Chapter 9

Inside the dormitory of Qin Da.

Li Feng, at the first moment, took out two thousand yuan from the handbag and put it into his own wallet, then hid the entire handbag under the quilt.

By now, it had been five or six hours since he left for his hometown last year. During this time, the three third-stage ant kings and three hundred soldier ants had been busy and had already brought back a large pile of various insects.

Spiders, grasshoppers, earthworms, caterpillars, cabbage caterpillars, you name it!

It seemed that the three ant kings had put in a lot of personal effort; otherwise, the soldier ants alone probably wouldn't have been able to bring back such large prey as spiders and grasshoppers. Li Feng felt a slight excitement and began to process all the prey.

"Damn, 176 units of blood essence, more than I imagined." Li Feng exclaimed.

Adding the 33 units of blood essence left from before, he now had 209 units of blood essence.

With 200 units of blood essence, Li Feng immediately felt more confident. He had been considering whether to raise Xiahei to the fourth stage, but now it was a no-brainer; he had to do it.

"Xiahei, come here." Li Feng cut a large piece of the cake he had bought and placed it in a food box on the ground to reward the three ant kings and the three hundred soldier ants. Xiahei had already eaten his fill and quickly crawled to his side upon hearing the call.

"Based on the amount of blood essence you currently have, you can feed a third-stage ant king four times. Do you want to feed it...?"

"Yes."

As he spoke, Li Feng held Xiahei, and a surge of intense heat rose from his palm, evenly flowing into Xiahei's body.

At the same time, he could see with his naked eye that Xiahei, who was originally only 30 mm long, was rapidly growing. The pair of black mandibles on his head became more ferocious, and the black armor on his body became shinier and more solid.

This infusion of blood essence clearly took longer than the previous times. After several minutes, it gradually subsided.

Since it was a fivefold cost, to raise a fourth-stage ant king, Li Feng consumed 125 units of blood essence this time.

The Xiahei in front of him had grown into a massive ant, 50 mm long and as thick as a thumb, making it hard to believe that ants in this world could grow to such a size. This was no longer a creature that could be described as an ant.

Abnormal growth, everything had changed, and Xiahei was no longer the ordinary worker ant he used to be.

"Congratulations, you have successfully raised a fourth-stage ant king. This ant king has gained the ability to command a thousand ants, and your fourth-stage ant king has increased its loyalty to you."

"Congratulations, you have successfully raised a fourth-stage ant king. This ant king has gained the ability to summon ordinary ant kings with a certain probability..."

"A thousand command points!" Li Feng felt a surge of excitement. A fourth-stage ant king had directly gained a thousand command points, not four hundred, and it also had a certain probability of summoning the strongest ordinary ant kings in the ant colony. Wow, I'm rich.

Originally, Li Feng thought that even if he raised Xiahei to a fourth-stage ant king, he would only gain about a hundred command points.

But things were not as simple as he imagined. The difference in biological stages was vast, and the higher the stage, the greater the abilities and benefits gained from each stage increase.

"So now I have the control of 1,300 ants?"

Li Feng lifted the now somewhat heavy Xiahei, almost unable to resist giving this big guy a hearty kiss.

"Xiahei, summon all your soldiers. I need more blood essence, hahaha." Li Feng was overjoyed.

This snowball effect of growth was something he could no longer describe. When he first returned, he had planned to use the money he had to buy insects from Taobao to speed up the hunting process.

But now it seemed unnecessary. With this snowball-like growth, there was no need to rely on others.

"Rrrr, rrrr..." As a fourth-stage ant king, Xiahei had undergone many changes compared to when he was a third-stage ant king.

The most significant change was that this guy could now make sounds. The "rrrr" low growl was a call to summon a thousand ants.

Sure enough, not long after, a black flood rolled in from under the door, like the most orderly and swift military force, orderly and orderly, coming to Xiahei.

A thousand ants stood, bowing to the ant king.

What caught Li Feng's attention the most was that among the seven hundred soldier ants, there were actually more than thirty even larger ants.

Their bodies were darker, larger, and more dominant. Were they not ant kings? What else could they be?

Good, very good!

A 1,300-strong army of soldier ants, plus more than thirty even stronger ant kings, made the hunting force even stronger. Most importantly, with the addition of one fourth-stage ant king and two third-stage ant kings.

Li Feng could confidently say that now, it didn't matter what kind of prey, whether spiders, earthworms, or even the ferocious mantises, they could still be captured.

"Go, eat first, then mobilize the entire army and bring back as many prey as possible."

With a wave of his hand, a thousand ants moved into action. This night, the campus lawns and all the forests would not be peaceful, as a black flood, with excellent discipline, was now executing all of Li Feng's orders.

Unconsciously, Li Feng fell asleep, but he didn't know that, under the cover of night, his ant army was accumulating more and more prey for him.

Until he woke up the next day...

"Is this the result of the soldier ants' work for one night?" Fortunately, no one else was in the dormitory at the moment; otherwise, seeing the pile of insects like a small mountain in the corner of the dormitory would have scared them into peeing their pants.

Such a large pile of insects was something Li Feng had never seen before. Even a large cardboard box wouldn't have been able to contain them.

Even the words he had spoken last night came true. With Xiahei, the fourth-stage ant king, even the ferocious mantises, which were considered extremely dangerous, had been captured, two of them.

All the insects had been bitten by the soldier ants and lost their ability to move. Li Feng looked at the pile of insects, and his scalp tingled.

"Xiahei, Erhei, Sanhei, you deal with them." Indeed, when the number of insects reached a certain level, Li Feng felt at a loss, not knowing where to start.

Therefore, he instinctively ordered the three ant kings to complete this task for him.

The three ant kings, loyal to Li Feng, carried out his orders without hesitation.

"Crack..." Xiahei quickly pounced and bit a black cicada to death.

Erhei and Sanhei were not slow either, starting their tasks one after another.

"You have gained 2.2 units of blood essence..."

"You have gained 0.7 units of blood essence..."

"You have gained 1.5 units of blood essence..."

The prompts kept filling Li Feng's mind. It was then that Li Feng suddenly realized that his instinctive order had accidentally revealed that he didn't need to handle the insects himself; the ant kings could do it directly. What does this mean?

This means that in the future, the ant army wouldn't need to bring the prey back; they could process it on the spot, and he would still gain blood essence.

Wow, this discovery is significant!

The biggest benefit Li Feng could think of was that the efficiency of collecting blood essence would greatly increase in the future.

He quickly got out of bed and began a series of experiments. After about an hour, he finally had a clear result.

The result was that only the ant kings he had raised and who were loyal to him could act on his behalf, and he himself must be within one kilometer of the target, otherwise, even if Xiahei and the others processed the insects, he wouldn't receive any blood essence.

Although there was a one-kilometer distance limit, even so, this new discovery would greatly facilitate the speed of collecting blood essence in the future.

"Wait, leave that larger mantis for me." Just as the last struggling mantis was about to be finished off by the three ant kings, Li Feng suddenly thought of something and quickly intervened.

Mantises, as large insects, are ferocious and have sharp mantis blades, making them natural dual-blade warriors with strong combat capabilities.

How could he have almost forgotten such a creature?