Chapter 164

Shush, shush—

Inside the Spirit Insect Chamber.

The huge room was like a giant beehive, with large amounts of honeycomb stuck to the walls, hanging in the air, and standing on the ground.

And within the honeycomb were large numbers of bee eggs.

There were at least nearly a thousand.

Several hundred black-and-red intertwined bee eggs, within the honeycomb emitting a faint fragrance, made subtle movements.

On the royal platform, the Red-ring Gold-spotted Bee Queen ate royal jelly while occasionally looking up at the honeycomb, appearing somewhat uneasy.

And in front of the honeycomb, Yunhe sat on the ground, focusing his divine sense on these bee eggs.

Because several times relying on the Red-ring Gold-spotted Bee Swarm to turn danger into safety, Yunhe's emphasis on the bee swarm was no less than on refining his natal magic treasure.

But even after making full preparations for cultivating the new bee species, whether it was the 'Thousand Extension Bee' or the 'Gold Shadow Six-wing Bee', they were extremely rare objects; yet the uncertain factors were still too many, so his heart inevitably felt a little uneasy.

The greater the hope, sometimes the greater the disappointment it may bring.

"Crack—"

The crisp sound like tearing silk was especially conspicuous in the quiet Spirit Insect Chamber.

"Here it comes."

Yunhe narrowed his eyes.

Beside, the Red-ring Gold-spotted Bee Queen also stopped its eating motion and looked toward the honeycomb.

Soon.

In a bee egg, slowly crawled out a small bee covered in mucus, drooping fur and wings; after birth it paid no heed to the queen and Yunhe, but turned and directly began to nibble the nurturing comb that raised it, as well as the surrounding nutrient-rich spirit honey.

Like the Red-ring Gold-spotted Bee, the hatched larva had no pupation process, or rather all spirit bees have no pupation process.

Slowly.

Its fine hairs gradually unfolded, and a set of wings showing a red-black-gold tricolor gradient also unfolded.

One, two, three.

Yunhe silently watched.

When he saw the fifth wing of the larva slowly unfold, Yunhe's heart involuntarily jumped.

He clenched his fists.

Succeeded!

Although the number of wings does not represent the strength of the newly hatched bee species, the Red-ring Gold-spotted Bee has only four wings, while the hatched new bee possesses at least six wings, indicating that this new bee indeed inherited part of the ability of the Gold Shadow Six-wing Bee.

As for good or good or bad, it depends on what function it can later exert and what ability it can display.

But when the new bee unfolded its six wings, Yunhe suddenly froze again.

Because he discovered.

At the junction of the larva's wings and abdomen, there were two inconspicuous protrusions, as if there should have been another pair of wings, but due to some reason they ultimately failed to grow.

Eight wings!

Is this the fourth pair of wings that the Gold Shadow Eight-wing Bee should possess?

Buzz—

After fully unfolding its wings, the new bee slightly shook its wings, somewhat unsteadily wobbling as it flew up.

Immediately after.

Yunhe then noticed that after this larva flew back and forth, its body actually had a faint afterimage, not very clear, but he would certainly not be mistaken.

But the next second, the larva's action caused Yunhe's pupils to contract sharply.

Only see.

After the larva became slightly familiar with flight, its body lunged at an unhatched bee egg at extreme speed, and then, under Yunhe's somewhat astonished gaze, the larva directly tore the unhatched grub from the honeycomb and began to eat it without hesitation.

Such cannibalism is not uncommon among demon beasts, especially among spirit insects.

He has been cultivating spirit bees for so long, yet this is indeed the first time he has seen this.

However he did not stop it, because sometimes, the spirit bees and spirit insects' near-instinctive practices are actually the most beneficial behavior for them.

As expected.

After the larva swallowed the unhatched bee egg, it gave Yunhe a feeling of greater ferocity, momentum and aura far surpassing before.

Without a doubt, this behavior is also inherited from the gold-shadow six-winged bee.

"No wonder this kind of spirit bee is on the brink of extinction; a bee species that treats its own weak as food, managing to pass on is itself a miracle."

At the same time, it also explains why, whenever someone discovers this kind of spirit bee, there is usually only one; the four-winged gold-spotted bee is like that, and the gold-shadow?

