Astral Sand Locust

The journey takes three days, northeast of the Green Trees Mountains.

On the afternoon of the third day

After searching a considerable distance at low altitude, Sha Huai habitually opened the overview map, glanced at the Divine Kingdom, and focused on the status of the Mu Dou Life Seed and the Golden Turtle Divine Gift Seed.

The plants are safe and sound.

The sand locust tree closes its screen, tilts and climbs into the sky, gazing at the distant terrain and planning its route.

"Huh—"

Sha Huai's eyes gleamed green as it plummeted, decreasing its altitude, and sent a startled, warning mental message to Mu Dou, informing it of the situation ahead.

Immediately afterwards, it vigorously flapped its wings, rose vertically, and gazed into the distance from high above.

Red Wasteland

The air, shimmering from the scorching sun,

My vision swayed and distorted.

In the swaying view, the end of the red wasteland is a vertical cliff, a dangerous precipice.

Further ahead lies a basin, a vast expanse of lush green!

"Sand locust tree? What's wrong?"

Mudou raised its antennae warily.

"Major discovery! We may have found a natural oasis!"

"oasis?"

"It seems so, let's go take a look!"

"Walk!"

Mu Dou got a head start and set off.

The locust tree tilted downwards, accelerated its gliding forward, and soon overtook the pea tree, flapping its wings and flying swiftly to reach the cliff first.

The cliff face is steep and vertical, reaching a height of two to three hundred meters.

Below the cliffs lies a lush forest, where birds and animals sing and their shadowy forms can be seen. In the center of the forest is a sizable, emerald-green lake.

The sand locust tree followed closely behind, rapidly flapping its wings and buzzing loudly, maintaining its hovering position in the air to observe and survey the surroundings before taking off to overlook the entire scene.

This is a circular basin that is two to three hundred meters lower than the surrounding wasteland.

It is not large in area; you can see the end of it at a glance. It is about ten kilometers in diameter and surrounded by cliffs, so neat that it doesn't look like it was formed naturally.

"Click—Sizzle—Click—Sizzle—"

Mudou's antennae fluttered, filled with surprise, shock, and excitement; its crescent-shaped jaws opened and closed, producing a sharp, grating sound.

"Get down!"

With a flick of its antennae and flapping of its wings, the sand locust swooped down towards the bottom of the cliff.

"Sand locust tree!"

"slow!"

Mu Dou urged, "This place is lush with vegetation and teeming with life. It's very likely that insectoid warriors or other Force warriors have emerged here. Rushing into their territory could cause misunderstandings and provoke conflict."

"Um--"

"Possibly!"

The sand locust tree suddenly stopped, flapping its wings and hovering in the air.

Mudou spread its elytra and membranous wings, took off, and slowly descended, clinging to the cliff face.

The sand locust followed behind the pea.

At a height of forty or fifty meters above the ground, the two insects tacitly clung to the cliff face.

Mudou waved its antennae in greeting and crawled along the cliff face.

The sand locust tree instantly understood its meaning and hopped along to follow.

...

If a Zerg warrior were to be born here, it would, by its very nature, choose to dig a hole in the cliff face and create a nesting chamber.

Therefore, without a doubt, its seedlings will also be planted nearby.

The two insects then crawled along the cliff face at the edge of the basin to search.

"look!"

"Front!"

Sure enough, both sand locust and sage bean were discovered at the same time.

Ahead, on the cliff, a hundred meters above the ground, there is a platform that has clearly been carved out by insects.

However, looking down, the jungle below was full of ordinary plants, with no living plants.

Concentrating on sensing, there were no unusual fluctuations of primal force, and no primal force life forms were nearby.

"..."

Sha Huai and Mu Dou exchanged a glance, and without prior arrangement, began to slowly and deliberately climb toward the cliff platform in the distance.

Approaching quickly,

The platform is about ten meters long and three or four meters wide.

Behind, on the cliff face, there is a cave passage that is more than 2 meters wide and nearly 1 meter high.

"What kind of bug is that? Living so high up?"

"There are no bugs anymore. The ground is covered in gravel and dust, and it hasn't been cleaned for a long time, so there are no bugs anymore."

