Celestial Beast Taming

Chapter 235: Chapter 150: Longevity Empress Bee

The Longevity Insect Honey, which could extend one’s lifespan, was the best method of control.

However, if Zhong Yi wanted to bring those experts with little lifespan remaining under his command, he first needed the ability to speak with them as an equal.

Otherwise, without any way to restrain these experts, who knew if they might turn around and hold him hostage instead.

Forcing him to produce even more Longevity Insect Honey?

Originally, Zhong Yi had planned to use the second Soul Taming Seed to form a Contract with the Fertility Ant Queen.

Now that the Soul Taming Seed had been used on the Longevity Empress Bee, Zhong Yi could only wait for the Soul-Controlling Flower to produce a new one before he could form a Contract with the Fertility Ant Queen.

Before heading to Longya City, Zhong Yi had to form a Contract with the Fertility Ant Queen.

This was because Qin Ruyue could only control Shi Mi for seven days at most.

The Fertility Ant Queen had to completely devour Shi Mi within those seven days to use its Basic Skill, All Things Ant-Turn, and give birth to an Ant Successor that inherited all of Shi Mi’s power.

Once he formed the Contract with the Fertility Ant Queen, Zhong Yi could contact Wen Tao and head to Longya City.

A little over a day later, Zhong Yi fed the newly condensed Soul Taming Seed to the Fertility Ant Queen, which had regained its vitality after several days of care.

The Fertility Ant Queen, having mutated from a Devouring Ant Queen, was a truly pitiable sight.

Ever since its mutation, it hadn’t had a single good meal.

It could only feed on the carcasses of various Guardian Beasts to barely maintain its vital signs.

Zhong Yi had been feeding it plenty of live food recently, but the Fertility Ant Queen was extremely picky.

After eating the live prey, it chose not to use them as templates to produce Ant Successors.

The Fertility Ant Queen’s own Bloodline was already at an extremely high level. Even if a Five-finger Creator were to nurture it normally...

...they would find it very difficult to advance its Bloodline any further.

But by using the Soul Taming Seed to form a Contract, Zhong Yi had caused the Fertility Ant Queen’s Bloodline to undergo another leap in Evolution.

The Fertility Ant Queen, originally only as long as Zhong Yi’s forearm, grew larger than Zhong Yi himself after its Bloodline evolved.

Its total length exceeded two meters, with the enormous, milky-white abdominal sac behind it measuring over 1.8 meters alone.

Large enough to fit a burly athlete!

The entire sac looked tender and soft, pulsating rhythmically.

The Fertility Ant Queen’s tiny legs were completely incapable of supporting its massive body.

After its Bloodline transformation, the Fertility Ant Queen had completely lost its mobility; it couldn’t even take care of its own basic needs.

Zhong Yi used All Things Exploration to inspect the transformed Fertility Ant Queen.

[Guardian Beast Name]: Fertility Creation Ant Queen

[Guardian Beast Species]: Creator Ant Species/Creation Ant Species

[Guardian Beast Level]: Mortal Beast Level (10/10)

[Guardian Beast Type]: Mysterious Element

[Guardian Beast Quality]: Silver Quality

Skills:

[All Things Ant-Turn]: Lacks the inherent ability to reproduce. After devouring other creatures, it can refine, reconstruct, and optimize their genes. It can then use the target creature’s genes to give birth to an Ant Successor without altering the target’s fundamental genetic level. The strength of the resulting Ant Successor is dependent on the target’s strength before being devoured and is unrelated to the Ant Queen’s own strength.

Exclusive Traits:

[Heroic Ant Successor]: Designates one Ant Successor as the Ant Swarm’s Heroic Unit. By sacrificing itself, this designated unit can unleash power that exceeds the limits of its current Tier. A new Ant Successor can only be designated as the Ant Swarm’s hero after the previous one has died.

[Ant Successor Assembly]: When multiple Ant Successors die, their broken remains can be assembled into a new Ant Successor that inherits the advantages of the originals. The strength of the newly assembled Ant Successor will not exceed the power cap of the constituent Ant Successors.

Zhong Yi saw that the Fertility Ant Queen had evolved into the Fertility Creation Ant Queen.

Its Guardian Beast Species had changed from Ant-Eating Insect Species/Ant-devouring Ants to Creator Ant Species/Creation Ant Species.

Creatures of the Creator Ant Species/Creation Ant Species were not unheard of in the natural world. In fact, Zhong Yi knew of an Ant Race creature called the Evil Spirit Creation Ant.

This was a creature that could transform corpses into members of the Ant Race.

