Chapter 5: Attack and Cooperation
After careful reconnaissance and calm analysis, the three of them, Molei and the others, decided to put their revenge plans on hold.
Regarding Hao Mei's repeated mentions of how, in the Ser Star, she was inexplicably targeted by Su Xiao and subsequently robbed, Molei and Yueshitu often changed the subject.
Molei certainly couldn't say that Hao Mei had been robbed before because she was captured alive by Su Xiao, and thus resorted to diverting trouble, introducing her 'close friend' to Su Xiao, and repeatedly emphasizing to Su Xiao that Hao Mei was particularly wealthy.
If she said that, Molei figured she'd be beaten half to death by Hao Mei, if not killed outright. Therefore, she decided not to bring up that aspect anymore.
The three of them, Molei, Yueshitu, and Hao Mei, each had distinct personality traits. Yueshitu was more meticulous; she always planned thoroughly, then failed spectacularly, a theoretical expert.
Molei was carefree and resilient; even if she felt down today, she'd wake up full of energy the next day, with a passionate attitude towards life.
Hao Mei was a beautiful female swordswoman before drinking, and a comical female swordswoman after drinking.
As for whether they were strong after forming a team, it was hard to say, but the atmosphere within the squad was undeniable. At least they didn't have to guard against each other or worry about a teammate stabbing them in the back.
Molei and the others walked into the dark purple insect nest, found a dormant chamber, and began planning inside.
"What do we do? That guy's development is too fast. We've only developed to the Third Rank, and he's at least at the Seventh Rank. It's practically cheating."
After Hao Mei spoke, she tilted her head back and gulped down a few mouthfuls of wine, drowning her sorrows.
"Something's off over there."
Molei agreed with Hao Mei's assessment. How long had it been since they entered this world, and he'd already developed a Seventh-Rank insect nest?
"My analysis is that the insect race came from another world. How about we report him?"
Yueshitu spoke up. Her approach to any dilemma was to report it first and ask questions later.
"Doing that is too underhanded."
Hao Mei exhaled a breath of alcohol, scratching her wavy milky-white hair.
The three of them fell silent, their expressions blank, but after half a minute, smiles appeared on their faces, gradually becoming mischievous. Finally, they unanimously submitted a joint report to the Void Tree against Su Xiao.
...
Insect Nest Base Camp.
A total of 20,000 elite worker scorpions had been cultivated, giving their insect race a preliminary form. The current insect race units totaled:
Armored Mantises: 1,023 (responsible for daily maintenance and repair of the nest and fungal carpet).
Elite Worker Scorpions: 20,000 (engineer-type insect race units).
Spore Tanks: 30 (responsible for medium-to-long-distance transport).
Demon Beasts: 4,045 (the core combat force of their nest at this stage).
...
Inside a wooden shed near the insect nest, Su Xiao had just finished lunch. He closed the nest data and began formulating his next strategy.
At this stage, the Empire faction was absolutely not to be provoked. Although it was largely confirmed that the main mission would likely put them in opposition to the Empire, provoking the Empire now would be suicide.
The Empire was a force capable of interstellar colonization, different from the Tiger Bee Clan or the Vassal Clan they had faced before.
The Empire's fleet possessed various large-scale area-of-effect weapons. Even though the existence of a vast consciousness on Pandora prevented the Empire from using large-scale dirty bombs, they certainly had orbital cannons, gravity-type, or anti-gravity missiles.
Facing these weapons, before obtaining sufficiently strong anti-air capabilities, their insect nest was a sitting duck. Provoking the Empire could result in their base camp nest being leveled within hours.
The good news was that plasma-type weapons were devastating against air targets. However, their nest currently possessed the plasma gene sequence but lacked the insect race units capable of utilizing it.
Until they had powerful anti-air, anti-missile, and anti-gravity weaponry, they needed to develop as low-key as possible. In fact, they couldn't even easily provoke the Company faction now.
The current situation was: the Empire faction was the strongest. With only the Third Fleet deployed, it was already the dominant force here. It was worth noting that the Empire had a total of 18 active fleets.
Below the Third Fleet in strength was the temporary alliance of the native world's insect race queens, the Insect Alliance, which was engaged in fierce combat with the Third Fleet.
Originally, the insect queens fought independently, ignoring each other, but after being targeted by orbital cannons and gravity missiles, they quickly united.
It was important to note that it wasn't that the Third Fleet didn't request reinforcements, but rather that General Sandor of the Third Fleet prevented other fleets from entering Pandora.
The Empire was a unified entity, but who would get promoted for Pandora depended on which fleet secured the exclusive garrison rights. General Sandor, known as the White Lion of the Empire, might not care about this himself, but he needed to secure merits for his subordinates to consolidate loyalty.