"There are no survivors down the mountain either."

"That was probably where Zerg warriors used to live, but they're gone now."

"..."

Upon hearing that the Zerg warriors were gone, Mu Dou immediately felt uneasy and quickened his pace to rush up the stone dam.

The sand locust kicked off its legs, flapped its wings, and flew down to the cave entrance, stretching its mental energy to scan the cave interior.

In the center of the hemispherical cave, which is four or five meters in diameter, lies a pile of broken black carapace fragments.

Long, long ago, a Zerg warrior lived here.

It must have died of natural causes, passing away peacefully in its cave. Its carapace remains collapsed, leaving behind a pile of fragments.

Given time, the remains of the white thorn will also turn into this...

Mu Dou stood at the cave entrance, scanning the area with his spiritual power, and felt even more uneasy.

There is also a passageway inside the cave leading to the depths.

The sand locust tree flapped its wings and flew into the cave, venturing deep inside to investigate.

Unsurprisingly, it was a storage warehouse.

Neatly arranged were rows of dark blue-black square stone containers made with earth-elemental abilities.

Open and check them one by one.

Inside are foods containing primal energy that have been completely depleted.

It has been sitting for too long and turned an abnormal charcoal black.

We can only make a rough judgment: one seems to be the seed of some kind of wild olive, and the other seems to be a species of yellow-scaled tree...

The sand acacia stood at the edge of a square container, head down, waving its tentacles, and vigorously poked at the remnants of a wild olive seed-shaped food inside the container.

chap——

The seeds broke apart, crumbling into charcoal residue.

Under the influence of the passage of time, the original energy properties of these primal foods faded, degenerating into ordinary seeds, and eventually dehydrating and carbonizing.

Mudou climbed onto another square stone container, poked it with its paw, and several black seeds burst open.

All of them have been carbonized.

"How much time has passed?"

"Starting from the millennium!"

"It could be several thousand years ago."

"It might take tens of thousands of years."

"It's not impossible that it could take tens of thousands of years."

"Hundreds of thousands of years..."

"Stop!"

"Sand Locust, what's next? Should we go search the forest below?"

"What are you looking for?"

"Of course, it's the remains of a life-sustaining seed!"

"What's the point of looking for that? I think we should continue searching along the cliff face and find out if there are any living Zerg warriors living here."

"Yes. That's right."

The two insects discussed leaving the cave and continued crawling along the cliff face.

Less than two kilometers away, we found another cave carved into the cliff face.

This cave is different; its entrance is flat and round, more than 4 meters wide, but only about 2 meters high.

The straight, sloping tunnel was very deep; even with mental energy scanning from the entrance, the end of the tunnel couldn't be reached.

"Dragonfly warriors? This is a dry wasteland, where would dragonflies come from?"

Mu Dou, with even stronger mental strength, was surprised and astonished, and quickly crawled into the cave.

dragonfly?

The sand locust tree was equally strange, flapping its wings to chase after it.

Deep within the cliff, in a somewhat irregularly excavated semi-elliptical hall, based on the remaining remains on the ground, it is easy to discern that this cave once housed a dragonfly warrior with a wingspan exceeding 4 meters.

This physique is definitely not that of a high-level warrior!

At the very least, he's a mountain lord.

This is a dragonfly warrior whose evolution level is above the Mountain Lord level!

Dragonflies are excellent fliers, possessing the fastest speed and the strongest eyesight.

This dragonfly warrior must have made contact with a distant insectoid tribe, exchanged and traded, obtained all kinds of Force food, and received full and comprehensive enhancement, evolving to an extremely high level.

At the other end of the hall, there is a passageway leading deeper into the cliff; without a doubt, it must be a storage room.

Without a word, the sand locust flapped its wings, accelerated, and rushed straight in.

"Empty..."

Mu Dou has strong mental power and can scan the storage room. She called out and followed him in.

The hemispherical storage room, with a diameter of over five meters, was completely empty.

This is very strange. In this desolate wasteland where insects are rarely seen, any insect warrior who dies of natural causes must have an inexhaustible supply of Force food produced by their own life form. Moreover, normally, they should still harvest and store it in time.

The Dragonfly Warrior passed away peacefully in the hall.

