The lich stares longingly at a group of insects, imagining that she is wearing silk and satin. Can such a person keep her idle?
Of course not.
But a lot of the work now is trivial and boring, and she wouldn't be happy to leave it to her. As for the machine he was exploring, this one kept a distance. Before she saw the automatic control program for the Peace Arms of the Silverbeard Dwarves, Fen was only editing the program, and she would not touch the body of the Peace Arms.
So someone suggested that this lich, who had nothing to do and thought about "Are you okay" all day long, should do something that she should be interested in and that was also in the category of high-end research: cross-breeding.
The first step is to record the DNA sequences of all collected moth species. This is not to do genetic modification, but to determine the reproductive isolation between these moth species.
I still remember that I once studied Darwin's theory of evolution. Many of them were compared by him to highlight the theories of natural selection and survival of the fittest. According to later generations' research on their DNA sequences, many of them are simply different species of organisms. , they just happen to look similar.
It's like aliens seeing humans and chimpanzees and coming to the conclusion of natural selection and survival of the fittest. So there is a conclusion that one with more hair is stronger and the other with less hair is thinner. That’s fucking bullshit! Therefore, it is necessary to confirm the situation of the moth species first before making appropriate arrangements for subsequent hybridization experiments.
When it comes to genetic modification, Fen is undoubtedly at the forefront of someone's knowledge. But what she did to herself was actually just creating a unique super human. However, an individual cannot be considered a species after all. If the target is silk, one or two super moths will not be of use. It must be able to reproduce continuously and produce silk cocoons.
Secondly, if this lich is really allowed to research in the direction of genetically modified species, who knows what monsters she will transform into. That part is too cutting-edge and someone is not familiar with it, so I strongly suggest that she just do cross-breeding.
The reason why someone used it is also very good. Since you don't know what kind of silk thread is most suitable, why take the same uncertain and most troublesome path. Do the easy things first, it is not suitable to move on to the difficult ones. Fortunately, Fin accepted.
After determining the situation of reproductive isolation, Fen began to make early plans for different moth species that may hybridize with each other. Anyway, under Halumi's care, each pair of moths can lay three to four hundred eggs. Even if only half survived, 80% of the remaining half would be used for trial production of silk threads, and the remaining 15% would be used for breeding, there would still be half left for her to mess around with.
Studying the collected moth species from a biological level revealed some very interesting findings.
First of all, the eighteen kinds of magic moths and the four kinds of ordinary moths actually belong to subspecies under three species, and they are not classified as naturally having powers or not, but are distinguished according to the shape of their wings. There are three types: those with triangular front and rear wings, those with obvious eye stripes on the front and rear wings, and those with linear stripes on the front wings. Of the three species, there are those that are born with their own powers and those that do not.
But the DNA of these three moth species is basically a double helix structure. But the only golden moth is different. She has a four-strand spiral structure? It is similar to the dragon clan. It's just that the information contained in the genome and sequence is far inferior to that of the Dragon Clan.
By the way, the species of Homo sapiens that Lin has encountered so far include native humans - Halumi and Kaya, the male Uzov Gantia, the silver-bearded dwarf Jermaine, and Marit Goblin Toto. Carney and her daughter Polly? Many wood elves and elves? Dark Elf Melson and so on? The DNA sequence of all people is twenty-two pairs of chromosomes plus two, xy for males and xx for females.
In other words, all species of Homo sapiens that someone encounters now are not reproductively isolated, and may even have the same origin. As for why...you need a physics student to explore biological problems? It's too brain-intensive? So skip it.
However, dragons have strong cross-species reproduction capabilities. Not only can they reproduce with other creatures to produce offspring with dragon bloodline, these offspring may even become a species and continue to maintain their characteristics. What is the principle behind this? Someone's biological knowledge is too weak to guess.
But there is a little speculation, is it possible that the golden moth, which also has a four-stranded helix structure, has the same strong reproduction ability as the dragon clan? He said this thought casually, and when he saw the excited evil smile on the lich's face, someone knew... forget it, just let her go.
In addition to Fen preparing to show off his talents, Hallumi also discovered some very interesting phenomena during his observation work.
First of all, the larvae of all moth species can eat vegetarian food. The adults may not necessarily eat meat, but the larvae must be fed meat. Of course, you can eat meat if you feed it.
Secondly, the larvae of ordinary moths cannot do this, but if the larvae of those moth species born with magical powers grind the magic stone into powder and sprinkle it on the leaves or pieces of meat used as feed, they may have a chance to mutate. I don’t know whether it is good or bad; on the other hand, it will also accelerate its growth. It originally took twenty days to enter the next molting period, but it can be reduced to the remaining ten days at most.
