Chapter 96: Bumper Harvest

The gigantic Thousand Army Ant Mountain was already settled at the center of the cave.

It had already begun producing Black Ants in an endless stream.

“If it really leaves the seal, I will come kill it at the first moment.”

“A Nation-Destroying Monster must not be allowed to walk the world.”

It was fine as long as it remained inside the dungeon, but once they came out…

The words “Nation Destroyer” would no longer be just a title.

“Mm, I know.”

Lu Cang waved his hand, and a Sea of Fire and Dense Thorns appeared around the Ant Mountain, forming a ring.

As soon as the Black Ants hatched, they were directly burned into ash.

For the period to come, he could keep coming here to reap souls.

“So, what now?” Chicheng scratched the back of his head, grinning as he asked.

“What plans does Brother Chicheng have?”

Chicheng rolled up his sleeves. “Of course we’re going to keep clearing dungeons!”

“Just now, on the road out, I also took a look at the surrounding terrain. I’ve already memorized all the nearby Fourth Tier dungeons.”

Lu Cang laughed cheerfully. “Good.”

With the soul-related concern resolved, his heart felt much more at ease.

The two left from the cave entrance. After leaving, Chicheng tossed a piece of Black Steel Gate at the exit, then took out a scroll and sealed this place.

Iz’s scrolls were really handy.

Things like scrolls allowed people who could not use magic to cast magic.

As for the power of a scroll, that depended on the person who made it.

The scrolls left by Izparut probably could not be bought on the market at all.

After sealing this place securely,

they went and cleared dozens more dungeons with Chicheng.

With Thousand Army Ant Mountain as backing, Lu Cang was far more bold with sacrifices; before, he always worried that sacrificing too much would leave him short on souls.

Although low-level monsters would also increase,

it was still hard to recoup the cost.

But now, whenever they encountered a Fourth Tier dungeon, he would directly sacrifice fifty thousand souls in one go.

Let the decay be; the main point was that he had souls to spare.

As for sacrificing one hundred thousand souls, Lu Cang tried it once, and the decay was far too severe.

It only birthed twelve Nation-Destroying Monsters; he sacrificed double, yet only gained two more, which was far too great a loss.

Coming out with Chicheng was undoubtedly the right choice.

If he had to personally kill all these Fourth Tier Nation-Destroying Monsters himself, he really would be exhausted half to death.

Now there was a level 6 warrior leading the team.

Lu Cang only needed to follow behind and pick up the money.

One explored the map, one farmed money.

The division of labor was clear.

In no time, the two of them had cleared every Fourth Tier dungeon across this entire region of Thousand Caves of the Distant Realm.

They cleared a total of fifty-six Fourth Tier dungeons.

The materials harvested were worth more than 120 million gold coins…

They split it fifty-fifty, sixty million each.

“Damn…”

Chicheng looked at the completely filled Storage Space, truly mountains of piled-up materials.

“We really struck it rich.”

Normally, working hard for several months, they might not even encounter a single Nation-Destroying Monster.

Now one trip yielded ten of them.

In those remote wildernesses, it was possible for wild Fourth Tier and Fifth Tier monsters to be born, but even King-level ones were extremely rare.

Let alone Nation-Destroying level.

Although Nation-Destroying level posed a great threat to humans, they really were something you could not find just by wishing.

Even Fifth Tier dungeons were hard to find normally.

After that, Lu Cang went to Third Tier dungeons and used souls to attempt some new ideas.

Soul Sacrifice could also directly strengthen monsters.

However, once strengthened, they were still not under his control, and it could not directly raise their rank or grade.

The harvest would not be any greater.

It was like simply casting a berserk-type spell on them; for now, it did not seem useful.

Apart from Thousand Army Ant Mountain, he did encounter a few War Moon exclusive monsters, but these monsters did not have the same characteristics as Thousand Army Ant Mountain.

After several attempts, the sun was gradually setting.

All in all, this was still the most enjoyable day of hunting Chicheng had ever had.

It was just a pity it was not the Harvest Moon!

If this were the Harvest Moon, would the harvest not be multiplied several times over?

Lu Cang had the same sentiment as Chicheng.

Once you had experienced the Harvest Moon, you could never forget that feeling.

Sitting on the hillside, the two looked at each other.

Chicheng: “Celebrate a bit?”

Lu Cang: “Let’s go.”

“But before we go, let’s collect the souls first.”

Chicheng brought Lu Cang back to the Sealed Area.

Lu Cang opened the door of the seal.

A pitch-black swarm of ants surged toward them head-on.

Flame Waves instantly pushed inward, the Sea of Fire clinging to every inch of the cave entrance, advancing inward, burning as it went.

Souls skyrocketed.

Sacrificing fifty-six Fourth Tier dungeons had consumed 2.8 million souls.

Now, in just a few instants, it was replenished.

「Souls — 10,000,000」

「Souls — 20,000,000」

「Souls — 30,000,000」

「Souls — 35,220,000」

……

In such a short time, more than thirty million Black Ants had already been born.

This Thousand Army Ant Mountain truly lived up to its reputation as a Nation-Destroying monster.

If it were left to develop outside for a while, there really would appear an army of hundreds of millions of ants, blotting out the sky, impossible to kill off, annihilating a swath of a nation’s land.

It was just a pity that while the number of these Black Ants was large, their quality was too weak.

At best it would only give birth to Third Tier Black Ants.

Well, if it could birth higher-tier Black Ants, that would be truly terrifying.

The strength gap between Fourth Tier and Third Tier monsters was enormous.

“By the way, has the monster tide in this area become thinner?”

Lu Cang looked around as he spoke.

Chicheng also gazed at the sky.

“Yeah, this Thousand Army Ant Mountain even has such a wondrous effect.”

Lu Cang: “Perhaps that is a good thing.”

If the monster tide in some region was too dense, they could even place Thousand Army Ant Mountain in that heavily infested place and let it transform the monster tide into low-tier Black Ants.

It could also prevent the monster tide from condensing into powerful monsters.

What would you call that? Biological control?

However, after the monster tide thinned out, the production speed of Thousand Army Ant Mountain slowed down quite a bit.

Fortunately, this was the wilderness; the monster tide was like the air and replenished very quickly.

There was no need to worry too much.

Moreover, as long as it kept producing Black Ants, the output would not slow down that much.

Over these few days, reaping hundreds of millions of souls should be an easy task.

The souls of these 「Black Ants」.

Their rank was: a level of spirituality close to puppet-like emptiness.

This should be the lowest tier.

Lu Cang tried not to trigger Noble Soul, and only used their original soul effect to ignite 「Spirit Explosion」.

Nothing exploded in midair.

It was like a silent fart, not even making a sound.

But using a 1-soul Spirit Explosion with Noble Souls could directly blast through the trunk of a giant tree.

In terms of power alone, it was much stronger than an ordinary Second Tier Spell.

But if it used 10 souls, it only had five times the power of 1 soul.

With 100 souls, it was about twenty-five times the power of 1 soul.

With 1000 souls, it was seventy-five times the power of 1 soul.

With 5000 souls, it was only about one hundred fifty times the power.

Although more souls did indeed mean greater power, the decay was visibly fast; there was clearly a lot more to explore in the ways of using souls.

If an ordinary Death Priest wanted to explore these mysteries…

how many people would they have to kill for experiments?

……

Take the souls, seal it.

Wait until tomorrow to harvest new souls.

After returning to the City in the Circle, he stretched his body.

It really was a great haul…