Chapter 40

Chapter 40

"The laws of the world seem to have shifted; even the most minuscule and unremarkable creatures are beginning to show signs of evolution... Hey, what do you make of this?" Shen Yi read the mission description aloud, discussing it with Xi Ye. "The mission requires killing a queen bee. Given this explanation, does it mean small insects like bees are starting to develop spiritual awareness? So, killing it will grant an Evolution Seed..."

Xi Ye glanced at him but remained silent, though the look in his eyes clearly conveyed: hadn't little bees developing spiritual awareness already happened before?

"I'm an exception, an exception!" Shen Yi sprang up, his antennae twitching with eagerness. "It just so happens that players recently completed a hornet-related quest. I know where the hornet nest is, saving us the trouble of searching."

The timing of this mission was perfect. As soon as Shen Yi saw the reward, he decided not to delay and wanted to go immediately.

With his current psychic power, sneaking into the hornet nest and killing the queen bee wouldn't be difficult. However, Xi Ye was concerned and insisted on accompanying him.

So Shen Yi perched on Xi Ye’s shoulder, leisurely giving directions. To avoid trouble, Shen Yi continuously used his psychic energy to conceal their presence.

For Shen Yi now, concealing their presence with psychic energy required no effort at all.

Their territory was located on the western edge of the southern part of the Glowworm Forest. Flying eastward along the map for about a quarter-hour, Shen Yi observed many oddly-shaped insects and small animals along the way.

As the surrounding trees gradually transitioned to species with slender, thorny leaves, they spotted an enormous hornet nest hanging from a tree in the distance.

"Further east is the Quicksand Desert." The Quicksand Desert had a dry climate, and Xi Ye rarely ventured there.

Shen Yi noted the new location name and patted Xi Ye’s shoulder with his foot. "Wait here for me. I’ll go alone."

The entrance to the hornet nest was narrow, and Xi Ye likely wouldn’t be able to squeeze through. Shen Yi jumped off Xi Ye’s shoulder, fluttered his wings, and after concealing himself, landed directly below the nest’s entrance.

Hornets had slender bodies, and the nest entrance was exceptionally narrow. Shen Yi plunged inside, relying on his compressible fur to slim down enough to slip through.

The inside of the hornet nest was much quieter than his own hive. Layers of honeycombs were neatly arranged, and slender hornets crawled between them, carrying pink meat to feed the larvae. A faint, metallic scent of blood hung in the air.

Dense swarms of hornets brushed past Shen Yi as they busily went about their tasks, paying no attention to the invisible obstacle they occasionally bumped into.

After observing for a while, Shen Yi confirmed that these hornets showed no signs of developing spiritual awareness. The upper part of the nest had openings leading elsewhere. Recalling the three-story-high nest he’d seen from outside, Shen Yi concluded that the nest had multiple layers.

The system proactively asked, "Host, do you need assistance?" The system could scan and collect detailed data from Shen Yi’s vicinity.

"No need." Shen Yi declined the system’s offer and released his psychic energy, spreading it rapidly through the entire nest along the honeycombs. Generally, a queen bee was larger than ordinary bees, so it shouldn’t be hard to find.

Strangely, after scanning the entire nest with his psychic energy, Shen Yi found no trace of the queen bee.

Refusing to believe it, Shen Yi scanned again, meticulously checking every nook and cranny. Finally, on the top layer, he discovered a peculiarly shaped queen cell—about the size of a fist, oval, and completely sealed.

Shen Yi guessed it was a queen cell.

His psychic energy penetrated the cell wall and detected a large cocoon standing upright inside.

Following the psychic feedback, Shen Yi approached the sealed queen cell and sensed a faint surge of spiritual energy within.

—Could this hornet queen bee really be evolving? Wouldn't it be a waste to kill her just like that?

Shen Yi probed the queen cell again with his psychic energy. When his psychic tendrils touched the swollen cocoon, he detected an unfamiliar psychic feedback. Just as he tried to examine it closely, a sharp pain shot through his psychic energy.