But this also illustrates a point.

The remaining spirit bee is definitely the one with the best inheritance, talent, and ability, and also the strongest in the group.

That larva, after consuming the bee eggs, did not continue to attack other bee eggs.

Yunhe guessed that this feeding was not for satiation; otherwise, the abundant honey here would be enough to fill its belly—this is a kind of this bee species.

"Evolution method?"

"Perhaps, there is no need for a gold-shadow eight-winged bee; a bee species that has inherited this ability inherently possesses evolutionary capability, and through continuous cultivation, consumption, and adjustment, it can eventually grow to eight wings."

"There is also a possibility that the gold-shadow eight-winged bee itself is not a normal birth, but rather a product of gold-shadow six-winged bees mutually consuming and evolving."

Regarding this, Yunhe formed a certain reasonable speculation.

At the same time.

More and more bee eggs ruptured, and larvae crawled out one by one.

Obviously, not all larvae could hatch as smoothly as the first one; the aura and condition of the hatched larvae were uneven.

Moreover, many had four wings, resembling the larvae of the red-ring gold-spotted bee.

The bee queen hatched these several hundred bee eggs, and the hatched larvae also differ greatly.

And next, Yunhe the beekeeper should select the best from the uneven larvae, then rear them in batches, and afterwards select the bee species that satisfies him most.

Then, using this bee species as a premise, carry out a second round of cultivating bee queens, mating, laying eggs, and hatching, iterating selection repeatedly.

Finally, he can always cultivate the bee species that satisfies him most, thereby enabling large-scale reproduction, while forming a certain combat power on one hand and continuing selection and cultivation on the other.

The potential of the Red-ring Gold-spot Bee, just like that of the Red Pattern Spirit Bee initially, Yunhe can already see its limit.

But this newly born bee species, Yunhe feels their potential perhaps has great room for exploration.

After the first batch of larvae hatched.

Some, like the first larva, acted on part of the bee eggs, while another part remained still.

But these two parts of larvae, due to the difference in this first step, have produced a great disparity.

Even a fool can see that the larvae that are ferocious enough to devour bee eggs obviously have greater potential and room for development.

After the first batch of larvae hatched, Yunhe did not leave the Spirit Insect Chamber.

Afterwards the bee eggs will hatch one after another; he needs to stay here to observe, as this is the best time to distinguish strong from weak larvae, and also the optimal moment for selection.

Half a month later.

Yunhe walked out of the Spirit Insect Chamber, satisfied.

Around him, dozens of spirit bees with three colors of red, black, and gold, and six wings, circled.

Among the three colors, red and gold predominate, while a hint of black mixed in is not very obvious.

Each is only the size of two fingers, yet the aura each emits is enough to make many first-rank demon beasts hesitate.

Regarding this new bee species, Yunhe pondered a moment and gave them a new name.

"Red Shadow Gold Wing Bee."

Although not very fitting, the name itself is not that important; what matters is their ability.

Based on Yunhe's understanding of spirit bees and spirit insects over this period, he estimates that the Red Shadow Golden Wing Bee should at least be able to rank around fifty on the Spirit Insect List, or even higher.

Specifically, because they have not yet reached sufficient scale and have not fought in actual combat, an accurate judgment cannot be made.

As for that Spirit Insect List,

Actually, Yunhe has checked it several times these past few days, but he has not seen any change in the list.

There could be two possible reasons for this situation.

First, the abilities of this senior Sheng Banzi are not that exaggerated; he might be able to stay informed about the Eastern Realm, and even some major and minor affairs of the cultivation world where the Eastern Realm resides, but he may be somewhat stretched when it comes to changes in the Cloud Upper Realm, which is who knows how far from the Eastern Realm.

In fact, in Yunhe's view, the fact that Sheng Banzi can real-time know the changes of major and minor affairs in the Eastern Realm is already exaggerated enough.

He even doubts whether a Yuan Ying Stage cultivator could achieve such a thing, but since he has never come into contact with a Yuan Ying Stage cultivator, he can only speculate.

As for the second reason, it is that this bee colony has not yet reached sufficient scale, or rather has not yet matured, so it cannot temporarily make the list.

