Chapter 224

Chapter 224

Bai Xiaoyu only felt the two cubs approaching. Thinking they had something to say, he turned to look and found Little Prince and Little Bai staring at him with strange expressions.

He pondered for a moment. Was this look one of disappointment due to his incompetence?

It was a bit odd to be looked at by the cubs with such expressions. Bai Xiaoyu waved at them, "Little Breaker, Little Bai, do you two need something from me?"

Little Prince scrutinized him closely and suddenly said, "Don't be like Ah Dou."

Bai Xiaoyu was taken aback. Although he had told the cubs bedtime stories before, whether it was the two tiger cubs or Little Prince and Little Bai, the star system cubs were extremely intelligent. They no longer enjoyed ordinary children's stories, so he had told them stories about the Three Kingdoms. As a result, several of the cubs became quite fond of it.

The cubs were naturally aware of Ah Dou, the weak and ineffective emperor of Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms era, but each of the little ones had different attitudes toward him. The little white tiger showed little interest, preferring to focus on the famous generals and battles of the Three Kingdoms.

Little Golden Tiger found Ah Dou acceptable, though not as impressive as the star system's invincible emperor.

However, both Little Prince and Little Bai expressed strong dissatisfaction. They seemed unable to accept such an emperor and even voiced a clear stance on the matter of entrusting the future—this incompetent person shouldn't be entrusted with anything! They could easily replace him!

Why had they suddenly brought this up now?

Bai Xiaoyu walked over, patting Little Bai's head and pinching Little Prince's cheek, "Why are you comparing me to Ah Dou? I don't seem like Ah Dou, do I? Besides, if I were Ah Dou, Little Breaker and Little Bai, you could just take over. Couldn't you?"

It was meant as a joke to the little ones, but unexpectedly, Little Bai's expression suddenly turned serious, and Little Prince's face darkened.

Little Prince swatted his hand away, his face black with anger, and said, "Do you think I'm that kind of person?"

He had been genuinely concerned about Bai Xiaoyu's future, and this flippant remark felt like a betrayal of that trust.

With that, he turned and ran off. Bai Xiaoyu stood there, unsure of what to do next, as Little Prince stormed away.

Meanwhile, Little Prince was still angry. It should be noted that a prince who rebels against the Insect Emperor must consume the emperor's essence. When the Insect Emperor was much weaker than the prince, or if the prince had a natural rebellious streak, or if the prince and the Insect Emperor were extremely incompatible, such a situation could occur.

Moreover, because he had merged with another prince's tentacle while still in his egg form, as he had grown recently, he had gradually learned some details about the owner of that main tentacle.

For example, the tentacle he had fused with belonged to an existence that had once devoured an Insect Emperor. Although the natural rebellious nature had somewhat affected him, he had no such thoughts about Bai Xiaoyu.

Such situations had occurred after the birth of the insect race. Was Bai Xiaoyu implying he wanted to follow in the footsteps of those failed emperors? Other than that, Bai Xiaoyu was indeed the weakest of all the Insect Emperors to date.

No, he was a human, not a true emperor.

Little Prince was fuming. No wonder he had said something so thoughtless.

If it were someone else, he would have gladly devoured them without hesitation, like that suspected young emperor from before. But Bai Xiaoyu was just a human, and he wasn't worth the effort.

At that moment, Little Bai also came over. Seeing Little Bai's unhappy little tail, Little Prince set aside his own anger to comfort Little Bai.

Bai Xiaoyu knew he had unintentionally upset the two cubs. After finishing his urgent tasks, he went to coax them. Although they were usually easy to pacify, it took quite a while this time before the two cubs returned to their usual selves.

After this incident, Bai Xiaoyu realized he shouldn't make jokes like that with the two cubs again. Now, recalling when Little Bai had called him emperor, he thought, Little Bai might have made a mistake, but did Little Prince also have to react this way?

Even now, Little Prince would occasionally glare at him. When those large, Kajal-like eyes of his looked at Bai Xiaoyu, it felt as if a loyal minister, wronged by a foolish emperor, was staring at him.

Bai Xiaoyu: "..."

What else could he do? Keep coaxing them, of course. While comforting them, he promised that he would never make such jokes again, and slowly, Little Bai and Little Prince returned to their usual way of interacting with him.

From this experience, Bai Xiaoyu also figured out the first boundary that seemed to have been touched with the two cubs. He jotted it down in his notebook, planning to avoid it in the future. Otherwise, at the very least, the two cubs would become difficult to pacify when truly angry. At worst, they would feel hurt and upset.

After calming the two cubs, they followed him back to check out the new batch of eggs.

This batch of eggs had already been registered, and after his inspection, given the striking similarities between these eggs and the previous dragon eggs, he guessed that this batch, like the last batch of dragon cubs, came from the Huang Family’s lab. Later, when the Shuguang team came to him, they confirmed his suspicion.

A few months ago, Little Prince brought back twenty-three eggs, and now another thirty had appeared. Just how many mixed dragon and Bug gene eggs had the Huang Family been secretly researching?

The two cubs pushed Bai Xiaoyu to start hatching the eggs right away.

