45: Chapter 45: Battle Results, Blood Wind Lotus

Picking up the Treasure-Seeking Mouse, Chi Anlin retrieved his space ring.

This little fellow's luck was eerily good. Originally, given the state of the ant swarm, it might not have been able to intercept all the lotus seeds, and some might have been snatched away by those cultivators.

But the Treasure-Seeking Mouse's actions drew out the hidden cultivators and exotic beasts, allowing Chi Anlin to wipe them all out in one go.

If news of the Queen had been spread, it might have caused some trouble, but now there was no need to worry; everyone who knew was dead.

Taking out the heavenly wind lotus, Chi Anlin raised an eyebrow. Why was this thing blood-red?

【Name】: Blood Wind Lotus Seed

【Quality】: Yellow Rank Peak

【Description】: A mutation formed after the heavenly wind lotus absorbed a large amount of blood. It possesses marrow-cleansing and body-nourishing properties and can widen meridians to a certain extent.

Mutated? A glimmer of joy flashed in Chi Anlin's eyes. The heavenly wind lotus was already precious enough, let alone this mutated version.

Looking at the blood-red lotus, Chi Anlin pondered for a moment and used Appraisal again.

【Name】: Blood Wind Lotus

【Quality】: Yellow Rank Peak

【Description】: A mutation of the heavenly wind lotus. It can absorb blood to incubate lotus seeds.

Absorb blood to incubate lotus seeds?

Chi Anlin's eyes widened. If it were a normal heavenly wind lotus, it might be useless after the lotus seeds were blown away. But this Blood Wind Lotus could continue to produce lotus seeds as long as there was enough blood.

He happened to have an ant swarm, and their harvesting ability was extremely strong. They devoured many exotic beasts every day, so he could gather the blood of these beasts in a pool for the lotus to absorb.

Very satisfied, Chi Anlin put the Blood Wind Lotus back into his space ring, picked up the sulking Treasure-Seeking Mouse, and walked towards the cave.

In this great battle, he had not only gained a precious Blood Wind Lotus but also a large amount of blood energy.

All in all, his accumulated blood energy had finally reached 500,000, one step closer to the one million mark.

He should leave this blood energy for the Queen to upgrade her reproduction skills or fuse genes.

——————

Inside the cave, Chu Xinying's eyes were red; it looked like she had cried a lot.

"Big Brother Chi..." Chu Xinying's voice trembled, making Chi Anlin sigh involuntarily.

"Sorry, I didn't find you guys sooner."

That day, under Chi Anlin's warning, they had quickly activated their protective talismans, but facing the catastrophe of the Insect Realm and Lesser Beast Realm merging, they had eventually fainted.

When Chu Xinying woke up, only Wang Qiang was by her side. Both of them were heavily injured, but fortunately, Chu Xinying was a physician. After two days, their injuries had finally recovered.

The whereabouts of Xia Yan and the others were unknown. Fortunately, with Wang Qiang there, Chu Xinying was able to avoid starving to death or being preyed upon by exotic beasts in this world.

A helpless physician had no guarantee of survival in the Otherworld; they basically had no combat power themselves.

Their nightmare began after they met the Azure Wolf Squad.

Initially, upon seeing the Azure Wolf Squad, Chu Xinying had been overjoyed, as it meant they had a chance to return and would be safer.

But to her surprise, once this group of people saw her, they tore off their sheepskin to reveal the wolves beneath, exposing their true nature. Wang Qiang was beheaded by the enemy while trying to help her escape.

Subsequently, her clothes were torn, and just as she was about to be assaulted, the captain of the Azure Wolf Squad seemed to have received some news and left abruptly, allowing her to escape a disaster for the time being.

Looking at the girl with watery eyes, Chi Anlin sighed again. Although the ant swarm's range was vast, only two Ant Soldiers were searching for a way out of the Otherworld, so they hadn't encountered the Azure Wolf Squad or found Xia Yan and the others.

Such a thing had happened, and even though he had already taken revenge, the dead could not come back to life. Wang Qiang was gone forever.

Chu Xinying seemed to be tired from crying and curled up in a corner to sleep. The events of the past few days had kept her spirit tense, and she hadn't rested well for a long time.

After Chu Xinying fell into a deep sleep, Chi Anlin started a fire in front of her to keep her from catching a cold, then draped his own clothes over her. The girl's clothes were stained with blood and had many holes, revealing her snow-white skin.

Chi Anlin didn't think about changing her clothes; that would be too intimate and feel like taking advantage of someone's vulnerability. He would wait for her to wake up and change them herself.

Leaving the cave, Chi Anlin found the Queen. In just a short while, the Ant Soldiers had surrounded and killed several high-level exotic beasts, granting Chi Anlin another 30,000+ blood energy.

Although this battle had been fruitful, the losses were heavy. Of the original thousands of Ant Soldiers, only the recently produced Mortal Rank Five Ant Soldiers remained.

What the Queen needed to do now was to rebuild her forces and expand her territory again.

With the current strength of the Ant Soldiers, they wouldn't be able to stop another Mortal Rank Ninth Stage exotic beast.

The energy the Queen used to produce Ant Soldiers today came from what had been saved up recently; otherwise, it wouldn't have been produced so quickly. If she really had to devour flesh and blood to produce Ant Soldiers, she might only be able to produce twenty per hour.

After all, chewing food also took time.

Therefore, Chi Anlin prepared to create another type of Ant Soldier that could help convert nutrients, making it less troublesome for the Queen to replenish energy and speeding up the production of Ant Soldiers.

When it came to converting and storing nutrients, Chi Anlin thought of honey ants.

Normal ants couldn't expand at will because their digestive organs were wrapped in a layer of exoskeleton plates, but a honey ant's stomach could expand to the size of a grape.

So, what Chi Anlin needed to do was to remove the exoskeleton of the new species and simulate the structure of a honey ant.

What remained was the gene for converting energy.

Chi Anlin searched through the gene bank. Fortunately, the Queen had consumed many exotic beasts, so Chi Anlin quickly found a similar gene.

Heavy Spirit Silkworm Gene: Capable of converting food into nutrient fluid with higher energy content and storing it within the body, with extremely high conversion efficiency.

The blood energy required for this gene Fusion was as high as 100,000 points. Fortunately, Chi Anlin was now a nouveau riche, so he decisively fused it into the Queen's body.

Next, Chi Anlin found the Antlion gene and spent 10,000 blood energy to fuse it into the Queen's body.

When hunting, an antlion would inject digestive enzymes containing certain toxins into the prey's body through its mouthparts, dissolving the matter inside the prey before sucking it up.

The new species didn't need strong combat capabilities, so the other genes could be discarded.