Astral Gods

Chapter 2 Special Insect Eggs

The news that an insect egg with primal force fluctuations had appeared in Zizhu's territory quickly spread throughout the Twin-Forked Rhinoceros Beetle tribe. Many rhinoceros beetle warriors were very curious about the insect egg with primal force fluctuations and came to Zizhu's territory to see it.

The rhinoceros beetle warrior possesses three elemental talents: metal, earth, and strength. At the advanced warrior stage, Zizhu cannot perfectly control metal, but it can already control soil very well.

It used soil to make a half-meter-sized incubation box, which was filled with soil and rotten wood. The rhinoceros beetle egg that was emitting Force fluctuations, along with the other two rhinoceros beetle eggs that were with it, were also placed in the soil box.

One group after another of the tribe's rhinoceros beetle warriors took turns visiting the insect egg.

The mental energy swept wildly inside the incubator. Some of these rhinoceros beetle warriors were four or five meters tall, charging through the forest like tanks. Others were only twenty or thirty centimeters in size, but they were still very fierce. Ordinary trees could be snapped in half by the halberds on their heads.

They lined up to watch, and after the lord-level and mountain lord-level rhinoceros beetle warriors in front had finished watching, the high-level and mid-level warriors also came over to watch.

Some of the novice warriors even lay down beside the incubator, eagerly shouting, "Let me see! Let me see!"

"Go away, go away." Seeing that the little guys were trying to pull the incubator off, Zizhu chased them out of the nest chamber.

The Double-Forked Rhinoceros Beetle tribe is not large, with fewer than 300 rhinoceros beetle warriors in total. There are only seven or eight lords, and barely one insect king, who was promoted to insect king only through the support of tribe resources.

Even so, on this large island of over 13 square kilometers, they are considered one of the 17 major tribes due to their strong fighting power, although they are ranked last.

To Zizhu's surprise, the insect egg, which was radiating primal energy fluctuations, actually alarmed the Green Bamboo Armor King within the tribe.

Outside the Purple Pearl Nest Chamber, a gigantic rhinoceros beetle, over five meters long, stood outside.

Beside it, six or seven rhinoceros beetle warriors, slightly smaller than it, gathered. These were the lords and kings of the tribe.

The giant rhinoceros beetle, leading the group, said to Zizhu, "Zizhu, this insect egg looks quite unusual. Should I take it back to Ancestral Peak?"

"No, this is my junior. I will raise it myself and protect it." Purple Pearl stubbornly shook its tentacles.

Another rhinoceros beetle warrior standing next to it also spoke up: "Since this insect egg was found in the Purple Pearl Territory, let it be raised."

Although there's a slight fluctuation of Force energy right now, it's still uncertain whether they can become Force warriors, don't you think? Besides, with me here, these insect eggs won't be in any danger.

"Alright then." Seeing that the Purple Ridge lineage was unwilling to give up the insect egg, the Green Bamboo Armor King had no choice but to abandon his thoughts: "Then you must protect it well."

Lord Zili, an elder of Zizhu, said, "King Qingzhu, rest assured, I will send another rhinoceros beetle warrior to take turns guarding it, and I guarantee that nothing will go wrong."

King Green Bamboo Armor tapped its antennae: "I trust Zi Li to handle things. Right now, there are very few rhinoceros beetle warriors in our tribe. Every rhinoceros beetle that has the potential to become a Force Warrior is extremely precious. You must keep an eye on them."

"We understand!"

……

Lord Zili sent a rhinoceros beetle warrior named Zitong to assist Zizhu in nurturing the rhinoceros beetle eggs, as agreed.

"Purple Bead," said the rhinoceros beetle warrior named Purple Tree, who was a few years younger than Purple Bead and was currently only a high-level second-instar beetle. It emitted a spiritual power: "I will stay here with you for a while."

"Okay," Zizhu replied. "The incubation period for the insect eggs is only about twenty days. The larvae inside should hatch soon. We need to be careful after the larvae hatch, but it's not a big deal right now."

"Yes, I understand!"

Purple Pearl and Purple Tree take turns guarding the incubator. With two insects around, the risk of accidents has been minimized.

An incubator is not simply placed inside the nesting chamber; its humidity and temperature must also be carefully monitored.

After Zitong was promoted to a high-level warrior, she also began to train junior warriors and was quite familiar with the training methods.

The next day it got to work. It took a piece of damp, rotten wood and scraped it into sawdust with its forelegs to increase the humidity in the incubator.

It suddenly sensed something was wrong and quickly released its spiritual power, calling out to Zizhu: "Zizhu, Zizhu, come and take a look, something's wrong with this insect egg."

"What's wrong? What's wrong?" Zizhu, who was outside checking on the growth of a common rhinoceros beetle, quickly ran back to the nest and focused her mental energy on the incubation box to see what was wrong.

Zitong was somewhat confused: "Is this insect egg drawing upon the Force?"

"Absorbing the Force?" Zizhu sensed carefully and found that the Force around the nest chamber was indeed being slowly absorbed by the insect eggs.

"This is really strange. How can insect eggs absorb primal force?" Zizhu was greatly surprised by this scene.

"Purple Bead, what's going on? I've only ever heard of Zerg warriors and Life Seeds drawing on the Force, but I've never seen Zerg eggs draw on the Force. Should we inform Lord Purple Plum and the others?"

Zizhu thought for a moment and said, "Don't notify them yet, let's observe first."

It turned around and went back to the depths of the nest to retrieve a raw stone. It picked up the raw stone with its forelegs and scraped it, and the overflowing primal force was quickly absorbed by the insect eggs.

"Being able to absorb the primal force from the raw stones doesn't seem like a bad thing." After pondering for a moment, Zizhu scraped one raw stone and then scraped another.

Strangely, this insect egg seemed to be extremely lacking in primal force. Even though the purple bead kept scraping the primal stone against it, it was still being absorbed by it continuously, as if it was not satisfied at all.

"This is so strange, so strange!" Finally, Zitong and Zizhu used their claws to scrape the raw stone together, scraping until it got dark. They spent two hundred raw stones before the insect egg slowly stopped fluctuating.

Inside the nest, a deathly silence fell. After a long while, Zitong finally spoke, "Zizhu, these insect eggs cost 200 primal stones a day. Wouldn't that be 4000 primal stones in 20 days? Can you afford to raise them?"

Hearing Zitong's words, Zizhu remained silent. It currently has 24 life-seed plants producing, but the annual output is less than 2 raw stones. If it continues like this, it really won't be able to afford to keep them.

That's really strange. It's just an insect egg, why does it take so much effort?

Purple Pearl's tentacles twitched: "Let's see. If it continues to absorb so many primal stones every day, then we'll have to notify Lord Purple Plum to come and take a look!"

Over the next few days, Zizhu and the others continued to scrape raw stones for the insect eggs. They discovered that as long as they scraped slowly from morning to night, using 150 raw stones a day would saturate the insect eggs' absorption capacity.

However, the cost was still very high. After persisting for five days, Zizhu finally couldn't hold on any longer and asked Zitong to invite Lord Zili to come and take a look.