Chapter 154: Chapter 146: A Fragrant Bait Combining Technology and Soul Beasts

The stiff, mechanical Insect Crystal Puppets were no match for Egg Pancake at all.

Transforming into a brutal bulldozer, Egg Pancake smashed the heads of all the statues in just a few short minutes.

"CHIRP! CHIRP!!"

Standing amid a floor of shattered Crystal Stones, Egg Pancake let out a satisfied roar to the heavens.

Han Ning could sense the exhilaration in its roar.

This was probably the most satisfying fight Egg Pancake had had in days.

"Good fight, Pancake?"

"CHIRP! CHIRP!" Egg Pancake beat its claws against its chest and nodded excitedly.

"You’ll have plenty more chances to fight in the future. We can’t linger here, so let’s clean up the battlefield for now." Han Ning smiled, walking over to squeeze Egg Pancake’s bulging muscles, which didn’t give an inch.

He observed that while under the effects of the All-Encompassing Spiritual Silkworm’s Blood Qi Burst, Egg Pancake’s strength increased by one Small Tier. Its physique and Power improved significantly, but there was little effect on its Spiritual Energy.

"CHIRP!"

Egg Pancake shook its body and excitedly waddled around, gathering all the shattered statues and pushing them in front of Han Ning.

Many of the Insect Crystals had been shattered during the fight.

Adhering to the principle of "waste not, want not," Han Ning collected every last fragment, not even overlooking pieces the size of a fingernail, and placed them all in his waist pouch.

As for the headless statues, Yin Yi conjured several vines and used them to tie the statues to Egg Pancake’s back.

Han Ning tested the weight of the statues.

A one-meter-tall statue weighed about 200 kilograms. If the Energy concentration within were condensed to the size of a ping-pong ball, it would be equivalent to something between the Entry Level and the Awakened Level. Not very strong individually, but their strength lay in numbers.

The three-meter-tall Queen statue was the heaviest, weighing nearly a ton.

After about five minutes, Egg Pancake’s massive body, which had been wreathed in a blood-red mist, began to shrink with a HISS HISS HISS, like a deflating balloon, until it returned to its original size.

Using the Blood Qi Burst Soul Technique temporarily affected the All-Encompassing Spiritual Silkworm’s constitution. Perhaps because Egg Pancake was an Awakened Level Soul Beast, unleashing a single Blood Qi Burst for it consumed nearly a third of the All-Encompassing Spiritual Silkworm’s Blood Qi.

Constitution and Blood Qi were directly correlated; a drop in constitution meant a reduction in Blood Qi.

’Not bad... An Entry Level ability can boost an Awakened Level creature by one Small Tier. If they were the same level, it would probably grant a boost of at least two Small Tiers.’

With this in mind, Han Ning took out more Crystal Stones, absorbed the Energy within, and converted it all into Attribute Points, which he then allocated to Egg Pancake.

Egg Pancake’s current stats were:

[

Race: Rock Fire Lizard

Gender: Male

Talent: D

Level: Awakening III (972/1000)

...

]

Nourished by the Insect Dragon’s azure light, Egg Pancake’s Level was gradually approaching the limit of the Awakening realm. Evolution was not far off.

He had learned from Lord Taman’s notes that neither Yin Yi nor Egg Pancake actually needed to evolve to advance from the Awakening to the Extraordinary Level. For some reason, however, the system had provided a direct path for evolution.

’He guessed it was probably better to evolve sooner rather than later. There was no need to meticulously build a foundation for a more powerful breakthrough down the line. Between the system panel and Taman’s notes, he trusted the panel more.’

After packing away the Insect Crystals, Han Ning didn’t linger in the ruins. Hidden by Egg Pancake’s Mimicry, he returned to the surface without a sound.

「...」

When Han Ning returned to the academy, he found that most of the students and staff had been mobilized, bustling about in and around the dormitory area.

Dean Wu had used simple fences to partition the one-kilometer radius around the dormitory area into sections of various sizes.

Night was about to fall, but the academy remained brightly lit.

Emergency lights of all sizes had been installed along both sides of the paths.

Stalks of Silver Lotus Wood also held up lights with their vines, suspending them in mid-air.

In an open area in front of Building A, Han Ning saw Dean Wu, Teacher Lü, and several others gathered in a circle, their expressions serious as they stared at something in the center.

He squeezed through the crowd to get a look. ’Whoa,’ even the simple steel furnace from the processing center had been moved here.

"Han Ning, perfect timing," Dean Wu said, turning his head. He had spotted Han Ning in the crowd and quickly waved him over. "This afternoon, Lady Lenna discovered a type of ’bait’ that’s lethally attractive to both low- and high-level insects. If we can reproduce it, our search for the Queen will be twice as effective."

"Bait?"

Dean Wu didn’t elaborate, instead handing over a stack of A4 paper. "This bait isn’t common even among the Yinsaike Race because it requires electrical energy. According to the documents, it can even attract insects on the level of the Jade Spirit Damselfly."

"Oh?"

Hearing this, Han Ning was immediately intrigued.

After all, the higher the level of an insect, the rarer it was, and the harder it was to track. If such a bait truly existed, it would undoubtedly make capturing them much less difficult.

He began to carefully read through the translated documents in his hand.

He discovered that the bait required a total of 15 steps to create, including dehydration, grinding, mixing, heating, and adding water... The final step was applying an electrical charge to fully activate the internal nutrients, causing them to form crystals of various sizes.

After a moment, he finished the last line and frowned. "I never would have thought the Yinsaike Family could develop such a complex formula. But to replicate this ’Fragrant Bait,’ do we even have the necessary raw materials?"

"The primary ingredient is insect carcasses. We saved some of the insects we killed earlier and put them in the storeroom. As for the other required materials..." Dean Wu smiled and held up a waist pouch. "The three Insect-men were carrying them. They’re all fairly common materials among their kind. The real key is the production method, which is very difficult to replicate."