Overlord: Rise of the Zerg

The research and development process of various technologies is not controlled by Zero, that is Sass's domain, although he has been able to directly learn everything it does through the Hive Mind.

Zero continued to observe his starry sky, and tried to get Sass to continuously update his "observation instruments".

Time passed quietly in such busy and leisurely days. Zero overlooked the entire planet and looked up at the endless starry sky in the distance.

Sasse's research has finally made progress. At an extremely microscopic level, the boundaries between plants and animals have been quietly erased. The substances containing genetic information determine everything, ultimately leading different species in different directions.

Sass was like a gene thief. After trying it on himself, he realized that he had no obvious characteristics to try, so he instead devoted his energy to the algae bugs that he had previously modified based on his own abilities.

Here, it breaks through again.

Algae worms are a type of insect that was transformed by Sars through sea snails with their own unique abilities. They are completely different from ordinary Zerg units. If the original algae worms were not created by Sars, and they can By providing Zero with vision, he can even completely treat the Zerg and the Algae as two different creatures.

Because algal worms, like other species on this planet, can reproduce themselves.

In other words, even if all insect species including Zero disappear, it can still gain a foothold on this planet and eventually become a part of it!

Among the Zerg species, except for the special hatcheries, no other Zerg species has the ability to leave the group and still restore the number of companions.

In a sense, algal worms are more like a normal biological group than other insect species.

At least their individuals will always maintain a high degree of similarity with each other. Unlike the insect swarm, even if they are the same race, the flying dragon and the forager look like two completely different creatures.

This time, Sass has conducted more in-depth research on them, and the secrets about chlorophyll are also being revealed bit by bit. Sass is planning a creature to replace the algae. As for the reason, it is still about the efficiency of energy supply. .

To be honest, today's Zerg do not lack energy sources, but there is a problem that has been bothering Zero. The efficiency of energy obtained from food is too low.

It may be a bit abstract to say this, but the energy provided by the decomposition and transformation of sugar, Zero still feels that it is a bit too rough.

It may be able to meet the daily activities and reproduction of the Zerg, but if it wants to do more, it will be difficult to satisfy people.

At least for space navigation, if this thing is used to power the Zerg, even if the Zerg gains a long life in the future, it will eventually become a piece of biological garbage in the universe. The efficiency is too low!

Despite this, Zero didn't ask that Sasse could be solved overnight, that would be unrealistic.

How to specifically improve the "purity" of energy is a fairly broad topic. What SAS can do today is just make some changes on its output.

The original algae worm's output, in addition to feeding itself, is to breed new algae worms. It can be said that they themselves are their most important energy output.

Sass spent some time changing this situation, that is, referring to the various crops grown by the Zerg before, and converting all the gains from photosynthesis into sugars.

Of course, this does not change anything in essence. After all, Sasse's understanding of energy, in addition to the various ingredients in food, the most important thing is sugar.

About this, it requires more knowledge.

So although Zero still expressed dissatisfaction, it was the limit of what it could do at present.

Even so, the energy supply effect of this improvement has been greatly improved on the original basis. Because the new algal worms produce a much higher sugar content than the previous crop!

This is also due to the deeper research on genes, which allowed Sass to finally allow the Zerg to ignore the boundaries between organisms to a certain extent and directly allow them to achieve such a result.

This should be regarded as an advanced version of the original algae insect. Unfortunately, there is still a huge gap between it and the powerful energy unit in Zero's mind.

It's impossible to say that I'm not disappointed, but all of Sass's research process is in his eyes, so Zero also knows very well that Sass's current cognitive level can probably only go so far.

Call it disappointment, but in fact it is just a trivial emotion. In his opinion, Sass's recent breakthrough in the research on Zerg genes was already a stroke of luck, and he really shouldn't be too demanding.

The Zerg still have a lot of time, so there is no need to rush. If ten years doesn’t work, then twenty or fifty years! He can afford to wait.

However, Zero now does not realize how difficult it will be when it comes to energy research.

………………

Energy exists in countless forms, and almost everything we come into contact with in daily life is closely related to it. It is everywhere in the universe and nature.

It is a pity that despite Sass's efforts, the Zerg's use of energy only stops at chemical energy.

Through chemical reactions, in the process of decomposing large molecules into small molecules, accompanied by the breaking or reorganization of chemical bonds, the energy released is used by the Zerg to support their daily activities.

Lizardmen have more applications in this area. They burn for heating, perform metal smelting, etc., and even create firearms. The level of energy utilization promotes the progress of society. Unfortunately, other than that, there is no black technology. The presence.

Sass's research in this area has encountered a huge bottleneck here, because it found that no matter how the Zerg's body changes, as long as it still obtains energy by eating compounds in the general sense, it is unlikely to use energy. Going beyond this is unlikely, at least at this stage.

This has little to do with how the Zerg's genes have changed, because today's creatures on the entire planet, except for microorganisms, are actually not much different from the Zerg in nature.

They may be able to convert external inorganic matter into organic matter through photosynthesis and store it as energy, but other than that, so far, the energy source of the entire biosphere is nothing more than the chemical stored inside various substances. The use of energy.

The Zerg still have not stopped studying various creatures on the entire planet, incorporating them one by one into their own gene pool.

Zero does know that violent reactions of certain compounds, such as combustion, can produce huge amounts of energy. However, the problem is that the current small body of the Zerg cannot withstand this level of energy release, and how to use it rationally is also a huge problem. .

This involves all aspects, and it does not mean that all problems can be solved by mastering some superficial aspects of gene application.

Today, they can only accept relatively mild energy release methods, and how to solve this problem is another research project.

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

As the saying goes, when the east is not bright, the west is bright. Sars, which has been unable to achieve results in energy, has made huge breakthroughs in the accurate "cutting" of genes.

Now it basically has preliminary gene editing capabilities. Because in theory, it can already "splice" different gene fragments into the bodies of newborn Zerg individuals, thereby obtaining various expressions.