Little Prince was worried that Bai Xiaoyu still wanted to be an incompetent leader. After all, not long ago, he suggested that Little Prince could take his place, which was a detestable idea. Now, Little Prince had to keep an eye on him to ensure he gathered all one hundred and nine chieftains as soon as possible. Although the top twelve chieftains who led all other chieftains and the sea, land, and air Bug armies had already been born, even their vice chieftains had arrived. However, the other chieftains were still not complete.

The vice chieftains were only second in strength to the top thirteen chieftains, and they were part of the one hundred and nine chieftains. The first tier consisted of the top twelve chieftains, the second tier was the vice chieftains, and the third tier consisted of the remaining eighty-some chieftains.

Each chieftain needed to establish their own Bug army, which required a great deal of time and energy, not to mention their own growth. This included Little Prince and Little Bai. If the current Insect Emperor discovered them and attacked, they wouldn’t have the necessary Bug armies to defend themselves. Some of the chieftains were still just eggs—how could they fight in such a state?

Among the one hundred and nine chieftains, only the prince and the chieftains of the top twelve Bug armies accompanied the emperor into battle, staying by the emperor’s side. Their main forces never strayed far from the emperor. The other chieftains led their Bug armies in battle on other fronts.

Right now, they hadn’t even gathered all the chieftains, let alone their respective Bug armies.

Their position was precarious, to say the least.

The weaker the young emperor, the more cautiously they had to develop under the current Insect Emperor’s watch. For now, they needed to gather all the chieftains first.

So, he had to supervise Bai Xiaoyu and get these eggs hatched as soon as possible.

Bai Xiaoyu didn’t refuse. Given the delicate condition of these eggs, it was best to start the hatching process as soon as possible. There was no need to wait for the next batch of eggs.

Just then, the Shuguang team returned after their meal and came to find Bai Xiaoyu. Their main task was to help transport the black minerals with the robots, and they also took the opportunity to examine the eggs they had rescued.

Bai Xiaoyu invited them over, and after they entered, Mo Yan looked at the eggs and marveled, adding, “Boss, we originally planned to bring these back for you to save because we didn’t have incubation boxes and couldn’t bring them back. We didn’t expect they would still end up with you. It makes sense though. In their current condition, apart from the boss, I doubt anyone in the caretaker community would dare to take them on.”

They got closer to examine the eggs, which were the batch they had rescued from the Huang Family’s basement. They hadn’t had time to look at them properly before they had to leave in a hurry.

Bai Xiaoyu, hoping to inspect the eggs and extract energy from the black minerals to make energy boxes, had them move the black minerals to the rest area next to the cultivation facility.

The Shuguang team and the robots moved some of the black minerals, filling the vast rest area. The rest were moved to the storage room, where they also organized the medicines needed for their trip from various planets.

Meanwhile, Bai Xiaoyu, while using his psychic energy to care for the cubs, extended dozens of finger-thick mental energy tentacles, penetrating the wall into the rest area to control the energy conversion devices. Instantly, dozens of energy conversion devices started working simultaneously, producing dozens of energy boxes every five to six minutes.

By the end of the day, the room was stacked with over a thousand energy boxes.

However, after leaving the cultivation facility, Bai Xiaoyu stopped extracting energy and rubbed his temples. Extracting energy for over a thousand energy boxes had consumed most of his mental energy.

If it weren’t for his current body condition being better than before, he wouldn’t have been able to last this long. With his limited mental energy, this was also one of the reasons he had Tao Limeng research large-scale energy conversion devices to establish production lines.

At this point, seeing Bai Xiaoyu’s exhausted appearance, both Little Prince and Little Bai stopped causing trouble.

However, Little Prince sighed, feeling helpless. With this physique, Bai Xiaoyu could never win. Bai Xiaoyu’s weakling physique had a 100% chance of losing.

Even if they also had a high chance of losing, Bai Xiaoyu’s useless physique guaranteed he would lose. If Bai Xiaoyu went into battle, the outcome would be a guaranteed loss.

So, they knew they had to grow stronger if they wanted any chance of survival.

Bai Xiaoyu planned to extract energy for another day and obtain more than 2,000 energy units, which would then be taken by Dawn's team to the auction house for sale. The credits earned would be used as funding for the construction of F73, the new facility.

The next day, Bai Xiaoyu resumed taking care of the eggs while extracting energy from the black minerals. He also administered the potions refined from bone flowers to the damaged eggs from the previous night.

By mid-morning, the once dull surfaces of the thirty eggs were now covered with flowing blood patterns. Completing this step allowed them to begin absorbing the potions and truly enter the development stage.

As he observed the eggs with their rapidly flowing blood patterns, an initial internal examination showed no significant reaction. However, white specks soon began to faintly appear on the cores.

The white specks appeared faster than last time, and Bai Xiaoyu speculated that it might be related to the blood patterns. Regardless, the appearance of white specks on the cores meant that a large wave of miniature whirlpools was about to emerge.

Having learned from the previous experience, Bai Xiaoyu had the team prepare the herbs needed for the essence potion and repair potion. He then turned to look at Little Prince and Little Bai, who, apart from hunting, spent all their time here urging him on.

The Little Prince snorted and, for the first time, took the initiative to help. To ensure these leaders were born as soon as possible, he assisted in extracting the essence of the herbs for Bai Xiaoyu, even at the cost of a small portion of his life force. Although he could replenish it by absorbing more prey, the fact that he was giving without receiving anything in return made him grit his teeth.

For now, he had no choice but to endure it.