Chapter 124: Materialized Ghost Companion, Path To Mass Production
Three hours passed in a flash. Yuan Zhu, who had been having a great time playing in the cramped Cockroach Village with Little Spicy Stick, suddenly heard a “Ding!” notification sound in his ear, like a microwave finishing heating, reminding him to eat.
Spicy Stick, who was manipulating strands of gray-white mist around her to rub out a straight wooden tube with bare hands and was about to provoke the Boss, saw Yuan Zhu suddenly freeze and asked in confusion, “Boss, what’s wrong? Did you drop line?”
As she spoke, she leaned forward suspiciously, wanting to poke her Boss’s nostril with the wooden tube in her hand.
Smack!
Yuan Zhu slapped her little head: “Super Ghost Companion refined! Let’s return to reality.”
With that, he closed Cockroach Village and returned to the Tiger Demon’s true body along with Little Spicy Stick. A pair of Dark Gold pupils opened in the pitch-black Shadow Dream Hole, then he sensed that this body had become stronger.
Mana Points had increased by more than 1/3 compared to when he first arrived. The health bar had also grown a bit, but overall not as much as the Mana Bar, and the health was starting to decline.
This was due to the Tiger Demon not eating for a long time and consuming a large amount of Vitality to fill the gaps in Flesh growth and Reinforcement. Just one easily digestible High-Energy Food swallowed into the Universe Within The Belly would solve the problem.
Then, he shifted his gaze to the corner of the Shadow Space, where a huge Rhinoceros Beetle, pitch black all over and reflecting metallic sheen, was crouching on the ground, having converged all its aura, like a visible but imperceptible ‘Ghost Assassin’, quietly watching him.
New generation Great Emperor (Earth) Rank Magic Worm Ghost Companion fresh out of the oven!
Just one glance, and the basic data of this Shadow Magic Worm appeared in his mind. Its size was about that of a Three-wheeled Cart.
The main body was refined by breaking out of a strong Earth Rank Human Cocoon. Unlike the Eggplant Head Ghost that could freely change form and become liquid Shadow Pollution, this Magic Worm had a hard and heavy Super Exoskeleton, carried Shadow attributes, but could not shadowize, always maintaining a solid material structure.
The Tiger Demon beckoned with a finger, and the Shadow Magic Worm crawled in front of it to accept its master’s inspection.
Innate Ability Claw activated, sharp Bone Blade claws scraped across the pitch-black Exoskeleton, producing a harsh grating sound, leaving four deep scratches.
The Tiger Demon’s first impression was ‘sturdy’, like cutting metal with tiger claws.
Then it suddenly unleashed full power, a Skeletal Heavy Claw slamming down from above, heavily smashing onto the Rhinoceros Beetle’s back, flattening the Shadow Magic Worm a bit. The palm felt like slapping an iron lump, sensing obvious compression buffering.
Looking down, this Magic Worm only had black asphalt oozing from deep in the Exoskeleton’s air holes, blood flowing from cracked Bone gaps, but the overall structure hadn’t collapsed. The Internal Injury instead repaired rapidly, becoming solid and sturdy again.
“Tough!”
Then, it had the Rhinoceros Beetle charge at itself. With a ‘Boom!’, the Tiger Demon’s big claw blocked its Horn. As a result, from overconfidence, it was pushed back two steps by the Rhinoceros Beetle’s sudden burst of brute force sprint, before steadying again.
What great strength!
After a simple test, the Tiger Demon confirmed the Shadow Magic Worm was a brand new Ghost Companion. Formed by mixing 70% Extraordinary Shadow Pollution with 30% Super Shadow Exoskeleton.
To be precise, mere Shadow Pollution couldn’t completely refine a complete Earth Rank Demonic Giant Insect. Inside the finished Ghost Companion, sturdy Bone Structure remained unrefined.
This caused the Shadow Magic Worm to be unable to twist and deform freely like the Eggplant Head Ghost, turning into liquid to infiltrate gaps. It always maintained the Demonic Giant Insect’s form structure, leaning more toward Entity Ghostly Creatures.
On one hand, this highlighted Shadow Power’s consistent weakness, unable to beat Holy Light in equal units, now unable to refine Earth Rank Magic Worm; but on the other hand, it proved the Shadow Magic Worm had real skills, enduring the Shadow Dream Hole Ghost Companion Formula refinement throughout, and even after becoming a Ghost Companion, still retaining 30% unyielding pride!
…
After simply recording the Rhinoceros Beetle’s data, Yuan Zhu bound it to a Worm Pillar, then brought it out of the Shadow Dream Hole and summoned Commander Zuo, who was working hard on formulating the Plan.
Seeing the aura-converged Rhinoceros Beetle, Commander Zuo was slightly surprised: “This is…?”
Yuan Zhu: “Great Emperor Rank Shadow Magic Worm. I need you to test its Strength. Wait, I’ll transfer its control to you. From today on, it’s your battle pet, with Cultivation Consumption covered by your Worm Pillar.”
