scenery of the research area gradually came into view before Su Xun.

The situation here is very different from when he left. The most obvious difference is that there are more people. People are constantly rushing back and forth between various research institutes and laboratories with data in their hands.

This is a characteristic of the times. There are also such scenes in the command center. After the information equipment is unusable, the only way for departments to pass information to each other is to write things down on paper.

Fortunately, the superhumans are really useful; they can not only dig holes and move bricks quickly, but also write and copy books quickly.

Upon closer inspection, although the research area is said to be divided into different institutes, the boundaries between the various departments are not actually that clear.

This is understandable. Since the emergence of spiritual power, every research direction has been a blue ocean, and everything has started from scratch. The research of many technologies no longer requires a high level of professional expertise.

The barriers between various disciplines have been broken down. Those who study plants can participate in the work of the Institute of Zoology based on their own abilities, and those who study animals can also help out in the Equipment Department.

Regardless of their field of expertise, these extraordinary individuals are, in fact, research subjects for the Institute of Spiritual Power and Supernatural Abilities.

During the time Xu Huan worked here, in addition to his research on plants, he also participated in many other projects and gained a good understanding of many things. At this time, he introduced these things to Su Xun.

“Actually, most of the results are based on what you left behind.” He pointed in the direction of the Institute of Zoology: “For example, during this period, the first batch of eggs in the breeding farm has been hatched, and eleven mutated individuals have been found among them. They have all been captured and raised separately.”

"Hasn't it been disposed of?"

"No, given that these young birds are quite weak and cannot pose much of a threat, the Institute of Zoology's idea is to select and breed variants that are more suitable for raising through breeding and selection."

"Then we need to be more vigilant," Su Xun warned. "The mutated beasts have endless tricks up their sleeves. If we are careless and they manage to escape, they could become a significant threat."

Such a thing happened in a previous life: the mutated individuals in the breeding farm escaped and grew into powerful mutated beasts, which were extremely hostile to the base where the breeding farm was located and launched many reprisals.

"Understood. We have already assigned more people with superpowers to manage the breeding laboratory. That laboratory has applied for a warehouse on the seventh basement level, where the mutated individuals are being held."

“Actually, there are other methods…” Su Xun pondered for a moment, then tried to speak: “You could try to communicate with those chickens…”

"comminicate?"

Su Xun nodded: "The breeding industry can't be like it used to be. We need to treat it as an education and publicity industry."

"We have to admit that mutant beasts are rational and intelligent. We can no longer hold onto the old ideas and treat them as ordinary animals. Instead, we need to make some new changes that are adapted to the current environment."

"Establish communication with them, influence the formation of their values, and allow these intelligent mutant beasts to separate from their original groups and become our allies, providing us with assistance."

Upon hearing this, Xu Huan paused slightly.

"What's wrong?" Su Xun asked, puzzled. He turned around and saw the old man frowning in deep thought.

"Isn't doing this a bit..." Su Xun's actions just now seemed to have touched some of his bottom lines.

Su Xun quickly understood what the other party was worried about after a moment's thought. No wonder, similar situations have been common throughout human history.

To put it bluntly, this is enslaving foreign tribes and sowing discord; if this continues, it will surely bring disastrous consequences.

Su Xun was not surprised by this consideration; he simply found it quite interesting.

In their previous lives, they had done similar things before. Xu Huan was quite supportive back then, not to mention that he cultivated so many intelligent mutant plants. In the end, he clearly distinguished between those he should eat, those he should burn, those he should win over, and those he should strike back.

In this life, he unexpectedly hesitated. It was the same person, yet he had different judgments. Why was that?
It's simply that the environment in this life is better, resources are plentiful, and the survival situation is not as urgent, so many people have begun to have the leisure to consider more things.

These considerations are actually reasonable, but Su Xun still said to him, "Animals don't have the same ethical values ​​as humans. Even two ordinary roosters in the same brood will fight to the death for territory, food, or even just to determine who is the leader."

"Nowadays, even if they have acquired intelligence, they may not have any pity or sympathy for their own kind, or even regard ordinary populations as their own kind."

"In the distant future, we may reach a new balance with these races and eventually find a better way to coexist, but for the foreseeable future, this is the most suitable approach."

