Chapter 139: Crystal Silkworm Cocoon
After the Meng Xi Broadcast entered its second loop playback, Yuan Zhu turned off the Mechanical Mouse’s encrypted call mode.
After deleting the self-boasting, meaningless nonsense, and filler, the intelligence provided by Meng Xi was still quite valuable, filling in many of his own intelligence gaps and giving him more understanding of other Insect Cities in the Underground World.
Compared to the Cao Ling City where the other party had ‘settled (been imprisoned)’, Cicada City was undoubtedly an extremely dominant underground city.
According to the analysis of the intelligence revealed by the other party, Cao Ling City is jointly controlled by three different Insectoid Races. There are 7 Heavenly Rank Cultivators in total, and the City Lord is also on a rotation system. Therefore, the Insect City is relatively united and stable internally, but is at a disadvantage compared to surrounding Insect Cities, so they place special emphasis on ‘alien black technology’.
Knowing full well that Meng Xiyue was acting a bit off, he still gritted his teeth and provided raw materials to support her research.
In comparison, Cicada City’s Heavenly Ranks are nearly double those of Cao Ling City, and the core race group is only the Cicada Tribe, with 13 Dream Holes opened in the past century. Although there are also Heavenly Ranks from foreign races, there are three ‘secondary cities’ near Cicada City, and the main lineage is still the Cicada Tribe. Such a force can already contend with any Technician Family.
In addition, Meng Xiyue’s encrypted intelligence contained a large amount of everyday civilian information that Yuan Zhu simply didn’t have time to pay attention to.
After all, he was taking a different route: obtaining the highest achievement Dream Hole right from the start, then controlling a high-level undercover (Commander Zuo), and then using black technology to create a Shadow Domain.
Completely detached from native civilization and the basic route throughout. Now, using his teammate’s intelligence to fill in a small piece of the puzzle, he discovered that digging the corner of Cicada City was indeed the royal path!
…
After turning off the mouse, Yuan Zhu continued waiting in place.
The squad members below controlled Shadow Magic Worms to dig downward along the foundation of the giant withered wood, establishing a shelter, and using the lingering spiritual energy field of the Withered Wood for protection.
Seeing that this group was temporarily safe, Yuan Zhu followed his curiosity and began climbing up the giant wood. He supported a layer of Holy Light Force Field Barrier on his body surface to resist the pollution invasion from the Surface World. Gazing into the boundless distance.
If the Underground World gave him a feeling of oppression and suffocation, then the surface was another kind of despair and lifelessness. The entire world was a desert, with not a hint of vitality visible; the sky was cracked, with daily gale-force winds, and the Black Storms during danger periods were apocalyptic disasters.
Faced with the World Will’s invitation, he only wanted to say one thing: “No hope, goodbye!”
According to the guide’s introduction, this team outing had the best luck in recent years, with neither a Black Storm nor any Undead Knights appearing nearby. They only encountered a brief Corrosive Iron Rain while waiting for nightfall.
Metal particles (Iron Poison) laden with deadly poison in the air condensed into corrosive acid rain, falling from the sky. The raindrops were sometimes rusty red, sometimes copper green, sometimes orange yellow… When they dripped onto the ground, they exhibited the corrosive effect of alien acid blood.
Over the past century, such decaying cloud masses have never stopped, constantly moving in the atmosphere, strangling plants that might have taken root on the surface, corroding and poisoning resilient insects, ultimately selecting Pollution Magic Worms that coexist with Iron Poison.
Facing this toxic rain that came and went quickly, Yuan Zhu’s squad took out a kind of Insect Wax Umbrella for resistance. More Corrosive Iron Rain gathered, seeping into the surface, polluting groundwater, corroding the Root Network, and ultimately spreading in the Underground World in the form of Iron Poison.
Besides this colorful metal toxic rain, Yuan Zhu had not encountered the renowned Black Storm. After waiting nearly 5 hours back and forth, the rifts in the firmament were fully filled by the Starry Sky, so the originally dark red sky curtain quickly switched to a cracked Starry Sky style.
Just like a TV show with a cracked screen suddenly switching channels to a starry sky scene. A ‘light blue’ moon that Yuan Zhu found somewhat familiar appeared in one corner of the cracked sky curtain.
Yuan Zhu: “Hey, Snake Snake. What color is this moon?”
Snake Snake: “Goose yellow, warm and toasty, like a pancake…”
Depending on the moon-viewer’s mood, personality, three views cognition, mental attributes, and soul differences, it presents different colors. This Moon is Du Ling’s, confirmed.
“I didn’t expect that we could really see Du Ling’s moon in the Nightmare Bubble Layer. The Moon’s status is indeed very high.”
