Astral Gods

Chapter 4 Communication

The hatching of the larvae is a joyous occasion, especially since they can eat Force food, which brings the larvae even more delight.

In the following period, Zizhu and Zitong intermittently fed the larva with Force-powered food to enhance its vitality and overall physique.

The main purpose is to speed up its evolution. It grows too slowly, taking two months to molt and evolve, while the other two larvae are already past their second instar.

The other two larvae from the same batch were not released into the wild to fend for themselves, but were also kept in the incubator, mainly to compare their evolution speed with that of this larva, so as to know how fast the larvae with the Force would grow and evolve.

Whether they're free-range or penned, they're still being raised, and they don't need those peanuts anyway.

At the same time, Zizhu and the others are also using their mental powers to communicate with the larva, teaching it to communicate with other Zerg warriors.

However, this larva did not seem to have inherited the memories and could only be taught little by little by Zitong and Zizhu, making it quite difficult for it to learn.

Two months have passed in the blink of an eye. From hatching to growth, a total of four months have been spent. The other two rhinoceros beetle larvae in the same batch have already entered the third instar larvae.

The larva that possessed the Force ahead of time, even though it kept eating Force-elemental food, only just entered the second instar larva stage.

Its rapid evolution has caused some concern among Zili Lord, Zizhu, and Zitong, who are watching it closely.

It's important to know that the total lifespan of a rhinoceros beetle is only a little over a year; once it matures, it dies within two months.

If it cannot evolve into a Zerg warrior within two months, then death is all that awaits it.

Therefore, the entire rhinoceros beetle tribe has very few Zerg warriors, and has not been able to develop over the years. Every Zerg warrior is extremely precious.

It's still unclear whether it qualifies as a Zerg warrior. It doesn't exhibit any age-related changes, leading many Zerg to worry that it won't become a Force warrior.

However, things seem to be moving in a positive direction. After the second molt, and with more than two months of instruction from Zitong and Zizhu, the larva was finally able to communicate with Zizhu and the others by emitting spiritual energy.

"Purple Pearl".

Inside the incubator, the plump, white insects emitted spiritual energy, calling upon Zizhu.

Sensing its call, the insects guarding outside came over. Zizhu was overjoyed: "Third brother, you can finally release your mental power completely?"

Because Zizhu found three insect eggs together, which must have hatched from the same mother insect, she named them Lao Da (eldest), Lao Er (second oldest), and Lao San (third oldest).

Anyway, this is just a temporary name, and they don't care. Once it is promoted to a Zerg warrior, it can be renamed again.

"Hungry!" The larva, named Third Brother by Zizhu, briefly released a mental message, and Zizhu quickly took out some primal green beans and peanuts for it to eat.

After molting and evolving once, it is much larger than a normal rhinoceros beetle larva. A normal rhinoceros beetle larva is only five or six centimeters in size, but its size reaches six or seven centimeters.

When it wriggled to the food, it ate the entire Force Bean that enhanced its life force, along with twenty peanuts, before comfortably lying down in the incubator lined with rotten wood.

Seeing that it had finished eating, Zizhu cautiously asked, "Third brother, after evolving once, did you awaken any inherited memories?"

The third son thought carefully: "Yes."

"Really?" Zizhu was overjoyed to hear that the third brother had awakened its inherited memories, which meant that it should be able to awaken as a Zerg warrior after reaching adulthood; "Then do you have a life sac now?"

"Life pouch?" The third brother searched through his memories for information related to the life pouch, and it took him a long time to find it.

"have!"

Hearing the third brother say this, Zizhu happily released a seed and handed it to it: "Then see if you can nurture the seed now?"

"Purple Pearl," Lord Purple Plum called out to Purple Pearl at that moment, his tone serious, "Don't rush to nurture the life seed. Its evolution itself requires this much time to accumulate. If the life seed hinders it, won't the evolution time take even longer? Will it still be able to advance to become a Zerg warrior by then?"

"Yes!" Upon hearing Lord Zili's words, Zizhu's heart tightened, and she immediately took back the seed: "Third brother, then you should grow well, and after evolving into an insect, you can then nurture a life sac."

"Okay," the third child replied obediently.

Inside the incubator, the three larvae were all plump and white, but compared to its two older brothers, even though it was only a second-instar larva, it was much larger than its two older brothers who had reached the third-instar larva.

Time flows like a clear spring, and in the blink of an eye, it's late autumn, followed by the cold winter. This season is when most animals die, with insects suffering the most deaths.

Although they have a temperate climate and the winters are quite warm, Zizhu does not dare to be complacent.

It remembered that one year, heavy snow fell here, and countless larvae hiding in the soil died. The number of Zerg warriors that awakened on the entire Banana Island the following year was less than a hundred, a loss for the entire island.

The larvae made a hole in their nest chamber and hollowed out the bottom of the incubation box to put it inside. This way, even if it gets too cold, the larvae can burrow into the deepest part of the soil to get some warmth.

Moreover, it is located inside the nest chamber, which can also provide some warmth.

The three larvae dug a hole deep inside the incubator and huddled together to hibernate.

Seeing that they were hibernating, Zitong bid farewell and left.

It stayed here for almost half a year. Although it would often go back to check on the status of the life seeds in its territory, and other Zerg warriors would take care of the life seeds for it, it was still not as reassuring as taking care of them itself.

With nothing to do in winter, it plans to go back to hibernate and come back next spring.

Although Zitong left, Zizhu did not rest. During the late autumn season, it had to harvest and store all the fruits in its territory so that it could enjoy food even if it stayed in its nest during the winter.

After it finished harvesting all the fruit in late autumn, it returned to its nest and mentally scanned the incubation box on the ground. Deep in the soil of the incubation box, three plump white peanut worms huddled together, forming a ball, huddling together for warmth and sleeping soundly.

Upon seeing this, Zizhu smiled from the bottom of her heart.

When winter came, it didn't want to move, so it spread a lot of dry grass that it had found on the incubator and then lay down on it to sleep.

In this way, most of the cold air from the outside can be blocked, keeping the incubation box in the soil at a constant temperature and greatly increasing the survival rate of the larvae.

And that is indeed the case. The arrival of winter did not affect the evolution of the rhinoceros beetle larvae, and their growth did not stop under the soil.