After transferring the Unicorn Great Emperor’s usage rights to him, Yuan Zhu started daydreaming, wondering if refining Commander Zuo into a Ghost Companion could breed a Heavenly Emperor Rank Magic Worm?
At the same time, Commander Zuo, who gained control of the Rhinoceros Beetle, got excited. It was his first time operating a Demonic Giant Insect. This Technology had always been in the hands of the Nomadic Family. He’d never heard of any Insect City having the ability to control Demonic Giant Insects.
With just this one method, he was convinced the Shadow Domain had the qualifications to build a city!
Provided it could withstand the Nomadic Family’s fierce counterattack and extermination after detection; and subsequent greedy plundering from other Insect Cities.
Boom! Boom boom!
He thought this in his mind, but his hands didn’t slow down. He started by condensing strands of Qi Threads, forming a True Qi fist outside his body, bombarding the Shadow Magic Worm, which was casually resisted and resolved.
Then Commander Zuo kept increasing attack intensity, displaying one True Qi Martial Skill after another with a slightly fantastical style, gorgeous effects looking impressive. On the other side, the Shadow Giant Insect charged wildly, showing strong True Qi Resistance, and condensed large amounts of Shadow Organization (Blade Tentacles) with Extraordinary Toughness around its body for primitive savage counterattacks.
After a seemingly intense but controlled spar, the Shadow Magic Worm was unilaterally crushed. However, neither Yuan Zhu nor Commander Zuo felt much disappointment; instead, they nodded secretly, thinking it performed well.
The Shadow Magic Worm’s basic metrics like Power, Defense, Resistance, etc., were exceptionally excellent. It could be confirmed that in that unrefinable Shadow Unyielding Pride Bone, traces of Bug Gold combined with organic Exoskeleton remained, bringing powerful Defense, durability, True Qi Resistance…
Once the Magic Worm’s interior suffered heavy damage, penetrated by True Qi Threads causing internal explosion, it would trigger the Ghost Companion’s Dataized Pollution trait for quick repair. Ghost Companions have no fatal injuries, having transcended living beings, and can continuously self-repair with Supernatural Pollution until Dataized Shadow Pollution is exhausted.
As for defects, it completely lost human-level Intelligence, only possessing insect-level predation instincts, without understanding tactical application.
The True Qi inside its body was completely gone, replaced only by Shadow Power, unable to perform profound True Qi Martial Skills.
Commander Zuo explained, “Demonic Giant Insects themselves don’t know Martial Arts; they rely on their powerfully qualified bodies. The more Magic Worms, cultivators, and kin they hunt and eat, the larger their size, the higher their Resistance, and they awaken some special Innate Abilities.”
From his introduction, Demonic Giant Insects leaned more toward Insect System expression: primitive and low-intelligence, atavistic, with no Technology content. True Qi Martial Skills were Kunlun System derivatives based on Meridians, Acupoints, True Qi foundation, for the Knight System’s Combat Martial Arts.
“How strong is it?”
Commander Zuo estimated in his mind: “Earth Rank 2nd Realm, intensity over 60 Acupoints. Weaknesses are obvious. If controlled by me, over 5 in number, combined with small Binding Magic Array, Confident to surround and kill same rank! My Lord, I suggest you select high-value Insect Race Cultivators for refinement, like flight-capable Dao Seeds, agile-type Dao Seeds… Also, if we can master the Nomadic Family’s Insect Controlling Technique, we can further unleash their power.”
If able to refine a batch of flying Demonic Giant Insects—bees, mosquitoes, dragonflies… or Shadow Mantises… such agile Magic Worms would have even more terrifying burst damage.
“No
Yuan Zhu was somewhat satisfied with the ‘Shadow Magic Worm’ and clearly felt its space occupancy on the Ghost Companion supernatural ability.
Four Eggplant Head Ghosts brought no pressure to the Tiger Demon. But if switched to [Shadow Magic Worm], he felt that the current Tiger Demon could control around 20, reaching the upper limit.
As for the [Shadow Domain], it can store up to about 50 at the limit (extreme troop outbreak). Once done, the Shadow Power plundered and converted by the Domain will balance with the Magic Worm’s consumption, and can no longer drive other projects.
Finally, a batch of ‘Magic Worms’ can also be given to the employees, who will bear the cost themselves, further increasing the total troop count. In other words, once 【Shadow Domain】 activates poor soldier mode, it can rapidly produce a considerable amount of troops in the short term?
This finally gave him some sense of security. However, although the Shadow Magic Worm’s paper data looked good, its comprehensive abilities were much inferior to the Eggplant Head Ghost.
His own Eggplant Ghost was intelligent and versatile, capable of planting Shadow Eggplant, whose fruit could create Brain Eggplant, with numerous byproducts. They could release vines that intertwined and entangled each other to create simplified Magic Arrays; they could also pollute and erode a large area of land.
