"Sure enough, it wasn’t an illusion."
Chewing and swallowing a chicken leg, Qin Yu could feel his stomach and intestines churning rapidly, digesting the nutrients within to supply his entire body. His pale complexion became rosy at a visible rate, and his digestion capacity was at least ten times stronger than before.
He lifted his clothes. The half-foot-long wound had completely stopped bleeding. An itchy sensation emanated from it, indicating that it was healing at an astonishing speed. After the inheritance’s modification, his self-healing ability had clearly increased by a massive margin.
"When the Insect Swarm grows stronger, I receive a certain amount of feedback.
"If the Insect Nest is successfully incubated, I might even be able to use this to break through to the Muscle Refining Realm."
Qin Yu felt quite invigorated.
A Muscle Refining Martial Artist possessed incredibly strong flexibility and explosive power in their tendons and bones. They could draw a Hundred-Stone Strong Bow and pierce even a Bone Forging Demon Monster Skin!
In the dark of the night, pure white moonlight scattered across the earth.
RUSTLE—
A Worker Insect that had devoured enough Energy crawled into a room Qin Yu had cleared out, which was normally used to store sundries. It then laid on the ground and rapidly pupated, transforming into a massive fleshy sphere that began to beat like a heart. With every beat, the fleshy sphere grew a fraction larger.
At the same time, a pale purple Fungal Mat flowed out from the sphere like running water, spreading in all directions. This was a fungal layer closely resembling moss. Relying on it, the Insect Nest could take root in the earth and absorb nutrients from the soil so that it would never dry up.
Watching this scene, Qin Yu felt a bit nauseous and repulsed, yet his gaze was incredibly fervent. The establishment of the Insect Nest was somewhat faster than he had imagined.
About three or four hours later, Qin Yu felt a sensation in his heart. The minimum incubation for a Tier One Insect Nest was complete!
Under normal circumstances, a Tier One Insect Nest was ten meters tall, but right now, Qin Yu clearly lacked sufficient resources and time. Looking at the sky as the moonlight grew deeper, Qin Yu decisively made the brood nest, which had finished its Basic incubation, break out of its shell.
BANG!
The giant pupa, standing about three meters tall, suddenly contracted and burst apart, transforming into a small Insect Nest that covered an area of over ten square meters. The Insect Nest looked quite hideous. The semi-elliptical fleshy mountain was covered in sharp spikes, its surface dotted with various fleshy tumors and holes, and the entire structure constantly squirmed.
The exact moment the Insect Nest successfully hatched, Qin Yu could feel a warm current flowing from it into him through some special method.
CRACK—
As this power circulated, a crisp pop echoed from the tendons and bones all over his body.
"Tendons wrapping around bones! The third realm of Body Forging, the Muscle Refining Realm, is achieved!"
Relying on his control over his body, Qin Yu could feel the subtle changes occurring in the key tissues connecting his muscles and bones. The Muscle Refining Realm. It allowed one to stretch their tendons and veins, massively enhancing the body’s resilience and explosive kinetic power.
"Three years of bitter training bore no fruit, but today, I succeeded in a single stroke!"
However, the pleasant surprises were far from over. When he shifted his gaze to the newly incubated Insect Nest, he could telepathically sense his other "body."
The Insect Nest!
This feeling was completely different from incubating Worker Insects. Everything around him seemed to slow down. He saw the falling leaves in the courtyard and felt the gentle Wind. In an instant, he calculated the size, shape, and weight of the falling leaves, as well as the speed at which they would fly under the breeze of the Wind and exactly where they would land.
This wasn’t an illusion, nor was time genuinely slowing down. Instead, it was his processing speed quickening. His mental calculation ability had experienced a qualitative leap—a thousandfold enhancement! It was as if he had gained a supercomputer as an "external brain," allowing him to calculate all of this in an instant.
GASP—
Qin Yu drew in a sharp breath of cold air, realizing just how much this would elevate his strength.
