Chapter 17: Startup Capital
Jila held the fist-sized Life Stone, momentarily unsure where to start. Life Stones could only be absorbed by the mother entity; the nest could not do it for her.
Jila closed her eyes and pressed the Life Stone in her hand against her forehead. Her brows furrowed tightly, as if she was brewing something.
“Absorb!”
Jila strained her entire body, yet nothing happened.
Su Xiao grabbed the Life Stone, exerted force in his hand, and with a crack, crushed it. He had originally wanted to test if Jila had a special absorption method, since he wasn’t very familiar with Life Stones. If the Bio Energy inside leaked out after crushing, it would be a huge loss.
The fist-sized Life Stone shattered in Su Xiao’s hand, but no Bio Energy overflowed.
Seeing this, Jila began eating the Life Stone piece by piece. Of the fist-sized chunk, she only consumed about a third before the nest’s Bio Energy reserves were full.
Jila, who had been a first-stage mother entity just yesterday, was now qualified to advance to the third stage by the next afternoon, reaching the level of an Insect Queen.
Su Xiao glanced at the remaining two-thirds of the Life Stone fragments in his hand and made a rough estimate: one high-purity Life Stone was worth approximately 10,000 points of Bio Energy.
According to the footage transmitted by Bubu Wang, that fourth-stage Insect Mother Queen had at least a hundred Life Stones of this purity.
This efficiency was faster than looting other nests, but such actions couldn’t be done often. There were three fourth-stage nests in total, and this time they were lucky to know the location of one.
As for the other two fourth-stage nests, who knew where they were? This continent was vast. Even if the locations were known, it might take Bubu Wang days or even longer to sneak there, not to mention the time spent searching for the other two fourth-stage nests.
During this theft of Life Stones, Bubu Wang had nearly been exposed. That Insect Mother Queen had already sensed Bubu Wang. If not for Bubu Wang’s strong ability to blend into the environment, it would have been surrounded by an overwhelming swarm of insects.
Moreover, that Insect Mother Queen would soon discover that 11 Life Stones were missing—a hoard she had accumulated over who knows how long. Once the theft was discovered, the consequences were predictable.
Su Xiao had obtained a substantial “startup capital,” which would significantly reduce the development time of the nest.
As for how to acquire Bio Energy in the future, the risk of stealing from fourth-stage nests was too high. Looting nests of the same stage was the wisest approach.
The insect race under Jila had an advantage that no other insect race possessed: she didn’t need to accumulate basic insect troops, which saved a huge amount of Bio Energy.
Basic insect troops included non-combat units like Mantis Armor and Spore Tanks. For a normal insect race development, these basic units and non-aggressive insect structures were indispensable, accounting for two-thirds of the nest’s Bio Energy expenditure. The remaining third was used to cultivate combat-type insects.
This situation arose because a third-stage nest already had strong troop-production capabilities. It wasn’t too late to cultivate combat insects after the war began. After all, insect creatures weren’t perpetual motion machines; they needed regular Bio Energy replenishment.
Combat-type insects consumed the most Bio Energy, several times more than basic troops. If a large number of combat insects were cultivated, their daily consumption would soon bankrupt a third-stage nest.
Only wealthy Insect Mother Queens would cultivate large numbers of combat insects to fend off attacks from Totem Tribes or even proactively attack them to ensure their territory wasn’t encroached upon.
Jila was different. Her development had only one goal: to cultivate a massive number of combat insects. She didn’t consider anything else.
Because of this, Jila would possess astonishing combat power among insects of the same stage. She wouldn’t develop slowly; the only way to acquire Bio Energy in the future was to plunder.
Inside the spacious nest, Jila was wrapped in biological tissue, with white nerve fibers connected to her body. She was attempting to evolve to the third stage and become an Insect Queen.
Outside the nest, Su Xiao was examining a holographic map provided by Beini. This beautiful cat was traveling the world searching for World Cores. Before leaving, Su Xiao had asked Beini to sketch maps of the places she visited so he could understand the world’s layout.