Why is the storage room empty?

It's not entirely empty...

"Sand locust tree!"

Mudou raised its paw and pointed at the cave wall.

The sand locust rapidly tumbled with its middle and hind legs, turned its body, and pointed continuously with its front paws.

"oh--"

Sha Huai noticed that there were fine, engraved lines outlining pictures on the dark blue-green stone walls of the storage warehouse.

Shahuai and Mudou looked around.

The smooth, polished stone walls of the cave are covered with murals of all sizes.

Upon closer inspection, these murals were created by carving marks with toes, which were then filled with some kind of substance for coloring. Due to the passage of time, these substances either sublimated and disappeared, peeled off, or carbonized and turned black.

The murals subsequently became blurred and indistinct.

But some of the content can still be vaguely discerned.

The wall directly opposite the entrance passage, located at the deepest part of the warehouse, bears the most obvious carvings and is the largest mural, depicting a towering tree.

Comparatively, this tree-shaped stroke is the most well preserved. The filling material of the engravings has carbonized into black. Upon close inspection, even details such as the cracks in the trunk, branches, and leaves can be clearly seen.

The others are all small murals, and the filling pigments are severely lacking, leaving only scratches and incomplete black carbonized traces.

Mu Dou and Sha Huai approached, focusing their gazes and trying their best to identify the murals. At the same time, they used their mental powers to carefully scan and distinguish them, attempting to reconstruct and restore these severely damaged murals in their minds.

a long time,

The sand locust tree kicked its legs, leaped up, and landed lightly on the stone wall. Clinging to the wall, it pointed its antennae at the surface and asked:

"Mudou, these pictures together seem to tell a story? This picture is the beginning of the story: in a basin lake, a dragonfly molts and evolves into a dragonfly warrior."

"Yes!"

Mu Dou said solemnly, "This dragonfly warrior, whose cultivation level is unknown, is telling us something very important!"

"That's right!"

Sha Huai analyzed, "If it's not important, there's no need to go to such lengths to describe and record it."

"..."

The two insects began to exchange ideas and discuss.

"This tree beside the lake where the Dragonfly Warriors were born is no ordinary tree."

"It's a seed given by God!"

"Moreover, it's a wild, divinely bestowed seed! The seed wasn't discovered by the Zerg warriors in time, so it took root, sprouted, and grew on its own. And judging by the size of its trunk, it has evolved to a very high level!"

"This dragonfly warrior was fortunate enough to be born next to a wild, divinely bestowed seed!"

"Based on the tree shape, leaf shape, and flower form, it can be roughly determined that this is still a life-type tree... a seed bestowed by the gods?"

"However, it doesn't seem to be an ordinary Guaiac tree seed bestowed by the gods."

"Yes, that's strange. Is this its fruit? Five flowers? Five fruits?"

"..."

On the stone wall, the dragonfly warriors used a large area and dozens of exquisitely detailed drawings to describe in detail the entire process of the flowering and fruiting of the seed bestowed by the God of Jujube.

Strangely, it only blooms with 5 flowers and bears only 5 fruits.

"Momoko, look! These paintings seem to mean something like..."

"The dragonfly warrior ate a fruit, and then..."

Shahuai and Mudou stared intently at the paintings on the stone wall, examining them carefully.

In a continuous sequence, the dragonfly warriors first demonstrate their water control capabilities.

Then, after eating the guaiac fruit, it demonstrated its ability to control plants!

"A dragonfly warrior who has awakened dual water and plant elemental talents!"

"Does it mean that eating the fruit of the Guaiac Tree God-given Seed can awaken plant-type talent and grant mastery of plant-type abilities?"

"It's very clear that this is the message being sent to us."

"A divinely bestowed fruit that can grant an additional Force talent?"

"We can eat it too? We can awaken our plant-type talents through this fruit?"

"If the Dragonfly Warriors can do it, we definitely can too."

"It only blooms with 5 flowers at a time and produces only 5 fruits."

"That's still a big deal!"

"..."

The two insects were surprised and astonished, but full of anticipation. They turned their gazes and mental energy to scan the murals next to them.