If the larvae of common moths eat this kind of bait, they will die suddenly. Moreover, the larvae of common moths cannot tell whether food has been added with food, and will just keep eating stupidly. If you accidentally eat magic stone powder, you will not experience any uncomfortable symptoms. Instead, your whole body will turn black, freeze, and die.
The grade of magic stone also affects the effect of feeding. But it doesn’t mean that the better you use it, the better the effect will be. Basically, when it reaches the Huang Shang level of magic stone, its powder becomes poison. The larvae of some moth species know how to avoid them, while others simply eat them and die suddenly.
Feeding pure magic stone powder or feeding in large amounts will not work. Those more intelligent moth larvae will look for food without additives after eating to a limit. Those unintelligent larvae will, of course, eat until they are exhausted.
Regarding this discovery, Halumi, who was originally very proud, immediately fell down after hearing the teacher's instructions, and almost burst into tears or cursed. Someone said: "Well, well done. Then the observation group will be subdivided. All current categories will be further divided into those with magic stone powder and those without. And pay attention to the feeding of each stage of the larvae. Quantity limit.”
The original work doubled in an instant, and the blonde girl was about to cry.
But what made her even more sad was what someone did after the first batch of larvae spun silk and formed cocoons.
Although the reeling machine had been completed before that, no one except Lin knew the operation process.
When someone threw the cocoon into the dryer, the two girls who had been assisting in the operation were stunned; because not many small creatures could survive under such heat. Halumi was even more reluctant to part with the larvae she had taken care of during this period. Although she did not cry, she was still uncomfortable in various ways.
There was no need for others to comfort the two girls, as they quickly adjusted to it. Speaking of which, the law of the jungle can be regarded as the norm in Lost Land. They grew up in this world, but someone didn't take good care of them, they were just left alone. Not to mention those who kill chickens, ducks, fish and rabbits, even bandits and uncivilized goblins have been killed by them before. Killing animals has long been accustomed to them.
It's just someone's sudden actions that frighten them without explaining it beforehand.
For the first batch of silk cocoons, someone fumbled along according to the process in memory. Because the first round was mainly to test the operating status of the reeling machine, the enchantment mode was not turned on.
However, the test run did not go smoothly. The part of drawing the thread and finding the thread ends is because I can't think of how to automate it, so I can only do it manually with someone watching from the side.
One thread of the reeling machine uses seven cocoons, which is seven-cocoon silk. The adjustment of the reeling force also troubles some people. Because the power of the machine is too high, the thread is always cut off. When any silk thread is broken, the machine must be stopped automatically.
In order to solve these problems, the flywheel is installed, the wire breakage sensor is installed, and the lever is adjusted. In order to keep the silk thread consistent, each part of the reeling machine is equipped with additional sensors to monitor data including air temperature, humidity, wheel speed, water temperature, water level height, etc., and calculate and estimate the silk sheath length, reeling tension, etc.
When the entire semi-automatic reeling machine can run smoothly, it has been modified by someone so that the original appearance cannot be seen. Even someone has no way of knowing how different this is from the earth's version of the automated reeling machine. Because this is completely a thing created by a layman who fiddles around with his head and feet when he has a headache.
After the silk reeling machine finally became operational, Lin tried to enchant the silk reeling process. In the first stage, you don't need to consider adding too much magic as a supplement, but your most basic requirement is a protective magic that can travel between dimensions and resist alien energy.
If you can't even do this most basic enchantment, and all the cocoons made by all moth larvae don't work, then you have to find other ways to add this protective magic to your equipment.
Fortunately, the worst did not happen, and some moth species still passed the first stage of testing. Of course, without exception, they are all moth species that are born with magical powers.
The next step is to test the maximum number of enchantments of various silk threads, the continuous status after adding magic, and the ratio of the consumption of the enchantment process to the effect of transformation. At the same time, factors such as the growth cycle of moth larvae, difficulty of raising, cost, ease of processing, etc. must also be considered.
If you only consider the former, you can find the thread that is most suitable for enchantment and can get the best magic effect. If the latter is added to the factors considered, we need to find the silk thread with the best economic benefits.
In other words, the effect of adding magic may not be the best, but because it is the simplest to raise and can easily form an economic scale, such a moth species is the best choice. After all, to make a piece of clothing, it cannot be solved by just a few cocoons, but thousands of cocoons are needed.
If the clothes are made and only you want to wear them, then you can just collect them slowly, but there are people waiting in line behind you to get them. If the silk thread collected over a long period of time is only enough for yourself, you don't need to guess to know that the ending will not be a happy ending.
Therefore, how to achieve a suitable balance between economic benefits and magical effects is a test of wisdom.