It felt like being pricked by a needle. The damage was minor, but the sensation was magnified infinitely in his mind. Shen Yi, who had never experienced anything like it, shuddered and instinctively retracted all his psychic tendrils, launching a counterattack.

A "pop" sound came from the queen cell. By the time Shen Yi tried to withdraw his psychic tendrils, it was too late—there was no longer any sign of life inside the queen cell.

"Experience +3000."

"Congratulations, host, for completing the random quest—Hunt the Hornet Queen Bee. Reward [Evolution Seed] has been issued."

"..."

"Was that too hasty?" Completing the quest so easily felt unreal, as if he hadn’t even exerted any effort.

Shen Yi gnawed a hole in the queen cell. As a strange smell wafted out, he saw a finger-sized pupa lying inside. The top of it had burst open, with yellow and white fluids spread everywhere—it was quite definitively dead.

Shen Yi twitched his psychic antennae in surprise. An attack with psychic energy could actually cause an explosion to the head?!

Anyway, the quest was complete. Shen Yi emerged from the nest with mixed feelings. Xi Ye was still waiting for him and reached out to catch him. "Did it go smoothly?"

"It was almost too smooth," Shen Yi couldn’t help complaining to him. "When I went in, the queen bee was cocooning, but I sensed spiritual energy fluctuations. It must have been undergoing a secondary evolution."

Shen Yi lay on Xi Ye’s shoulder, his antennae brushing against Xi Ye’s chin, half puzzled and half amazed. "Will small insects awaken spiritually in the future? The forest is going to get even livelier."

"It’s not that easy," Xi Ye analyzed. "In such a large colony, only one queen bee achieved evolution. Even if evolution occurs, the process is protracted and won’t immediately result in spiritual awareness."

Xi Ye thought of the certain someone perched on his shoulder and added, "You’re an exception."

Then he continued, "Even if it had succeeded in evolving, it would only have been slightly smarter than other queen bees. If it encountered other opportunities, it might gradually develop spiritual awareness."

"Anyway, it’ll definitely be easier for creatures to develop spiritual awareness from now on."

The Elf, with a fluffy bumblebee on his shoulder, retraced their path. As they flew out of the conifer forest, a garish shadow flashed by, leaping onto the hornet nest.

This creature had powerful hind legs, resembling a grasshopper, but with scorpion-like pedipalps. Its eyes were large and bulging, its wings short, revealing a grotesquely shaped body. Its tail was enlarged, with circular eyespot patterns on both sides, making it look from a distance like a caterpillar mimicking a snake.

Its shape was strange, as if various insects had been forcibly merged into a chimera. Only its sturdy hind legs hinted at its grasshopper origins.

It hopped directly to the top of the nest, entered through an opening, and after waving its antennae and pausing for a moment, quickly crawled toward the queen cell.

Guard bees noticed the anomaly and swarmed to drive out the intruder, using their mandibles and stingers in turn. But no matter how the hornets bit, the creature remained unfazed. It dragged the hornets into the queen cell and greedily lapped up the spilled fluids.

Strangely, as it became coated with the queen bee’s fluids, the colony’s agitation suddenly calmed, and they returned to their tasks, working diligently.

After devouring the queen bee’s pupa, the peculiar grasshopper turned its attention to the guard bees it had dragged into the queen cell.

The dutiful guard bees, detecting the queen’s pheromones, put up no resistance as they were consumed.

Worker bees kept being summoned until the creature had eaten its fill. It then began exuding a viscous fluid, sealing the queen cell, and beginning a new cycle of evolution.

Sensing the queen bee’s presence, the colony remained calm, continuing their daily rhythms without any disturbance.

***

After claiming the [Evolution Seed], Shen Yi’s status screen underwent a slight change.

"Level: 19"

"Form: First Form Bumblebee, Second Form unlocks at Level 30, [Evolution Seed] in effect"

"Psychic Power: 3944/3944"

"Mana: 2332/2332"

"Venom Sac: 592"

"Mandibles: 401"

First Form, Second Form?

