Ant Egg

The cave was rather small, and Han Sen could only crawl. He held back his energy and crawled for one hundred meters before reaching the end. This was as far as the pangolin had dug, and the creature was still busy.

"What is this guy doing?" Han Sen watched it for a while, observing how quickly the pangolin worked. It seemed as if it was digging a route into the back of the cave where the ant king was protecting the primary entrance.

"It seemed like the ant king was guarding that little cave for a reason. There has to be some reason for it doing so; I wonder what it could be? Whatever it is, it's attractive enough for the pangolin to come all this way." Han Sen watched the pangolin from a good distance.

Not very much later, however, he heard something collapse. It was the tumbling of rocks as the pangolin breached through the last bit of wall into another cavern. The pangolin quickly entered.

Han Sen summoned his peacock crossbow and loaded it with his raven bolts. He crawled along the tunnel, and scrambled over the dusty rocks without hesitation.

When Han Sen saw what was inside the cave, his jaw dropped and his face froze.

The giant cave was like a warehouse, stocked with white eggs that looked like ping-pong balls. Quite clearly, the eggs belonged to the devil ant.

The pangolin-like creature looked joyful as it began munching on the eggs.

Han Sen climbed out of the tunnel that had been dug out by the pangolin, spooking it. It turned around to look at Han Sen with alarm, but it did not attack.

Han Sen took aim at the pangolin with the peacock crossbow as a precaution but felt conflicted. The pangolin was very strange, he did not know anything about it, and his own body was so weak that he didn't want to start a fight he might not be able to finish.

They both froze, eyes locked. Neither of them knew what to think of the other. The pangolin rolled its beady eyes and then stood up on two legs like a human. Its claws pointed towards the entrance.

Han Sen understood what it meant. The pangolin was pointing towards the ant king's location, and it did not want Han Sen to alert it to their presence.

"This guy's intelligence is no less than the fox king I encountered in the First Shelter." Han Sen gave the pangolin a puzzled look.

The pangolin then pointed to the eggs on the floor. It pointed to Han Sen, and then pointed to itself. It was a funny little creature.

But again, Han Sen understood what it was suggesting. It was telling Han Sen that there were many eggs for the both of them, and that they were free to eat as many as they desired, as long as they didn't disturb each other.

Han Sen looked at the pangolin, then he released his draw of the peacock crossbow. The pangolin went down on the ground again and resumed its feast.

Han Sen did not feel comfortable in the presence of the pangolin. He made sure to watch it, in between his observations of the cave and the eggs that populated it.

The ant eggs were all identical. They were white, almost exactly like ping-pong balls, and mildly transparent, too.

But Han Sen was aware that something was amiss. Traditionally, ant eggs were laid by ant queens, not ant kings. There had to be something quite different about these eggs.

If they were the ant king's eggs, then they would all be super creatures. But there had to be at least one hundred thousand in the cave. If they were all super creatures, the devil ant would reign over the Second God's Sanctuary unopposed.

If they were created by the ant king, they couldn't be super creatures. They had to be something else.

Han Sen stepped on one of the eggs.

"Mutant Creature Hunted: Subterranean Devil Ant Baby. The beast soul has not been acquired. Consume its flesh to obtain a random numeric amount of mutant geno points, ranging from zero to ten."

"Ah, so these aren't super creatures." Han Sen then stepped on a few more to check. He managed to squish a few more mutant variants, as well as ordinary variants. He could not find any sacred-blood types, however.

The pangolin must have been confused about this, as well. Sometimes it stopped eating, as if to taste-test the quality of what it was consuming. The way it rummaged through the eggs suggested it was looking for super creature ones, too.

Han Sen bent over and picked up an egg, observing it the best he could.

There were so many ant eggs there that if he ate them willy-nilly like the pangolin was, he would never find what he was looking for. Han Sen needed to look for a signature, or a way to discern one type of egg from the others, to find the super creature eggs that he sought.

The eggs were semi-transparent. When he held them in his hands, the eggs were quite elastic and felt like jelly, but even more gloopy.

The ping-pong shaped, circular balls did not smell bad. They were quite dry, as well. But when he looked inside, Han Sen could easily observe a creamy juice in there. There were no marks on the outside, either; the eggs were flawless.

Han Sen checked out a few more and noticed they were mostly identical, and their class could not be concerned by the naked eye.

The ants were smart. By heaping so many similar eggs together, no one was able to tell where the most precious ones were hidden.

But for Han Sen, things were different. Their appearances were all the same, yes. And the difference of their contents was something not even the pangolin could discern.

Han Sen easily figured out its inability to determine which egg possessed which ant by the way it picked through them, one by one. Sometimes it put them in its mouth, as if taste-testing.

Han Sen had his Dongxuan Sutra, with its first gene lock unlocked. He used it, and his dongxue aura spread. The lifeforce of the eggs were easily detectable to Han Sen.

Although they were only eggs, their life forces weren't all that different than they would be after hatching. Super creatures were super creatures, too, so if they were out there somewhere amongst all the other eggs, their life forces were sure to shine like a beacon.

Han Sen scanned all the ant eggs and soon found an egg with a lifeforce that was stronger than the others.

Han Sen went there and crushed the egg, which instantly played a notification he was eager to hear.

"Sacred-Blood Creature Hunted: Subterranean Devil Ant Baby. The beast soul has not been acquired. Consume its flesh to obtain a random numeric amount of sacred geno points, ranging from zero to ten."

"As expected, this is a sacred-blood class egg." Han Sen put the crushed egg in his mouth and it tasted very fresh, like shrimp. It had the bonus of not stinking like seafood, too.

Han Sen kept using his ability to sense the life forces of the eggs and continued prowling around the cave in search of more. It wasn't long before he found three more sacred-blood eggs.

Suddenly, a particular life force stood out to him. It was one that looked like a brazier, alight in the dark. The life force was far stronger than that of any sacred-blood egg.

"I have found it!" With exuberant joy, Han Sen immediately went to pick it up.