Ice Silkworm

Above Flying Spirit City, massive waves of spiritual energy surged more violently than before, roaring and ravaging the surrounding heavens and earth like a torrent of rushing water.

And just when that spiritual energy reached its absolute peak, a clear, ringing whistle suddenly echoed from the center of the city!

The whistle reverberated outward, carrying immense spiritual energy as it diffused in all directions.

Everyone caught in the sweep of this spiritual energy felt a soul-gnawing sound ring through their minds, making them involuntarily feel a sense of nausea.

This spiritual energy wave can actually affect the divine soul?

Several experts who had reached the Heaven-reaching Realm wore looks of utter shock at that moment; they certainly hadn't possessed such ability when they broke through!

Swish!

Amidst the shocked gazes of the crowd, that heaven-shaking pillar of spiritual energy suddenly trembled violently. Everyone saw a dazzling light erupt from the base of the pillar and shoot straight up into the high heavens.

Bang!

The pillar of spiritual energy shattered into a sky full of starlight, and out of that scattered radiance emerged a foot-sized luminescent figure.

That figure was identical to Heavenly Insect, and it was naturally his divine soul.

Only, at this moment, Heavenly Insect's divine soul appeared exceptionally condensed, looking almost indistinguishable from a physical body, and permeated with a powerful aura from head to toe.

The cross-legged divine soul slowly opened its eyes, two rays of golden light instantly piercing the firmament and shooting straight into the starry vault, making it look just like the Monkey King bursting into the world.

Heavenly Insect's divine consciousness observed all of this, and with a single thought, the entire situation of Flying Spirit City was instantly gathered in his mind.

Right now, he didn't care how many pairs of eyes were staring at him from below. The divine soul simply raised a small hand, opened its mouth, and inhaled...

The entire sky full of spiritual energy dots directly transformed into streams of light that were sucked completely clean into its mouth in one gulp.

With this abundant spiritual energy replenishment, the light around Heavenly Insect's divine soul grew even more condensed at that moment. Tiny specks of golden light even appeared on the surface of the divine soul, making it countless times denser than before.

Swish!

Heavenly Insect's successfully condensed divine soul abruptly shot into the sky, transforming into a stream of light that soared straight up into the nine heavens!

Even though the gales of the highest heavens swirled here, they could inflict virtually no harm on this tiny divine soul, as if Heavenly Insect had already acquired the towering, earth-shaking capabilities to grasp this entire world within his palm.

Of course, that was impossible.

This was merely the illusory, powerful hallucination produced right after a cultivator broke through. If you truly sank into such a hallucination and felt you were omnipotent, you were not far from death!

This could also be considered a small test of a cultivator's state of mind...

After letting his divine soul roam outside for a little while, Heavenly Insect realized that with his current strength, he still couldn't truly make the divine soul cross the gales of the nine heavens above his head or enter the starry vault of the universe, so he quickly called it back.

When the divine soul returned once again to his golden Qi sea, Heavenly Insect truly felt his own strength, which was simply incomparable to before his breakthrough.

At this time, when he mobilized the sword qi of the Ancient Sword Butterfly, it was already sufficient to display five-tenths of the Sword Butterfly's might.

And it was precisely this five-tenths might of sword qi that gave Heavenly Insect an invincible offensive means in the Heaven-reaching Realm, enough to catch up to the footsteps of those so-called geniuses!

It seems it's time to get a good sword!

Although the collections within the City Lord's Estate of Flying Spirit City were vast, perhaps because Flying Locust didn't use swords, there were no powerful sword artifacts stored there.

In fact, throughout the entire Flying Spirit City, Heavenly Insect doubted there were any high-grade spiritual sword artifacts. After all, as Spirit Insect Masters, they had no use for such things at all, so naturally no one would waste resources buying or forging them.

I can only wait until I get to Flying Salamander City to talk about it...

Flying Salamander City,

the largest city in the Flying Salamander Domain, and also the only massive city directly ruled by Tian Yuan, the Domain Lord of the Flying Salamander Domain. Here, even supreme-grade spiritual artifacts that were hard to come by elsewhere might appear, and every year at the major auctions, one or two divine artifacts would even appear as the finale auction items.

As long as you had Supreme Spirit Liquid, divine artifacts, divine insect eggs, or even extremely rare Divine Ability Arts, you could see them all...

Before setting off, Heavenly Insect carefully tallied the family fortune in his hands.

After looting all the collections of the City Lord's Estate and Wu Xiao, he had gained another fifteen hundred drops of Supreme Spirit Liquid. Added to what he originally obtained from Spirit Butterfly Fairy, he had exactly sixty-five hundred drops available to use.

