Chapter 339 - 332: The Lord’s Ledger

Chapter 339: Chapter 332: The Lord’s Ledger

It gave off a strange scent, a mixture of soil, seawater, and some indescribable life essence.

"New formula. Designation 7-B." Velin used an eyedropper to draw up a bit of the liquid, carefully dripping it into a newly prepared petri dish.

The petri dish contained clear seawater and a few dying larvae, rescued from a dead specimen.

The moment the liquid hit the water, a miracle occurred.

The larvae, which had been nearly motionless, suddenly began to writhe violently. They swarmed madly toward the nutrient solution, their bodies swelling at a visible rate.

"It worked?" A rare quiver entered Tristan’s voice.

But Velin didn’t stop.

"This is only the first step. I need to test the effects of different concentrations to find the optimal cost-effectiveness."

He diluted the nutrient solution into different ratios and injected them into five new tanks. Each tank contained an equal amount of ordinary pinewood and shipworm larvae.

"Mark the time. It is now six o’clock in the evening, precisely."

They didn’t sleep all night.

Velin and Tristan took turns keeping watch in the lab, observing the changes in the tanks every hour.

In the first hour, the changes were not obvious.

By the third hour, the water in the tank with the highest concentration began to turn murky.

By the fifth hour, fine holes appeared on the surface of the wood.

By the seventh hour, white worms bored out from the wood, twisting their plump bodies in the water.

As the morning light streamed through a crack in the basement window, Velin and Tristan were confronted with a shocking sight.

In the tank designated 7-B-3, the once-whole block of pinewood had been devoured by a third. Dozens of thumb-thick shipworms bored in and out of the remaining wood, feeding ravenously.

Their bodies were plump and glossy, every squirm brimming with vitality.

At the bottom of the tank lay a layer of white, flocculent sediment—their excrement, which was also digested wood fiber.

Velin scooped up a shipworm with a small net and placed it on a dissection tray.

It was as thick as an adult’s index finger, its body soft and full. Velin used a scalpel to carefully slice open its body wall, revealing the internal tissue structure.

"Look here." He pointed to the shipworm’s digestive tract. "The size of this organ takes up almost two-thirds of its entire body. Moreover, the intestinal wall is extremely thin, making its absorption efficiency astonishing."

He cut open another section.

"This is the fat storage tissue. Look at this color and texture—it’s a sign of high energy density."

Velin straightened up and looked at Tristan.

"If my calculations are correct, one kilogram of these shipworms has the nutritional value equivalent to three kilograms of ordinary fish."

Tristan’s expression became extremely complicated.

As a mayor well-versed in public administration, he quickly understood what this meant.

"This is..." Tristan said slowly, "producing high-value meat from cheap wood."

"There’s more." A mad gleam shone in Velin’s wine-red eyes. "Do you see that excrement? It’s digested wood fiber. We can collect it, mix it with other materials, and create a new culture medium."

He quickly sketched a flowchart on a sheet of parchment.

"We use wood to feed the first generation of shipworms. Then, we use the corpses and excrement of the first generation, mixed with a small amount of nutrient solution, to feed the second generation. The second generation’s yield will be even greater, and then the cycle continues..."

Tristan looked at the flowchart, and a terrifying image appeared in his mind:

In a massive underground chamber.

At one end, a ceaseless supply of wood is fed in.

In the middle, tiered breeding pools seethe with a dense mass of writhing white worms.

At the other end, the harvested and processed shipworm carcasses—feed for the Leviathans.

The entire system is self-cycling and self-propagating. It requires only a small amount of external input to produce an astounding amount of biomass.

"This is..." Tristan couldn’t find the right words to describe it.

"A perfect solution." Velin put down his pen. "And we can optimize it further."

He walked over to the successful breeding tank and tapped on the glass wall.

"Their reproductive speed is extremely fast. A single mature female shipworm can lay tens of thousands of eggs at once. Under the right conditions, it only takes two weeks to go from egg to adult."

"Two weeks..." Tristan calculated quickly. "If we’re talking exponential growth..."

"In one month, we’ll have enough production capacity to feed three Leviathans. In three months, the output will exceed our needs tenfold."

Velin turned to face Tristan.

"Notify the engineering department. Select an isolated area in the underground caverns and establish a dedicated breeding farm. I need fifty standard reservoirs, each fifty meters long and wide, and three meters deep. The bottoms and walls must be hardened with Magic to ensure a perfect seal."

"Also," Velin’s voice turned serious, "all breeding pools must be located far from any waterways leading to the outside. Set up a triple physical barrier and magical wards. Under no circumstances can a single living shipworm be allowed to enter natural waters."

"Understood." Tristan noted down every detail. "And the food source?"

"All wood-based materials that can be found in the territory. Dead wood from the forests, rotten wood from the swamps, lumber from abandoned buildings, even wooden furniture—as long as it’s cellulose, they can digest it." Velin’s speech quickened. "Also, inform all the villages and towns to purchase all scrap wood unusable for normal construction at a reasonable price. This will become a whole new industry!"

Tristan nodded, continuing to take notes.

"The logistics department needs to reformulate the expeditionary supply plan. Using the new breeding scale as a baseline, calculate our sustainable Leviathan-rearing capacity. I need exact numbers—how long of a voyage can we support, how much combat reserve can we carry."

"There’s one more problem." Tristan looked up. "This creature’s reproductive rate is too fast. Once they mature, the yield will grow exponentially. How do we handle the surplus? Their appetite will become a new bottomless pit."

Velin watched the writhing white forms in the tank, a cold smile touching his lips.

"Surplus?"

He picked up his pen and drew a more complex flowchart on a new sheet of parchment.

A complete, cyclical system.

Wood enters the first-stage breeding pool, producing the first generation of shipworms.

A portion of the first generation is harvested as feed for the Leviathans.

The other part continues to grow, lay eggs, and reproduce the second generation.

The food for the second generation is the corpses and excrement of the first, mixed with a small amount of nutritional supplement.

The second generation’s yield is larger. A portion of it continues the cycle, while another portion is harvested...

"They themselves are the most efficient feed." Velin drew an arrow on the sketch, connecting "output" and "input" to form a closed loop. "We use them to feed the next generation."

Tristan stared at the diagram as the image of a self-sustaining, ever-running factory took shape in his mind.

He suddenly understood why Velin had demanded "absolute isolation"—it wasn’t just to prevent an ecological disaster, but also to control this terrifying cyclical system.

If it were to get out of control, this system would proliferate endlessly like cancer cells, eventually consuming everything.

"As for what we truly need," Velin drew another outward-pointing arrow on the diagram, aimed at a symbol representing a Leviathan, "we just periodically extract a portion from this cycle as our final product."

He put down his pen and turned to Tristan.

"This is a perfect biomass conversion factory. The input is nearly worthless scrap wood, and the output is high-value Magical Beast feed. The process in between is self-sustaining; the only cost is the periodic consumption of the nutrient solution."

"Once it’s built, our logistical pressure will go from ’unsustainable’ to ’manageable’."

"Soon, the Leviathans will no longer be a financial burden. They will be the sharp swords with which we conquer the Southern Islands!"

Tristan fell silent for a moment, then nodded gravely.