Chapter 558 - 308: Immortal Insect Grass

Inside the Insect Nest, Lü Zhong saw the infected Great Honey Insects, piled mountain-high.

Dissected insect corpses revealed that their bodies were filled with white mycelia. Their forms had stiffened, becoming long and rigid. Although not yet completely dead, they had lost all mobility.

They remained motionless, no matter how the Insect Queen commanded them.

A small, milky-white flower had also grown from each of their heads.

The sight caused a strange expression to cross Lü Zhong’s face. After all, no matter how he looked at it, the bizarre illness seemed to be a fungal parasite that had invaded the Great Honey Insects, transforming them into a type of "Cordyceps."

According to the Stewards’ observations, the onset of the strange illness occurred in two stages.

The first symptom for any infected Great Honey Insect was bodily stiffening. During this stage, its mobility would gradually decrease as mycelia began to grow within its body. As the mycelia consumed its flesh and blood, the Great Honey Insect’s Life Force would be extinguished.

After the Great Honey Insect died, the second stage would begin. The mycelia would erupt from the corpse, draining the last of its nutrients to grow a small flower.

"Have you found any records of this?" Lü Zhong asked, turning to Su Caocao.

She shook her head and answered respectfully, "Master, I have personally reviewed all the records and found no mention of anything similar."

"And what does it do?" Lü Zhong asked, pointing at the small flower.

Drawing on his experience from a past life, he suspected this "Cordyceps" had to be useful. Indeed, through the sight of his Celestial Net Secret Eye Technique, he could see the small flower emitting an incredibly dense Spiritual Qi.

In terms of purity, it was on par with a Tier Three Spiritual Medicine.

There just wasn’t very much of it.

"As for that," Su Caocao said, "I’ve already ordered the Alchemists of the Pill Hall to begin urgent research. I expect we’ll have results soon."

Lü Zhong was satisfied.

’It’s great having such a capable disciple,’ he thought. ’I don’t have to worry about a thing.’

’If this were happening to the protagonist of a novel, they’d probably have to run all over the place, stuck handling everything themselves for ages. They wouldn’t have it as easy as I do.’

But his thoughts returned to the strange illness.

Although the final product of this illness appeared to be a Spiritual Object useful to cultivators, for the Great Honey Insect Swarm, it was nothing short of a catastrophe.

If it were allowed to continue spreading, the swarm would inevitably be wiped out.

This was absolutely unacceptable to Lü Zhong.

Su Caocao had reported that she and the Stewards in charge of the Insect Nest had investigated the matter, but they hadn’t found the cause. The strange illness had truly seemed to appear out of thin air.

’Looks like I’ll have to handle this myself after all,’ Lü Zhong thought, his expression unchanging.

Having grasped the situation, he urged Su Caocao and the others to find a solution as quickly as possible, yet he showed no sign of anger, maintaining his calm and unconcerned expression.

To any observer, it only made him seem all the more inscrutable.

Of course, he didn’t let a single cultivator who had been derelict in their duty off the hook.

They were all thrown into the Bitter Mine.

That night, Lü Zhong used Concealing Breath and Traces to arrive at the Insect Nest.

Using the Gray Mist Space, he began to backtrack the scene.

According to the reports submitted by the Stewards, the strange illness had first appeared half a month ago. But based on his past life experience, Lü Zhong guessed the true onset was much earlier.

He continued to backtrack.

Sure enough, the first case had been three months ago.

Seeing the result of the backtracking, Lü Zhong discarded his previous theory.

He then backtracked the entire life of one of the afflicted Great Honey Insects and discovered the origin of the strange illness.

Lü Zhong had originally assumed the illness was caused by an external force—either the work of Changchun Valley or some clandestine act by the Daoist Sect. The truth, however, was completely unexpected.

The mycelia actually came from the Great Honey Insects themselves.

Based on his observations, this mycelia existed inside every single Great Honey Insect.

’This is trouble!’ Lü Zhong’s brow furrowed deeply.

’What’s causing the outbreak? Nothing like this has ever happened before. Could it be because the Insect Queen is about to break through to Tier Four? It seems... it seems that’s a real possibility.’

After all, judging by the current situation, the Insect Queen showed no signs of the illness whatsoever.

The other Great Honey Insects in the swarm, whether soldiers or workers, could not be saved from the illness. Isolation measures were useless, even when implemented from the egg stage.

’The problem is most likely related to that,’ Lü Zhong surmised.

By backtracking the scene, he had figured out the cause of the illness.

Now, the next steps would be much easier.

Lü Zhong revealed himself, much to the astonishment of the disciples on duty. As they called out, "Disciple greets the Patriarch," he plucked one of the "Cordyceps Flowers."

With a casual wave of his hand, he bade the disciples rise.

In a flash, he instantly teleported to the lowest level of the Insect Nest, where the Insect Queen resided.

"Master!"

"Patriarch!"

As the core of the swarm, the Insect Queen’s birthing chamber was, without a doubt, the most heavily protected area—especially given that the strange illness could be the work of an external enemy.

The defenses here were at their absolute peak, so tight that "impenetrable fortress" was no longer an adequate description.

Thus, Hex Luo, in his capacity as a Nascent Soul direct disciple, was standing guard here day and night, along with three Foundation Establishment cultivators from the Bihai Sect’s main lineage.

Although surprised by Lü Zhong’s appearance, they all bowed in greeting.

With a slight nod, Lü Zhong bade them rise and turned his gaze to the Insect Queen.

Perhaps because it no longer needed to fight personally, after breaking through to Tier Three, its body had continued to grow with its strength. It had expanded from its original hundred-zhang size to a colossal length of nearly two hundred zhang.

It looked like a great Jade Mountain lying on its side.

From its aura, one could tell that the creature had reached the peak of Tier Three, a level of strength equivalent to the Fake Infant Realm for an Immortal Cultivator.