Awakening

The moment the Mother Nest finished incubating, Qin Mu felt a powerful warm current surging through his body. When it flowed through his brain, it seemed to stimulate something.

A violent headache struck without warning, forcing a pained cry from Qin Mu.

"What's going on?"

The long spear slipped from Qin Mu's hand as he clutched his head desperately, screaming wildly.

"It hurts, it hurts!"

Waves of piercing agony made Qin Mu want to smash his head against the surrounding trees.

"Ahhh!--"

Qin Mu's eyes rolled back, and he fainted from the pain outright. In the last moment before his consciousness blurred, he issued a command to the Mother Nest through the soul link: focus all efforts on incubating Worker Bugs, protect himself and the Mother Nest!

Qin Mu's heart convulsed violently as he lay unconscious. Blood surged through his body, his skin flushed crimson, and blood seeped out from every pore.

A powerful warm current circulated within him—this was the feedback from the successful Mother Nest incubation!

Under the continuous operation of this force, every part of Qin Mu's body—from skin to organs, blood, bones, and even every single cell—underwent drastic changes. His body was evolving rapidly!

This was a leap in the essence of life!

As Qin Mu lay on the Fungal Carpet, convulsing nonstop.

Beside the Mother Nest, five newly hatched Larvae received the command Qin Mu had given before fainting and quickly began to mutate.

Like inflating, they transformed into Pupae, pulsing like hearts.

Five minutes later, five new Larvae were hatched, then quickly mutated into Pupae.

The cycle repeated.

Fifteen minutes later, five ferocious-looking Worker Bugs broke out of their eggs and began patrolling around the Mother Nest on their own, protecting both the nest and Qin Mu.

Twenty minutes later, another five Worker Bugs hatched successfully.

New Larvae were continuously hatched and mutated into Worker Bugs.

By the time all the energy accumulated in the Mother Nest was exhausted, a full fifty Worker Bugs had hatched around it.

These Worker Bugs began gathering resources from the surroundings on their own. First was the Tiger Hound that Qin Mu had killed. One Worker Bug swung its Pincer, grabbed the Tiger Hound, lifted it, and carried it to the Mother Nest.

The Worker Bug found a hole on the Mother Nest and tossed the Tiger Hound's corpse directly inside. The body was instantly devoured and digested, converted into energy needed by the swarm.

Next came the surrounding flowers, grass, trees, and everything else rich in energy.

As the most basic and arguably most important unit of the Zerg, Worker Bugs could find any resource suitable for the Mother Nest to digest and convert into energy.

The Mother Nest's digestive ability was extremely powerful—it could digest almost any resource.

Flesh, plants, all organic matter, and even inorganic matter. If left unchecked, an entire planet would be devoured clean in a very short time!

This was the terror of the swarm, one of the reasons the Zerg were called a natural disaster across countless universes.

Time ticked by. Qin Mu's fingers twitched slightly as he lay on the ground. Dazed and groggy, he sat up.

Everything around was pitch black. The sky was full of stars, and a pale moonlight spilled down, allowing Qin Mu to see that this was a dense forest.

Among the trees, he could vaguely make out dark figures that looked like giant ants patrolling and guarding the Mother Nest.

"What am I...?"

Qin Mu's consciousness finally cleared. Everything his eyes passed over was crystal clear. Even in the darkness, he could see the appearance of the Worker Bugs in the distance.

In the forest, the rustling of leaves in the wind, the chirping of insects and birds—all were distinct and sharp. It was as if the whole world had been wiped clean of haze, or like a severely nearsighted person suddenly putting on glasses—everything became extraordinarily clear.

Qin Mu climbed to his feet and instinctively grabbed a nearby tree.

"Crack--"

The tree was actually crushed under his grip, leaving a deep palm print in the trunk.

"My strength has increased so much!"

Qin Mu could clearly feel that his vision, hearing, smell, and even his entire physical constitution had undergone a shocking improvement.

Staring at the tree he had accidentally dented, Qin Mu's mind stirred. An invisible force erupted, spreading from his brain. All the surrounding flowers, grass, and fallen leaves floated up with it.

The long spear that had fallen to the ground also flew up on its own, returning to Qin Mu's hand.

"I awakened the power of a Mental Master?"

