Chapter 118: [holy Light Mao Shi Worm] And [shadow Yuan Shi Worm]
“Aiya! How did it die again? So strange!”
Little Girl’s startled cry came from inside the room. Yuan Zhu followed the sound to the door of her temporary residence in the Insect Rearing Room, pushed the door open and entered, asking curiously: “A Ting, what died again?”
Little Girl dejectedly held up a small metal sheet: “The [Mao Shi Worm – Holy Light Control Group] you gave me. This is already the third batch to die.”
…
Time flew by to the third day of arrival.
Yuan Zhu had tried various methods but still couldn’t contact the missing teammates. So he quietly assumed in his heart that they had all perished, leaving only himself struggling to make a fortune in dire straits in the Underground World.
Out of a sense of responsibility, as the last hope of the whole village, he had to work even harder, properly taking root in the Underground World, pioneering and expanding territory for the Mao Mao King.
So on the second day after Commander Zuo returned, he led the entrepreneurship team away from the outskirts of Cicada City, delving into the underground no-man’s land, cutting through thorns and blasting several waves of Magic Worm Tide attacks along the way, finally arriving at an Underground Cavity rich in Immortal Realm Tree Giant Root Network Cluster (Rich Deposit), and built a new residence on the ruins of the former camp.
Although the conditions were still rudimentary, it was a complete complex of buildings, enough for 20 people to live long-term, far better than the brother and sister’s slum cave.
Commander Zuo not only pried off the Spiritual Energy Magic Array from his home and laid it in the current Insect Rearing Room; he also brought several Tube Worms to gnaw on Immortal Realm Tree Root Tendrils, continuously spraying spiritual energy to increase the indoor spiritual energy concentration.
If not for the lack of array-setting technicians on hand, he could even connect these Tube Worms with the large Immortal Realm Tree Roots covering the underground cavity ceiling to form a Large Pure Spiritual Energy Barrier enveloping the entire Underground Cavity.
Fortunately, it wasn’t bad now either. Commander Zuo secretly dispatched a private guard team under his control, which traveled back and forth between the camp and Cicada City every day, secretly transporting batch after batch of supplies.
From the most basic food, to glowing Firefly Lamp Insects, fluorescent mushroom blankets and spawn that could be farmed and eaten, as well as two experienced insect breeders who had long been engaged in insect rearing. A rudimentary camp was quickly built, at least enough to survive independently from Cicada City for more than 10 days.
In the end, even the extremely precious Reverse Life Tree Saplings (Luxury Goods) from the Underground World were sent over—two of them, used as potted oxygen generators to produce fresh air, hanging upside down from the ceiling of Yuan Zhu’s bedroom, growing downward. All to curry favor with this future boss.
Feeling Zuo Fan’s goodwill, Yuan Zhu generously activated the Shadow Dream Hole in the camp, arranging for him to enter the Shadow Space (Secret Room) for cultivation (testing the waters).
…
After several attempts by the Tiger Demon, he successfully figured out the basic usage of the Shadow Dream Hole.
One only needed to throw matter containing energy (pollution) into the Nightmare Layer behind the Dream Hole (dumping garbage); then the Nightmare World would feedback a small amount of unknown energy (pollution) that matched the Dream Hole’s attributes, rewarding the garbage dumping behavior.
Sounds a bit abstract? Let me rephrase it:
The black smoke from incineration in Underground Insect City was indeed super pollution and deadly poison. But at its core, it was still a form of energy; it was just that the natives couldn’t utilize this lethal level of pollution.
Thus, a Heavenly Realm cultivator dumps 10 units of deadly pollution into the Dream Hole, entering the Nightmare Layer. The Nightmare feedbacks 1-2 units of unknown, unfamiliar but usable energy (pollution) that could even cause transformation and evolution.
This deal nets the Nightmare Layer 8 units from 10-2, a huge profit! For the Insect City rulers, eliminating 10 units of lethal pollution while freebie-ing 2 units of Power from Beyond the Heavens, with explosive strength growth and true qi transformation—huge profit!
This was a win-win.
Thus, the Dream Hole business continued on and on. More and more Dream Holes were opened in the Underground World. Through continuous sewage dumping behavior, it purified the Underground World’s air environment, permanently eliminating large amounts of pollution (Miasma, Iron Poison), continuously improving air spiritual energy concentration, entering a positive cycle.
Yuan Zhu’s Shadow Dream Hole also had this function, and Zuo Fan had personally witnessed Underground Insect City’s utilization of wild Magic Worms—he understood this very well.
So upon learning that Yuan Zhu was willing to open the Dream Hole for his cultivation, he eagerly transported basket after basket of sealed Magic Worm Corpses, dumping them into the Shadow Dream Hole, where Yuan Zhu slowly released them into the Nightmare Layer, extracting mysterious unknown energy for Commander Zuo to achieve Unity of Heaven and Man.
