Wizards: Starting as a Potions Master!

Chapter 168 The Swarm of Insects that Undergoes Three Ascensions!

Inside the outpost's dungeon stronghold, the entire main hall was collapsing, and from inside the steel pillars supporting the main hall, one after another, modified scarabs larger than basketballs emerged.

It turned out that the main hall's load-bearing pillars had long been devoured beyond recognition by the scarab beetle swarm.

The outside looks alright, but the inside is actually a complete mess. Su Nan only gave Jinx and her swarm a simple order to attack, and the main hall is about to collapse.

At the same time, the entire dungeon outpost was collapsing as if a small earthquake had occurred, just like the main hall.

Thousands of modified scarabs, like a tidal wave, engulfed the dungeon stronghold.

The current scarab colony exhibits changes not seen during the secondary sublimation.

First, the Hive Master's consciousness was born within Jinx, and all the Zerglings will be connected to the Hive Master's consciousness.

In this way, there is basically no possibility of it getting out of control.

Hive consciousness is essentially a collective consciousness born from the pain and fear of the swarm's demise when faced with attacks and harm from the Lizardmen and Drow.

The primary goal of this collective consciousness is to maintain the survival of the swarm.

It's not even Jinx herself, nor is it simply the sum of the individual consciousnesses of the swarm itself; rather, it's a situation where 1+1 is greater than 2.

It's different from the wolf pack effect.

While Su Nan used the Hive Consciousness Potion to help the partially completed Hive Consciousness evolve, he modified the Hive Consciousness based on the fundamental principles of the Werewolf Potion.

In this way, the hive consciousness equates the continuation of the colony with the necessity to obey its commands.

In other words, the hive consciousness is made to believe that once its swarm leaves its rule, the swarm will perish.

The Hive's primary target for protection was itself.

In this way, he greatly strengthened his control over the scarab swarm and also integrated the hive consciousness into the wolf pack effect.

Hive consciousness becomes a subset of the wolf pack effect.

At this point, the units of the scarab swarm that had undergone three ascensions had also changed dramatically, and they were almost entirely different from the original scarab swarms of the second ascension period.

First, the most basic modification is to make the scarabs bigger, from the size of a basketball to the size of a chair.

Secondly, many new types of units have appeared, such as the Shield Scarab with a golden chitinous shield on its head. When these Shield Scarabs form a swarm, the golden chitinous shields on their heads will overlap.

Just like shield bearers in a human soldier formation, they would stack shields on top of each other to create a powerful defensive force.

The original Spiked Scarab and Magma Scarab have also grown larger, and the Tank Scarab has disappeared because it has evolved into the Tunnel Scarab.

The tunnel beetle is as big as an elephant. Its mouthparts are specialized, making it incredibly efficient at digging underground tunnels. While digging, it can also use its chitinous exoskeleton, which is thirteen times larger than that of a normal beetle, to defend against enemy attacks and launch its own.

The original node scarabs have disappeared, replaced by lord scarabs that are more specialized, have abandoned melee combat capabilities, and have become semi-transparent.

Lord Scarabs can transmit the mental fluctuations of the hive consciousness, allowing for better command of the swarm.

The initial framework of the three-stage Scarab swarm is a command structure of [Queen Jinx - Lord Scarab - Scarab Unit].

The basic unit is the Modified Scarab, the ranged units are the Magma Scarab and the Bone Spike Scarab, and the tank is the Tunnel Scarab.

The entire lizardman force in the dungeon suffered a devastating attack the moment they encountered the swarm of insects that had undergone three ascensions.

In the training ground of the dungeon stronghold, the blue dragon lizardmen formed a square formation, constantly breathing cold breath at the tunnel scarabs attacking them. However, despite this, the swarm of modified scarabs hiding behind the tunnel scarabs still managed to break into their formation due to their numerical advantage.

What followed was a massacre.

Blue dragon lizardmen were everywhere, along with the terrified screams of ordinary lizardmen fleeing in panic.

Because this is different from ordinary warfare in the underground world.

The wars between the underworlds are at most about capturing a group of soldiers and then reselling these slave soldiers.

However, the swarm of scarabs attacked them with a devastating force, with each scarab rapidly devouring its prey.

Inside the main hall of the stronghold, the drow female warrior Yukami reacted. She used her left hand to enchant her katana, and dark energy immediately adhered to it.

She rushed to the mountain where the person was shouting for help, and slashed with her sword. Instantly, three invisible slashes followed her katana.

The two modified scarabs that were about to kill him on the mountain were sent flying backward and killed by the drow warrior.

Yukami tossed his secondary weapon to Yamagami, and at the same time used his katana to cut open the metal shackles on his hands. "You can still move, right?"

"This place is beyond saving. I misunderstood you before."

"Let's not talk about that wizard."

"The swarms of insects here are too numerous and too powerful. Fortunately, although there are many of them, each individual is not strong enough. We will find a weak point and break through."

"I will keep all the slave soldiers here and prevent them from escaping, so as to buy us time."

