117 An Endless Loop

Ning Shi felt in his heart that these truly 10000-meter-huge beasts were very likely the so-called “beast disaster”!

According to Hao Meng’s previous speculations, the insect world and Saturn World were originally one. The so-called disasters were all evolutionary competitions for the species of the two worlds.

In that case, the “beast” and “spiritual” in the “beast disaster” and “spiritual disaster” should also be species of the world.

Now that terrifyingly huge beasts had appeared in the war insect general’s memory fragments, the beasts of the beast disaster were likely to be alive in the insect world as well.

The insect world’s world boundary was only 1000 meters high now, so these giant beasts couldn’t pass through yet. When the insect world and Saturn were completely connected, the restrictions on the world boundary disappeared, and the giant beasts would naturally descend!

Ning Shi didn’t know if his speculations were right. Unfortunately, there were only these memory fragments about the giant beasts and no more information in the war insect general’s genetic information.

Thinking of this, Ning Shi felt that he should find an opportunity to kill the insect commander. Perhaps then he could get more information.

Ilya was a master of soul research, and her ability was the perfect counter to the war insects. If he summoned her over, he should be able to kill the insect commander.

However, his Devour skill had only reached Tier 6. According to the skill’s description, he could not devour the insect commander’s corpse yet, so killing it now was useless.

Therefore, the most important task now was to lead the insect group under his command to launch a war against others. This way, he could devour more war insects for a legitimate reason, and level up the Devour skill.

Ning Shi then checked the war insect general’s other fragmented memories and learned that the war insect tribe he had sneaked into was called the Black Hole Branch, which lived in the east of the Insect Continent.

At present, there were a total of relatively strong 19 branches among the war insect community that could survive and reproduce independently. They were scattered in different places on the continent.

Some war insect tribes were under other kingly insect tribes due to reasons of resources and strength.

Ning Shi was quite puzzled. The Insect Continent was so vast, so why did General No.11’s genetic information have detailed information about all the war insects on the continent?

It seemed that there was a unique way of communication between the war insect tribes.

There were currently 17 war insect generals in the Black Hole Branch, and all of them were under the sole commandership of the insect commander.

The insect commander usually stayed in the Level 4 Life Pool and slept, using black crystals and life energy to increase its strength. Unless the war insect tribe was in great danger, it would not appear.

Usually, it was the 17 war insect generals who controlled the tribe.

Now that Ning Shi had become a general, he could almost do whatever he wanted as long as the insect commander wasn’t awake.

He now had about 5 million war insects under his command. After eliminating the azure insects, General No.11’s troops also occupied 21 black crystal mines.

Each black crystal mine produced about 400000 to 500000 kilograms of black crystals a day. With the 21 mines added together, the daily output could reach about 10 million kilograms!

Because the initial bodies of the war insects were extremely strong, the production of soldiers consumed more black crystals. The birth of one war insect required 100 grams of black crystals.

In other words, if Ning Shi wanted to, he could produce 100 million war insects a day.

After getting this result, Ning Shi realized that something was wrong. Although the resources controlled by the war insect army had doubled because of the expansion of the territory, it should be impossible for a general to produce 100 million war insects in a day.

Previously, the entire tribe of the Black Hole Branch was only about 70 million.

After carefully searching the general’s memory, Ning Shi finally understood.

Within the tribe, two things consumed black crystals.

One was the Level 4 Life Pool. There was a price to pay for the insect commander to sleep in there and become stronger.

Half of the minerals mined by General No.11’s troops had to be poured into the Level 4 Life Pool every day.

Previously, General No.11 had given the Level 4 Life Pool 5 million kilograms of black crystals a day. Ning Shi did not want to expose himself for the time being, so his behavior had to be consistent with General No.11’s previous behavior.

Reducing the number of black crystals supplied to the Level 4 Life Pool would alert the insect commander, which he could not do for the time being.

In addition to the Life Pool, the food pool that Ning Shi had eaten in before also consumed black crystals.

Bread is the staff of life. One would be hungry and annoyed without food. Although the war insects had strong endurance, they still needed to eat.

To ensure their combat ability, the war insects’ diet consisted mainly of black crystal energy drinks.

It was because of this that the war insect community would not blindly produce soldiers, as they could not afford to raise too many of them.

Moreover, the mines were not endless. With the mining speed of the war insects, some black crystal mines could be mined out in about ten days.

Excluding the consumption of the Level 4 Life Pool and the food pool, Ning Shi would have about 4 million kilograms of black crystals left in a day.

That night, Ning Shi sent all 4 million kilograms of black crystals into the guardian spirit insect hatchery. He first spent 500 thousand kilograms of black crystals to upgrade the guardian spirit insect hatchery to Level 5.

