Although the situation was dire, Mitch had no plans of stopping the training.
He had a theory. If the parents of the rats kept praying to him when they ate, the children would begin emulating that behavior. He would have to test if the prayers were directed towards him or not, but he felt like it was a reasonable conjecture.
Another thing he thought about was how germline mutations would work if only one of the parents had the mutation. Would half the children be mutated, would they all be, or would none of them be?
It all depended on how the mutation was expressed in the genes.
And for now, he still lacked any information on that part.
Logic told him that all the rat children would have evolved mental faculties, but statistics might paint an entirely different picture.
Nevertheless, he continued training the female rats.
He was lucky that it was an even split between male and female among the six rats he caught. But Hailey not participating in the mating activities was a bit of an issue.
He would try rectifying that later.
Anyway, with two female rats, he would run out of food before both of them reached the requirements for mutation.
That is, if they were the same as with Hailey.
To Katherine's shock, but Mitch's expectation, the bar filled up much faster for these does than it did for Hailey.
"What's this, Mitch? They have barely eaten a tenth of what Hailey did, but they are already at 100%!" Obviously, Katherine had a hard time comprehending the reason for this.
But Mitch had a very clear idea of why this might be.
"There are two reasons for this, Katherine. First, the mutation is now called 'Gyrification', as opposed to its advanced form. That also explains why the mutation requires such a long time in hibernation to finish."
Compared to Hailey, who only had to enter hibernate for one day for her brain to develop further, these rats would need an entire five days.
It might only be around one thirtieth of the time Mitch had, but they would be much more useful fostering children during that time.
"The second reason is that they are so small. They have already eaten enough brain matter to make up for their daily energy consumption many times over. In fact, I would be more surprised if they still needed more food."
Although his explanation was sound, it did little to resolve Katherine's confusion.
"But Hailey ate so much more than they did. Although I can accept the argument that her mutation is fundamentally more advanced than theirs is, it doesn't explain why she needed so much food."
For that, Mitch had already thought of a reason.
"You're thinking about the mutation in the wrong way, Katherine. These rats have pretty much no folds in their brains, so introducing any amount will make them smarter."
"On the other hand, Hailey already had some, if not a lot of, folds. The mutation she is going through serves more as a way to make these folds more efficient and numerous. Therefore, she needed more samples."
One thing Mitch did not mention was that introducing ant brains probably also played a big role in finishing these other rats' mutations.
The ant brains and legio brains had different structures and—by extension—different gyrifications. The base mutation only served the purpose of introducing folds as a concept.
Mitch would have to mutate their children further for them to get more advanced intellect.
But he had no plans in doing so. His once brilliant idea for the legios was unfolding into something much more interesting.
"Your ambitions are high, yet you're here rolling around with rats. Tsk, tsk. To think that the genius who cured cancer would ever find himself here. How the mighty have fallen!"
Feeling annoyed that Mitch had to explain things to her like she was a child, all Katherine could do was tease him. When it came to teasing, she was second to none.
"You really have to take a jab at me every time you find the opportunity, don't you? It's fine; even you cannot sour my mood right now!"
He could practically visualize Katherine, now sulking in a corner somewhere in his mindscape, but he didn't mind. He truly was happy right now.
"{Gene Tree}, Gyrification, Germline!" He shouted, as if ordering food at his favorite fast food place.
…
"I'm sorry, sir. We're out of fries. Would you like something else with your order instead?"
"... No, it's fine."
He felt like burying himself in the dirt, but even that wouldn't stop her teasing. At least she wasn't sulking anymore. Now, Mitch was the one doing it.
He opened the status page for the two rats and slapped his own forehead.
"Why, in any world, would I be able to see a physical difference in germline mutations? Of course, only their germ cells would mutate." Mitch was trying hard to ignore Katherine, but it was becoming increasingly hard.
"The greatest mind of Tellus managed to cure cancer but gets disappointed when he can't find any visible differences in an organism with a germ cell mutation. Hahahaha!"
At times, not having another individual stuck in his head was preferable.
Regardless, he was now finished with the two females for today. They even started reacting to their names being called by the end of training.
Although they might already have been impregnated, and even though maybe only one parent needed the mutation for their offspring to also show it, Mitch decided to mutate the male rats too.
He took them to the training zone one by one, and by the end they also started reacting to their names.
Excluding Hailey, he now had three males and two females. He looked at the three males and thought about how to make the most out of them as possible.
That's when he remembered a brutal lich he fought in a VR game.
"Katherine, am I able to bless my followers to become more devoted?"
"You might be able to. Why?"
"No particular reason. Also, am I able to bless something other than the believer specifically?"