Xu Huan was silent for a moment, then asked carefully, "What if... what if there is a high-level mutated beast that wants to rescue its kind who are being raised by humans, and is even willing to become an enemy of all humanity? How should we respond?"

“Kill.” Su Xun answered decisively: “If it stands up on its own, then kill it. If its entire clan stands up, then kill it until its clan is wiped out.”

"Old Xu, what you are worried about is that we, as a race, will stand against most other races. Perhaps you are also worried that these actions will affect the relationship between the extraordinary and the ordinary among us humans."

"But in reality, this is not a relationship of oppression and being oppressed, it is a racial war, it is about people wanting to eat meat, it is a fundamental contradiction."

"We are ultimately meant to eat meat. It's not that we did something that put us on the opposite side of the mutated beasts; rather, we were born to be on the opposite side."

"This kind of antagonism did not begin now, but started millions of years ago, when humans first hunted, from the time when humans ate raw meat and drank blood."

"It can be mitigated, it can be concealed, but it will always exist in essence until humans, or rather all animals, and even mutated plants, have solved the food problem for the entire species together."

"In the present world, humans and mutated beasts are facing the threat of zombies. Under the premise of major contradictions, minor contradictions can be ignored, so we have the basis to stand on the same front. But in the future, we will eventually have to fight for the living space of this planet."

Xu Huan finally nodded. He wasn't too pedantic and wouldn't hold onto this point.

"Hey, I'm just a researcher. Ultimately, you'll have to discuss these things with Commander Qin and Secretary-General Feng."

"Old Xu, don't underestimate yourself." Su Xun smiled. "You are one of the top extraordinary individuals among us, and there will be many areas where we will need your help in the future." "Let's not talk about that." Xu Huan waved his hand with a wry smile. "I'd like to continue telling you about our achievements."

"The biggest achievement of the Institute of Botany should be the mutated potato we encountered before. I have been controlling its growth rate, but it is now close to the third level of strength. I feel that the main function of this potato may not be its edible value. Compared with other mutated plants, it seems to be particularly intelligent."

"Once it reaches the third tier, it should see a significant improvement. I will then work with the Equipment Department to see if we can develop some more meaningful applications."

"There's not much else to say. Plants have a much lower mutation rate than animals, and they lack intelligence, their traits are unstable, and their extraordinary qualities are difficult to inherit. For the time being, we can't produce any significant results."

Su Xun nodded: "No rush, you can make your own decisions about these things. You're an expert in this area."

"I know that these things can't be rushed," Xu Huan said calmly.

Before the Great Cataclysm, many people spent half their lives making breakthroughs in seed selection and cultivation. Now, with the dual support of spiritual power and supernatural abilities, this time has been greatly shortened.

In fact, Xu Huan was very satisfied with the sight of mutated plants everywhere. In the past, they often had to travel all over the country to find a wild plant that could be used for research. Now, they are more focused on screening out mutated individuals from large-scale cultivation.

As they spoke, the two had already reached the other end of the research area, where there were even more researchers coming and going. Upon seeing Su Xun and Xu Huan, they all greeted the two of them.

This is Su Xun's main destination: the Equipment Department of the Taimon Base, which is primarily responsible for continuously transforming the old technological achievements of the civilized era into new technologies that are more adapted to the current environment.

"Speaking of the recent technological breakthroughs of the Equipment Department, there are too many to count." Xu Huan smiled and led Su Xun inside.

"You've probably already seen some of these, but for more specific details, I'd like to ask a few engineers from the Equipment Department to explain them to you personally."

This place is less like a laboratory and more like a workshop, filled with all sorts of parts. The most eye-catching piece of equipment in the middle is a complex device that Su Xun recognizes; it's a miniaturized version of a spirit communication device, a major research area that the equipment department is currently focusing on.

By miniaturizing and simplifying these devices and mass-producing them, humanity can hope to return to the information age, or at least partially.

Of course, the one in front of us is still too big; it's more of an experimental model. A group of people are currently gathered around it, using it to verify more things.

"Commander-in-Chief!"

Someone had already spotted Su Xun and was waving in their direction.

Su Xun nodded in agreement and walked over to the engineers: "How's the progress of that project you submitted earlier?"

The senior engineers exchanged glances, somewhat embarrassed: "We thought we could finish this before the commander-in-chief returned, but who knew we still haven't been able to complete it."

