AN: ... (when the author has nothing to say on the author's note...)
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When he wasn't reading the mind of the man, the grand lord was making experiments for the sake of his new breed of zerg, and for his final form. He started by working on the means of information gathering: the sensory organs. He focused on the eyes and ears. Eagles can see far, flies are good at seeing fast movements, and there is a crustacean that can, on top of the regular light, see in the infrared and the ultraviolets. Materials, solid, liquid or gaz, are medium for vibrations, for sound transmition. Some animals can hear ultrasounds, bats can use sound to grasp their surroundings, submarines use sound as well for detection.
Light and sounds travel at high speed, they are the fastest mean to gather informations, and can be used to gather information from a good distance as well. The sense of smell and taste are good to know the composition or to identify materials, liquids or gaz. They require a certain proximity with the source or a slow medium like air and water. What the grand lord want most is gather informations from a distance, at least for himself. He wants performant eyes and ears. Besides, for battle he would first observe things from a safe distance before joining in the fray.
Besides, for him, the senses of sight and hearing were better suited to track movements, especially the fast ones. For him it was essential for battle. He wanted to get the best eyesight possible for himself. He won't stop at just one pair of eyes. He wanted to see infrared, visible light, and ultraviolets. Some of his breed of zerg would perceive lower or higher frequencies light waves. As for visual acuity or movement perception, he can't have both and would need to find a compromise. For hearing, he would used the human auditory organ as the base, and extended the range of the frequency it could perceive on the higher end.
However, high specs sensory organs would lead to a higher amount of informations for the brain to process. So he would need to develop sensory organs that would analyse part of the information before sending it to the brain. According to his own knowledge, which was basic as he wasn't really interested in biology, humans eyes do a bit of it, and some animals do even more. In fact, he had part of the solution on hand. It turned out that the overlords had excellent sensory organs. That would make things easier for him.
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Using the results of these experiments, he made new zercos. They would give birth to zerg colonies with better far sight and motion perception, and zerglings with infravision and good motion perception. The zerglings also got an improved sense of smell and earing. Overall their senses were improved by about 10%. The previous 3 zerg colonies he made and their zerglings were disposed of, and replaced by the new ones. Then he actively started to expand his territory with them, but he focused on the smaller caves. He made a few overlords to oversee it, with stealth and caution as a primary rule.
The temperature grew as the zerglings moved away from he base. The reason for this was a river of magma, around 3 hours away from the base. It was on much lower ground and flowed away from the base, so the grand lord didn't really worry about it. There were also natural chemineys which kept the dangerous gaz from accumulating in the tunnels. Thanks to the previous lava deposits, the water seeping through the rock and the crystals giving light, some kind of primal vegetation grew in several caves.
The exploration teams found a few underground rivers, some cold and other warm. Following them, they reached caves with a more abundant vegetation, and found animals for the first time. The were halfway between rodents and lizards, the size of a cat and feeding on the plants. They had a predator, a creature halfway between a lizard and a spider. It stayed on the walls or the ceilings of the caves, and attacked the unaware ones. Because its bite was poisonous, the Grand lord had the zerglings capture a few of them and bring them to the genesis core for assimilation.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
After several days of exploration they didn't find much more. But at least, the Grand lord was sure that the area around his base was safe. His territory extended to several tunnels, with the creep completely overtaking them from the ground to the ceiling. There were zerglings colonies guarding them and the zerglings made regular patrols outside of the territory for more safety.
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Each month a new foetus would be added in one of the 100 wombs, and it would take several months until the first one reached maturity. The grand lord used this time to make more experiments for the sake of his future body. As a former human, he wanted a humanoid body, but more performant than a human one. He also intended to have 2 tentacles on his back instead of wing-like limb like the queen of blades.
The ability to fly with wings was very tempting, but he wanted something more usefull for direct combat. He though the wings would take too much place and be too much of a burden, and didn't think he could make wings with high enough performances to avoid shoots from anti-air defensive systems. There wasn't many places to take cover in the air after all. It may be fun with no enemies around, but in the battle field it wouldn't be good. Besides, the overlords didn't need wings to float, though they were quite slow. He intended to find a way to make them faster, and use it for himself.
He wanted to make more powerfull muscle tissues, stronger bones, and a more resistant and insulating skin. A human body can definitly survive in space without protection for more than 20 seconds, maybe even twice that time. He wanted to last a lot more than that, and for that, the cover, the skin, was the most important part. He wouldn't need a complex digestive system like the ones from the humans to get nutrition, the creep was already doing most of the job.
He also intended to make himself a secondary brain. Zerg have great regenerative ability, but a bad hit to the head would be an instant game over. So he would make himself a secondary brain in case the main one was damaged or completely destroyed. That would give him the chance to retreat and recover. Of course, that second brain would be well protected as well. He would probably place it in the tummy since half of the digestive organs would be gone.
And if the head is completely gone, he would lose his eyes and ears. To compensate for that he would need secondary sensory organs to work with the second brain too “see” and “hear”. He decided to leave it for later, but he would definitly have back up sensory organs. More importantly, there was something he didn't want to part with: the big potential for evolution and improvement.
For that, he already had a base, the larvae body and the genesis core. This organic building is made solely for the sake of pursuing evolution, and the larvae body had the capability to alter its own DNA. He intended to make himself a special organ he would call 'evolution core', an organ that would keep the differents paths of evolution open for him. He would use the genesis core to find the best traits of a newly assimilated life form, and insert them into his evolution core. Only after getting his humanoid body would he decide on a true name for himself.
Even though most of the experiment he conducted were for the sake of creating a body most suited to his tastes, the results could be used to design new zergs. He choose to keep the zerglings, but the others ones would be completely differents. He wanted to make a whole new breed of zerg, more like a cousin race. Same origin, but different in many ways. He already had some basic ideas, and they would slowly be solidified with time. And unlike the zergs, he didn't want to limit himself to organic creations. He wanted to develop technology alongside, and mix the 2 as much as possible.
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AN: By the way, the comment on the previous chapter was helpfull for one of the following chapters I had started writing