Chapter 80: Bug Extermination Squad

At dinner, Su Hua suddenly said to Su Jin: "Little Aunt, there's a locust plague in Xicheng. They say it's terrible — in just two or three days, a lot of families' spirit plants they grew in their own backyards have been hit.

I heard some households lost a third of their spirit plants in half a day — heavy losses. Should we adjust our protective formation?

The current formation, to save spirit stones, is a low-grade one that doesn't block wind or rain, and small insects can even fly into the house.

We've got the academy assignment spirit plants growing in our backyard — if the bugs eat them, the two of us are done for."

In the end, this house belongs to her little-uncle grandfather, so Su Hua spoke directly to Su Jin.

"No need to change the protective formation, Xiao Hua — have you forgotten we have a Blood Xue Chiluo?

Whatever insects they are, when they fly over here aren't they just delivering themselves as food?" Su Jin explained.

Su Hua was instantly reassured. Right — their backyard had a Blood Xue Chiluo holding the fort.

Ever since that little fellow showed up in the backyard, she had never had to catch bugs again!

"We've got a Blood Xue Chiluo at home, no need to worry about bugs." Su Jian spoke up at this moment too. What a joke — their family's Blood Xue Chiluo had even eaten the little monsters outside the city. What locust plague was there to fear?

Over the next few days, even Nancheng and Beicheng started having bug outbreaks one after another.

Only Dongcheng didn't.

Su Jin waited several days, and not a single bug actually came to deliver itself as food?

What was going on?

Not to mention her — even the heads of the various great families in Xiancheng couldn't sit still.

Why didn't Dongcheng have a locust plague?

Could Dongcheng be hiding some treasure?

Especially the great clans and organizations residing in Dongcheng, all secretly began investigations one after another.

The moment they started quietly investigating, they noticed something strange.

The insects causing this plague were a mutated black locust species, tiny in size — only about as big as a soybean. They really did eat everything they saw.

In Xicheng, Nancheng, and Beicheng, no matter what pesticide they used, they couldn't kill them all.

Today they sprayed and killed a batch, and two or three days later another batch came.

And the new batch of black locusts had even stronger pesticide resistance — spray again and you couldn't kill many.

So manual extermination was more efficient than spraying.

Only, no one could squat at home guarding their backyard spirit plants every day! And these little black locusts bred way too fast. At first, these little black locusts were still a bit afraid of people — as long as someone chased them, they'd run.

But in just five or six days, because their numbers grew greater and greater, these little black locusts weren't even afraid of people anymore.

Some of the fiercer ones even dared to pounce and bite people.

Their behavior immediately drew the attention of the Patrol Inspection Bureau.

Xiancheng immediately issued an order, requiring every clan and every major force to assist the city in exterminating black locusts across all fronts.

Su Clan Academy.

Because the Su clan had lived in Dongcheng of Xiancheng for generations, they had not yet suffered any locust-plague losses.

But having no locust-plague losses didn't mean no one was paying attention to the matter.

Ever since the plague broke out, everyone had been following its progress every day.

The key was the plague was getting worse day by day.

But whether it was Xicheng, Nancheng, or Beicheng, none had a powerful, effective method of exterminating the bugs.

This caused the insects to spread more and more, the number of afflicted households to grow, and the losses to mount. They said there was even a baby not yet a full year old who, because the adults at home weren't there, was bitten to death by the bugs.

One morning, Instructor Liu arrived ten minutes late for class.

This had never happened before.

Just as everyone was inwardly guessing why Instructor Liu was late, he stood at the lectern and suddenly said: "Starting today, your afternoon cultivation class will be changed to a bug-extermination class. The clan academy will prepare tools for you. Each of you may pick three pieces of equipment.

Groups of three, with the group leader in charge of leading the team to exterminate bugs.

I will be responsible for supporting everyone — whichever team runs into danger, just summon me over."

The moment the students heard this, quite a few of them immediately began wailing.

Damn — without the cultivation class, how were they supposed to use the spirit-gathering formation to break through quickly?

The Qi Refining Layer 2 breakthroughs of Su Yunhu, Su Linyuan, and the others would also be delayed.

But since Instructor Liu had spoken, he wouldn't change the clan academy's arrangement.

"Although there's no afternoon cultivation class, you can take the spirit-gathering formation home to complete your cultivation. Alright, let's start class now."

Without the afternoon cultivation class, after the morning session ended, everyone began to cherish time and cultivate hard.

Although the time wasn't much, before lunch they could still cultivate whatever little they could.

Before, everyone used this period to relax and chat.

Even after Su Jin and the others returned to the Third Academy, they didn't ponder or practice any spells anymore.

They all used the time to activate the spirit-gathering formation and cultivate.

If they ate lunch a bit later, during that period they could also push out half of their daily cultivation progress.

Su Jin's cultivation speed could be even faster.

She was at Qi Refining Layer 2, Spirit Refining Layer 2, Body Refining Layer 1.

Cultivating three arts simultaneously was faster than others.

After Su Jin completed seventy percent of her daily cultivation task, she went to eat lunch with everyone.

Then Instructor Liu gathered everyone to go pick out bug-extermination magical artifacts.

In the First Academy.

Instructor Liu had brought quite a lot of bug-catching nets, lightning-strike paddles, flame gourds, and the like.

The students chose magical artifacts according to their grades. Naturally, the first to step up was Su Wuji.

Su Wuji picked the Flame Gourd and two other magic artifacts first.

Next was Su Cheng, then Su Jin.

Su Jin didn't pick the powerful Flame Gourd; what she chose were a bug-catching net, a lightning swatter, and insect-repelling powder.

Then the other young students made their choices.

Once everyone had finished choosing, Liu Shi began organizing them into groups.

Su Wuji, Su Cheng, and Su Jin were directly assigned to one group. After the grouping was done, Liu Shi led them to a street near the Dongcheng, responsible for exterminating the swarming bugs on the street.

On this street, black locusts filled the sky, so densely black they practically packed the street full.

At Liu Shi's signal, the young students split into small groups and charged in.

Su Jin sprinkled some insect-repelling powder on herself, then began wielding the lightning swatter, swatting left and right through the flying swarms with sharp cracks.

Crack, crack, crack!!

A string of lightning strikes immediately rang out. Large numbers of black locusts struck by the swatter were killed outright by the faint lightning, or fell to the ground dizzy and disoriented.

Su Jin manipulated her soul threads to quickly scoop them up into the small jar hanging at her waist.

Since the bugs weren't coming home to deliver themselves as meals, she'd catch a few more and bring them back to give Blood Xue Chiluo an extra feeding.

Su Jin kept zapping bugs with crack-crack-crack.

Then she quickly collected the bug corpses, or the badly wounded but still living ones, back into the small jar.

In no time at all, she had successfully filled one jar.

At this point, because so many young students were working together, the density of the bug swarms began to thin out.

But the enraged bugs also began biting people.