Compared to the Third Fleet and the Insect Alliance, the Company faction seemed weaker. However, even so, they could still handle a Seventh-Rank insect nest. As the Empire's lackeys, they had various weapons.
The Company faction's weakness was their combat awareness, unlike the Imperial soldiers. The Ova people, in war, wouldn't easily rout or surrender even with over 80% casualties.
Su Xiao roughly assessed their current ranking. They were weaker than the third-ranked Company faction but stronger than most First to Seventh-Rank insect nests in this world, excluding the established Seventh-Rank nests.
One such established Seventh-Rank nest was located near an oxbow lake to their southwest. The insect leader of this nest was called the "Giant Armor."
The term "insect leader" was equivalent in rank to an insect queen, differing only in external gender. In this world, not only female entities could cultivate or create insect nests.
Furthermore, it was the nest that produced the troops, not directly the queen. The insect queen or leader represented the pyramid's apex, responsible for decision-making, as well as constructing, linking, and controlling the psychic network.
The "Giant Armor Nest" was the strongest within a 50-kilometer radius. Although incomparable to the Eighth-Rank "Kara Nest," the Giant Armor Nest was still not to be underestimated.
Su Xiao estimated that if they could deal with the Giant Armor Nest, their rise would be imminent.
According to Beini's reconnaissance, the Giant Armor Nest had at least 100,000 worker insects and over 50,000 combat insects. Don't think 50,000 combat insects was few; in this world, this was already a relatively aggressive insect tribe.
Regardless, the Giant Armor side had cultivated Eighth-Rank insect individuals, while their Demon Beasts were Seventh-Rank individuals. Previously defeating the Spider Nest was entirely due to actual combat experience and various buffs.
At this stage, a Demon Beast against a Giant Armor Nest combat unit could probably barely put up a fight one-on-one. Winning against overwhelming odds was basically impossible.
As a Seventh-Rank insect individual, the Demon Beast was already very strong. But to develop over 50,000 Demon Beasts would require 500,000 points of Bio Energy.
The problem was, if they had 500,000 Bio Energy, it would be better to let Jila advance to the Queen level. Once Jila reached the Queen level, their nest would naturally evolve to the Eighth Rank, allowing them to crush the "Giant Armor Nest."
Since a direct confrontation was impossible, Su Xiao temporarily set that aside. He had Bubu Wang, Amu, and over half of the Demon Beasts guard the base. He himself, along with Baha, 20,000 elite worker scorpions, 30 spore tanks, and 1,600 Demon Beasts, set out.
The spore tanks weren't slow, but compared to the worker scorpions and Demon Beasts, they were significantly slower. Su Xiao had a strategy for this.
Back in the Primordial Continent, he had groups of 20 Demon Beasts drag the spore tanks along. The spore tank's structure was like a sturdy, semi-fluid large bag that could wriggle forward on its own.
Traveling at full speed, passing through dense forests with lush foliage and abundant wildlife, Su Xiao arrived near the Spider Nest.
This nest, 50 meters high and made of earthy-gray biological tissue, was quiet inside. As Su Xiao stepped into the nest's entrance, he paused.
"Baha."
"Yeah, I noticed. Hold on, boss."
As Baha spoke, he partially merged into the alternate space, scouted for a moment, then emerged, saying: "There are traces of a space-attribute creature entering. It's already left. It entered at most half an hour ago. The residual spatial fluctuation still feels 'fresh.'"
"..."
Su Xiao frowned in thought for a moment, then continued deeper into the nest. Although he had left 400 Demon Beasts to guard this place, Demon Beasts were pure war creatures, responsible for assaults and killing, and their perception was average.
The Spider Queen was somewhat famous in this area. Being eliminated, someone coming to investigate was normal.
The main passage of the nest had a fluorescent glow from the top, keeping the place from being dark. Reaching the open central area, Su Xiao treated this place as a mining shaft. He focused his mental energy and issued a long-term mental command for all worker scorpions to start digging and mining.
Worker scorpions quickly crawled to the mining points. Using their specially structured pincers and three round tails, they began digging and transporting.
Worker scorpions became busy. Initially, only a few dozen were working, but as the mine shaft deepened, hundreds, thousands, and finally tens of thousands of worker scorpions were thrown into digging and transport. To speed up the outward transport of debris, dozens of passages were opened in this nest, making it look like a beehive.
After observing the worker scorpions mining for a while, Su Xiao took Baha and walked out of the nest. On the open ground in front of the nest, a wide crystal seat quickly formed behind him. He sat down, guarded by over a hundred Demon Beasts, and began his daily meditation.
Although early development was crucial, there were too many forces in this world that could eliminate them. Staying as low-key as possible in the early stages and dealing with them one by one in the mid-to-late stages was the best strategy.
