Astral Gods

Chapter 30: A Divine Gift of Mulberries with Improved Quality

Lord Purple Plum led his little warriors back to Purple Ridge. When they returned, many rhinoceros beetle warriors were already standing at the entrance of Lord Purple Plum's nest.

Lord Purple Plum swayed its antennae, and the little warriors flew off its head and back to their elder.

Lord Zili took out a lot of divinely bestowed food from the main peak and shook his antennae: "This is divinely bestowed food that I traded for from the Flame Spider Merchant's claws. Each insect comes in a bag. Everyone take some to try."

"Thank you, Lord Zili."

"Lord Zili, you've worked hard." The rhinoceros beetle warriors each took a bag of divinely bestowed primal force food back with them. This divinely bestowed primal force food was not purchased and distributed by Lord Zili.

Lord Purple Plum himself only has one Purple Plum divine seed, which produces an average of 24 raw stones per year. With the output of other life seeds, the annual output is only about 30 raw stones.

This output is barely enough to support its own upward evolution, and it's not enough to support its younger generations.

Each batch of Divine Fruit produced contains a significant amount of primal energy within its pulp, roughly accounting for about 15% of the entire fruit. It peels the pulp and distributes it to its younger generations, which is the limit of its ability to support them.

The divinely bestowed food it brought back was produced from wild divinely bestowed seeds on the main peak.

As mentioned before, they possess eight wild divinely bestowed seeds. Some of these seeds originated from public forests and were planted because they were unsuitable for distribution. Others were wild divinely bestowed seeds found in the wild.

They have everything from intermediate to king grade, with an average annual output of around 100 million rough stones.

Every year after the fruit is harvested, it is exchanged for the divinely bestowed food needed by the Two-Forked Rhinoceros Beetle tribe, and then it is distributed among everyone.

On average, each insect can get two to three thousand raw stones. The amount is not much, but it's enough to get a taste of something new.

Most of the rhinoceros beetle warriors ran away after receiving their reward, but Zizhu and Zitong did not leave. Instead, they took out several small spider silk bags and placed them in front of Lord Zili, who then opened them.

Lord Zili also took out two small spider silk bags and opened them: "The mulberries from the Mulberry Life Seed of King Qingzhujia and the Wild Mulberry Divine Gift Seed have been harvested."

The two insects took out a few mulberries from their spider silk bags and handed them to the three little ones.

The three little ones took it and swallowed it whole, smacking their lips: "Purple Pearl, the fruit is too small, I couldn't taste anything."

Zizhu: "..."

It ignored the gluttonous little warrior and instead looked at Lord Purple Plum, who was tasting mulberries of various grades: "Lord Purple Plum, what do you think?"

After eating mulberries of various grades, Lord Zili praised, "The fruit produced by the intermediate-level warrior mulberry tree seed after being pollinated by male flowers already has an internal energy ratio of 1:1.9. If it were 1:2, it would meet the minimum standard for divinely bestowed energy food."

The mulberry seeds of advanced warriors, after being pollinated by male flowers, are of slightly lower quality than those of intermediate warriors, only about 1:1.5.

This one is also good; it's almost on par with the top quality among ordinary life types.

The mulberry seeds of a Mountain Lord-level warrior, after being pollinated by male flowers, are of rather ordinary quality, only about 1:1.2, but they can still fetch a good price.

"As for the Lord level... it's almost useless, and the same goes for the King level. The level difference between the two types of destiny is too great."

Zizhu and Zitong looked at Lord Zili with bright eyes: "What about the yield of the divinely bestowed wild mulberry seeds?"

After tasting the mulberries produced by the divinely bestowed wild mulberry tree, Lord Purple Plum's eyes lit up: "The quality of the divinely bestowed wild mulberry tree is even higher. Previously, the ratio of primordial energy in the fruit was only about 1:2.8, but now it has reached 1:3.1."

For every 0.1 increase in the energy ratio beyond 1:2, the price can skyrocket.

The mulberries produced in the territory of ordinary intermediate warriors were originally so small that each mulberry contained only 0.02 Origin Stones of Origin Force and Origin Energy, and could only be sold at the price of 50 mulberries per Origin Stone.

