What is the result of increasing number of propeller blades on the same engine
What it means in practical terms is if you replaced a 2 blade Warp Drive prop on a 100 HP engine with a 4 blade prop with double the total blade area, and if the blades of the 4 blade were set to the same pitch as the 2 blade, the torque requirement of the 4 blade would be significantly higher and you'd find the engine can't make the same static RPM it was making with the 2 blade at wide open throttle.
You would have to re-pitch the blades of the 4 blade prop to a lesser angle and retry until you regained the original static RPM.  You're basically offloading the individual blades until the total torque demand matches the original prop.  You might find you've lost a lot of efficiency from the blades now operating at less than their optimum blade angle of attack.
If the 4 blade prop had much smaller individual blades, so the total blade area was the same as the 2 blade, the difference in pitch would be minimal, although some adjustments in pitch would still need to be made to match static RPMs, and the static thrust you are getting at the target RPM would be reduced somewhat from the 2 blade because of the lower efficiency of the 4 blade.
If it was a constant speed propeller, the propeller governor would be doing all that for you.
If you are after the maximum thrust efficiency for a given horsepower, 2 blades are always better if the power can be absorbed and the target RPM can be achieved with 2 blades.  What makes multiple blades attractive, as a conversion to an existing engine, is the desire to limit noise, or limitations on diameter due to tip speed limits or ground clearance requirements. For example, 3 blade propellers are popular on DeHavilland Beaver seaplanes because the noise levels are lower because the tips speeds are lower, and the shorter blades get a little bit less water spray erosion damage, benefits sufficient to live with a small reduction in prop efficiency compared to the 2 blade paddle prop it originally had.