The Bubble World clearly takes the real planet (Du Ling) as the boundary, collapsing inward to form the inner layer world; yet the Moon is a supernatural celestial body external to reality, belonging to the Outer World.
Snake Snake: “Last time in the Little Xihong Realm, didn’t we also… Well, last time we only saw stars. But the Star Realm to which the stars belong is on the same layer as the Moon. This world’s spatial structure doesn’t seem very scientific.”
As the Starry Sky spread out beyond the firmament, Yuan Zhu quickly returned to the surface and stood on the periphery watching the squad’s Moon Worship Ceremony.
With Yuan Zhu providing protection, the entire process was not disturbed by the outside world. Occasionally, a few giant magic worms were attracted and were secretly swallowed into the Universe Within The Belly by the Tiger Demon.
The ceremony on the other side was even simpler and more brutal. The guide led a group of low-level residents, arranging several pre-made Magic Array Items in a circle in order, then using some refined root tendrils and tube worms to connect this simple magic array to the giant withered wood.
Then, they placed some low-value tributes. Everyone then knelt long towards the moon’s direction, placing the Spirit Insects and Caterpillars they carried in containers and setting them in front of themselves.
The Moon Worship Ceremony proceeded quietly and slowly like this…
Yuan Zhu, who watched the entire process, gradually figured out the core elements of this ‘ritual’. It had little to do with the natives’ worship; it was entirely these remnants of the Immortal Realm Tree’s giant wood wreckage that naturally possessed the instinct to absorb moonlight essence during the full moon.
Back when the Immortal Realm Tree was not destroyed, on full moon days in the Bubble World, perhaps countless giant woods grown from the Root Network would plunder moonlight essence under the night sky, gathering it to nourish and strengthen themselves.
Now, in the desert wasteland, the short and long remnants of giant wood could still draw small amounts of Moonlight to gather on the withered wood surface. But that was it; no more lush branches and leaves, no flowering or fruiting, and even the Root Network beneath the giant wood had lost activity, no longer absorbing moonlight.
When dawn comes, will this moonlight drawn by the withered wood dissipate again?
The natives used simple Magic Arrays connected to the withered wood to create the Moon Worship Ceremony, actually absorbing moonlight mixed into Qi Threads via the Source Qi Breathing Method to increase their own and their Spirit Insects’ Spiritual Essence.
Seeing this scene, Yuan Zhu suddenly understood, connecting all the knowledge points: “Insect System Spiritual Essence is the essence of Essence, Qi, Spirit, the core of Qi Threads, and the nourishment for the Primordial Spirit. Moon is the carrier of the Sea of Consciousness. Moon Worship Ceremony absorbs Moonlight… This is nourishing the soul. No wonder Moon Worship can shorten cultivation time and accelerate getting stronger; essentially, it’s absorbing the ‘soul essence’ projected by the Moon to strengthen the Primordial Spirit?”
Thinking of this, he reached out his palm to touch the withered wood, trying to draw a portion of moonlight. The Moonlight landed in his palm, but neither Shadow nor Holy Light reacted, unable to absorb it as nourishment.
“?? Holy Light doesn’t work either?”
His Holy Light is clearly biased towards mental will, able to change with cognition and belief, like the idealist power of a Zanpakuto. Yet it was completely incompatible with Moonlight?
Little Spicy Stick: “How about trying the Breathing Method?”
With the explosive progress in Seal Casting, Yuan Zhu’s Holy Seal, after absorbing a large amount of Shadow Magic Worm Ash, finally nurtured a second exclusive ‘Holy Light Skill: Breathing Method’.
Originally, Insect Ash could give birth to many related abilities, but influenced by the Holy Cough upper respiratory disease, it ultimately locked onto the linked-capability Breathing Method.
Insect System cultivators take the Dao Seed (hardware) as the foundation, and through the Breathing Method (system software), they can inhale Polluting Energy, refine it into True Qi to nourish the Dao Seed, shape the Meridian Structure, transform Physical Strength, and wield True Qi energy.
But Yuan Zhu’s Breathing Method was relatively useless; first, he had no Dao Seed in his body. Second, Holy Light is a one-time emission product after burning life; completely different from True Qi, this long-term storable life energy that can be nurtured to strengthen the body and shaped at will.
After obtaining the Breathing Method, Yuan Zhu had tried it, but with no effect. Because his body lacked the hardware support of Meridians and Dao Seed.
This skill loads Breathing Method information via Holy Light (medium), irradiates (attacks) other Insect City residents, forcibly baptizes them, injecting ‘forbidden knowledge’ at the soul level, forcing them to gain the garbage information attack method of Holy Cough Breathing Technique.
In other words, all natives with Dao Seeds in their bodies, upon being irradiated by Breathing Method Holy Light and passively preached to, gain that forbidden knowledge. Combined with Holy Light Particle infection, potential Holy Light True Qi users can be rapidly developed.