Shan Shang was somewhat moved. He had been worried that his aunt, Xue Shang, would abandon him and run away.

But the Drow, although they admired strength and never treated slaves as human beings, were not so cruel to their own people.

Yuki raised her katana while muttering a short incantation.

Instantly, her katana, forged from still iron, began to vibrate, all the dark energy converging within it. Had it not been made of still iron, it likely wouldn't have been able to withstand the dark energy enchantment and would have broken instantly.

She swung her sword downwards, and dark energy surged toward the ground. The powerful dark energy wave blasted away all the modified scarab cannon fodder soldiers that had rushed into the main hall, killing many of them in the process.

This is the second arcane spell she has mastered: Dark Energy Shock.

Su Nan noticed that this spell's power was equivalent to a spell cast by a second-level senior wizard apprentice.

The Hive Consciousness noticed the casualties of its swarm and was immediately enraged, filled with a deep desire to annihilate its opponent.

The insect hive consciousness requested Su Nan to use the Tyrant Scarab, and Su Nan naturally agreed.

The Zerg swarm's units are inherently weak.

Jinx, the Queen of Insects, and her swarm of insects are essentially a super-large combination spell created by Su Nan using dozens of spells stacked together.

Therefore, it is even more necessary to use war to create iterations and allow the swarm to continue evolving.

His various potions were used to select and stabilize beneficial directions for them, while the Sun Mark potion itself only enhanced their connection with the sun, giving them a stronger reproductive ability.

Therefore, the reproductive capacity of insect colonies that undergo three sublimations far exceeds that of insect colonies that undergo two sublimations.

Soon, twenty Tyrant Scarabs, their heavy, earth-shaking stomps, appeared at the entrance to the main hall of the dungeon stronghold.

Just as Yukami and Yama were about to take the opportunity to escape, they saw ten Tyrant Scarabs standing upright in front of them, having begun to abandon their insect limbs and instead use human-like limbs, resembling standing golden sun spheres. Their pupils suddenly shrank.

Each Tyrant Scarab possesses well-developed muscles, representing a complete upgrade of the Modified Scarab, and inherits the thirteen layers of chitinous armor from the Tunnel Scarab.

These Tyrant Scarabs are all capable of killing a senior, official Storm Knight single-handedly!

They can be considered the culmination of the current evolution of the scarab beetle colony.

It is a specialized elite unit formed by the superposition of all evolutions of the swarm, and it will continue to evolve as the swarm continues to evolve.

The next moment, these Tyrant Scarabs swarmed forward, and Xue Shang and Shan Shang, who had already used spells repeatedly and were panting heavily, were no match for these Tyrant Scarabs.

First to fall was Shan Shang. His original strength was roughly equivalent to that of three veteran Storm Knights, but facing the continuous attacks of ten Tyrant Scarabs, he was the first to be beaten black and blue, and his weapon was snatched away by one of the Tyrant Scarabs.

Next was Xue Shang, who held out for a while; her fighting strength was roughly equivalent to that of seven veteran Storm Knights.

Originally, she could have held out for a while under the siege, but as soon as her nephew fell, she was immediately attacked by twenty Tyrant Scarabs.

Faced with sheer numbers, she was quickly overwhelmed, and her katana was knocked away.

Before she was pinned to the ground by a swarm of tyrannical scarabs, she secretly crushed a red aether stone.

Then, the Tyrant Scarab pressed her head to the ground, rendering her unable to move.

Yuki was both terrified and humiliated. "Damn it..."

"We are slave owners in the main city of Rye. How can we be treated like this?"

Two drow were captured by the swarm at the same time.

But instead of letting the scarabs devour them, the hive consciousness captured the two drow.

Su Nan was somewhat surprised by this, but Jinx explained in *The Wolf Pack Effect*: "The hive consciousness considers this creature a valuable experimental subject for its master."

Therefore, I don't want to devour them.

"This time, the Hive consciousness has largely preserved the corpses of the fallen blue dragon lizardmen and ordinary lizardmen. Master, you can now extract their bloodlines and refine them into dragon-like blood that is useful to you."

Su Nan thought for a moment and said, "That's fine. Dragon-like blood can accelerate the evolution of the swarm and make the swarm magic more complete."

"Once I have Sunday extract the dragon-like blood, I can allocate a portion for your swarm to use."

"Dragon-like blood can also be used to make temporary physical enhancement potions. I can keep some for the wolf pack to use."

Warwick, standing behind Sunan, said, "Young master."

"Werewolves can also gain some power by killing, and they can also hone their martial arts skills. Therefore, I suggest that Mr. Blom also come down from the ground."

"Hasn't he recently acquired new weapons? I think Mr. Solon has high hopes for his weapons, and it's time to test them."

"Anyway, the castle is protected by Mr. Vasilyan and the golem legion. Mr. Vasilyan is currently learning meditation, so we werewolves can't waste our time either."

Amidst the wolf pack effect, Blom let out a grumble. "Huh? I'm still taking a nap. Mr. Warwick, don't mess with me."

(End of this chapter)