Insect-Rearing Jar

Long after leaving the Spirit Insect Cave, Lin Ke was still thinking back on his earlier conversation with his senior sister.

Although the original owner of his body had suffered countless hardships, having such a gentle, considerate sister looking after him had been a blessing in its own right.

But now was not the time to lose himself in familial affection.

Having more or less decided which spells to buy and confirmed the price of a Stinger Hawk Moth, Lin Ke quickly returned home.

People were moving up and down Golden Silkworm Peak, checking the area back and forth and keeping watch.

The others were catching insects all over the surrounding peaks.

Lin Ke had instructed the farmers to catch insects earlier, and they had brought out all their best tricks.

Some carried round baskets on their backs, packed with straw. Antennae occasionally poked out of the straw, yet the insects never escaped through the large gaps.

Some carried earthen jars divided into several tiers that slid open like drawers. Each tier held different insects, and none of them fought one another.

Fang Tong was the most conspicuous. Whenever he caught an insect, he looped a thread woven from nettle fibers around it, as though leashing a dog or tethering a horse. All the insects lay tied to his body, making him look like a human made of bugs.

Lin Ke watched from the sidelines for a while, clicking his tongue in wonder.

He had to admit that even without spells, ingenuity could serve as magic.

These insect-catching methods had been passed down through generations of locals in the Poison Tempering Mountains and had stood the test of time.

After watching for a while, Lin Ke asked Fang Tong to organize everyone and hand over all the insects they had caught.

Besides mating with Blackgold Silkworms to produce new species, these insects could also serve as food for Lin Can.

Earlier, Lin Ke had asked Lin Can whether she ate pork, beef, and the like. But after seemingly learning what pork and beef were through her inherited memories, she had refused.

She only ate insects!

That worked out perfectly. Lin Ke had been worrying about where to discard the insects after failed mating attempts once he brought them into his Niwan Palace. A floor covered in burst flesh and blood was disgusting, after all.

The Stinger Hawk Moth had eaten the little puddles of flesh and blood left by the insects that had died after mating with the Blackgold Moths earlier.

"Honored Immortal, this is an Insect-Rearing Jar, and this is an Insect-Feeding Box. Some insects burrow into earth, and others burrow into wood, so they need different containers."

Fang Tong ran down, panting, with a container tucked under each arm.

One was a round jar half a meter tall, and the other was a wooden box of roughly the same size that resembled a beehive.

Waves of buzzing rose and fell from the two containers. There were clearly plenty of insects inside.

"Thank you." Lin Ke politely accepted both containers and smiled. "Go on catching them."

"Right away!" Fang Tong gave a simple, honest smile, then turned and headed back to catch more insects.

The Poison Tempering Mountains were naturally suited to insects, and now that spring had arrived, bugs were everywhere.

Fang Tong and the others had been catching them for two or three hours, but there were still plenty left.

"So many varieties."

Lin Ke extended his mental power into the Insect-Rearing Jar and was immediately stunned by the sheer number and variety of insects inside.

There were so many!

At a glance, he could see numerous insects that blatantly defied the ordinary rules of Earth.

There were earthworms with three heads, scorpions with tails like spiked clubs, and centipedes with dragonfly wings.

These specimens had been sorted into categories such as venomous, nonvenomous, carnivorous, and herbivorous. The vicious ones were confined to small individual compartments in the Insect-Rearing Jar, while the docile ones shared space with other insects.

"This Insect-Rearing Jar is quite scientific." Lin Ke withdrew his mental power, lifted the jar, and stored it inside his Niwan Palace.

The next instant, his face went pale, and he immediately sat down cross-legged.

That single large object had completely drained his Dao Foundation Stage mental power!

His Dao Foundation Stage mental power had only barely been enough to store it, and that was because his mental power far exceeded that of others at his level. Otherwise, the depletion would have made him cough up blood and suffer injuries.

It seemed that bringing in larger animals would have to wait until he could make more thorough plans.

"Whew..." After regulating his breathing for a while, Lin Ke exhaled a long breath of stale air, then sank his consciousness into his Niwan Palace.

