Warlock Apprentice

Chapter 1501: Section 1502: Transforming Soft-bodied Insect Chapter 1501: Section 1502: Transforming Soft-bodied Insect Sanders focused his gaze on the transparent observation box.

A viscous creature, as green as snot, was slowly undulating. Around the transparent observation box, some of Axo’s essence blood was scattered, and the snot monster was happily rushing towards the food.

However, halfway there, a thin layer of white frost suddenly appeared on the walls of the observation box.

The temperature inside the observation box began to drop rapidly.

The snot monster immediately stopped its undulating steps, and its body slowly began to change. Its originally grainy skin became smooth, and a strange energy within it began to diffuse, causing its body to slowly swell and finally turn into a sphere.

It looked like a green marble.

“This is its stress response to the cold,” Angel said as he withdrew the cold air from his fingertips, the temperature inside the observation box gradually rose, and the snot monster did not immediately change back but waited until the frost dissipated before returning to its “blob” shape.

The snot monster continued to crawl toward the essence blood; at this moment, a yellow and black striped poisonous bee was introduced into the observation box.

As soon as the snot monster sensed the vibrations of the wings in the air, its body bloomed like a flower, taking on the shape of a sea urchin. Each of the protruding spikes on its surface was thin and sharp, and the tips were eerily green as if coated with poison.

“This is its defensive state against enemy insects,” Angel said. After he spoke, he removed the poisonous bee from the observation box.

Immediately after, Angel conducted several more experiments, including heat, drowning, strong winds… physical and energy blasts, and so on.

Basically, the snot monster took on a different shape under different circumstances.

“Depending on the current crisis, it changes shape to minimize the damage its enemies can inflict. I deduce it must be a kind of self-protection mechanism,” Angel pondered. “This does fit the behavior of Transforming Soft-bodied Insects, but to say it is definitely one might be premature.”

After Sanders took a careful observation, he thought for a moment and gently tapped the observation box.

Inside the box, numerous Illusion Nodes converged, and an insect-eating beast with a purplish skin rained down from the sky, radiating a terrifying aura.

The snot monster, startled, immediately underwent a transformation.

Just like the previous poisonous bee, it turned into a green sea urchin.

As the insect-eating beast’s aura grew stronger and it approached step by step, the snot monster began to slowly back away. At that moment, a buzzing poisonous bee flew into the observation box.

The insect-eating beast extended its pink tongue and directly rolled the poisonous bee into its belly.

As the crunching sound echoed, the presence of the poisonous bee was completely erased.

This scene startled the snot monster.

At first, Angel did not understand what Sanders intended to do, as this enemy stress test had already been conducted before. Why repeat it?

Just as Angel was puzzled, the insect-eating beast extended its tongue for an attack on the snot monster. After several thuds, several cracks appeared on the walls of the observation box, all caused by the insect-eating beast’s tongue.

But the snot monster displayed astonishing speed, its body spinning rapidly like a ball to dodge.

However, as the observation box itself was not large, even if the snot monster could evade the insect-eating beast’s attacks, it would eventually end up in its stomach if it couldn’t escape.

As the situation for the snot monster grew increasingly dire, suddenly, Angel felt a flash of light before his eyes.

The seurchin-transformed snot monster shot its “needles” out, aiming for the insect-eating beast’s tongue and eyes. At the same time, the snot monster turned into a silver-black spike, swelling to at least three times its size, and violently thrust at the crack formed by the insect-eating beast on the surface of the observation box, attempting an escape.

Clearly, the snot monster aimed to use the crack to break open a hole and flee.

However, no matter how hard the snot monster tried, it failed to break the box.

Seeing this, Sanders snapped his fingers lightly.

As the insect-eating beast was an Illusion Technique construct, it dissipated along with the sound waves. Vanishing as well were the stinking saliva and the cracks on the walls of the box left by the beast–all illusions.

Since the cracks were illusions, it was impossible for the snot monster to burrow through them to escape.

Although Sanders dispelled the illusions, he took the “flying needles” left on the insect-eating beast and inspected them closely. Then he handed them to Angel: “Take a look for yourself.”

Angel took the flying needles; as an Alchemist, he had a judgment in his mind when he first saw them. But holding the actual object, he still felt a trace of surprise.

Hard, cold, emitting a metallic luster under the light source.

But to call it metal was inaccurate because it clearly had traces of biological tissue inside. To say it was a part of the snot monster, Angel couldn’t really see it.

It’s quite like an intermediate product of biological alchemy.

“This is different from the spines it initially showed, when it sensed an intense, lethal threat, it changed some properties of its skin to survive,” Sanders said. “This aspect is quite consistent with the characteristics of the Transforming Soft-bodied Insect.”

“Moreover, when you look at how it just transformed into a cone shape, you should be able to feel a unique kind of energy fluctuation.”