For the rest of the afternoon and the entire evening, Su Xiao planned to do nothing else but test the mining efficiency of the worker scorpions. His idea was to mine here, then use Demon Beasts to escort the spore tanks, transporting batches of "Life Ore" back to the base camp.
The base camp nest would convert these "Life Ore" into Bio Energy, then continue cultivating worker scorpions. The more worker scorpions, the higher their mining efficiency, allowing them to cultivate more worker scorpions, achieving higher mining efficiency, and snowballing from there.
This approach was extreme, with no development of combat insects in the meantime. The reason was that before the nest advanced to the Eighth Rank, the Demon Beasts' combat power was limited. Cultivating Demon Flame Dragons cost 4,000 Bio Energy each, too expensive.
Therefore, he would temporarily abandon this aspect. If an enemy really came, Su Xiao could defend himself. If he couldn't hold them off, developing the current Demon Beasts wouldn't help anyway. It was better to frantically snowball worker scorpions and push the resource aspect.
Over an hour later, the worker scorpions completed the initial preparations. A total of 49 main mine shafts were dug, with branch shafts spreading like an ant nest. This wasn't for long-term development; it was to strip-mine this vein in the short term.
When the sun was setting on the horizon, the worker scorpions had mined a total of 51 units of "Life Ore," equivalent to 510 Bio Energy.
From initial observation, Su Xiao learned that one worker scorpion could mine 0.03 units of Life Ore per day. With a total of 20,000 worker scorpions, the daily output was 600 units of Life Ore, or 6,000 Bio Energy.
This was already significant. Using these 6,000 Bio Energy to cultivate worker scorpions could produce 12,000 more.
Thus, tomorrow there would be 32,000 worker scorpions mining, yielding 960 units of Life Ore daily.
The day after, there would be 51,200 worker scorpions mining, yielding 1,536 units of Life Ore daily.
On the third day, there would be 81,920 worker scorpions mining, yielding 2,458 units of Life Ore daily.
A crucial point was that worker scorpions were also soldier-type units, hence their mining efficiency. The War Lord's +30 to all true attributes was also very useful for mining.
When the number of worker scorpions exceeded 50,000, the War Lord's "All Ability Level Increase Lv.12" bonus would activate, which was a qualitative change for them.
Worker scorpions could only perform mining because they had the mining skill. Mining Life Ore wasn't simple; at least Su Xiao couldn't do it. If he tried, he'd just dig up a pile of waste rock. He had no idea how to maintain the quality of Life Ore during mining.
When the worker scorpions' mining skill increased by Lv.12, their mining efficiency would definitely skyrocket. Starting the day after tomorrow, the snowballing speed would be much more exaggerated than planned.
As for whether this vein was enough to mine, Su Xiao estimated it should yield over 10,000 units of Life Ore.
Once this vein was exhausted, he could visit another neighbor. To the east was a Fifth-Rank insect nest, the Spider Queen's archenemy. The two had been hostile for a long time.
Attacking an insect nest had many benefits. There were ores beneath the nests, and most nests stored Life Ore. Enemy worker insects equaled Bio Energy. Enemy insect queens equaled plugins, expanding the gene pool of their base camp nest.
Thinking of this, Su Xiao wanted to deal with the neighboring nest right now to boost their base camp's early development speed.
Considering the current situation was too unclear, Su Xiao decided to observe for one night. If the situation remained stable, he would deal with the neighboring Fifth-Rank nest tomorrow morning.
Besides this, Su Xiao had another idea. He wouldn't change the Demon Beast's characteristics. After Jila advanced to the "Queen Level," he would have her absorb another large amount of Primordial Demon Force, which he had received from Lilim in the World of Paintings last time.
While he wouldn't change the Demon Beast's characteristics, he planned to enhance the Demon Flame Dragon's characteristics. Unlike last time when he developed the insect race, he now had the Sun Ring, which contained the faith force of the Sun from the Ser Star and the Treeborn World.
Earlier, in the Mushroom Village, Su Xiao had purchased a piece of Overlord Equipment called [Collector]. If he wanted to use the faith force of the Sun to enhance the Demon Flame Dragon, this Overlord Equipment could be useful.
"[Collector (Overlord Equipment)]: This equipment can absorb various types of energy (including material energy, spiritual energy, elemental energy, etc.) and store them at the bottom. Over time, the energy within this ox horn will be purified, filtered layer by layer, and stored at the tip. By unscrewing the middle section of this ox horn, the purified energy can be released."
By filtering out the mental attributes from the faith force of the Sun, leaving only pure Sun power, and using that to enhance the Demon Flame Dragon, could it then spew Sun Flame? If so, it wouldn't be afraid of the Empire's warships.
