Chapter 118 - 118 The Insect Internet
118 The Insect Internet
After receiving this information, Ning Shi immediately flew to the base of the guardian spirit insect hatchery.
He saw the first insect commander of the guardian spirit insect race.
Its appearance was similar to the war insect, with a sharp spike several meters long on its head. However, compared to the war insect, its body was thicker.
The insect commander’s experience was legendary. It was not a general produced by the hatchery, but a lieutenant.
It had parasitized the body of a war insect lieutenant, seizing all of the war insect lieutenant’s physical talents, then absorbing the war insect lieutenant’s soul and optimizing the weakness of the war insect’s spiritual power.
From then on, it became extremely strong, and slowly became a general from a lieutenant, and finally the guardian spirit insect commander.
Upon seeing the insect commander, Ning Shi used the Eye of Truth.
[Eye of Truth activated. Target: guardian spirit insect commander No.1. Comparison between host and target’s spiritual power: 32/40. The target is not soldiered against the host, all information can be viewed.]
[Character: guardian spirit insect commander No.1]
[Physique: 45 (50)]
[Spiritual Power: 40 (50)]
[Appearance: 4 (cuteness attribute has been destroyed by the war insect gene)]
[Skills: Rapid flight Tier 8, spike Tier 9, mind control Tier 6, parasitism Tier 5, wing slice Tier 5, nine refinement war insect Tier 1]
[Talents: war insect body (purple), penetration (purple), combat nature (purple), learning (gold), gene fusion (gold), soul devour (purple), unyielding will (purple)]
Seeing the guardian spirit insect commander’s information, Ning Shi once again sighed at the terrifying ability of the guardian spirit insect tribe.
Not only could they steal the excellent genes of other insects, but they could also further optimize the stolen genes.
This guardian spirit insect had just become an insect commander but already had such insane abilities. It had high attribute values, and its skills and talents were top-notch.
According to the calculations of the game system, the strength of the insect commander should be similar to the super magic beasts and gods of the World of Moen.
However, there were many insect commanders in the insect world. In the advanced insect tribe of the war insects alone, there were more than 20 insect commanders. And in the whole insect world, there were thousands of advanced insect tribes.
The kingly insect tribes had even more insect commanders.
By a conservative estimate, there were at least 100000 insect commanders in the insect world.
On the other hand, the World of Moen only had hundreds of super magical beasts and a few gods left.
In terms of strength, the insect world was obviously stronger. Moreover, the insect world had insect kings and those unknown terrifying giant beasts.
The guardian spirit insect commander No.01 was more than 50 meters long. When it saw Ning Shi, it lay prostrate with its head on the ground to show its submission.
“You’re already a highly intelligent being,” Ning Shi said with a smile, “I’ll give you a name. You will be called Ning Yi from now on.”
Ning Yi’s mind was filled with happiness as it replied, “Great ruler of the guardian spirit insects, I will forever be your slave. The name you have given me is my supreme glory. From now on, my name is Ning Yi.”
When Ning Shi checked Ning Yi’s information, he noticed that the latter had mastered a skill called the nine refinement war insect.
This was probably the specific skill of the war insect to shrink its body.
Ning Shi asked for it, and Ning Yi directly used its brainwave to send the information over, which included the specific method of the nine refinement war insect.
The so-called nine refinement war insect was a skill etched in the war insect generals’ genetic information when they were born.
Unfortunately, the information fragments Ning Shi obtained when he devoured General No.11 did not contain this key information.
The nine refinement war insect was a complete set of skills that included devouring corpses, black crystals, and other life forces of the same race to make the insect body stronger.
Unlike Ning Shi, the war insect generals would not grow infinitely in size. They would start reverse devouring when their bodies reached about 100 meters.
The energy from the corpses of their kind would positively increase their body size at first, but after starting reverse devouring, the energy obtained would increase the consumption of the war insect’s body instead.
Through such consumption and resistance, the war insect could then get rid of the unneeded tissues and further strengthen its body.
Due to the increased consumption, the war insects would become smaller, but their physical sturdiness and attributes would increase greatly, and their combat power would double.
After obtaining the information about the nine refinement war insect skill, Ning Shi’s Tier 7 Devour skill 7 disappeared and evolved into the Tier 0 Nine Refinement War Insect skill.
[Nine Refinement War Insect, Tier 0: Devour the corpses of your own kind and strengthen the cycle from positive to negative. You can devour the corpses of soldiers, captains, lieutenants, generals, and insect commanders.]
He could finally devour the insect commander’s corpse!
Without the Nine Refinement War Insect skill, Ning Shi estimated that even if he upgraded his Devour skill to the end, he would not be able to devour the insect commander’s corpse.
According to the information on the Nine Refinement War Insect skill, every time he completed the process of growing and then shrinking, he would’ve finished one cycle of refinement.
With every cycle of refinement completed, the Nine Refinement War Insect skill would increase by one level.