[Guardian spirit insect hatchery: Level 5 insect tribe hatchery]

[Black crystals owned: 3.5 million kilograms]

[Production insect tribe: Guardian spirit insect soldier, guardian spirit insect captain, guardian spirit insect lieutenant, guardian spirit insect general.]

[Reproduction requirements: Soldiers 20 grams of black crystals, captain 40 grams of black crystals, lieutenants 1kg of black crystals, generals 50kg of black crystals]

[Level-up requirement: 50 million kilograms of black crystals]

[Level 5 organ: Gu breeding room]

The gu breeding room, as the name suggested, let the guardian spirit insects kill each other in there, eventually producing a sole and more powerful individual.

Different from the war insects, The guardian spirit insects did not have a restriction that prevented them from advancing in rank. All of them had a gold talent for learning talent, so even a soldier could become a captain.

With a gu breeding house, as long as enough generals were produced, he could breed an individual insect at the insect commander level.

After investing resources this time, Ning Shi planned to be completely hands-off with the breeding of the guardian spirit insects.

He had already laid an excellent foundation for the guardian spirit insects to survive, reproduce, and compete. If they were still unable to establish themselves on the Insect Continent under such circumstances, it would mean that there was no value in nurturing this insect tribe.

In the next two days, Ning Shi began to increase his troops. He put the remaining black crystals into the Level 1 and Level 2 Life Pools, and the number of troops under him increased to 13 million.

In the following half a month, Ning Shi led his troops to fight everywhere.

He first annihilated a holy light insect tribe, a thunder moth tribe, a brain-eating insect tribe, and a blazing fire ant tribe.

After Ning Shi transformed into a war insect, although his war insect body’s absolute strength was still inferior to the insect commander, he was more difficult to deal with than the latter.

This was because he was not afraid of spiritual power or soul attacks.

In every battle, Ning Shi would charge at the front and behead the higher-ups of the enemy.

Thus, the results of his war were very impressive.

After exterminating four intermediate insect tribes in a row, the Black Hole Branch’s sphere of influence had doubled.

In the process of the war, many war insects died.

It was normal for millions of war insects to die in just one battle. Ning Shi just needed to use the resources he had plundered and mined to replenish his troops.

As for the dead war insects, they were all devoured and collected by Ning Shi.

Surprisingly, the war insect general’s body’s limit was not 500 meters.

After devouring 2 million war insect corpses, Ning Shi’s Devour skill had been upgraded to Tier 7. The light of Devour could now cover a wider range, but the Tier 7 Devour skill still couldn’t devour the insect commander.

At this time, Ning Shi’s real war insect body length had already reached more than 2000 meters.

However, he didn’t feel any great power. He only felt that the huge body of more than 2000 meters was a heavy burden.

Even his flying speed had slowed down.

This was the side effect of continuous devouring. The war insect’s body size, defense, and physical sturdiness increased the most from devouring, but the strength attribute had not increased much.

After its body became too big, its speed did not increase either. Instead, it began to slow down.

Ning Shi knew that in the genetic information of the war insect tribe, there must be a way to shrink the body and further improve the physical strength and speed.

But he didn’t know the method.

Fortunately, he had the transformation ability and could transform into a smaller size.

It would not affect his combat ability.

However, as his body grew bigger, it took more energy to become smaller.

To reduce consumption, Ning Shi’s war insect body size that he displayed to the public was now about 100 meters.

He had shrunk by 20 times and thus the consumption of his special ability had reached its limit. Ning Shi could now maintain the transformation for about 15 days.

He couldn’t increase his body size anymore, or the transformation time might shorten sharply, and his undercover operation would be easily exposed.

In Ning Shi’s backpack were more than 20 million war insect corpses, but he could no longer use the Devour skill.

If he could not devour corpses, the Devour skill could not be leveled up.

If his Devour skill could not be upgraded, he would not be able to devour the insect commander’s corpse and obtain its genetic information.

Without the insect commander’s genetic information, he would not know how to reduce his war insect body size. Yet after devouring war insect corpses now, he would continue to grow in size.

This was an endless loop.

In fact, Ning Shi had a way, which was to switch to the game world.

A month had passed, and his game avatar had leveled up by two levels with the help of the Bloodline Guidance Technique and the battle experience points provided by his followers and servants.

He had also accumulated 2 skill points.

Ning Shi could use the skill points to upgrade his Devour skill, but he had originally planned to save those skill points for his swordsmanship.

It was not worth it to use the skill points on the Devour skill that could only be used when he transformed into a war insect.

Just as Ning Shi decided to stop hesitating and use his skill points to level up his Devour skill, a message came from the guardian spirit insect hatchery.

After half a month of fighting in the gu breeding room, the guardian spirit insects had produced an insect commander!