After discovering that Cluster Hummingbirds were better suited for scouting than Wood Spirit Servants,
Su Qing began considering how best to make use of them.
The Hummingbirds' operational range was limited by his spiritual sense—no higher than two hundred zhang, no farther than three li.
Once they exceeded that range and the Spiritual Sense Link was severed, the Hummingbirds would lose control and fall to the ground, no longer able to act on their own.
"With just nine Hummingbirds, divided into three groups of three and patrolling overhead, I can take in the situation across nearly half the Forward Camp at a glance. They're far more nimble than Wood Spirit Servants!"
Having made up his mind, Su Qing left nine Hummingbirds outside and recalled the other eighteen. Carefully, he crushed several Explosive Stones into fragments and fitted them into the Hummingbirds' Spider Web Pouches.
Explosive Stones were a type of Spirit Stone. Compared to ordinary Spirit Stones, the spiritual power stored within them was extremely unstable; once subjected to external pressure, they exploded.
When certain Rogue Cultivators found themselves at the end of their rope, they often used Explosive Stones as a means of perishing together with their enemies.
Because these stones were expensive—a single one cost over three thousand Spirit Crystals—and their blast radius was extremely broad, often injuring the user as well, they were also Controlled Materials of the Cloud Mountain Sect. Even Hundred Treasures Pavilion could only supply them in limited quantities.
Thus, in reality, very few Rogue Cultivators were willing to spend such enormous sums of Spirit Crystals on these stones.
Thanks to the reputation Su Qing had built up at Hundred Treasures Pavilion, Tong Xin made the decision to sell him two.
He crushed them into granules and placed them inside the Hummingbird Puppets. This