This was all his wealth after deducting the cultivation expenses for both Heavenly Insect and Golden Cicada. Although wanting to purchase a divine artifact or divine art was a bit of a stretch, buying a spirit sword at the supreme-grade spiritual artifact level was completely unproblematic.

Moreover, Heavenly Insect also wanted to see if he could encounter any more powerful spirit insect eggs. Even if he still needed to personally hatch and nurture them later, as long as the potential was sufficient, it was worth it.

Finally, led by Tian Fu, Heavenly Insect brought Demon Butterfly along to Flying Salamander City.

Looking at the massive city before them that resembled a slumbering Primordial Giant Beast, even Heavenly Insect, who fancied himself well-traveled, was deeply startled.

As expected of a fantasy world, such ancient and enormous cities could simply never exist in a world without the extraordinary.

Furthermore, it was rumored that the skies above Flying Salamander City possessed a Heaven-grade Grand Formation, making it extremely difficult even for a Ninth Grade Sovereign to forcefully shatter this formation. If any Sovereign below the seventh grade dared to trespass, they would be instantly heavily injured.

Rumor had it that this grand formation was obtained by the Domain Lord of the Flying Salamander Domain from a certain powerful expert within the Twelve Branches at a huge cost and favor, and it was the foundation that allowed him to firmly rule the entire vast Flying Salamander Domain.

The three of them arrived at the outer entrance of Flying Salamander City...

This was one of the eight entrances surrounding the massive Flying Salamander City, firmly guarded by a layer of light barrier.

Outside the light barrier, there was also a force of one thousand guards from the Flying Salamander Army. If this thousand-strong army formed a military formation, even a Third Grade Sovereign expert wouldn't dare hope to resist them, making them countless times stronger than the group of Flying Spirit Army under Black Jade's command.

And a formidable army like this numbered a total of ten thousand in the Flying Salamander Domain!

What a terrifying force this was!

When he witnessed all of this, Heavenly Insect became even more determined never to return to that tiny place of Flying Spirit City. If he wanted to grow rapidly, he naturally had to step outside and witness the broader heavens and earth within the entire Great Thousand World!

Because Heavenly Insect still held the position of the City Lord of Flying Spirit City and was also here to attend the annual Alliance Gathering this time, the city entry fee was waived, which made him quite happy in his heart.

He could save a bit more!

There was no help for it; the entry fee for Flying Salamander City was simply too expensive.

Yet even so, Heavenly Insect saw the massive number of people wanting to enter the city at this entrance; the entry fee alone would allow that Domain Lord to make a fortune!

No wonder Tian Fu had persuaded him to become this city lord earlier-so the benefits lay right here...

After entering the city, looking at the vast expanse before them, both Heavenly Insect and Demon Butterfly were completely in the dark, and subsequently, they both cast their gazes onto Tian Fu.

Actually, what they didn't know was that Tian Fu felt extremely guilty inside at that moment.

Because she had only been to Flying Salamander City once when she was originally dispatched to Flying Spirit City to serve as an inspection envoy, and during the remaining time, how could she bear to pay that city entry fee...

"Ahem, you're here this time to participate in the Flying Salamander Domain Alliance Gathering, so your primary task is to go to the Domain Lord's palace in the center of the city to report in. Who knows, they might even provide us with free food and lodging, and then we'll save ourselves from spending our own money."

At that moment, Heavenly Insect suddenly had the feeling of a rural village chief entering the provincial capital for the first time... Is this supposed to make me find a guesthouse first?

No wonder they always said poverty curtailed ambition; previously Heavenly Insect didn't have a deep appreciation for this phrase, but now, this series of encounters finally made him understand the true meaning of these words.

Dammit, if this lord had ten thousand drops of Supreme Spirit Liquid in his pocket, I'd stay at the best inn, eat the finest delicacies, drink the best fine wine, and find the prettiest gi-

Ahem, let's forget about that last one; I'm a decent person after all...

It was mainly the two deadweights by his side that made Heavenly Insect somewhat embarrassed to make a move.

And so, the first day in Flying Salamander City passed amidst the tediousness of finding a department to report to and applying for a guesthouse.

When a new morning rose once again, Heavenly Insect, who was already thoroughly annoyed, didn't even bother to socialize with the other city lords in the same courtyard and directly brought the two women out onto the street.

"I heard yesterday that a place is holding a Spirit Insect Trade Fair, exactly where we're going to take a look!" Heavenly Insect said with a somewhat excited expression.

Of the two women, Tian Fu was very calm, because her mind was currently set entirely on cultivating her Flying Spirit Centipede and she had no interest in other spirit insects.

Demon Butterfly, however, was the exact opposite.

