Chapter 218 - Chapter 218: Chapter 213: The New Talent of the Grade Five Ant Queen_1 (2/2)
Because Qin Niu was paying twenty percent above the market rate, Liu Shengli and the others were very motivated.
In just a morning, they had chopped and brought back a large pile of wet firewood.
No need for them to cut and split, saving labor and effort—such good fortune is rare.
Considering Liu Shengli’s shrewdness, he naturally worked as hard as he could.
Earning some money is better than none.
After lunch, Qin Niu entered the mountain alone.
He planned to scout the path himself.
Not to draw attention, he deliberately disguised himself as a woodcutter.
When he passed by Xie Laizi’s house, he quietly released a few termites to investigate.
He found nothing unusual.
After entering the mountains, he continued to observe in secret and still saw nothing out of the ordinary.
This was indeed strange.
Could the sound of horse hooves he had heard that night have been an illusion?
He didn’t rush towards the Ant Nest; instead, he first visited the vicinity of the
Ancient Banyan Tree to check for anything amiss. There was nothing.
Only then did he enter the Ancient Banyan Tree Maze with peace of mind.
Truth be told, he suspected that the man might have entered the Ancient Banyan Tree Maze while investigating Wu Hao’s whereabouts.
This was the only explanation for the man’s disappearance.
The power of the Ancient Banyan Tree was terrifying; anyone who ventured into it was more likely to meet misfortune than fortune.
Especially at night, the danger was extreme.
He inspected every inch of the ground inside the Banyan Tree and still found nothing. Even if someone had accidentally fallen into the maze and been killed by the Ancient Banyan Tree, they would have left something behind.
Things like clothing, weapons, tokens, and so on.
The lack of any clues indicated that the person hadn’t come in at all.
The days passed, and after assuring that there was no danger, Qin Niu, as usual, took Xiao Qing into the mountains every day to cultivate and breed the termites.
He was preparing to obtain the treasure of the Green Demon.
His cultivation level had been solidified, and mobilizing the internal power of the Everlasting Spring Technique was noticeably easier than right after his advancement.
The Ant Queen was now laying a thousand eggs a day, with a massive consumption of resources; the Corpse Bees were nearly ail consumed by her.
Qin Niu also fed the Ant Queen the body of the black-crowned snake.
Since this snake was highly venomous, he was initially concerned.
He first used an ordinary termite for testing and, upon verifying there was no issue, allowed Fourth and other specialized Worker Ants to eat the black-crowned snake before feeding it to the Ant Queen.
This morning, he sensed something unusual about the Ant Queen.
It appeared to have stopped laying eggs.
This had never happened before.
Qin Niu hurried to the mountains to check.
The Ant Queen’s massive body was hidden within the subterranean Ant Queen Palace’, and now it could no longer emerge with ease as it used to.
If it were to come out, the Worker Ants would have to dig a special tunnel.
This could compromise the Ant Queen’s safety.
It would also disrupt the original structure of the Ant Nest.
“Ant Queen, what’s the matter?” Qin Niu directly communicated with it.
He had a soul contract with the Ant Queen, allowing him to easily interact with it telepathically.
“Advancing!”
After the Ant Queen sent back a feeble soul vibration, it didn’t respond anymore.
It turned out the Ant Queen was advancing in level, which filled Qin Niu with joy.
The last advancement to Grade Four hadn’t been long ago, and recently he had fed it corpses of three Grade Five Bee Generals, nearly a hundred corpses of Grade Four Corpse Bees, as well as the black-crowned snake’s corpse…
With so much high-grade food consumed, to put it bluntly, even a pig might have taken flight.
Moreover, the Ant Queen probably had awakened a thread of ancient insect bloodline.
Its potential was immeasurable.
Its lifespan of thirty thousand years was a testament to that.
Qin Niu asked the ant colony to strengthen their defenses, while he himself went to draw blood from the Ancient Banyan Tree and cultivate.
By evening, Qin Niu discovered that the Ant Queen had already completed its advancement.
The progression was much faster than expected.
He checked its attributes.
Female Four-Winged Yin Ant (Ant Queen)
Level: Grade Five Isoptera insect, experience 100000/1000000
Lifespan: 31,000 years
Energy: 990083
Skills: Reproduction level three 371/1000 (1000 eggs per day), Feign Death level one 2/10, Flight level one 0/10, Escape level one 0/10, Basic Self-Healing level one 0/10.
Talent: Moderate Intelligence++++, reproduce descendants with great strength attribute (10%), reproduce descendants with high poison attribute (30%), reproduce Demon Ant offspring (0.2%), reproduce Gold Devouring Ant offspring (0.002%), reproduce Healing Ant offspring (0.1%), reproduce Zombie Ant offspring (2%).
After successfully advancing to Grade Five, the Ant Queen’s lifespan increased by one thousand years.
This was undeniably the longest-lived termite in history.
Even the Diamond Ink Turtle’s lifespan only increased by 200 years upon advancing two levels.
It was no match for the Ant Queen.
More so, the Ant Queen evolved a basic self-healing ability.
This capability, similar to the Demon Ants, allowed it to heal automatically when injured.
Additionally, its intelligence gained another plus sign.
It seemed to be evolving towards a higher level of intelligence.
The most impressive change was the richer variety of special offspring it could now produce.
Previously, it could only birth descendants with a mild toxic attribute, possessing stingers and poison sacs, but the venom wasn’t very potent.
Only after Qin Niu’s cultivation would the venom of the Poisonous Ants become stronger.
Now it could directly birth highly venomous descendants.
He was truly looking forward to their emergence.
And the probability was as high as 30%, a terrifyingly high rate. On average, thirty out of every hundred termites would possess stingers and poison sacs.