Chapter 161 — Bug Bug's Breakdown

Over the passage of time-essence they could absorb external forces, enrich themselves, and even break through their limits; the longer they were stored, the higher their nutritional value.

This was a god-tier skill, though what Shi Jin found a pity was that the growth rate was limited—ten, a hundred, a thousand years of storage would be needed for any obvious improvement.

Shi Jin could not wait that long—unless he could travel back hundreds of millions of years, bury some supplements for himself, dig them up on his return, and find they had turned into outright immortality elixirs. That would be sweet beyond words.

With an elixir like that in hand, never mind super-tier skills—even divine-tier skills could be point-unlocked at will.

And once the Nutrient skill reached "Art-Approaching-Dao tier," beyond better quality and faster absorption of nutrients from the outside world, an extra property emerged that caught Shi Jin entirely off guard.

The nutrients Sprout Baby made, depending on the power it supplied, boiled down to three things: healing the consumer, restoring energy, and providing growth nourishment.

But now, at "Art-Approaching-Dao tier" proficiency, according to Sprout Baby's feedback, the nutrients—influenced by the "Fruit of Life" it had eaten and the super-tier skill "Source of Life"—seemed to have gained an effect that could raise a beast's life force and life level!

In other words, they could now extend lifespan, then boost a beast's racial potential and improve its evolution aptitude!

As for the specific effects, they were similar to those of the Evolution Sacred Spring Eleven had entered—except that, limited by Sprout Baby's current strength, the enhancement was certainly not as potent as the spring guarded by the Life Ancient Tree Monarch!

But this was undoubtedly... an utterly badass effect as well. Once Sprout Baby became Mythic-tier, this skill of its would be an evolution elixir—a single nutrient pellet could directly complete the evolution of other low-race beasts!

"Holy shit."

Shi Jin sat frozen on the bed, staring at the weeping ginseng baby across from him.

"This ability is so insane, what are you crying for?"

Generally speaking, this kind of nutritional supplement that boosted vitality and altered a species' potential would grow steadily less effective the more times it was used. Even so, Shi Cen felt invincible—with the ginseng baby around, couldn't he live for ages?

Even Chongchong, if it ate some of the nutrients now, might well gain another two years of life without any trouble.

And this effect could also be amplified the longer the stuff was left to age in the Shi Yun.

Right now, Shi Jin truly had the urge to travel back to ancient times and bury treasure for himself.

"Eee..."

The ginseng baby wailed. Impressive as it was, it felt that before, only transcendent-, commander-, and monarch-level dire beasts had coveted it—but now it sensed that even overlord- and totem-level dire beasts might want to eat it!

After all, compared with the nutrients produced by the Nutrient skill, its own body was the finest nutrient of all: whatever effects the nutrients had, eating it would grant the same, only better.

Shi Jin: "..."

"No big deal, no big deal. Your supplement skills are more or less maxed out now, so after this you can pour everything into attack skills... Once you're strong enough, nobody will be able to eat you!"

"Eep." The ginseng baby still felt unsafe, but Shi Jin was right—it had to hurry and reclass into a combat ginseng to feel more secure.

Shi Jin: ???

Why are you making the same "eep" sounds as Eleven? One punch per whiner, I swear. You get the better end of the deal and still act all hard done by—how despicable. I don't know who you take after.

[Name]: Ginseng Baby

[Attribute]: Wood

[Species Rank]: Low Monarch

[Growth Rank]: Commander

[Skills]: Sweet Aroma (Technique Near the Dao), Slow Healing (Peerless Mastery), High-Speed Healing (Perfect), Nutrient (Technique Near the Dao), Earth Chain (Peerless Mastery), Source of Life (Novice), Multiplication (Proficient), Absolute Sleep (Proficient), Energy Fruit (Skilled), Charged Beam (Proficient)

[Energy Value]: 90001

At that moment, Shi Jin pondered the ginseng baby's attributes and sank into deep thought.

Of its five species skills—Sweet Aroma, Slow Healing, Nutrient, Earth Chain, and Source of Life—all except the super-tier skill had been more or less fully leveled.

And its growth rank had now reached Commander.

Because its species skills had been leveled so high and its foundation was so terrifying, even though Grandma Li had initially rated the ginseng baby as only a Low Monarch species, its supplement effects now were probably in no way inferior to those of overlord-species supplements.

At this point, the ginseng baby's energy value had already blown past Eleven's... breaking the ninety-thousand mark.

That was nearly half of the "200,000 energy value" threshold—the minimum energy value for "Monarch level."

A transcendent-species Monarch-level usually had around 200k energy; a commander-species Monarch-level, around 500k; a monarch-species Monarch-level, around 1 million.

Shi Jin felt that Eleven, paired with the ginseng baby's energy supplements and aided by Veiled Edge, might just have a shot at scratching even the weakest Monarch-level pets?

The problem, though, was that those who reached Monarch level on a transcendent species were far too few—a mere handful. Generally, anyone who could reach Monarch level had at least a commander species, so there was still a long road ahead.

In fact, Shi Jin felt that for the ginseng baby and Eleven to reach Monarch level, they would have to wait an awfully long time.

Judging by their situation, maxing out low-, mid-, and high-tier species skills might not be enough to reach Monarch level.

It would probably still come down to developing the super-tier skills...

But... even though Shi Ying's constitution had once again hit its limit and was no worse than any master-level beastmaster's, it still did not meet the requirements for teaching super-tier skills—which left Shi Jin thoroughly frustrated.

Still, thinking of the might of super-tier skills like Plant Control, Veiled Edge, and Frost Qi, he resigned himself. Shi Jin figured that if these super-tier skills were leveled to Peerless Mastery or Technique Near the Dao, they might truly touch upon a domain of "rules" and "origin."

"Alright, finally done."

"Ginseng baby, make the top-grade perfume, spices, and nutrient fruits. I'll rest a bit, then we'll take the goods and go exchange for Chongchong's evolution materials... If we don't go soon, it's going to die of misery."

Shi Jin flopped onto the bed like a corpse—exhausted, drained.

"And Chongchong, sort out your silk too. All messy like that, it won't sell."

"Eep! (Understood!)" The ginseng baby looked at Chongchong.

Chongchong: ???????

"Cheep!" Chongchong also flopped onto its silk like a corpse.

How could it not be miserable? Right now, Leader had over eighty thousand energy, the ginseng baby had ninety thousand, and it...

Three thousand!!! Three thousand!!! Only three thousand!!! Do you know how it spent this whole day stewing in misery?!

When was it going to evolve? It wanted a new species, fast—it was done being a Green Fluffworm. This species was just too pathetic; it had never seen a species lamer than the Green Fluffworm, not even a plain white radish baby measured up to it!