Just these two words were enough for Shen Yi to make reasonable speculations and let his imagination run wild.

Shen Yi checked the description of the [Evolution Seed] on the system panel, which stated that the [Evolution Seed] contained the fundamental power of evolution and could help living creatures evolve in the direction of their intentions.

Evolution—what would he evolve into?

If it were right after transmigrating, Shen Yi would have unhesitatingly chosen to evolve into a human form, without a second thought.

But at this moment, without even realizing it himself, from the moment he thought of this question, he never once thought of humans.

Humans weren’t suited for survival in the forest, and besides, he couldn’t bear to part with his wings.

Shen Yi rubbed against Xi Ye’s neck, thinking to himself: Xi Ye’s form is the most perfect—having both a human form and wings, with delicate features, long limbs, and great proportions...

If he could choose, he’d go with Xi Ye’s combination.

Heading back, Xi Ye made a detour past the hornet nest. When he saw the Phantom Insects floating among the trees, he smiled at the thought of Shen Yi’s earlier teasing, but then his smile faded as he frowned and landed near a tethered Phantom Insect, stopping to observe it carefully.

“What’s wrong?” Shen Yi, as usual, concealed their presence and casually wandered among the players. He moved closer to the Phantom Insect and said, “Pretty interesting, isn’t it? Let’s catch one tonight and give it a try.”

Xi Ye took the Phantom Insect and examined it closely, seemingly puzzled. “Something about it feels off,” he said, though he couldn’t pinpoint exactly why.

However, after hearing Shen Yi’s suggestion, he nodded. “Let’s catch one tonight and keep it in the valley to observe.”

That way, if anything unusual happened, they’d notice it right away.

The pheromones left on the hornet nest the previous day still lingered, and today, groups of hornets continued to show up from time to time. The players were eagerly trying to earn contribution points, but with the competition for monsters so fierce, Shen Yi didn’t need to lift a finger.

Shen Yi thought that the hornets might cause trouble without their queen, so he temporarily decided not to end this hornet activity.

That night, Shen Yi caught two Phantom Insects and got Xi Ye to tie them up with Thousand-Thread Vines. The vines were as fine as hair, and when tied to the floating Phantom Insects, they looked like they were holding hydrogen balloons.

The whole night, Xi Ye followed Shen Yi while holding the two Phantom Insect balloons. After Shen Yi collected the spiritual essences, he placed the Wood Essence into one Phantom Insect’s sac and stored other types of spiritual essences in the other.

Most of the time, however, Shen Yi collected Wood Essence because he noticed that Xi Ye wouldn't drink the Wood Essence collected from the players.

Although Xi Ye claimed that watering his Destiny Flower with it was just as effective, Shen Yi had a feeling that drinking it would be better for Xi Ye.

But Xi Ye disliked all players and only accepted things from him. This special treatment and the feeling of being specially needed energized Shen Yi, who worked tirelessly most of the night.

The two Phantom Insect balloons were tied by Xi Ye to a protruding rock on the cliff wall. When no abnormalities were observed the next day, the two treated them as ordinary storage tools—tethered there, out of the way but convenient to access.

Shen Yi set up an Experience Shop next to the Contribution Shop. As the name implied, items in the Experience Shop required players to exchange experience points. Any item that could replenish experience, such as Phantom Insect Essence and Crystal Stone Plum, could be used.

Currently, the Experience Shop only listed one item—the Resurrection Puppet.

One Resurrection Puppet cost 10,000 experience points.

Most players had reached level 10, triggering a buying spree. Since Divine Water was easy to collect, almost every player exchanged for at least two Resurrection Puppets.

Shen Yi had already harvested over two million experience points’ worth of Phantom Insect Essence, so he didn't care about the small profits from the players. So, he ignored the Phantom Insect balloons floating all over the trees. As long as he didn’t cause any trouble, he considered it a bonus for his fellow players.

When Qingshan and the others came online and met up, they noticed the hornet activity was still ongoing. Following their earlier plan, they decided to avoid other players and sneaked off toward the hornets’ old nest.