Wild divinely bestowed seeds are also of intermediate grade, and the mulberries they produce contain only 0.02 raw stones of primal energy per grain. However, they possess high primal energy properties and have a wide range of uses, so each grain can be sold for 1.5 raw stones, a 75-fold increase in price.

This is also why the Short-tailed Flower Flea Warrior said he wanted to exchange the God-given Wangjiangnan Zi and Lord Zili for the God-given Mulberry at a fair price at the trading square.

Now that the male flowers are pollinating, the resulting divinely bestowed mulberries have increased their original energy by 0.3 units. These mulberries can be sold for 2 raw stones each.

Lord Purple Plum shook his tentacles: "The quality of the divinely bestowed mulberries used to be slightly inferior to other divinely bestowed primal force foods that enhanced vitality, but now it has basically made up for it. If we can pollinate a tree with male flowers, the overall output value can increase by one-third."

"Can it increase the income by one-third?" Zizhu and Zitong were very excited. The wild mulberry divine seed is only at the intermediate stage now, and only 8000 fruits are left each year. A bunch of mulberries has 50 fruits, so there are about 160 bunches of mulberries.

This means that the annual production of raw stones can be increased from 12000 to 16000.

This output might be a bit much for a single Zerg warrior, but it's not something their entire tribe cares about. What they value more is that the younger warriors in their tribe can eat better.

They looked at the three little ones: "Lord Purple Plum, should we ask the Male Mulberry God-given Seed to produce more flowers next year?"

One male flower can pollinate twenty female flowers, and 8,000 fruits only require 400 male flowers. This shouldn't put too much pressure on the divinely bestowed seed of the male mulberry tree, right?

Lord Zili thought for a moment and said, "No rush. Zishan is already a beginner warrior at the seventh age, and she will be able to advance to the intermediate level in three more ages."

Let's do another experiment next year. Based on the yew's growth rate, it should be able to advance to intermediate warrior level by the second half of next year. After that, the male mulberry seed will bloom again. Let's try pollinating the female seed with the intermediate-level male seed and see how much the quality will improve.

"Yes," Zizhu and Zitong echoed, "maybe by then the quality of the divinely bestowed mulberries will be top-notch."

The young soldier didn't care about any of that; he just kept eating.

After inspecting the quality of the mulberries, Zizhu led the three little ones back to their destined territory.

Within their seed territory, the reason why Purple Locust and Purple Artemisia have advanced to the second-year intermediate warrior stage is that they have planted ten seed plants, all of which are of high quality.

This is the difference between having elders and not having elders. With Lord Zili providing them with divinely bestowed primal force food to support their evolution, they not only grow at a rapid pace, but the life seeds they sow are also of very high quality.

Once they are promoted to advanced warriors in the future, their territory's output will be among the top of warriors of the same level.

However, compared to the purple acacia and purple artemisia, Purple Pearl pays more attention to the yew, which is currently a seven-year-old novice warrior, and the life seeds it nurtures can become divinely bestowed seeds.

Once they grow up, their territory's output will not only be among the top of warriors of the same level, but they will definitely become the richest insect in the astral plane.

If it advances to Mountain Lord, it will have 27 Divine Seeds producing Divine Force Food; if it advances to Lord, it will have 36 Divine Seeds producing Divine Force Food; and if it advances to Insect King, it will have at least 45 Divine Seeds producing Divine Force Food.

Such a large amount of divinely bestowed food is not particularly much for a tribe with tens of thousands of insects, especially for a large kingdom like the Flame Spider Kingdom, where the number of divinely bestowed seeds must be much greater.

But for this insect, there was definitely more than it could eat, even if the three little ones ate together.

Even for the Ziling lineage, or even for a small tribe like the Double-Forked Rhinoceros Golden Turtle tribe, this output is enough to become a significant force that can strengthen the entire tribe.

In the future, once it advances to the Mountain Lord level or the Lord level, it will only need to leak out a tiny bit of divinely bestowed primal force food from its claws, and the Purple Ridge lineage will reap enormous benefits.

This is why Lord Zili spared no expense in nurturing the three little ones. Once the yews grow up, they can bring tremendous benefits to the tribe, and their growth and evolution are even more important than Lord Zili's own evolution.