…
At this moment, Zuo Fan was in his Shadow Dream Hole space, using his body to test the law, attempting to absorb the mysterious Power from Beyond the Heavens generated in the space and refine it with his own true qi…
In Yuan Zhu’s eyes, he was like a diving enthusiast entering his Yuan Clan Shark Cage (Shadow Space), sunk into the deep sea (Nightmare). Bait continuously leaked from the cage, attracting special matter (Power from Beyond the Heavens) for Zuo Fan to absorb and refine.
But while the shark cage excreted pollution, it inevitably attracted deep-sea creatures (Nightmare Demonic Creatures). With only one cage (barrier) separating them, what if an accident happened?
In short, Commander Zuo was greedy and bold, not minding the mere danger at all.
Because compared to Yuan Zhu’s Shadow Dream Hole, Insect City’s Dream Holes were more primitive and crude—once opened, they couldn’t close their mouths and directly connected to the Nightmare Layer, with demonic creatures frequently invading Insect City in reverse.
Look at the Shadow Dream Hole—worthy of being the work of an otherworldly stranger! It could open and close, had its own space, and the barrier could adjust penetration direction and power—too perfect. If even such an excellent Supreme Secluded Cultivation Secret Room was disdain-ed, that would be courting death!
Even the person involved didn’t mind, so Yuan Zhu minded even less. After all, a perfect little White Mouse was voluntarily drilling into the Shadow Dream Hole, perfecting data and testing Dream Hole functions for him—what more could he say? He could only send blessings.
Just after he dumped two more baskets of Magic Worm Corpses into the Dream Hole, he heard sighs from the adjacent Insect Rearing Room.
Yuan Zhu, full of fantasies about the Holy Light Mao Clan Insects, hurriedly pushed the door in and saw the pouting, sad Little Girl.
Upon seeing Yuan Zhu, Little Girl immediately sat up straight, jumped down from the high stool, and trotted forward quickly with her little legs to greet him: “Boss, you’re here! Please sit. I’ll go squeeze some aphid sugar syrup for you!”
“No thanks, garbage food.” Yuan Zhu righteously refused the local weird diet and pressed: “Did the Holy Light Mao Clan Insects fail again?”
“Yeah, I don’t understand why? Even true qi carrying faint Holy Light kills the insect eggs. I’ve now accepted the Holy Cough, so from now on I can’t even raise basic Mao Shi Worms. Boss, I’m too useless, I’ve let down your cultivation of me.”
Thinking about how accepting the Holy Cough had mutated her true qi attributes, making it impossible to even complete basic Mao Shi Worm hatching from then on, Little Girl’s eyes filled with tears, her heart shrouded in gloom. An indescribable sense of despair enveloped her whole body, making her feel weak in all limbs, suffocated and wanting to collapse to the ground.
As she spoke, her big bulging eyes began to drip tears, her tone carrying a sob, afraid that Yuan Zhu would look down on them and choose to abandon the siblings.
Seeing Little Girl’s aggrieved sobbing, Yuan Zhu rolled his eyes: “Why are you crying? If you can’t raise Mao Shi Worms, you can do other things. I’m not short of a meal for you. I chose you as a subordinate because you’re sharp and clever. Now that you’ve cultivated the Holy Cough Breathing Technique, you can summarize subtle experience changes for me—these are all valuable data to me. You siblings are very valuable.”
Little Girl suddenly looked up, gazing eagerly at Yuan Zhu: “Really?”
“Of course. Tell me your observation summary from these two days.”
“Mm-hmm!” Little Girl perked up again, pulling out a small notebook with crude pencil drawings of lines, then circles, triangles and other symbols, dots representing insect eggs, and wavy lines for bugs.
Although she was illiterate, after Yuan Zhu’s simple pointers, Little Girl grasped the essence of comparative experiments and invented a bunch of basic pictographic symbols to start recording experiments. This intelligence was wasted without schooling.
He discovered that this sibling pair had one with mutated intelligence and one with mutated physical body. The sister was a malnourished athletic waste, but smart; the younger brother wasn’t dumb, but extremely talented in martial arts cultivation and true qi practice.
In just two days, they completed the transformation and re-adaptation of the Holy Cough Breathing Technique. Smoothly absorbing and fusing the Holy Cough pollution Yuan Zhu had injected into his lungs into the Source Qi Breathing Method, eliminating the Holy Cough’s hidden dangers.
Of course, this was also because Yuan Zhu mercifully gave up the Holy Cough. Younger Brother’s behavior was like the Disease Garden devouring and digesting the Power of Holy Light, birthing Disease Goblins with Holy Light resistance.