Right now, she only had a single Black-Feathered Star Locust in her possession to hold down the fort. Among her other spirit butterflies, only the Soul-Bewitching Butterfly was still somewhat useful, while the rest were too low-grade to show off at all.

If she wanted to secure her own position after Heavenly Insect left Flying Spirit City in the future, she still needed to prepare one or two more powerful Heaven-grade spirit butterflies.

And so, two against one, the three of them hurriedly set off toward the Spirit Insect Trade Fair venue.

This trade fair venue was located in the outer periphery of Flying Salamander City, occupying a very large area and reaching a height of fully five stories.

The trade fair hall on the first floor was the most spacious and had the largest number of people. There were no entry requirements, and anyone could trade here.

Of course, if one wanted to set up a stall here, they needed to pay a certain fee to the organizers of the trade fair.

However, although the first floor had a massive crowd, most of the items were ordinary goods. Even the spirit insects were merely middle and low-grade ones, with high-grade spirit insects at the very most; anyone stronger went directly to the second or even third floor.

In this trade building, the second and third floors were where Heaven-grade spirit insects were traded. Wanting to enter here required not only possessing a certain level of strength, but more importantly, proving that you had the qualifications to enter-to put it bluntly, proving your financial foundation...

Because this involved personal privacy, the trade fair organizers had also thought of a good method, which was to have customers top up a sufficient amount of money in exchange for a special card.

This card was the proof that you could enter the second or third floor...

Isn't this just the membership system played by merchants in my past life? I didn't expect it to be popular in this Great Thousand World as well?

Heavenly Insect said with a look of displeasure.

Because the proof to ascend to the second floor actually required topping up ten million spirit stones!

Was this slaughtering a greenhorn?!

Fortunately, the young female clerk opposite them quickly explained that this money could be used within the trade fair, and when they left, no matter how much remained, it would be refunded in a lump sum. Only then did Heavenly Insect's expression ease up.

It seemed the person holding this trade fair hadn't plunged into money-grubbing madness; they still knew what could be done and what could not be done, otherwise this trade fair would probably have gone under in three days.

Under the friendly smile of the young female clerk, Heavenly Insect produced one hundred drops of Supreme Spirit Liquid to process a membership card that could go straight to the third floor.

As for Tian Fu and Demon Butterfly, they stingily only processed membership cards that could lead to the second floor.

After finishing all this, the three of them didn't go upstairs immediately, but instead began to wander around this first floor...

Although the first floor consisted mostly of ordinary items, if one's luck was good enough, the chance to pick up a bargain wasn't entirely absent. Therefore, the three of them began wandering around the first floor holding onto this mentality of trying their luck.

In fact, there were quite a few people throughout the entire first floor who held the same mentality as Heavenly Insect's trio, but these sellers weren't fools either; how could they possibly take out items exceeding their value and sell them cheaply? Thus, ninety-nine point nine-nine percent of these people were merely indulging in wishful thinking.

As for the remaining one-in-a-ten-thousand lucky person, it was said that one hadn't appeared for a long time.

As the protagonist of this book, a transmigrated and reborn person from the Earth plane of the prime world, Heavenly Insect considered himself to have the protagonist halo attached to him!

Didn't guys like Xiao Yan and Mu Chen pick up piles of good things wherever they went?

The effect of his own halo shouldn't be too inferior either...

Hugging such thoughts, Heavenly Insect led the two women and directly toured the entire floor from top to bottom.

When the two women felt as if their calves were about to grow thick from walking, and were already starting to wonder where this guy got the energy to be even better at shopping than the two of them combined, Heavenly Insect's footsteps finally halted!

At this moment, before the three of them stood a seemingly ordinary trading counter. Its only special point was that resting upon this trading counter was a transparent ice box emitting a chilling vapor, and within this ice box, dozens of thumb-sized, fat, white silkworms were dormant.

"They're just a bunch of ice silkworms; what are you looking at them for?" Tian Fu asked with a curious expression, unable to help gently leaning close to Heavenly Insect's ear to whisper.

This ice silkworm was the larval form of a high-grade ice-frost spider-type spirit insect, and the most common evolutionary form after breaking its cocoon was none other than the Frost Demon Spider.

In the past, Heavenly Insect had possessed a high-grade spirit insect Frost Demon Spider, but it unfortunately perished during the ruins of Spirit Butterfly Fairy.

This could also be considered a high-grade spirit insect with fairly formidable combat prowess, especially its unique chilly spider venom, which had a massive lethality against anyone below the Three Heavens Realm.

Yet Heavenly Insect was now a Heaven-reaching Realm cultivator; going back to nurture a high-grade spirit insect starting from the larva stage-no matter how one thought about it, it just didn't seem worth it, right?