Daddy?
Lin Ke raised his eyebrows.
Shouldn't people in this world say "Father" or "Pa"?
Why "Daddy"?
Had she inherited some of his memories after absorbing his mental energy?
"What's your name?" He crouched down and carefully examined the little creature before him.
She was a "monster."
She looked incredibly strange!
Her entire body, for instance, was orange-yellow like a bee's, yet her head resembled a little girl's. Two antennae served as her hair, while her compound eyes shone like gemstones.
But behind that bee-fairy appearance, she carried a pair of pale golden wings.
They weren't the stiff, brittle wings of a bee, but pale golden wings like those of a Blackgold Moth.
That wasn't even the strangest part.
The strangest thing was that her upper body looked like an organic fusion of at least two insects and a human, while her lower body sank into the soil like tree roots.
The little creature braced both hands against the ground, her lower body completely submerged in the blue-gray soil of the Niwan Palace. Part insect and part plant, she studied Lin Ke curiously with topaz-like eyes.
She was like cordyceps. Cordyceps combined insect and fungus, but this little creature combined insect, human, and tree.
"I'm a Broodmother," the little creature said in a clear voice.
"Broodmother? Is that your species...?" Lin Ke nodded slightly, then smiled. "Broodmother is your species. Your name will be Lin Can."
He was hopeless at naming things, but the little creature needed a name. He couldn't keep calling her Broodmother.
As he pondered, Lin Can shifted her gaze from him to their surroundings.
Besides the mulberry leaves he had brought in earlier and hadn't yet cleared away, there were also some insects that hadn't mated inside Lin Ke's Niwan Palace.
Those insects immediately caught Lin Can's attention.
"Come out!"
Her voice rang clear. Then she raised her left hand as though squeezing something, scrunching up her little face until it flushed red with effort.
A moment later, a speck of light appeared in her hand, then rapidly transformed into an egg larger than her body.
"Huff, huff, go on, go on, huff..."
Lin Can casually tossed it away, then propped herself up and panted heavily.
The thing, clearly an insect egg, fell to the ground, and a palm-sized insect broke out of it.
The moment Lin Ke saw it, he naturally knew what it was.
"A Stinger Hawk Moth?" Lin Ke narrowed his eyes, immediately considering the implications.
His Niwan Palace could fuse and nurture creatures, but it had only ever been able to produce one or two at a time.
Yet that mysterious seed had undergone a mutation with the first fusion egg Lin Ke created, becoming the Lin Can before him.
Lin Can...
Her species name alone, "Broodmother," was anything but ordinary. It brought many possibilities to mind, such as...
Mass production!
If his Niwan Palace could fuse two different species and nurture them into a new species...
Then Lin Can could mass-produce that species in enormous batches!
Of course, the process seemed to consume energy and flesh.
But whatever the case, this meant Lin Ke would have an endless stream of support in the future!
Spirit beasts were expensive, after all.
Even spirit insects were extremely costly.
Though the Golden Wing Sect was renowned for its spirit insects, its disciples had only a handful of ways to acquire them.
They could buy them from the sect's Spirit Insect Cave, but while the insects the sect bred were good, they were expensive.
They could also buy insects brought in by outsiders at the Yi-Wa Market. Quality varied wildly, but there was a chance of finding a hidden bargain.
Or they could venture into the Poison Tempering Mountains to capture them. This was the most dangerous method, and it didn't guarantee a catch every time.
The final method was to breed their own.
This was also how most members of the Golden Wing Sect acquired spirit insects and improved their strength.
They nurtured the free spirit insects the sect had initially bestowed upon them, making them stronger.
But the quality of insects they bred themselves varied even more widely.
Meanwhile, the Stinger Hawk Moth that had hatched from the egg Lin Can condensed beat its wings and wobbled toward the various insects confined in grass cages nearby.
The Stinger Hawk Moth looked much like a Blackgold Moth overall, except its body was a full palm in size.
Its flight was slightly slow at first, but it gradually accelerated as it adapted, darting up and down with remarkable agility.
It landed on a cage holding several Longhorn Beetles, twisted its body to find a gap, then thrust its thick tail viciously inside.
A stinger gleaming with dark golden light emerged from the tip of its tail and pierced a Longhorn Beetle.
Spiritual energy surged for an instant. The Longhorn Beetle writhed and struggled, unable to break free, then stopped moving after a few seconds.
The Stinger Hawk Moth didn't withdraw its stinger. Instead, it remained perched there, its abdomen slowly pulsing.