The virtual map now covered a large area, though most regions were blank, but it was enough.
Beini had specially marked the locations of three factions: the Sun Tribe (Fire), the Hasalo Tribe (Predator), and the Yawa Tribe (Poison).
Su Xiao was closest to the Sun Tribe, which had the largest territory. The central area was the main tribe, with branch tribes scattered around the periphery. Its scale was comparable to a small country, and the population was correspondingly large.
Compared to the territorial divisions of these Totem Tribes, the hundreds of nests marked by Beini were more valuable. Initially, Beini couldn’t determine the stages of these nests, so she marked their heights.
Based on Su Xiao’s judgment, within a radius of 800,000 square kilometers, there were 39 first-stage nests, 89 second-stage nests, and 15 third-stage nests.
Though it seemed like a lot, these nests were sparsely distributed. 800,000 square kilometers was equivalent to the area of two medium-sized provinces, enough to house tens of millions of people with modern development.
For such a vast area, having over a hundred nests was actually sparse, especially since the Sun Tribe was nearby. Of course, this was only the number of nests Su Xiao knew about; there might be many more that Beini hadn’t discovered.
Su Xiao wasn’t short on Bio Energy for now. Eleven high-purity Life Stones meant about 110,000 Bio Energy. What he lacked were insect troops.
Even if Jila successfully advanced to the third stage, it was unclear what genetic memories she would awaken. There would definitely be third-stage combat insects, but even among the same stage, some were strong and some weak. If unlucky, Jila might awaken combat insects with average combat power.
If that happened, it would obviously be unwise to forcefully mass-produce troops, as the cost would outweigh the benefits, wasting a lot of Bio Energy.
To acquire new insect troops for the nest, there were two methods: one was through Jila awakening genetic memories, and the other was by exchanging with other Insect Mother Entities or purchasing specific types of “Remnant Individuals” with Life Stones.
A “Remnant Individual,” to put it simply, was like a skill scroll in Reincarnation Paradise. After Jila’s nest devoured a “Remnant Individual,” it would gain the genetic memories within, enabling the cultivation of new combat insects.
As for where to get “Remnant Individuals,” looting was clearly impossible. Their creation had strict requirements and could only be obtained through trade with other Insect Mother Entities.
After thinking for a moment, Su Xiao opened the War Channel. He needed to know one thing first: among third-stage combat insects, which were strong and what were their pros and cons. Buying intelligence from fellow contractors was the fastest option.
The War Channel was quiet at the moment, as there were limits on the number of messages. Only representatives like Muguang could post unlimited text messages.
Bai Ye (Dawn Adventure Group): “Buying information on third- to fourth-stage insect troops (must mark the nest’s location). If the data is complete enough, reward: [Soul Crystal (Complete) × 1].”
…
Su Xiao had made a significant investment. His storage space contained 11 Soul Crystals (Complete). To get a large number of fifth-rank contractors to run errands and scout for him, he needed to offer a tempting reward.
As for developing the nest together with other contractors from Reincarnation Paradise, Su Xiao had considered it but quickly dismissed the idea. While it would speed up development, human nature wasn’t something that could be smoothed over by shared hardship. Moreover, Reincarnation Paradise was full of all kinds of madmen. Some extremely crazy individuals had peculiar thought processes; they might not even care about dying in a War World but were more concerned with whether something was interesting.
As soon as Su Xiao posted his message in the War Channel, he received replies.
Firearms Expert (Symbiosis Alliance): “Sign a contract? If so, I’ll focus on this for the next three days.”
Witch (Phantom Brigade): “Data sent to you, Mr. Bai Ye. A complete soul crystal, truly tempting. If satisfied, remember to pay up~”
Death Knell (Rogue): “Holy shit, a madman from the Brigade.”
Muguang (Symbiosis Alliance Leader): “Data sent. Pay up.”
…