Book 7, Chapter 133 (1/2)
Dark Void
“Those eggs taste horrible, Boss!” Medium Rare suddenly woke up, rubbing his eye, “There’s enough energy in there, but almost no lizard at all. It’s basically human, that’s such a bad taste!”
Ogres were able to somewhat analyse the composition of things they ate, with this ability only growing with both their level and mind. However, Richard smiled softly; the only reason this one hated humans was that he had been brought up by one. Most normal ogres ate anything from dragons to bugs and sometimes didn’t even mind plants. Humans were decidedly average for their palate, which was why the original word for ogre in old Norlandic translated to something like “man-eating devil.”
“Anyway,” Richard shook his head, “I agree. These eggs aren’t natural; they should be human infants injected with draconic blood with some growth catalyst.”
“But what’s the point?” the ogre scratched his heads, “These people can’t breed, so they’ll only be useful once.” This was a general rule. Most artificially created lifeforms— and even a good chunk of normal ones that were modified— ended up losing a good chunk of their reproductive abilities. Even the Schumpeter Family that had studied selective crossbreeding for years had failed to overcome this issue.
“It still allows them to send a large number of soldiers through to another plane quickly. Each of these things can get to level 10, and half a month’s worth of blood is enough for hundreds. Even for everything in the hall, two dragons would have been enough.”
“But that needs so many babies. Won’t the chance of fusion be low?”
“Would you worry about chickens if you could use a few of them to maybe make clones of yourself?”
“Uhh… I understand,” the ogre nodded hard, realising why Richard looked so uneasy.
Richard himself sighed, heading for the hatchery where hundreds of worker drones were tending to the eggs. They had taken up the draconians’ job perfectly well, and in some cases were performing even better than the original caretakers. In charge of them all, the Thinker was present personally and directing the hatchery.
Looking at the special unit, Richard suddenly thought about how useful it had become in recent years. Outside of small battles, the Thinker was now more useful in any situation than Phaser and Zangru, with the astral chrysalis sharing a similar status. Be it the regular flying chrysalides or the wasps, nothing could compare to the astral chrysalis at logistics and transport; just it alone was enough to support a small war.
Brushing away the thoughts, he waved at the Thinker and asked, “How is it going?”
“The samples have been sent to the Creator, but she will need a month to completely analyse them. The eggs have been slowed down as we wait; she anticipates that she can turn all of these things into obedient servants just like us.”
He nodded and left the hall. The hatchery was a rudimentary attempt at creating drones, as were most draconians, but the broodmother was someone at the end of that path. He didn’t need such techniques when she was around, but now that she was completely independent he needed to grow his own sources as well.
Once he was out, he soared a kilometre into the sky to overlook the entirety of the valley. After sweeping his gaze across the area, he flew over to check on the battle situation at the Pearl Necklace.