It was still early to consider this. Su Xiao looked at the Life Ore piled in front of him, a total of 51 units. He would send them back to the base camp first. Sending them back in such small batches to cultivate worker scorpions would further increase the snowballing speed.
A convoy of 500 Demon Beasts escorting 1 spore tank set off. Su Xiao continued his meditation.
Over ten minutes later, Su Xiao's meditation was interrupted by a message from Jila in the team channel. Originally, Jila could convey messages through psychic signals, but after learning about the convenient team channel, she decisively chose the latter.
Jila's message was that the convoy returning with the Life Ore had been attacked. Nearly 150 Demon Beasts were killed, but fortunately, the Life Ore wasn't taken.
What Su Xiao had feared earlier had happened. A chaotic environment was detrimental to early development. He felt no particular fluctuation about this attack. He could attack others, and others could attack him.
Although he understood this to some extent, it didn't stop him from seeking revenge. He had Baha stay behind to guard the mining area and went to the incident site alone.
Traveling at full speed, when Su Xiao arrived near the incident site, a strong smell of sulfur wafted over, mixed with the smell of insect blood.
This was a rocky area. Many Demon Beast carcasses were scattered around. These Demon Beasts had either died from blunt force trauma or had most of their bodies melted by a substance resembling magma.
Besides the Demon Beast corpses, Su Xiao also saw a canine-like insect race. This insect race was over 2 meters long, with a body covered in tightly connected blocky carapace. It had a single horn on its head, normal eyes, and two rows of eyes behind its ears, decreasing in size. Its tail was a bony structure.
These insect corpses were also corroded by the magma-like substance on the ground. If Su Xiao had arrived later, he would have only seen dark red liquid everywhere.
After examining the canine-like insect corpse, Su Xiao concluded that this insect race hadn't attacked their convoy. Someone was framing them.
Simply put, an insect race had attacked their convoy. After the attack, the enemy insect race took away some of the bodies from the battlefield, leaving only these canine-like insect corpses behind.
There were two possibilities: 1. Someone wanted to use their hand to destroy the tribe of this canine-like insect. 2. Someone wanted to use these insect corpses to bluff, making them cautious.
Su Xiao knew little about the insect race forces in this world, but the Spider Queen did. Su Xiao took a few photos, stored them in the team storage space, and had Jila retrieve them. He asked Jila to inquire with the Spider Queen and reach a certain degree of transaction with her. If she was willing to provide information, he would let her go in the future.
Insect races never held grudges. Or rather, whether they held grudges didn't matter. The insect race philosophy was that the weak submit to the strong. However, when the weak rose up, they could also destroy the strong. It was a cold competition. Whether to go to war depended on a cost-benefit analysis.
Soon, Jila sent back a message. The Spider Queen recognized this insect race as a subordinate combat insect of the "Kara Nest."
The "Kara Nest" was an Eighth-Rank insect nest, one of those at war with the Third Fleet. Its strength was imaginable.
Thus, the possibility of a frame-up was ruled out. The attacker seemed to be bluffing.
But if it was bluffing, was it worth all this trouble to rob 51 units of Life Ore?
This behavior seemed like the work of an acquaintance. Or rather, an acquaintance knew Su Xiao was developing an insect race here and came to interfere.
But thinking carefully, this didn't make sense either. If an acquaintance came to disrupt their development, where did they get these "Horned Hounds"?
From another perspective, could an acquaintance have hired a local insect tribe, which then tried to bluff and divert trouble, framing the "Kara Nest" for a passing small-scale hunting party?
Su Xiao only knew one person who liked to be so roundabout: Shenfu. That old bastard often used similar tactics.
As for how to respond, just ignore him. For example, last time in the Treeborn World, if Su Xiao had ignored Shenfu's Necronomicon plan, the other party would have had no way to proceed.
"You're very calm."
A dead Horned Hound spoke, standing up on its mostly melted body, calmly watching Su Xiao.
"Did Shenfu hire you?"
"No comment."
The Horned Hound spoke in a stiff, mechanical tone. Clearly, some consciousness was controlling this dead Horned Hound.
"I'll pay five times the price. You go kill Shenfu."
"Deal."
The Horned Hound agreed readily. The reason was that after accepting Shenfu's commission, the payment it had received suddenly disappeared.
"Human integrity... is worthless. Give me... the payment, and I will go... kill Shenfu."
The Horned Hound's body swayed, unable to maintain this state for long. At that moment, Su Xiao suddenly attacked.
Bang!
Su Xiao kicked the Horned Hound to pieces, sending flesh and carapace flying. An eyeball, spinning in the air, turned to look at Su Xiao before finally falling with a splat onto the molten liquid on the ground, dissolving.
This seemingly insignificant but actually intricate attack incident confirmed three things for Su Xiao.