Yuan Zhu didn’t detonate the Holy Cough, but let Younger Brother swallow a small amount through the Dao Seed System (Insect Pollution). The Holy Light Pollution was worn away, while the true qi was twisted, carrying faint Holy Cough attributes to fight rejection of other pollution in the body.
Now Little Girl had also taken a dose of Holy Cough Imprint and begun cultivating the Holy Cough Breathing Technique her brother had created, causing her limited true qi to be tainted with Holy Light, and batch after batch of nurtured and hatched Mao Shi Worms to die.
…
Little Girl flipped open her doodle experiment notes and began reporting to Yuan Zhu:
“In the first trial, I used primitive true qi to hatch 30 Mao Shi Worm Eggs, fed them Reverse Life Tree Purple Leaves, and they successfully survived. Then, per your request, Boss, I divided them into three groups: one receiving your Holy Light Radiation, one Shadow Erosion, and the last purely nurtured with true qi. Result: the first-generation Holy Light Mao Shi Worms all died, the Shadow Mao Shi Worms died one after another after persisting 2 hours due to excessive pollution concentration, while the true qi Mao Shi Worms survived smoothly.”
“In the second experiment, I used primitive true qi to re-hatch 20 insect eggs, divided into Holy Light and Shadow categories. Each category had pairs in groups, totaling five groups. Respectively at 10% intensity, 20% intensity and so on as you said, Boss… Final result: Holy Light Mao Shi Worms all died regardless of radiation strength. Instead, Shadow Mao Shi Worms survived smoothly after erosion below 30% pollution concentration, mutating into Dark Mao Shi Worms.”
“In the third experiment, having switched to cultivating the Holy Cough Breathing Technique, I decided to try with the highest survival rate Holy Cough True Qi, and Shopkeeper Lu’s Shadow True Qi. The larvae stimulated by faint Holy Light True Qi only lived a few more hours before dying one after another. Instead, Shopkeeper Lu’s Shadow True Qi had great effects—all survived. With slight differences from ordinary true qi Mao Shi Worms.”
Little Girl closed the notebook and summarized: “So I think Mao Shi Worms are restrained by Holy Light and all true qi carrying Holy Light attributes, like deadly poison—touch it and die. As for the other Shadow Power, though it also has pollution and life erosiveness, as long as the concentration is lowered, the insect eggs undergo pollution mutation but survive smoothly. If Shadow True Qi, all survive.”
Yuan Zhu lacked true qi with strong life aura (Insect System Pollution + Insect System Affinity), so he couldn’t hatch Mao Shi Worms, much less knew insect rearing little skills, and could only contract this job to Little Girl.
Fortunately, she was smart and sensible, quickly grasping his ideas and starting hands-on experiments. The results weren’t ideal, but her behavior pleased Yuan Zhu greatly.
At least the Native Mao Shi Worm and Shadow Mao Shi Worm branches were feasible. Only the Holy Light Mao Shi Worm project had died prematurely.
He wondered in his heart: “Why is that? I have no grudge against Mao Mao King; even the captain supports me cultivating Holy Light. Why, when it comes to her Mao Mao Worms, do they suddenly clash with me? Why are Mao Shi Worms intolerant to Holy Light?”
Little Spicy Stick: “As expected of a subordinate of the innately evil Mao Mao King! The upper beam is not straight, the lower beam is crooked. I see this Mao Mao King is at the end of its luck, suffering Holy Light heavenly punishment, not long for this world. Happy Home should be occupied by the virtuous!”
“Less bootlicking, we’re talking serious business!”
Little Spicy Stick: “I don’t understand either. I’m just a game sprite; Great Desolation Immortal Scripture is just a spy-type invasion cheat. Good at collecting, stealing, copying. It has auxiliary R&D effects but isn’t good at personal R&D.”
“Boss?” At this moment, Little Girl suddenly called softly to Yuan Zhu, with a hesitant, conflicted expression.
“What’s up? If you have ideas about this, speak boldly and freely.”
Little Girl hesitated for a moment, then decided to bootlick first: “Ever since following you, Boss, not only can we siblings eat our fill, we’ve also cleared the Three Insects control from our bodies, cleaned out Immortal Zombie Tendrils, Iron Poison and other pollution, and have high-concentration spiritual energy for cultivation. Without life pressure, I’ve refined a lot of true qi in my body—besides raising cicadas and doing experiments, I can’t even use it all up.”
Yuan Zhu: “So, what do you want? No need for thanks; I see potential in you siblings, investing in your future. Now just eat hard, cultivate well to get stronger, and repay me later.”
“Mm-hmm, Boss’s kindness can’t be repaid; I’ll work hard and repay you a hundredfold! But what I want to say isn’t that—gratitude I always keep in my heart and prove with actions!”
Hearing this, Yuan Zhu rolled his eyes. Alright, another glib Little Spicy Stick!