Su Xun chuckled: "Then I must have come back too quickly. As soon as I heard that you had created communication equipment, I rushed back without stopping."

As he spoke, he noticed a listless figure standing in the corner and couldn't help but ask in surprise, "Huh? Tao Yue? What are you doing here?"

Upon seeing the oracle bones she was holding, Su Xun suddenly realized what was happening and couldn't help but shake his head and chuckle.

"Commander-in-Chief..." Tao Yue said with a mournful face, "I really feel like I'm useless here. Please help me explain to them that I really can't tell fortunes."

"Don't be modest!" an older engineer said with a smile. "Comrade Tao is a great help to us. Without her, our work would probably be far behind."

Upon hearing this, Tao Yue waved her hands and shook her head. When she first learned about the special ability of this oracle bone, her first thought was to use this ability to go on adventures and explore, living the life of a novel protagonist. Who would have thought that she would actually be dragged over to calculate whether various techniques could succeed again and again.

The monotony wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Living in this era, what she saw and heard had already taught her that staying in the base was indeed much safer than going outside. However, for her, the predictions she made based on oracle bones not only consumed a lot of energy, but the results were always vague and ambiguous.

This made her feel superfluous, like a mascot. In her view, even without her, these technologies would have been perfected by engineers. So, when faced with technologies she didn't understand at all, she often felt a sense of unease and disorientation.

Hearing her complaints, Su Xun's smile widened: "What are you talking about? This isn't fortune telling. There must be some basis behind it, we just don't understand it yet."

Upon hearing this, Tao Yue froze on the spot, which caused several senior engineers around her to burst into laughter.

"Alright, alright." Su Xun stopped everyone's laughter, walked up to Tao Yue, and reached out to rub her head.

"Several engineers have already acknowledged your contributions. What are you afraid of? Whatever you feel, you can speak out."

"Although this isn't your special ability, it's compatible with you. Study it carefully, try to master it, and in the process, raise your own level as well. I think you should be able to forge your own path from here."

Tao Yue was somewhat disheartened, but upon hearing this, she cheered up and nodded vigorously.

Seeing his determined look, Su Xun grinned: "Good! Very energetic. Let's calculate again and see where we need to make changes!"

"?"

The lab was instantly filled with a cheerful atmosphere again. Su Xun turned around and said with a smile, "It takes a lot of energy for a young girl to make a prediction. I have to say, you guys should at least prepare some snacks for her."

"I see, Commander-in-Chief. We apologize. From now on, all the snack rations in the lab will be Xiao Tao's!"

Upon hearing this, Tao Yue's eyes lit up, but her expression became somewhat hesitant: "Well... there's no need for so many..."

"Alright, alright, that's enough. I'm here anyway, let's see together where we still need to work on this."

"That's great. With the commander-in-chief here, many things shouldn't be a problem now."

The engineers were overjoyed. This was no flattery; much of their work now involved directly transforming the technology left behind by Su Xun into tangible results. As he stepped forward, they began to explain it to him.

"What we want to do most right now is to enable some ordinary wireless devices to receive spiritual signals."

"In essence, this idea is to disguise spiritual energy as electromagnetic waves and send it out, but this range seems to be very difficult to control. Either it will burn out the target device, or the target device will not be able to receive it. We have had a successful experience once, but we have not been able to replicate it yet."

Su Xun nodded and said, "That's normal. Spiritual power and electromagnetic waves are ultimately two different things. It contains more energy and its properties are also very different."

Many wireless devices were actually destroyed in the cataclysm, but not all of them, and many simple structures were also created in the month before the apocalypse.

They are currently facing interference, but they are still barely usable for short-range communication. Before the development of wind-type ability users, Su Xun used these devices to direct the convoy despite the interference.

Currently, not all teams have ability users who have mastered the Wind Sound Technique. Many of these devices are still in operation. Breaking through this technology will greatly expand their broadcast range, allowing more people to directly hear the sounds from the base.

"Come on, there must be a way. Let's work together to figure it out!"

As evening approached, Jiang Yi hurriedly arrived at the research area from the command center. Before she even entered the laboratory, she suddenly heard a burst of extremely enthusiastic cheers coming from inside.

(End of this chapter)