Unlocking the door with one paw, Lord Air Bud stepped into his new office, with King in close pursuit. It was their first day as official breeders, and they were not very thrilled about it. At least Lord wasn't, but King was pretty good at chemistry and such so he was pretty chill with it. A Megadrive sitting on a desk sat up against the wall, with a huge silver portal resting beside it. Other than that, the office was completely white, blank like the void sitting at the center of the polyverse.
King sat down, ready to get to work, while Lord sighed, leaning against the wall. The yellow-eyed canine stretched out his paws, getting used to the feel of having legs again. They had healed up a couple weeks before, just in time for their graduation. The brothers were seven years old, after all, so they were considered mature buds now.
Typing away on the BudChem application, King started to produce a bud. While bud production may seem random to some, there are patterns in the genetic code of buds. The great bud scientist Robert Quiznos actually created a system of using units called Quiznos that allow chemists to increase the probability of certain elements. When creating a new bud, the chemist is actually making an incomplete puzzle, if you will. The new bud is like an outlet, ready to react to certain element. When the newborn bud is exposed to the element, they form into a stable bud organism and are officially given a formal name.
The formal name is decided entirely on the element. For example, Licorice Bud's element is licorice, which means his formal name is Licorice Bud. This is just a formal name though, and most buds have an informal nickname, like Lord or King or Robert Quiznos.
Despite the scientific developments of Robert Quiznos though, there have been no discoveries on Bud Types, which are seemingly random. Bud types affect the personality and the gigawatts of the bud, and can change how the bud uses their element.
King started to mix some elements in hopes of creating a bud that would react with soil or the earth, due to the amount of natural disasters on the planet. Getting an increased population of earth buds could help with all the tremors and such. Hitting the enter button with a satisfying click, a bud embryo stone shot out of the Megadrive and through a system of tubes. The bud would be sent to the center of bud development, where it would be shot into the void in the center of the polyverse and hatch. The void was a mass (or anti-mass?) or nothingness, completely white in color, that slowly grew within the center of the polyverse. Any unprotected piece of matter that entered the void would be ripped from existence entirely, without even a chance of being sent to a microverses. Thankfully, membranes could be created that protected matter from the void. Bud embryos created natural membranes when hatched, and the energy within the bud implodes to created a bunch of matter itself. The matter created within a membrane was called a universe. Within each universe sat a chamber holding the newborn bud, who stood in limbo, awaiting exposure to its element so it could create a form for itself. The chamber was locked by a lock, and the key was usually created beforehand by the chemist of the embryo.
That's where the retriever's job came in. Lord was the retriever in their office, because he sucked at chemistry. The retriever was tasked with entering the universe using the portal and searching for the newborn bud. After being found, the retriever would return the bud to the polyverse where it would grow up like any other bud. Locating the bud took about 100 years on average, which would feel like maybe a couple weeks to a bud.
While the retriever searched, the chemist would stay behind and act as the surveyor. The surveyor would use the Megadrive to observe the universe and help triangulate the location of the bud.
You may be asking, why go through all this trouble? Why not breed the bud within the polyverse? Well, due to the insane amount of energy packed into a bud embryo, breeding a bud within the polyverse would create a rip in space that would probably kill everyone, so yeah.
It would take about an hour before the new bud King created would be sent into the void, so they had some down time before Lord would have to start searching. King smiled solemnly at Lord, who responded with an infuriated neutral face. "So what now?" He started. "We just keep working for thousands of years until we die?"
King shrugged, and Lord scowled and turned away. Suddenly, the Megadrive chimed, and King turned to Lord.
"The bud hatched." He said, and with a click, the portal snapped on, opening up a lime green void. Snatching his tools, Lord stomped through the portal and left King alone with his own thoughts surrounding him. King sighed, placing a paw on his forehead and leaning on the desk.
3%, he thought. It's alright.