Heroic Death System

Chapter 65 (Arc 7)

I Am Not A Merman (II)

Shang Ke and Waves, who is the small dolphin, would undergo examinations by the medical personnel every few days. That was understandable, since the dolphins were eliminated by a plague once upon a time, it was hard to say if perhaps they still carried that kind of fatal bacteria on them.

Fortunately, up till present time, he and the small dolphin's state of health was great. The staff of the base carefully studied the research material and notes their predecessor left behind, and learned that the dolphins were animals that were full of emotions. Upsetting them and too many restrictions on their freedom would make them depressed, and may even commit suicide. Further, the life expectancy of a human raised dolphin was shorter by 7 to 10 years compared to wild ones, their mortality rate was higher as well compared to their wild counterparts by about 5%.

{TL Note: The raws wrote 710 years but dolphins don't live that long... so I'm just going to split the number into two and assume it's probably a typo.}

The brain volume of a dolphin is only second to humans, even larger than an orangutan. They were capable of making questions and answering them, have self-awareness and deal with their emotions, these kinds of high-level mental cognition processes. In other words, if the brain of a dolphin was developed to the point of humans, they would have wisdom, ingenuity and social awareness not below of humans.

As such, the staff was very gentle with Shang Ke and Waves. Even when they needed to examine and research them, they tried to do it with the gentlest way possible and make steady progress.

Compared to the world Shang Ke once lived in, the people here treated dolphins with such importance that the difference couldn't be any larger; they were taken care of like their own children. The moment they notice that the two dolphins were unhappy about something, everyone would immediately tense up and fall into prepared to fight mode.

What was gratifying was that the two dolphins were very clever and obedient, not only did they not burden the staff, they made everyone very happy. In just half a month, they had won over everyone's hearts.

The outer pool of the base was connected to the sea, the world below the water was not that much different to the wild as all sorts of aquatic organisms lived there. Every half a month, they would open the watergates, but with the arrival of the two dolphins, they would now first place a net blocking the entrance before opening the gates to prevent the dolphins from swimming back to the sea.

It wasn't that the base wanted to confine them, but that they were far too precious to be allowed back to the ocean where danger lurked everywhere. The dolphins in the past were group mammals, having anywhere from ninety to hundreds, the largest groups even have several thousand members. Such large groups had the power to confront other dangerous animals. But now there were only two, if they were to meet up with a shark they would be bitten to death in minutes.

"Flames, Waves, Mr. Qin came to see you two again." The director, Dr. Cui shouted toward them with a smile.

At the moment, the two large and small dolphins were showing their bellies to the sky and swimming with backward strokes. Shang Ke immediately flipped overseeing the arrival of Qin Yuan and swam in a way he personally believed was very elegant and made his way to the shore. Happily, he raised his head and cried out.

"A present." Qin Yuan had people put down the half-human sized rubber duck in the water. The bright yellow object almost blinded Shang Ke.

Shang Ke gave it a glance of disdain and used a fin to push it away. But Waves who have never seen such an object before rather liked it and took the yellow rubber duck to play with in the water.