Although all the soil in the Niwan Palace had settled into the embracing origin palace, the two palaces remained joined in a special way, one above and one below.

Thus, his mental manifestation still took shape on the ground.

The Insect-Rearing Jar he had just brought in also sat there.

Beside it, Lin Can examined the Insect-Rearing Jar curiously. As soon as she heard the sounds and caught the smells coming from inside, she began to drool.

Her lower body of woody roots was planted in the soil of the embracing origin palace. Bracing her left hand against the ground, she pointed at the nearby Stinger Hawk Moth with her right. "Kill bugs, eat meat!"

The Stinger Hawk Moth immediately fluttered into the air in a daze, intending to hunt the insects as it had when feeding before.

"Wait." Lin Ke spoke at once.

The Stinger Hawk Moth stopped, and Lin Can looked over too.

"I'll have them mate with the Blackgold Moths. You can eat whichever ones die," Lin Ke said with a smile.

He had no idea whether any of these insects could combine with the Blackgold Moths to form a new species.

He had tried so many times before, and every attempt had failed except for the Stinger Hawk Moth.

There was no telling how many would die this time.

"Okaaay." Lin Can nodded, then waited for Lin Ke to experiment, drool dripping from her mouth.

Lin Ke smiled unconcernedly and withdrew from his Niwan Palace.

He had rushed inside earlier because he was afraid Lin Can would not be able to restrain herself. Having stopped her, he immediately fetched two Blackgold Moths, one male and one female, and returned home.

Entering his Niwan Palace again, Lin Ke began his experiments.

Blackgold Moths were precious. They were the only Spirit Insects he possessed.

He currently had no spirit stones, nor the ability to venture into the Poison Tempering Mountains to find and capture Spirit Insects. Thus, the Blackgold Moths he had were his only means of potentially improving the quality of ordinary insects.

Once Lin Can had eaten enough meat and produced more Stinger Hawk Moths, he could sell them and buy some other Spirit Insects to try mating.

Only then would these poor Blackgold Moths be spared.

Then again, perhaps not.

If he ultimately discovered that Blackgold Moths were still more compatible with a wide range of Spirit Insects, he would have to breed more Blackgold Moths to use as breeding stock.

"Flap, flap..."

Lin Ke set the Blackgold Moths on the ground, then opened one compartment of the Insect-Rearing Jar and used the insect-catching method of the Miaojiang Gu Art to pick up the large bluish-purple centipede inside with his bare hand.

It was a female centipede.

He aligned the centipede's rear end with that of the male Blackgold Moth and pressed them together.

"Hiss, hiss-"

As expected, the large bluish-purple female centipede twisted its body and densely packed legs in agony, then burst apart and died.

"Go, go." Lin Can had no notion of whether it was a pity or not. The moment the large centipede died, she urged the Stinger Hawk Moth forward to eat it.

The Stinger Hawk Moth wobbled through the air, ate all the severed limbs and remains on the ground, then waited nearby for Lin Ke to "kill" the next insect.

The Stinger Hawk Moth could not only eat with its mouth but also feed through the stinger on its tail.

However, it seemed to prefer feeding through its stinger, and it appeared rather reluctant as it chewed on the severed limbs and remains.

Lin Ke merely watched for a moment before paying it no further attention.

He had taken stock earlier. Green Mulberry Garden currently had only sixteen Blackgold Moths in total. Ten of them, or five pairs, had to be kept to breed new Blackgold Silkworms, leaving him only six to use.

Once they were used up, there would be no more.

Unfortunately, Lin Can could only mass-produce Spirit Insects like the Stinger Hawk Moth by devouring creations of the Niwan Palace.

Otherwise, Lin Ke would have had her mass-produce Blackgold Silkworms long ago.

While thinking about these matters, Lin Ke pulled out a pale-purple Longhorn Beetle about the size of his thumb.

Who could have known that something unexpected would happen when he paired this male Longhorn Beetle with the female Blackgold Moth?

"That works too?"