This special type of Ant Race creature only consisted of males, with no females.

Each male ant acted alone, leading an army of Ant Race undead.

The Evil Spirit Creation Ant was one of two Ant Race creatures with the highest known Bloodline among all ant-type Guardian Beasts.

The Fertility Creation Ant Queen’s ability to produce Ant Successors using living creatures as templates was far more advanced than the Evil Spirit Creation Ant’s ability to convert corpses into Ant Race members.

The Ant Successors produced by the Fertility Creation Ant Queen could inherit the abilities the original creatures possessed in life.

If the devoured creature was a Guardian Beast Master or a Deceit Beast Master, and their Guardian Beasts and Deceit Beasts were devoured as well, the resulting Ant Successor could even inherit those beasts.

In contrast, when the Evil Spirit Creation Ant transformed corpses into Ant Race undead, they could not inherit the abilities the corpse had in life.

After the Fertility Ant Queen transformed into the Fertility Creation Ant Queen, its Basic Skill, All Things Ant-Turn, had undergone a significant change.

It had gone from being able to ”refine and reconstruct” other creatures’ genes to being able to ”refine, reconstruct, and optimize” them.

This meant the Ant Successors produced by the Fertility Creation Ant Queen could be superior to the original material that was devoured.

This represented a fundamental, qualitative leap for the All Things Ant-Turn skill.

The Exclusive Trait it gained upon advancing to Bronze Quality was Heroic Ant Successor.

The Fertility Creation Ant Queen could select one Ant Successor from the Ant Swarm and, by releasing Strong Pheromones, designate it as the swarm’s hero.

If this hero Ant Successor sacrificed itself in battle, it could unleash power far beyond the limits of its current Tier.

When necessary, the designated hero Ant Successor would become a sacrificial pawn for the Ant Swarm.

Take Shi Mi, for example. Once the Fertility Creation Ant Queen devoured him and produced an Ant Successor...

...if that Ant-Turned Shi Mi was then designated as the Ant Swarm’s hero via the Heroic Ant Successor Exclusive Trait...

...then the Mythical Tier Peak Shi Mi could sacrifice itself to briefly unleash the power of the Immortal Tier.

Even if this burst of power only just scraped the threshold of the Immortal Tier, it was still a qualitative leap from the Mythical Tier Peak.

The only drawback to the Heroic Ant Successor Exclusive Trait was that a new hero could only be designated for the Ant Swarm after the previous one had died.

The Ant Swarm could only have one hero at a time.

The Ant Successors produced by the Fertility Creation Ant Queen from devouring the bodies of the strong were, fundamentally, weapons for Zhong Yi.

’Weapons are meant to be used!’

’Even if they break, there’s nothing to feel sorry about!’

The Fertility Creation Ant Queen was essentially a cradle that would continuously produce Death Warriors for Zhong Yi.

The ability to make an Ant Successor fight above its Tier by designating it a hero...

...even if it required self-sacrifice, still meant that these Ant Successors were being used to their fullest potential.

The Exclusive Trait gained upon reaching Silver Quality, Ant Successor Assembly, allowed the Fertility Creation Ant Queen to assemble the remains of dead Ant Successors.

It could assemble them into a brand-new Ant Successor that inherited the advantages of the originals.

In Zhong Yi’s eyes, this created a synergy between the Fertility Creation Ant Queen’s two Exclusive Traits.

It allowed the Fertility Creation Ant Queen to recycle the hero Ant Successors after their deaths, reassembling them into even more exceptional ones.

For example, if four of Zhong Yi’s Mythical Tier Ant Successors were to die, the Fertility Creation Ant Queen could recycle their four bodies...

...and assemble one or two brand-new Mythical Tier Ant Successors, greatly reducing the cost of their deaths.

Zhong Yi was extremely satisfied with the two Exclusive Traits the Fertility Creation Ant Queen had gained.

Next, Zhong Yi had to start thinking about having his newly contracted Fertility Creation Ant Queen produce some Ant Successors.

The Fertility Ant Queen was also an exceptionally miraculous creature. Though its value wasn’t as high as the Longevity Empress Bee’s...

...it was definitely a creature on the same level as the Hundred-Eyed Moon Demon!

However, Zhong Yi didn’t plan to hide the Fertility Ant Queen’s existence from Qin Ruyue.

Firstly, Shi Mi needed to be controlled by Qin Ruyue’s Night-Cutting Spider.

While being devoured by the Fertility Ant Queen, the still-living Shi Mi would certainly struggle.

Secondly, he had other plans that required Qin Ruyue to know about the Fertility Ant Queen.

These plans required her cooperation.