This attack doesn’t even count as proper preaching. It just infects the True Qi System with Holy Light attributes, far from devoting to Holy Light and joining the Holy Church.
Therefore, Yuan Zhu was very surprised that the Holy Seal nurtured this skill, feeling a strong sense of disappointment like opening a blind box and getting garbage.
But fortunately, Holy Light is extremely idealist; with dedicated research and development, it might turn trash into treasure.
After multiple attempts, Yuan Zhu did manage to create something new. He shaped the viscous Holy Light (Holy Cough) in his body starting from the lungs, according to the Meridian System structure, molding the Holy Cough within…
Using a portion of life to ignite Holy Cough, imagining it as a mass of hot, sticky candy, pulling threads inside the body to form a highly precise twelve meridians, spreading throughout the body.
This way, he could forcibly operate the Breathing Method with the temporarily constructed Holy Cough-Meridian, allowing more life-burning released Holy Light to circulate in the Holy Cough-disease meridian channels, then using the Breathing Method to convert the Holy Light into True Qi.
The originally crude Holy Light, after Breathing Method conversion, gained ‘True Qi/Holy Light duality’, enabling the use of various Holy Light Martial Skills.
This change reminded him of Holy Seal. Yellow Heaven Register. Once receiving the register, one could release a series of Holy Light Dao techniques with a single Holy Seal, equivalent to gaining multiple Holy Light skills.
Conversely, other Holy Seals only have one basic function; to trigger more abilities, one must cast the Second Seal, Third Seal, ultimately triggering ‘set effects’.
But the Holy Cough-Breathing Method also has a huge flaw: unprecedented ‘precise control’. First, maintain a one-time Holy Cough to construct precise meridian structure; then, on this basis, continue burning life to release one-time Holy Light, using Breathing Method to stably produce Holy Light True Qi; finally, on the two-stage precise operation, continue to operate and release True Qi Martial Skill, three-stage precise operation.
After all this ends, the Holy Light completely dissipates. It leaves no meridian structure or body reinforcement effects.
After all, it’s a temporary True Qi effect forged with Holy Light, completely unrelated to proper Dao Seed, Meridians, Acupoints, True Qi, Primordial Spirit.
Now, the Little Spicy Stick began egging Yuan Zhu on to use double Holy Light to simultaneously maintain Holy Cough + Breathing Method, simulating Qi Refining Technique in an unrewarding effort to absorb moonlight.
So he believed the Little Spicy Stick’s nonsense, fully concentrating, high-difficulty manipulating Holy Light that fundamentally shouldn’t be used this way, simulating Breathing Method to absorb moonlight.
The result was that Moonlight seemed to become some kind of ‘soul supplement’? After being incorporated into Holy Light, it circulated once in the Holy Seal and was released one-time… It didn’t flow into his own soul at all.
Little Spicy Stick asked curiously: “Did it succeed?”
“My spirit and soul gained no benefits; instead, consumption and output were extremely intense. However… the moonlight seems to have been broken down into something like Soul Ash, slightly optimizing the Holy Seal, with very weak effects.”
Another round of largely meaningless attempt, just like using Holy Light to simulate True Qi—twice the effort for half the result.
While he was tirelessly tinkering with Holy Light, the Moon Worship Ceremony on the other side was showing progress. Those Spirit Insects slowly accumulating Spiritual Essence through Qi Threads, building transformation potential, seemed to have even deeper foundations in perception?
Somewhat like Sun Gohan after being blessed and reinforced by the World King—did he get stronger? Really! Did he really get stronger? Really! Did his appearance change obviously? It changed!
But the semi-transparent crystal bug babies provided by Mao Mao King were different; these Crystal Silkworms rapidly transformed after contacting and absorbing the energy of Moonlight, with dense Starlight spots flashing on their body surfaces.
Then, at these light spot positions, thread-like crystal lines were released, intertwining on the body surface, ultimately condensing into a beautiful Gem Cocoon.
These ordinary cultivators, under Yuan Zhu’s command, continuously absorbed and refined Moonlight, injecting True Qi into Qi Threads and passing it into the Crystal Silkworms’ bodies. After absorbing enough Spiritual Essence, one Crystal Silkworm after another successively ejected solid crystal threads, wrapping themselves into Crystal Silkworm Cocoons.
“Is this the raw material that Mao Mao King needs?”
Yuan Zhu picked one up and examined it closely. Unlike his own Shadow Caterpillar’s one-time quickly evaporating Shadow Threads; this Crystal Silkworm Silk is solid matter that doesn’t dissipate, with stable properties, persisting indefinitely. Moreover, it inherits the Moonlight’s ‘Spirit/soul attributes’.
