Astral Gods

Chapter 5 Emergence

The purple beautyberry stays in its nest all winter. Fortunately, this year is another mild winter, so many of the larvae in the ground should be able to survive.

Its spiritual power swept through the incubation box inside the nest. After hibernating for three or four months, the three rhinoceros beetle larvae inside the incubation box did not stop growing.

During this mild winter, the three larvae occasionally awoke in the soil and continued to eat the food provided by the purple pearl. Perhaps because they were well-fed, the eldest and second eldest had already passed the third instar larval stage and reached the prepupal stage.

The third larva is still evolving slowly. It has just molted and entered the third instar larva. The difference between the three is at least half a year in evolutionary time.

Saying it takes half a year is still the growth rate of a normal rhinoceros beetle larva. The third one's growth rate is too slow; it might take a year or more.

However, with the arrival of spring, the third larva was the first to awaken. It had just molted and evolved once, and its body had grown to 20 centimeters, a size rarely seen even among rhinoceros beetles, about the size of a herring beetle.

Having just woken up, it had a very good appetite. It devoured all the half-pound of peanuts and several pieces of Force food that Zizhu had prepared for it to enhance its overall physique.

The eldest and second eldest are currently in the incubation period and have not yet awakened. According to Zizhu's estimate, they should be able to evolve into insects in about thirty or forty days.

Seeing that it had eaten its fill, Zizhu quickly used her spiritual power to ask, "Third brother, how are you feeling? Is there anything wrong with your body?"

It fears that the rhinoceros beetle larvae might develop some health problems during hibernation.

The third brother checked himself over and felt quite well: "I'm fine, I don't have any discomfort."

"That's good." As long as your physical condition is normal, then there won't be any problems.

Zizhu watched the third child crawling around and scared it, saying, "When you wake up, play in the incubator. Don't go out. There are all sorts of weird creatures outside that like to eat insects, like birds, mice, and snakes."

"I understand." Hearing Zizhu's terrifying words, the third brother shrank back in fright.

"Do not leave the nest." With the arrival of spring, Violet has to work in its territory. Many plants are sown in spring, and it also has to search for divine seeds in spring. It is very busy and has no time to take care of the larvae.

Similarly, in early spring, the Purple Tree also has to work in its own territory, searching for the divine seeds, and cannot come to help, so the little insects can only be careful on their own.

However, to prevent any accidents, Zizhu still made a stone door to seal her nest, so that the little insects could not crawl out.

Seeing that Zizhu had left the nest, the third brother, having eaten his fill and with nothing to do, thought for a moment and then crawled back into the burrow he had dug in the winter, leaning against his two older brothers and falling into a deep sleep.

However, what neither Zizhu nor it noticed was that while the third brother was sleeping soundly with its two older brothers by its side, the primal force emanating from its body was being slowly absorbed by its two older brothers.

In the spring, Zizhu was so busy that she had no time to manage the three larvae. She just prepared food for them every day and then tended to her seed, pruned the forest, and searched for divinely bestowed seeds.

Deep within the nest chamber unnoticed by any insects, the three insects were quietly undergoing metamorphosis and evolution. The youngest, thanks to ample food, continued to grow slowly until it reached a size of 25 centimeters, appearing enormous.

Then the eldest and second eldest pupae pass through the prepupal stage, and the pupae gradually begin to evolve into adults.

When Zizhu and Zitong finished their tasks in their territory and turned their attention back to the larvae in the nest, they discovered that the eldest and second eldest had already begun to enter the rain-transformation stage.

"They've started to molt," Zizhu and Zitong exchanged.

"The ascension won't take long, just a few hours."

"Yes," Zitong exclaimed, "I didn't expect them to grow so fast, they emerged from their larvae at least half a month earlier than the other larvae."

"Of course," Zizhu said smugly upon hearing Zitong's words. "Giving them so much food every day, with ample nutrition, their molting speed is naturally much faster than that of wild larvae."

Zitong added, "The survival time of an adult rhinoceros beetle is between two months and six months. With sufficient nutrition, their survival time as adults can be greatly increased, and their lifespan may even reach more than six months."

"The eldest and second eldest are growing fast, but I wonder when the third one will be able to emerge as an adult," Zizhu said with some worry. "What if the third one's emergence is delayed for too long, affecting its evolution speed?"

However, there's no way to worry about this. Even knowing that its evolution speed is slow, Zizhu and the others can only be anxious.

As night fell and dawn broke, two rather large rhinoceros beetles emerged from their pupal shells one after the other, crawled out of their burrows in the soil, and came outside to breathe and strengthen their shells.

"The metamorphosis speed is quite fast." The two Zerg warriors didn't care about ordinary rhinoceros beetles. They fed a lot of rhinoceros beetles, with hundreds of thousands in each Zerg warrior's territory.

If these two rhinoceros beetles hadn't been born in the same batch as the third one, which was radiating primal force fluctuations, and if they hadn't used them for comparison, they wouldn't have paid any attention to them at all.

After a rhinoceros beetle emerges from its molt, it will spend the next two to six months searching for a female rhinoceros beetle to mate and reproduce. Therefore, Zizhu did not keep them and immediately opened the door of the nest chamber to release them.

Unexpectedly, after the carapaces of the two rhinoceros beetles hardened, they did not fly away. Instead, they crawled back into the burrow they had dug and snuggled up to the third beetle.

"What's going on with these two rhinoceros beetles?" Seeing their behavior, not only Zitong, but Zizhu was also a little confused.

The two rhinoceros beetle warriors scanned their surroundings with their spiritual senses, somewhat bewildered.

"Wait, be careful!" Just then, Zizhu suddenly called out to Zitong, "Zitong, sense carefully, are the eldest and second eldest absorbing the primal energy from the third eldest's body?"

"What?" Upon hearing this, Zitong was greatly surprised. It also used its mental power to secretly extend its senses from the cave and discovered that the two adult insects were indeed absorbing the primal force fluctuations from the larvae.

"What's going on?" Seeing this, the two rhinoceros beetle warriors were extremely excited: "The eldest and second eldest can also absorb the Force! Could it be that they will also become Force warriors?"

"Impossible, right?" Zi Tong was full of doubt when she heard Zi Zhu's words. Their tribe had hundreds of insect warriors and at least tens of millions of rhinoceros beetles.

Even so, it's not guaranteed that one Force Warrior will emerge in a year. Do you think all three rhinoceros beetle larvae in the hive will become Zerg warriors?

The probability of this is no less than obtaining three divine seeds in the same place; it's practically impossible.