Angel nodded: “There’s a slight fluctuation on its surface that seems similar to spatial traits.”

“Exactly, this special spatial fluctuation is also one of the characteristics of the Transforming Soft-bodied Insect,” Sanders continued. “Both of these unique traits match the elements of the Transforming Soft-bodied Insect. Therefore, we can basically confirm that this is a Transforming Soft-bodied Insect.”

“As to why its shape is different from other Transforming Soft-bodied Insects and looks very… odd.” Sanders choked on the word ’disgusting’ and paused for a moment before adding: “Perhaps, it is also a form of self-protection mechanism.”

Just like Angel had previously told Popota, Transforming Soft-bodied Insects can shapeshift at will–who could accurately describe their true form?

“If you really feel uneasy, you could go ask Kimberly or Isabel. During the era they roamed, Transforming Soft-bodied Insects weren’t extinct, they might know something,” suggested Sanders.

Although Sanders himself had used Transforming Soft-bodied Insects, by the time he started to rise to prominence, they had become very rare, so his knowledge in this area was somewhat less than that of Kimberly and Isabel, who had lived longer.

Angel nodded; to be on the safe side, he decided to confirm it one more time.

When Angel was led by a half-mechanical person to find Lady Kimberly, she was facing a large pile of information files, her brows furrowed, and within the magical forest in her hair, mist and haze abounded, and the Illusory Spirits were hiding at home, not daring to poke their heads out.

Besides Lady Kimberly, there was one other person in the room, to be precise, a soul.

Molly.

Hearing the sound of the door being pushed open, both Lady Kimberly and Molly looked over.

Lady Kimberly put down her pen and looked at Angel: “What brings you here? I heard from Natasha that you’ve been in the testing field for a week already, why not stay a bit longer?”

Lady Kimberly’s words were devoid of emotion, and Angel wasn’t sure if she was sincerely suggesting or being sarcastic.

However, recalling what Sanders had said earlier that Kimberly had been bothered by messages from various outposts about his affairs for several days, Angel simply took the initiative to apologize first.

Lady Kimberly was slightly taken aback: “Are you talking about that trivial matter? I didn’t take it to heart.”

On the side, Molly laughed lightly: “Kimberly really hoped you would stay longer; these days, many have proposed to restart the testing field, but she delayed them all using the reason that you were inside. Now that you’re out, she has no excuse anymore.”

Getting back to business means restarting everything, and the testing field is naturally part of it. Lady Kimberly has a high passion for alchemy, but when it comes to handling the affairs of Black Castle, she tends to procrastinate and be as lazy as possible.

Angel hesitated: “What if I go back and stay for another two days?”

“Don’t make the testing field sound like a prison,” Kimberly waved her hand: “Never mind, you’re out now, you’re out. Anyway, I have to deal with this mess sooner or later.”

Remembering the massive scale of the testing field, and the Demonic Materials stacked as if cash didn’t matter… If all that was considered a mess, then Angel had nothing else to say.

“Let’s get down to business; you surely didn’t come here for nothing, did you?” Kimberly looked at Angel.

Angel stated his purpose.

After listening, Kimberly muttered to herself: “I seem to recall hearing that the Transforming Soft-bodied Insects in the Wizards’ Realm of the Southern Domain had gone extinct. I didn’t expect you could still find one… I haven’t seen many Transforming Soft-bodied Insects, but Molly was an auctioneer a thousand years ago, so she must have encountered quite a few. Show us what you have.”

Angel placed the observation box on display and recounted the experiments he had conducted earlier.

After looking it over, Kimberly couldn’t make a judgment, but Molly gazed for a while and then nodded decisively: “Indeed, it is a Transforming Soft-bodied Insect, and it might even be one of the best kinds out of its category.”

It’s hard to find two identical things in the world; there will always be differences. The same goes for Transforming Soft-bodied Insects.

According to Molly’s explanation, there are indeed good and bad categories of Transforming Soft-bodied Insects. However, the concept of good and bad is vague itself, depending entirely on what you compare it to.

For wizards, the primary use of Transforming Soft-bodied Insects is in Shapeshifting Technique. Thus, the good or bad distinction of Transforming Soft-bodied Insects depends on the Shapeshifting Technique.

Shapeshifting Technique is a trick that can alter appearance. It claims: one can be as small as a mosquito or as large as a Titan.

However, this claim is merely a rhetorical flourish. Very few can actually use the Shapeshifting Technique to become as small as a mosquito or as big as a Titan.

Most wizards can only shrink to the size of the Kulakuka Tribe and, at most, grow three to five times the size of a normal human when using Shapeshifting Technique.

Yet, there are transformations tiny as Dust and huge as mountains, rivaling even the Titans–these are scarce.

Two factors determine the upper limit of the Shapeshifting Technique.

One is the energy foundation. The other is the category and quality of the Transforming Soft-bodied Insect.