Qin Mu was ecstatic inside. As a transmigrator, how could he not know what a Mental Master was?

This was a rare and powerful ability that could only be awakened through one's own talent.

Back on Earth, once someone awakened as a Mental Master, they could easily defeat martial artists of the same rank and would be courted by all major powers.

"It was the feedback from incubating the Mother Nest. That's right—the Zerg's talent in the soul is among the pinnacle races of the universe. Any Zerg Mother Queen is a master of soul-type abilities. I have a Zerg clone and can be called the ruler of the swarm, so naturally, I have this talent too."

Sensing an especially thick soul light point in his mind, along with dozens of weaker ones.

Qin Mu found that he could easily control them all simultaneously for precise actions without any discomfort. This wasn't just multitasking—it was multitasking with dozens of tasks at once!

It wasn't just a boost in power. Qin Mu even felt that his comprehension and talent had greatly improved.

His brain's processing speed was countless times faster than before, like swapping an ordinary computer for a supercomputer.

"This feeling... it's so powerful!"

Qin Mu effortlessly controlled over a dozen Worker Bugs to line up before him, performing various actions in perfect unison, a smile spreading across his face.

"Go!"

The spear at his side levitated, then shot forward, piercing through several trees in succession.

"Such strength, such destructive power—far beyond what the Advanced Warrior level could offer!"

"My physical condition is at least three to four times stronger than before, barely reaching the Advanced Warrior level, and my Mental Power has also hit the body's limit."

After awakening as a Mental Master, his past memories became clearer, and many forgotten things resurfaced.

"I remember that after Luo Feng awakened, his strength reached the Intermediate Warrior level, with Mental Power up to two levels higher than his martial rank, meaning the Initial Warlord level. My martial strength should already be at the Advanced Warrior level, so my Mental Master rank is Intermediate Warlord!"

A glint of sharp light flashed in Qin Mu's eyes. Was this kind of boost terrifying?

Of course it was!

But it was also perfectly normal—after all, this came from a First-level Hive that consumed a full 500 points of energy to hatch, along with the feedback from dozens of Worker Bugs!

As the master of the swarm, being too weak would be the real anomaly!

After testing his own abilities for a while, Qin Mu shifted his focus to the swarm.

When his consciousness connected to the Hive, something astonishing happened.

Qin Mu had thought his computational power was formidable after his physical transformation, but compared to the Hive, it was like a minor sorcerer meeting a grand master—utterly insignificant!

Countless streams of data and information flashed by; dozens of Worker Bugs constantly fed back various reports, whether gathering resources or patrolling the surroundings.

The Fungal Carpet spread outward from the Hive, devouring every insect and plant it encountered, while collecting their genetic information and storing it in the Gene Bank.

At every moment, a torrent of data flowed, yet the Hive's consciousness processed it all with ease.

Beyond information processing, Qin Mu also discovered more of the Hive's capabilities and knowledge.

First, the Worker Bug that had transformed into the Hive was a First-level Hive, capable of hatching Larvae—five Larvae every five minutes—which could then mutate into other Zerg Units.

Of course, for now, only the Worker Bug option was available.

Second, the power the First-level Hive could feed back to Qin Mu was not infinitely cumulative; it had an upper limit.

The cap for a First-level Hive was the Advanced Warrior level.

To raise that cap, the Hive's level had to be upgraded.

The method for upgrading the Hive was simple: two conditions had to be met. First, 5,000 points of energy had to be consumed. Second, enough Monster Genes had to be analyzed, with the Gene Analysis Level reaching a certain threshold.

The Hive itself had no intelligence, but it possessed immense computational power, similar to an Intelligent Optical Computer in mechanical lifeforms.

It not only had a certain capacity for gene analysis but could also help Qin Mu handle the swarm's daily affairs.

There was another way to speed up gene analysis: hatching another type of Zerg building.

This was the only other Zerg building currently available in the Gene Bank besides the Hive—the Evolutionary Cavity!

The Evolutionary Cavity was the Zerg's military research center. It could collect genes from powerful organisms, research, analyze, create, or mutate new Zerg Units, and also strengthen existing swarm units.

It was the testing ground for the swarm's continuous evolution and the core of the swarm's power.

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