But Yunhe feels that the first possibility is more likely.

After all, even the Red Shadow Golden Wing Bee that has not yet finished optimization, he can clearly feel that it is much stronger than the Red Shadow Golden Wing Bee.

Not just a little bit stronger.

But rather, there is an enormous gap between the two.

Let's give a simple example that best proves the gap between the two spirit bees.

The Red Ring Golden Spot Bee cannot inflict much damage on the body of the Tian Du Gu Corpse; it can only cause actual damage by continuously gnawing and accumulating to a certain extent.

But a newly born Red Shadow Golden Wing Bee, even just one, can leave a visible wound on the Tian Du Gu Corpse's body, something that would normally require nearly a hundred Red Ring Golden Spot Bees to achieve.

This is only a difference in bite force and lethality, not counting other abilities.

But that is to say.

Even if it is merely an unoptimized Red Shadow Golden Wing Bee, once it reaches sufficient scale, it can threaten the life of a Golden Core cultivator!

Of course, given the hatching time, growth time, and the trait of the Red Shadow Golden Wing Bees mutually devouring each other, the time and resources required to cultivate them to a certain scale are estimated to be several times that needed for cultivating the Red Ring Golden Spot Bees.

Place the Red Shadow Golden Wing Bees into a new spirit insect chamber, and throw in some demon beast meat and feeding pellets, etc., as insect food.

Cultivating them will be one of the most important things for Yunhe in the coming period, aside from Golden Core formation.

Finally, after dealing with numerous matters concerning the spirit insects, Yunhe then left his cave dwelling and entered the market of Yun Palace City.

Seeking top-tier Golden Core spirit materials, as well as elixirs similar to the Transform Origin Elixir that can increase the success rate of Golden Core formation.

And the Yun Palace City, dubbed the City of Myriad Immortals, indeed did not disappoint him.

Although top-tier Golden Core spirit materials are still hard to find, if he is willing to spend Spirit Stones, he still managed to successfully purchase one, named the Tian Yi Mother Water spirit material.

As for the Spirit Stones spent,

Some valuable spirit plants dug from the medicine fields of the Demon Beast Body, as well as the materials left over after the Demon Beast Body slaughtered large numbers of demon beasts, were all sold in batches at various markets along his way to Yun Palace City, exchanging them for Spirit Stones.

Therefore, although he exchanged for the Silver Armor Beast Bones and rented a high-end cave dwelling, his remaining Spirit Stones were barely enough to buy this Golden Core spirit material.

Moreover, not only the Tian Yi Mother Water, after spending some time Yunhe also managed to find the Transform Origin Elixir and successfully exchanged for it.

However, for this, he had to take out some spirit plants and demon beast materials again to conduct the exchange.

For Golden Core formation, he can be said to have invested a large amount of resources and Spirit Stones; if it were not for the continuous replenishment from the resource-rich Yao Shou Shijie, Yunhe really would not know how much time other cultivators would need to gather so many resources.

Of course, while searching for Golden Core spirit materials and the Transform Origin Elixir, Yunhe also found some things that he found quite interesting.

Puppets!

During his closed-door cultivation, the biggest problem he encountered was actually that the spirit insects and gu insects he was raising would each time force him to emerge from his immersive cultivation to feed them.

Not letting the Tian Du Gu Corpse do it was because he was unsure whether excessive contact of the Tian Du Gu Corpse with spirit insects and gu insects would cause any unforeseen effects on the Tian Du Gu Corpse itself, or on the spirit insects and gu insects.

After all, the Corpse Soul Gu is born in just such a way.

But puppets are different.

No need to worry that they will have any effect on the spirit insects, gu insects, or refined corpses.

Therefore, Yunhe obtained two wooden puppets from a cultivator of the Mi Ou Sect, which are comparable to a Qi Refining Perfection cultivator.

Using it for fighting spells is of no help, but using it to take care of the spirit insects he raises, or to do some daily chores such as cleaning, sweeping, serving tea and water, etc., is obviously sufficient.

Having prepared everything, having arranged everything, Yunhe also finally began to launch an assault toward the Golden Core realm!

(End of chapter)