Astral Sand Locust

At midday, under the blazing sun,

Mu Dou led the way, running along the mountain ridge, around a majestic peak, and ahead in the valley, there was a pool of azure water shaped like a fish.

Fish Lake.

With a joyful cry, the shell unfurled its elytra, then with a whoosh, it sprang into flight, whirring and gliding as it descended, landing directly on the lake surface and gliding across the water.

Mudou can't swim. It landed on the lakeside, buried its head in the water and licked its lips. After drinking a few mouthfuls of lake water, it tried to take a few steps forward and soaked its body in the lake water to cool down.

The black carapace, which was almost charred by the scorching sun, cooled down rapidly.

However, the Zerg warriors' body structure dictates that they cannot be submerged in water, as all their pores are located in their abdomen. If they are submerged in water, the pores will be blocked, making it impossible for them to breathe.

After soaking for a while, you have to straighten your legs and stand up to catch your breath.

You have to get up and catch your breath after soaking for a while.

Soon, Mu Dou began to feel bored.

In the center of the lake,

The seashell lies on its back on the water's surface, its two tentacles swaying gently, manipulating the lake water to create waves that propel it forward at high speed.

Mu Dou found it even more boring, so he quickly climbed out of the lake, aimed at a fake thorn tree on the hillside, and hurried over.

"Um?"

Mu Dou caught a glimpse of something somewhat familiar out of the corner of her eye. Turning around, she saw a black pebble with a crystalline texture, reflecting a dark sheen in the sunlight.

These are not ordinary pebbles!

It is the kind of starstone from the Black Mountain that can evolve and transform into a raw stone.

This type of stone is so familiar; I can recognize it from a distance.

"Shell! Shell! Come and see!"

"What are you looking at?"

"Come here!"

"Okay~"

Giant waves rolled, carrying seashells, rushing ashore.

Mu Dou didn't say much, just waved his antennae and pointed.

Shell had also spent a year digging for raw stones in the Black Mountain, and was extremely familiar with this material.

The appearance of this stone means...

"There's a rough stone!"

"But they've all turned into pebbles, which means they were repeatedly washed and transported from a very far place by rivers and floods..."

The seashell quickly turned around, looked around the riverbank, and said, "And, there's only this one."

"I understand!"

Mu Dou suggested, "Let's follow the valley and search upstream!"

Shell hesitated for two seconds, then agreed, "Okay!"

Without further ado, the two insects set off immediately.

……

As the evolutionary level increases, there are more and more places where raw stones are needed, and the amount of raw stones used is increasing.

Everyone urgently needs a real raw stone mine.

Montenegro is just a crippled mine that failed to thrive.

The produced rough stones have low density and are produced in small quantities.

Moreover, the raw stones from the Black Mountain area have already been scraped twice.

The first round is through white thorns and green trees; simply pick up the raw stones exposed on the ground.

The second scan targeted white thorns, wild beans, sand acacia, and seashells, using mental energy to scan and search for raw stones in the shallow soil.

The gravel plain at the foot of Black Mountain was only so big, and the raw stones in the shallow soil had been searched and scraped.

If we continue searching, we can only concentrate our mental energy and scan deeper underground, which is time-consuming, laborious, and yields very little benefit.

Mu Dou and Beike were reluctant to go to Black Mountain to search for raw stones.

If there were a second option...

The two insects ran along the valley, going against the current, and soon crossed the fish lake. Ahead lay the dry valley.

At the bottom of the valley, there are densely distributed irregular stones of various sizes, including brown, gray, black, and blue, as well as pebbles of different sizes and colors.

The rocks rolled down the mountain.

Pebbles, on the other hand, were transported from afar by water over tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even longer periods of time.

"there!"

"And that too!"

"There's one over there too!"

"..."

Mu Dou and Beike waved their antennae at the same time, pointing at the bottom of the valley, and then stopped moving at the same time.

Walking up the valley, every few meters or so, you can see one or two pebbles made of starstone among the messy piles of stones.

