Spirit Insect

Shawa Shawa still had not advanced, but her body had visibly grown larger. Du Ke took out a measuring tape and checked her height; she had reached 42 centimeters, practically a large figurine.

"Shawa Shawa, how much longer do you think it'll take for you to advance?"

"Mm, if I can eat Spore Powder every time, I should be able to advance in three days."

"As long as I'm here, you can eat as much as you want. The other flower fairies can too." Du Ke had found the fun in raising them and decided to increase the supply of Spore Powder. Tomorrow, he planned to head back into the forest to look for more Devil Explosion Flowers. Something this good could not go to waste.

"Du Ke."

Xise Xise rode over on her Displacer Beast Spirit, holding a strange bug in her tiny hand. "For you."

"What is this?" Du Ke caught the bug with his gloved hand. It was about as long as a finger, like a caterpillar, but its entire body was translucent and jade-like. It lacked all the disgusting qualities of a caterpillar and instead seemed pure and beautiful.

"Abrururu gugujiji!" Xise Xise said something in the flower fairy language, but Du Ke could not understand her.

Shawa Shawa translated for him. "Bug. Fell from it." As she spoke, she pointed at the Displacer Beast Spirit, meaning that this bug had fallen from it.

Du Ke said in surprise, "A parasite from a Beast Spirit?"

Xise Xise nodded, then shook her head. "Bug. Good. Magic."

After a mixture of gesturing and guessing, Du Ke finally understood what Xise Xise meant. This bug had grown from the Displacer Beast Spirit. It was a special "spirit insect" that had absorbed the Displacer Beast's magical ability in life and could grant that ability to someone else. To make him understand, Xise Xise personally demonstrated. She patted the bug's rear, and it immediately bit into her palm.

The next moment, Xise Xise cried out and vanished instantly.

When she reappeared, she was already three meters away.

"See, Du Ke? Bug, magic, Displacer Beast magic!" Xise Xise shouted as she used it a second time, instantly moving in front of Du Ke. Then she proudly held up the spirit insect in her hand. "For you."

"You're giving it to me?"

"Yes."

"Thank you!" Du Ke could not bear to refuse something so valuable and accepted the spirit insect right away. "Right, let me see your hand. Did it leave a wound when it bit you?"

He examined Xise Xise's tiny hand. He had clearly seen the spirit insect bite her palm just now, yet there was not the slightest wound.

Xise Xise answered proudly, "Bug good. Won't hurt me. Du Ke, you try."

"Can I really?" Du Ke was not entirely confident.

The crucial point was that this spirit insect was simply too miraculous. It did not even feel like a carbon-based life-form, yet it had grown from the Displacer Beast Spirit. Du Ke had always understood the Displacer Beast Spirit as a "soul," believing it to be the soul of the Displacer Beast he had killed. Yet a parasite had somehow grown from that soul, and it was such a beautiful jade-like bug.

More importantly, the bug could grant magic to others.

So what exactly was a spirit insect made of? A soul, or Magic Elements?

He was in no rush to let the spirit insect "bite" him and instead continued asking, "Xise Xise, will the Displacer Beast Spirit grow more spirit insects?"

Xise Xise shook her head. "Spirit insect, impurity. Displacer Beast Spirit, more clean, strong."

Seeing how inconvenient it was to communicate in the flower fairy language, Du Ke simply used Touch of Mind to connect with Xise Xise and directly opened a mental exchange between them. After several exchanges of thought, he fully understood the spirit insect's existence—the Displacer Beast Spirit was a summoned creature, no longer the original Displacer Beast, but it was not pure enough. Under normal circumstances, the Displacer Beast Spirit would soon collapse and dissipate.

However, the flower fairies' Nature Spirit Summoning had helped it, allowing it to "grow." Its growth process involved constantly stripping away impurities. Among them, the Displacer Beast's innate magic, Instantaneous Movement, possessed special qualities and had unexpectedly formed into a spirit insect during the stripping process.

As for how magic had become a spirit insect, Xise Xise clearly did not understand.

Du Ke could only speculate that Magic Elements might be a special kind of substance related to souls. Only then could they form a living spirit insect. This also explained why Long-Haired Bomb could not explode on Earth, because there were no Magic Elements; and why the air element analyzer found that the air of the Fantasy World had the same elemental composition as Earth's atmosphere.

Because Magic Elements were not substances with physical properties at all.

After thinking it through.

Du Ke decided to take a risk and test the spirit insect's ability. Following the method Xise Xise had taught him, he lightly patted the spirit insect in his palm. It gently bit the skin of his hand. But unlike Xise Xise, it passed through his palm's skin without any resistance and burrowed inside. Du Ke was badly startled, then in an instant, he felt as though there was an extra "part" in his left palm.

The spirit insect must have bitten into his nervous system, linking itself to Du Ke's brain.

"Don't panic, Du Ke!" Xise Xise shouted.

Du Ke came back to his senses and nodded calmly. Then he began to sense the spirit insect. Very soon, he sensed a special symbol in his left palm, as though he could activate it with a single thought.

With a thought, he activated the symbol.

The next moment, he had left the bird's-nest dwelling and was standing amid blue reeds five meters away. Without any warning, he had shifted five meters through thin air. With the spirit insect's ability, he had cast his first magic in the Fantasy World—Instantaneous Movement.

"Ha!"

"Hahaha!"

"I cast magic!" Du Ke was so excited that he nearly threw back his head and howled at the sky.

"Du Ke."

"Du Ke."

The flower fairies flew over and gathered around him, making a fuss for a while. He solemnly thanked Xise Xise. "Thank you for giving me the spirit insect. I don't have much to repay you with, so I've decided to provide you with another jin of Spore Powder. I hope all of you can use this Spore Powder to complete your advancements." The decision sent the flower fairies into cheers, though Xise Xise did not seem to care much about advancing or not.

After giving away the spirit insect, she carefree rode the Displacer Beast Spirit around everywhere.

Du Ke's gaze followed the Displacer Beast Spirit for a while. He noticed that Xise Xise had left the sea of flowers several times and gone farther out into the shrubs. Clearly, she was a flower fairy with a spirit of exploration.

"Instantaneous Movement!" Du Ke looked toward his bird's-nest dwelling and activated the spirit insect symbol in his palm with his mind.

The next moment, he successfully appeared inside the dwelling.

"Beautiful!"

Du Ke laughed in satisfaction. He had completely mastered Instantaneous Movement Magic. All he needed to do was look at a location and activate the spirit insect symbol. The movement range was roughly within ten meters, and the main cost was the spirit insect's energy. After two consecutive uses, along with Xise Xise's previous use, the spirit insect was already somewhat drained and needed nourishment. Nourishing it was simple; it only needed to be kept within his body.

"This counts as parasitism... no, symbiosis, I suppose. The spirit insect provides me with Instantaneous Movement Magic, and I provide it with the nutrition it needs." Du Ke spread open his left palm. With a mental command, the spirit insect soon burrowed out from beneath his skin and lay lazily in the center of his palm. When he patted its rear, it plunged headfirst back into his palm, connected to a nerve, and settled into Du Ke's hand.