When the Nine Refinement War Insect skill reached Level 1, which meant he had completed one cycle of the refinement, he would’ve become an insect commander. When the skill reached Level 4, he would’ve then been promoted to an insect king.
Ning Shi was speechless at the thought of his 2000-meter-long body. Probably no war insect had ever reached such a large size before starting reverse devouring.
He had unintentionally become a weirdo.
After mastering the skill, Ning Shi no longer hesitated and prepared to start reverse devouring.
He had already prepared himself to endure extreme pain.
The reverse devouring process would definitely be extremely painful. After all, the energy would be consumed in his body, and his body would be forcibly shrunk to a smaller size.
Just the thought of this process made his teeth ache.
However, as soon as he began reverse devouring, the game system sent him a hint.
[Do you want to consume 21.21 million war insect corpses to complete the reverse devouring and refine your war insect body to 50 meters? Yes, no.]
Long live the great gaming system!
Ning Shi directly clicked “yes”. With that, the war insect corpses in his backpack turned into a black liquid and integrated into his war insect body.
Then, his body shrank and only stopped after reaching 50 meters.
Ning Shi could feel that his war insect body was more compact and solid. His body was smaller, but his weight had increased several times.
After feeling it for a while, Ning Shi felt that his current war insect body was full of power and had extreme speed.
The system gave a skill suggestion.
[It is recommended that the host refine your war insect body to a length of 10 meters before starting the next refinement. The foundation laid in the first refinement is related to the potential of the subsequent nine refinements.]
When Ning Shi got the hint, he thus had a goal. He prepared to continue fighting wars and let more war insects die as a matter of course, becoming nutrients for his cultivation of the Nine Refinement War Insect skill.
However, plans could not keep up with changes. Ning Shi suddenly felt that although his war insect body had become smaller, the consumption of his special ability had increased instead!
Ning Shi instantly realized that this was caused by the rapid growth of his war insect body.
There were two principles to how long a transformation could last. The first was that the bigger the difference in size, the faster the special ability’s consumption of power. The second was that the stronger the target was, the faster the special ability’s consumption of the ability.
Ning Shi’s body size had shrunk, but the strength of his war insect body had grown too fast.
He looked at the system hint.
[Transformation Tier 6, transformable target: 1. Thunder-armored Tyrannosaurus, duration: 150 minutes, high-intensity battle 30 minutes; 2. War insect, duration: 240 minutes, high-intensity battle 48 minutes.]
In other words, the system believed that he was already at the insect commander level and that his war insect body’s strength was not much different from that of the Thunder-armored Tyrannosaurus.
To avoid unnecessary consumption, Ning Shi changed back to his main body in the guardian spirit insect hatchery.
“Perhaps it’s time for Ilya to come over and kill the insect commander of the Black Hole Branch so that I can take full control of the branch. With that, I can mark out a forbidden area in the Black Hole Branch’s base and prevent other war insects from entering. It will be my personal space where my main body recuperates. That, or I can return to the guardian spirit insect hatchery and change back to my main body. With two supply bases, even if the transformation time is shorter, I can still stay in the insect world.”
Ning Shi was just about to activate his summoning skill when Ning Yi, who had been lying prostrate on the ground, suddenly sent over brainwaves.
“Respected chief sovereign! After I became the insect commander, a new stream of information appeared in my mind. According to this information, my brainwaves can join a brainwave network. In the brainwave network are all the insect commanders of the insect world and even the insect kings. I feel that this is very important news, so I have to report it to you.”
Ning Shi was stunned. He could join the brainwave network after becoming an insect commander?
What was that? The insect world’s internet?
“What can you do in the brainwave network?” Ning Shi asked.
Ning Yi used its brainwaves to send a memory fragment over.
In the image, Ning Yi’s consciousness found a huge spider web and was automatically connected to a node in the spider web.
Through the spider web, it could see the messages left by the insect commanders on the other nodes, and it could also leave some messages on its own node.
In a node on his left, a seven-star insect commander had left a message.
“Selling one million seven-star insect soldiers in exchange for two million rainbow insect soldiers or one hundred thousand kilograms of red crystals.”
On the third node to the left, another message was left, “Looking to purchase 1 million insect soldiers with the body-strengthening genes, private chat for price.”
When Ning Yi’s brainwave touched the third node on the left, it received a message hint, “Do you wish to enter the node?”
Ning Yi chose to enter and received another hint, “The entry request has been sent to the other party. Please wait.”
At this point, the scene was cut off.
Although it was only a short clip, Ning Shi was greatly shocked!
It was not only because the insect tribes had such an advanced way of communication, but also because Ning Shi could feel the world of the insect commanders from the messages.
The insect commanders were using the brainwave network to exchange resources and information. Some were studying various genes, while others were optimizing their own race.
They were like captains, carrying their own race and sailing in the tide of evolution.
Under such a mode, it was no wonder the insect tribes in the insect world were getting stronger and stronger!
Compared to the insects, the humans on Saturn seemed to be too conservative and comfortable.