There are clues to follow.

Just follow the river valley upwards.

……

There is also a little bit of surplus divine power.

The Bean Seedlings are no longer needed.

The Rain Tree Flower Crown Pillar's divinely bestowed seed is already at an intermediate level. Is it necessary to continue investing divine power into it?

If used on a sand locust tree seed, it would probably break through to the intermediate level immediately.

Breakthroughs in one's destiny are not to be taken lightly; they must be protected by insects, and it is best to use primal stones to replenish one's primal power to ensure that nothing goes wrong.

But the sand locust is currently preoccupied with guarding the budding rock amber seed bestowed by God, and cannot spare the time.

We have to wait for Mu Dou to come back.

The remaining bit of divine power can be used first on the seed bestowed by the Golden Tortoise God, and then the remaining bit of divine power can be used on the seed of the Sand Locust Tree.

But Mu Dou did not return on time.

After waiting and waiting, 11 days passed, and the divine kingdom produced another point of divine power, but Mu Dou still hadn't returned.

Sha Huai guessed that something must have happened in the Qiongshu River territory that caused the delay, or that the two of them had deviated from their route on the way back and gone off to play somewhere else.

The problem is not big.

Sha Huai still allocated this little bit of surplus divine power to the seed bestowed by the Golden Tortoise God.

But another 12 days passed, and another point of divine power remained...

Mu Dou has not yet returned.

This is half a month past the agreed return date.

—What could possibly cause a delay of more than half a month?

—Could it be that they were unprepared and got into an accident while crossing the desert?

That shouldn't be the case!

—Could something have happened to the shell's territory?

Sha Huai grew increasingly anxious and uneasy, but he dared not move easily as he guarded the divinely bestowed seed from Yan Hu.

In this agonizing period, time passed day after day.

Another 12 days have passed.

The Divine Kingdom produces another 1 point of Divine Power.

Mu Dou hasn't come back yet.

Something terrible has definitely happened!

The sand locust tree could no longer sit still, so it began to collect thorny plant branches and place them around the rock amber bushes to build a wooden thorn fence.

Rock amber fruit is a fleshy berry, and the most important thing to guard against is birds flying in the sky.

The locust tree searched for and cut slender branches, painstakingly carried them, and built a "thorny shed" above the fruit.

After a busy day, remember to take precautions.

After a short rest, we set off overnight.

Before going to bed, I habitually turn on the blue screen, switch to the overhead map, and take a look at the situation in the divine kingdom.

A quick scan of his senses revealed something amiss.

Eyesight and mental focus immediately follow, the map zooms in, and the perspective is brought closer.

Looking down at the map, under the silvery moonlight, a black figure is rushing from north to south across the wasteland, effortlessly climbing the green mountain range...

—Mudou!

—How come it's just an insect?

—Where are the seashells?

The sand locust tree kicked off, took off, and flew swiftly with its wings flapping.

Not far away,

The sand locust tree, perched on the mountain ridge, precisely intercepted Mu Dou, who was running along the way.

"Sand locust tree!"

Mu Dou was startled by the sudden appearance of the sand locust tree.

"Mu Dou?"

Sha Huai had a thousand words and many questions in his heart, which condensed into a strong spiritual force of doubt.

"Sand Locust, good news! Shell and I have discovered a raw stone mine!"

The bean tree raises its antennae, waving them as it speaks:

"I took Shell to Fish Lake for a trip, and on the lakeshore we discovered the black star-shaped stone that is found in Black Mountain. So we followed the river valley upstream to trace its source, and finally, in the mountains 800 kilometers away, we successfully dug up the raw stone inside a mountain peak."

"Completely different from Black Mountain, this is a legitimate raw stone deposit distributed on a large scale and in clusters! If you dig in the right place, you can dig out dozens or even hundreds of raw stones with just one stroke..."

Mu Dou spoke rapidly as he recounted the situation.

P.S.: Brothers, don't bother reading this anymore, it's a flop and I'm done with it.