"Poisoning? Feeding?"
Sensing the fluctuation of spiritual energy and watching the Stinger Hawk Moth's sequence of movements, Lin Ke began to understand its abilities.
At the same time, through its venomous stinger, he sensed its nature as a spirit insect.
The Stinger Hawk Moth truly was a spirit insect!
Although it was only low-grade spirit, the lowest rank, it was still a spirit insect on the same level as a Blackgold Silkworm.
It seemed Lin Can, the "Broodmother," really was extraordinary!
Her ability to hatch spirit insects would not only save Lin Ke a great deal of effort raising them in the future, but even allow him to sell any surplus insects he didn't need.
As long as their spirit insects were unusual and of good quality, sect disciples could sell them to the Spirit Insect Pavilion.
At that thought, the way Lin Ke looked at Lin Can changed a little.
"Lin Can, can you communicate with me?" Although he felt that Lin Can had become part of his Niwan Palace, belonging to him like his own hands and feet...
He also felt that she seemed to possess a consciousness of her own.
Moreover, while he hadn't been able to take her out before she hatched, he could now bring her out of the Niwan Palace.
"Daddy!" Lin Can looked weakly at Lin Ke and said pitifully, "I'm hungry..."
She really can communicate... Lin Ke struggled to suppress his shock.
The sight reminded him of something else.
An artifact spirit.
The Niwan Palace was his life-bound spirit artifact, and Lin Can was its artifact spirit-one with a physical body that could get hungry.
While Lin Ke pondered, the Stinger Hawk Moth swiftly stung several beetles in the other cages in the same way.
Before long, all those beetles had been sucked into empty husks.
The Stinger Hawk Moth returned to Lin Can, its swollen body swaying, then condensed a substance resembling caramel jelly from its tail.
Lin Can hugged the jelly and began gnawing on it. Once she finished, she gently rubbed her belly, looking satisfied.
"Daddy." Only then did Lin Can raise her head and call to Lin Ke again. "I want food. I want more!"
"Can you understand what I'm saying?" Looking at Lin Can, Lin Ke felt a bond of shared blood, as though he were looking at his own daughter.
"Mm-hmm." Lin Can nodded her little head. "Daddy!"
"What do you want to eat?" A smile spread across Lin Ke's face at her answer.
"Meat! I want meat!"
Clear liquid dribbled from the corner of Lin Can's mouth. "Lots of meat!"
"All right, I'll take you outside first." Lin Ke held his palm out in front of her. "Once we're outside, you have to listen to me, understand?"
"Outside?" Lin Can tilted her head as she looked at his hand, then seemed to grasp his intention.
She pushed against the ground with both hands, immediately pulling her lower body out of the soil.
Lin Can's lower body resembled tree roots, with blue-gray dirt still clinging to them. She shook it off, then hopped into Lin Ke's hand.
Lin Ke immediately left the Niwan Palace with her.
He was sitting cross-legged on the mountaintop. Outside, the east had already brightened, and the sun was like an egg yolk.
Dawn was approaching.
Several hours had passed since he set the mountain ablaze. The villagers had long since dispersed, leaving him alone.
But the moment they reached the outside world, Lin Can reacted.
"Ah! Go back, go back! Daddy, go back!"
Lin Can immediately panicked. "Bad air! Go back, go back!"
Bad air?
Lin Ke instantly understood.
It seemed his Niwan Palace really was special. Not only was its soil unusual, but the "air" filling it was special as well.
But he needed to make Lin Can his life-bound spirit beast to break through to Foundation Establishment, so she would have to endure this discomfort for now.
Lin Ke soothed Lin Can, then swiftly began circulating his cultivation art, absorbing spiritual energy and converting it into spiritual power.
Miaojiang Gu Art!
Most Qi Refining Stage cultivation arts focused on accumulation, and cultivation speed depended only on talent.
Once one reached the Foundation Establishment Realm, however, many external factors came into play.
Life-bound spirit artifacts, life-bound formations, life-bound plants, life-bound spirit beasts, and so on could increase cultivation speed to varying degrees when paired with the corresponding cultivation arts.
Thus, the life-bound spirit beast one refined was extremely important.
Now, Lin Can, who could stir his Niwan Palace, was about to become his life-bound spirit insect.
Once he recovered the spiritual power spent on spells such as the Sweet Rain Art, he could refine Lin Can.
But just then, something unexpected happened.
"Insolent brat, return my Spirit Pearl!"
Before you continue