However, the conversation shifted abruptly, and the story of the Dragonfly Warriors' growth began to unfold.

"The Dragonfly Warriors discovered the caves where other Zerg warriors lived, as well as their remains, on the cliff face."

"Is that a butterfly?"

"It could also be a moth, but the image is too blurry to tell."

"But the remains in that cave just now were clearly not those of a butterfly or moth warrior."

"Then there must be other caves and other Zerg warriors. After all, it's not surprising that many Zerg warriors were born over such a long and intermittent period of time."

"Yes. The following pictures depict the dragonfly warrior discovering the insectoid warrior's cave on the cliff. Perhaps because it had been dead for too long, its remains had collapsed, so it couldn't recognize what kind of insect it was, resulting in only a blurry blur in the pictures."

"It seems so."

"right!"

"..."

Each mural briefly records the important growth process of the Dragonfly Warriors: choosing their destiny seed, nurturing it, breaking through their realm, and planting it.

Dragonflies are good at flying.

After breaking through to become an advanced warrior, it flew out of the basin, over mountains, and across deserts...

These rolling mountains only appear north of the basin. The dragonfly warriors must have been flying north to explore.

The picture shows it crossing deserts, mountains, and wastelands, seemingly encountering some kind of predicament or obstacle, stopping at a majestic mountain peak.

In the scene, the Dragonfly Warrior stands on a mountain peak, observing something.

Then, in the next mural, the dragonfly warriors returned to the basin, heading in another direction, which, according to the sun's position in the sky, should be due south.

The footage shows that it successfully flew out of the wasteland, encountered a river, and went upstream into a vast tropical rainforest, where it met three longhorn beetle warriors: two large and one small...

"Dragonfly warriors encountered rainforest insects?"

"certainly!"

"Is this a longhorn beetle?"

"Obviously."

Which specific ethnic group?

"It's already quite good if you can tell they're longhorn beetles."

"Is there another butterfly?"

"It could also be a moth."

"Um... is this a Zerg tribe?"

"A four-headed worm? Is that considered a tribe?"

"According to White Thorn, the rainforest tribes it encountered were all composed of dozens, or even hundreds, of their own warriors."

"That must mean that the Dragonfly Warriors simply recorded the warriors they encountered and got along with."

"That's true. It's very laborious to carve a single insect on a stone wall. It's impossible to carve dozens or hundreds of insect warriors from an entire tribe on it."

"Yes...but..."

The locust tree crawled slowly along the rock face.

The two insects followed the storyline, looking at each mural one by one.

The Dragonfly Warriors were flying through the rainforest when they encountered a group of six Horned Mantis Warriors, of varying sizes.

Continue searching.

The dragonfly warriors also encountered giant beetles, stag beetles, golden beetles, leaf beetles, ground beetles, and other dragonfly warriors.

Without exception, the murals depict small groups of just a handful of Zerg warriors...

After seeing so many pictures like this, both Shahuai and Mudou felt something was off.

Among the hundreds of comic strips documenting the travels, not a single one depicts the tribe's large population and bustling prosperity.

The image gives the insect a desolate, bleak, and lonely feeling.

Then there are scenes of many dragonfly warriors trading with warriors from various tribes using the Force food produced by their own territory's Life Seeds and the special fruits produced by the Seeds of the Guaiac Tree God.

These transaction scenes only show a handful of insects.

"Sand locust tree!"

"Get down!"

Suddenly, Mu Dou unleashed a sharp burst of mental energy, pointing its paw at the area beneath the sand acacia tree, and shouted, "Come down and look! Look at this painting!"

"Um--"

Sha Huai kicked off the ground and looked back.

This is a relatively large mural, over two meters high and more than one meter wide.

In the relatively well-preserved and still faintly recognizable image, the Dragonfly Warrior stands beneath the Guaiac Tree, a gift from the Gods.

Near the ground, a huge crack appeared on the main trunk of the Guaiac God-given Seed.

It wasn't a combat injury; it seemed more like an act of voluntarily inflicted.

The dragonfly warrior stretched out its claws and pulled out an oval-shaped object from the cracked trunk of the Guaiac Tree God-given Seed.

"Mudou, that's...?"

"That's the heartwood!"