He had followed his father to practice martial arts and temper his bones and tendons since the age of three. At ten, he began practicing Sword Skill and the Bow and Arrow. Today, pulling off a Hundred-step Piercing Willow with his Archery Skill was nothing more than child’s play for him. However, hitting a high-speed moving monster was still difficult.
But with the enhancement of the Insect Nest, his thought processing speed had increased a thousandfold. Even he didn’t dare to imagine what kind of Realm his attainments in Archery Skill would reach!
Hitting the mark with every single shot?
By the same logic, his Sword Skill, Body Technique, and everything else would undergo a qualitative leap.
The Insect Swarm was an extension of his body. As the core structure of the Insect Swarm, the Insect Nest could not only incubate larvae but also internally stored a massive amount of Insect Swarm genes. It could analyze the genes of different lifeforms and integrate them into the Insect Swarm’s combat system. It could also optimize the genes of Insect Swarm units, allowing them to complete their evolution. In itself, it was a biological supercomputer.
Amidst his pleasant surprise, Qin Yu was also sensing a stream of information transmitted from the Insect Nest.
[Name: Dominator of the Insect Swarm.]
[Insect Hive Tier: Tier One (Incompletely Incubated).]
[Life Energy Reserve: 12/10,000 points.]
[Hatchable Units (Tier One): Worker Insect (Requires 10 points of Biological Energy), Rapid Insect (Requires 50 points of Biological Energy).]
[Current Units: Worker Insects (2)]
"There’s a combat unit?"
Qin Yu couldn’t help but feel delighted. When he received the inheritance, he knew that the inheritance egg recorded countless Insect Race units. From Low Tier Insect Nests to High Tier Insect Race units of all kinds, they numbered in the hundreds of millions.
But due to some unknown reason, the Insect Race inheritance egg had suffered heavy damage, causing the inheritance information within to be chaotic and incomplete. This made him worry for a time that there would be no usable combat units once the Insect Nest was incubated, leaving him prepared to fight using Worker Insects.
Worker Insects could naturally fight, but they were, after all, resource-gathering units. While their attack and defense were decent, their speed and agility were somewhat lacking. Although only one combat unit was unlocked now, it was still a pleasant enough surprise.
No matter how weak a Worker Insect was, it was still part of the Insect Race. Its armor was enough to resist small-caliber firearms, making hunting ordinary wild beasts a breeze.
As for unlocking more combat units, there were two methods. The first was for him, as the Sovereign of the Insect Race, to increase his strength tier and provide enough resources for the Insect Nest to "upgrade." The second was to analyze the genes of local lifeforms and integrate them into the Insect Swarm’s combat system, or to fuse them with the chaotic genes in the gene pool to cultivate new units.
"I won’t think about this for now. Once I incubate the first batch of combat units, I will immediately go support my father!"
With a thought, Qin Yu controlled the two Worker Insects he had cultivated during the Insect Nest’s incubation period, having them transport a large number of livestock corpses to the Insect Nest and shove them into a cracked open hole.
This was the Insect Nest’s digestive organ. Its Energy conversion efficiency was who knew how many times higher than that of a Worker Insect. Flesh and blood thrown inside were quickly digested. At the same time, the Insect Nest also began to incubate larvae.
As the interior of the Insect Nest continuously squirmed, five larvae crawled out of the hole a moment later and quickly began to mutate. As if they were being inflated, they transformed into pupae and began to beat like hearts.
Another five minutes passed.
The Insect Nest incubated another five larvae, but the livestock and wild beast corpses in the Martial Arts Arena had already been completely devoured. Qin Yu immediately stepped outside the Martial Arts Arena, urging his subordinates to hurry up and bring more livestock laden with flesh and blood, before continuing to wait.
Time ticked away bit by bit.
When the first ray of sunlight tore through the darkness on the distant horizon...
ROAR—
Amidst the low roars, the finally fully-incubated eggs hatched, and ten hideous Insect Race combat units, the "Rapid Insects," appeared before Qin Yu.