Chapter 367 Silken Harmony
Once Kain had an idea, he immediately acted on it.
He placed an order for all known evolutionary forms of the Silkworm, such as:
-The natural/plant attribute Leafwing Moth
-The fire attribute Flamesilk Moth
-The water attribute Tidalace Butterfly
-The wind attribute Skythread Butterflyn/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om
-The earth attribute Granitewing Moth
-The metal attribute Bladewing Butterfly
-The light attribute Haloed Butterfly
-The dark attribute Obsidian Moth
Not only did he get an almost excessive amount of each evolutionary form, but the college even allocated to him a private spiritual creature care facility that they could remain in and have staff care for them round the clock.
Moreover, they'd even assigned several upper-year and graduate students of the "Spiritual Creature Care and Breeding" major to assist him.
These services, plus the costs for care and food, were completely covered by the university.
And all of this was arranged in less than 48 hours
It seems like after Kain presented his second major research achievement, the enthusiasm and support of the top-brass for his research went up another level—or even several levels.
The common care facility was located near the eastern wing of the university, nestled in a quiet section of the campus surrounded by gardens and dense groves of trees. A series of interconnected structures that looked like greenhouses formed the bulk of the facility, with controlled climates and environments tailored to the specific needs of different attributes.
Naturally, when researchers are working on a project that may need dozens or even hundreds of spiritual creatures, or a project that uses incredibly large spiritual creatures, it isn't feasible to house them all within their own lab.
Therefore, most of the time majority of the spiritual creatures that a researcher has are housed in the common care facility and cared for by breeders—for a fee, of course.
Usually each 'greenhouse' is used to house the spiritual creatures of multiple researchers with similar attributes. However, Kain was given one all to himself. A fact, naturally not looked at upon too kindly by the older, more senior, researchers of the college. However, since the top-brass had already spoken, there wasn't much they could do aside from venting their frustrations in silence and excluding Kain from various meetups and social activities among the staff—something that Kain was not even aware existed and, even if he did, would likely still not attend.
But these were all unimportant background events. Currently, Kain was stepping into his private care facility and immediately found himself impressed by its quality.
The greenhouse was meticulously organized, with separate spacious enclosures for each type of Silkworm evolution. The Tidalace Butterflies fluttered over shallow pools of sparkling water, while the Flamesilk Moths basked near controlled fires that emitted soft, radiant heat and grazed on transplanted fire-attribute plants. The Obsidian Butterflies resided in a darker corner of the facility, with artificial shadows cast by carefully designed structures and dimmer lighting.
The staff, dressed in uniforms with the college's emblem, greeted him warmly. The graduate students assigned to assist him looked eager at getting a chance to potentially see the formation of a great research achievement up close.
However, Kain noted that there were quite a few breeders, particularly among the fourth-years and graduate students, that seemed particularly wary and almost afraid of him.
Unknown to him, all of these wary students were friends with Kain's new 'research assistants' and had long heard about Kain's harsh expectations of his current assistants.
Since they were ordered by the college to help him with whatever he needed and follow his instructions exactly, they were slightly afraid that he'd pull out a massive tower of textbooks on spiritual creature care and breeding and demand they learn all of the material within a time limit.
So when Kain arrived and simply waved them off and ordered them to stay outside the facility while he conducted his research, they all breathed silent sighs of relief as they left.
When he was alone Kain used a button on the wall to remove the screens acting to form separation enclosures for each type of evolutionary form.
However, just as Kain read, the moths and butterflies didn't even like to mingle with other of their same ethnic groups, much less the other evolutionary forms.
The conditions needed for evolution would be practically impossible to achieve in nature.
But, Kain had a way to force out the behaviour he needed.
Suddenly dozens, if not hundreds, of threads extended from Kain, or more specifically Bea who was on him, and attached to the flittering spiritual creatures. Any efforts to dodge were completely rendered useless due to the difference in level and combat experience.
Within seconds, the dozens of spiritual creatures flying around crazily arranged themselves in neat rows in front of Kain, sorted by attribute.
Kain couldn't resist smiling as he observed the orderly rows of moths and butterflies now standing at attention.
Something about seeing the perfectly spaced creatures, all similar in size and appearance, in neat rows sorted by attribute and wing colour, satisfied some latent OCD tendency he may have possessed.
"Much better," he murmured, stepping closer to examine the creatures.
"Alright, little ones," Kain said, crouching to examine them closely. "Time to see if you all can evolve."
Immediately, a variety of humming, buzzing, and clicking noises echoed in the facility as they seemed to understand what he said.
Bea didn't control their minds, only their actions, to hopefully train them to spontaneously work together without her control in the future.
After all, Bea's skills, while far reaching, did have a distance limit and, since he may even be entering relics cut off from the world in the future as a Pathfinder, Bea couldnt control them all fo the time.
Therefore, the best case scenario would be for them all to be able to work together to form the silk needed to evolve on their own.
Then Kain could once again discuss with Collin about an possible business ventures using these trained moths.
Although they don't currently seem amenable to trainingr, based on how enthusiastic they seemed at the prospects of evolving, once they see and understand the benefits of working together, this individualistic group may form a cohesive and powerful workforce.