"Tree heartwood?"

Sha Huai looked solemn.

The sand locust tree is only 5 years old and in its early stages. Its inherited memories are not fully awakened. It does not know the heartwood, but it instinctively feels that this thing is extraordinary and very important.

Mu Dou explained at lightning speed:

"The ability that only the Tree King can awaken is dominated by the soul. It gathers all the original energy, original energy matter, and nutrients in the body and compresses them into a life core, which is similar to returning to the seed form."

"According to my inherited memories, under normal circumstances, the Tree King will only abandon its tree body and condense its tree heart when it encounters mortal danger and needs to escape, and then be carried away by the Zerg warriors."

"There are also other situations, such as when the Zerg warriors plant trees, they don't pay attention to the spacing between the trees, and there isn't enough space for them to grow, so they have to move them to a different location to grow again."

"The Tree King gathers its heart and abandons its trunk to grow anew in a different place. But the cost of doing so is enormous; it takes at least ten years, or even several decades, to recover. No tree would do this unless absolutely necessary..."

As Mu Dou spoke, her gaze moved rapidly, and her mental energy scanned back and forth across the stone wall.

"Sand Locust, look closely, did the Dragonfly Warrior carry the tree heartwood and fly south?"

"Yes. That's how I see it."

"What is it doing?"

"I don't understand. Mu Dou, what about you?"

"I don't understand..."

In the scene, the dragonfly warriors traverse the wasteland, the rainforest, and the ocean, finally settling on an island in the sea.

Specifically, it is located on a large mountain in the center of the island.

Dig a hole?

The dragonfly warriors hid the tree heart in the cave.

"???"

"map?"

While Shahuai and Mudou were still full of questions, the mural, which was telling a series of stories, came to an abrupt end.

The last mural uses simple and vivid lines to mark clear geographical information such as wasteland, mountains, mountain ranges, forests, oceans, and islands.

There is also a winding line that runs south and runs through the entire map.

The sand locust leaped onto the stone wall, lay on the map, and pointed with its curved antennae.

"Mudou, this is where we are now."

"It seems so."

"This line connects all the distinctive and easily recognizable geographical landmarks along the way, with the purpose of guiding directions."

"It's obvious! The end of the line is where the hidden heart of the tree is!"

"right!"

"South of the wasteland is a rainforest, and south of the rainforest are mountains? Forests? Grasslands? Wasteland? Is this an ocean? If we keep going south across the ocean, we're almost at the southern pole of the star system, aren't we?"

"It seems so~"

"The purpose of the Dragonfly Warriors leaving these murals is to tell us that there is a heartwood of the Guaiac tree, a gift from the God of the Guaiac, which they have hidden away."

"This map tells us exactly where the heartwood is hidden."

"Yes, that's right, but how much time has passed? Is the heartwood of the Guaiac Tree, the seed bestowed by the God, still there?"

"Are you there? That's the Tree King!"

"Then, we still can't get through. South of the wasteland is a dangerous area where rock beasts roam. If we're not strong enough, we simply can't get through."

"..."

White Thorn's companion, Green Tree, was killed by the Rock Beast.

Having said that,

The initial enthusiasm of Shahuai and Mudou cooled down.

"Sand Locust, you are good at flying. When you reach a higher level of evolution in the future, try to fly from the eastern sea, take a detour, and bypass the dangerous area."

"Hmm, then it has to be at least a high level."

"Yes. If it's just the two of us, the highest we can evolve to is the advanced warrior level."

"..."

"..."

Sha Huai and Mu Dou looked at each other speechlessly, choked with emotion, gazing intently at the mural map.

After a long time,

Sha Huai moved to a different spot and began examining the mural from the very first one.

"Mudou, you said, head north, cross the mountains, go through the desert... What's up to the north? What stopped the Dragonfly Warriors? Why not continue exploring north?"

"I don't know."

Aren't you curious?

"curious."

"Then how about we..."

"Can we give it a try?"

Sha Huai and Mu Dou reached an agreement and turned around to rush out of the cave.

The sand locust flapped its wings and flew, while the bean climbed up the cliff. The two insects quickly left the basin and headed towards the continuous mountains to the north.