In short, it had very high creativity, and even a bit of intelligence (deficiency).
In comparison, this Shadow Magic Worm could not shapeshift and was extremely dull.
Yuan Zhu stared intently at the Darkness Rhinoceros Beetle and suddenly asked: “What special value do the Demonic Giant Insects of the Underground World generally have?”
Zuo Fan: “Demonic Giant Insects are fed with wild Magic Worms, constantly absorbing and accumulating Iron Poison, so their exoskeleton has an extremely high Bug Gold content, making it a natural material for Ritual Implement refinement. Once killed, their corpses can be used to cultivate high-rank Spirit Grass. Additionally, the Nomadic Family masters a technique to refine Giant Worms into vehicles, which can isolate external pollution, dig tunnels in the Underground World to traverse forbidden zones, and even use giant Demonic Giant Insects for combat.”
“The cauldrons in the Alchemy Room are also refined from the corpse shells of Demonic Giant Insects. Moreover, the Armor Casting method is also related to Demonic Giant Insects. As for me, if I can break through to Heaven Rank, I will need to find a live cicada-type Demonic Giant Insect, implant my own Insect Armor into its body, thoroughly drain all its essence, and imbue it with a soul. The stronger the sacrificed Magic Worm, the greater the potential for Armor Casting.”
Yuan Zhu, who had originally been somewhat disdainful of the Shadow Magic Worm, suddenly changed his expression and became amiable toward the Unicorn Great Emperor. It turned out it wasn’t useless; this Unyielding Proud Bone was the true essence of its body.
Good treasure, good treasure, this was a Ghost Companion path to wealth!
“I’ll take it for a physical examination first, and return it to you later.”
Commander Zuo naturally had no objections: “Please proceed, sir.”
“Prepare well, and if nothing unexpected happens, you will have five more Shadow Magic Worms to conquer all directions for me!”
Zuo Fan immediately guaranteed: “I will lead them to clean up the threats around the camp, harvest enough Polluted Substances, fill the Shadow Dream Hole to sustain the camp’s growth and expansion.”
…
Back in the Bedroom, he conducted a detailed inspection of the Shadow Magic Worm again and found that the Giant Worm Ghost Companion’s body could be divided into three parts:
First was the unshakable Unyielding Proud Bone, with the highest gold content. Similar to a car’s steel frame, it occupied 30%, solid and heavy, retaining the complete Insect exoskeleton structure, containing Bug Gold.
Next was the standard Ghost Companion raw material, digitized Shadow Pollution, occupying 50%. When extracted separately, it could be refined into Little Spicy Sticks, or used to fill defects in other Ghost Companions.
Finally, the Insect System biological tissue of Dao Seed-Meridians-Acupoints, after Ghost Companion refinement, completely lost its original properties and turned into a mass of Mutated Tissue alienation, occupying 20%. It was distributed throughout the interior of the exoskeleton shell, enhancing the Magic Worm’s strength and toughness, and was the source of its power.
Now, this Mutated Tissue was spread like a grid throughout the Magic Worm’s body, adhering to the Bone, with Shadow Pollution conduction effects. Yuan Zhu discovered that this mass of Mutated Tissue was the same type of item as Ghost Companion wetware.
If the Magic Worm was disassembled, this mass of Mutated Tissue could be transplanted into other Ghost Companions, granting them the Rhinoceros Beetle’s powerful stamina, power, toughness… far superior to the eyeballs, throats, hearts… absorbed by the four Eggplant Head brothers.
This mass of Mutated Tissue contained the potential to redifferentiate into a Meridian System, granting Ghost Companions the potential for Cultivation and Qi Refining…
He released the Rhinoceros Beetle again, letting it automatically return near the Worm Pillar to find its master.
Yuan Zhu carried the second sacrifice and drilled into the Shadow Dream Hole again, his heart exhilarated with a new goal and direction: “I have mastered a simple local specialty raw material preparation technique. I can extract three materials: Unyielding Proud Bone, original Spiritual Root, and digitized Shadow Pollution. Now, I need more technology books and Insect Scrolls to enrich the Database. Then, relying on the convenience of the Shadow Domain, I can conduct deeper scientific research…”
Little Spicy Stick: “This is the correct way to use the Great Desolation Immortal Scripture! Boss, you have already embarked on a smooth path.”
“But it’s not enough. Unyielding Proud Bone can be refined into giant mecha vehicles, into cauldrons, into super flower pots, used for Armor Casting… These techniques are all held by the Technician Alliance, and I must seize them!”
Little Spicy Stick advised: “Take it step by step, we’re just starting out, no need to rush.”
“I lack too many things, from population to Supplies, from technology to… I’m already impatient to rampage everywhere. Mass produce troops, plunder, mass produce more troops, plunder more, to make up for the shortcomings and enter a virtuous cycle.”