On the other side, Little Girl continued: “After completing the third comparative trial today, I was puzzled why Holy Cough True Qi also couldn’t raise Mao Shi Worms? Clearly Shadow True Qi and primitive true qi can. And before the experiment today, I first fed my spirit cicadas with Holy Cough True Qi—they were all in great condition, even clearing some accumulated Immortal Zombie Tendrils and Iron Poison in their bodies.”
Hearing this, Yuan Zhu also started guessing. Could it be incompatibility between Holy Light and Mao Shi Worms?
Both siblings had been hit by Holy Cough; aside from upper respiratory burning pain, the rest were benign side effects, even creating the Holy Cough Breathing Technique to reverse-refine Holy Light Pollution. This showed Insect System Dao Seed was compatible with Holy Light.
Even the frailer spirit cicadas, washed by Holy Cough True Qi, not only didn’t die but purified pollution, had increased appetite, and healthier bodies—also a benign reaction.
So, the problem was still with the Mao Shi Worms. These Mao Mao King insect eggs were magical, but clashed with Bubble World’s spirit insects—not the same system. Though both insect categories, they were two pollution systems.
Just like Nuwa-molded humans, versus humans named Nai Fei Tian, and Azeroth humans. Three kinds of humans: one clay, one gods and demons skewer, one flesh curse. Mao Shi Worms and native insects had a similar relationship.
Little Girl continued: “I was puzzled by the reaction between Holy Light and Mao Shi Worms. Plus, with excess true qi in my body, and Commander Zuo sending many spirit insects to the Insect Rearing Room yesterday, I couldn’t help but curiously try some more experiments.”
Seeing her slightly uneasy expression, Yuan Zhu reassured: “Don’t worry, I don’t know insect rearing anyway. This Insect Rearing Room is prepared for you. Even if you ruin some ordinary spirit insects, you can have Old Zuo send more. Tell me, what did you do with Holy Cough True Qi?”
“Just like feeding the spirit cicadas, I stimulated and nurtured different dormant larvae with Holy Cough True Qi, and discovered something strange. The moth-class and butterfly-class spirit insect larvae, upon contact with Holy Cough True Qi, reacted just like Mao Shi Worms—dying not long after.”
Little Girl, having killed a large number of spirit insect larvae, said weakly, trying to gloss over it.
Yuan Zhu froze there, the two characters Great Moth flashing in his mind! This thing was not only one of the Twelve Mandates, but also one of the Holy Church’s Eight Holy Kings, the source of Holy Light.
So the Mao Shi Worms’ death had nothing to do with mutual generation and restraint, but was related to the Great Moth?
Little Girl continued reporting: “Besides moth-class and butterfly-class larvae, which were easily killed by Holy Cough True Qi; I also found that shell-class larvae adapted very well to Holy Light. Cicada-class larvae were one type, but not the highest affinity. I found Dung Beetle had the highest Holy Light affinity!”
Yuan Zhu, pondering if there was a hidden link between Great Moth and Dao Seed – Insect Pollution, was suddenly struck hard by Dung Beetle.
Why did Dung Beetle have high Holy Light affinity? And why were moth-class and butterfly-class, represented by Great Moth—one of the Holy Light spokespersons—restrained to death by Holy Light?
Little Spicy Stick suddenly reminded: “In the Basic Holy Light Manual given by the Old Temple Priest, it records that any Holy Church Monk’s Initial Holy Mark contains faint information from the Eight Holy Kings. The Eight Holy Kings’ highest status is because they wrote their respective Holy Light Information into the primordial Holy Light.”
“All Holy Light System newcomers, after burning life, release Initial Holy Light carrying faint attributes of the Eight Holy Kings. But as Seal Casting intensifies, the Holy Seal absorbs various pollution ashes, diluting or selectively strengthening these initial information. Unless choosing a specific Holy King’s Holy Light path, the initial information is completely washed away after Three Seals.”
Yuan Zhu hadn’t had the patience to finish the manual, but fortunately Little Spicy Stick had recorded everything.
“So my Holy Light retains faint Great Moth Power, stimulating the Mao Shi Worms and native moth/butterfly-class larvae to all die suddenly?”
Little Spicy Stick nodded: “Right! Great Moth must have a hidden, clashing link with this Underground World—no! With all moth/butterfly-class insects in the entire Du Ling World?”
Looking at Little Girl waiting for judgment on the side, Yuan Zhu encouraged: “Well done, this discovery is very useful to me. Keep up the good work. If interested, try cultivating a batch of Holy Light Dung… Beetles to replace Holy Light Mao Shi Worms.”
“Mm, I will!”
“Also, study hard. I’ve arranged for Old Zuo to buy you a Technician Insect Scroll on alchemy.”
“Thanks Boss, I won’t let you down!”
