Lord of the Magical Beasts

After four hours of sustained attacks by the combined Horned Bee Beasts, spiders and Vampire Bats, the Bloodthirsty Ants had been wiped out of the forest. The ants had either been swallowed up by the Magical Beasts, transported to the Wizard’s Pagoda by Yang Ling, or had fled the valley in terror.

Under the protection of a team of Horned Bee Beasts, Yang Ling personally entered a massive ant hive and transported the countless ant eggs and larvae into the space of the Wizard’s Pagoda. He then transported another thousand Arrow Bamboos into the space.

With a queen ant, the eggs and young ants he had collected, and with a large group of worker ants and nearly two thousand Arrow Bamboos, Yang Ling believed that he would be able to set up the beginnings of a farm in the space of the Wizard’s Pagoda fairly quickly.

After confirming that he hadn’t missed any treasures, Yang Ling recalled his Magical Beast army and instructed Yuna to use the Ice Sealing Magic to cover their tracks with snow. As soon as she completed the task, the two left quickly, and snuck back into their tents to rest before the sun rose.

After sitting cross-legged in his tent and resting for a moment, Yang Ling pushed his consciousness into the space within the Wizard’s Pagoda.

Within the Wizard’s Pagoda space, the queen ant could only obediently hide in the Arrow Bamboo forest, pressured by the Horned Bee Beasts, spiders, Evil Eyes and Vampire Bats around it. The worker ants that Yang Ling had transported in followed her lead, unwilling to step foot out of the forest.

Unfortunately, the Arrow Bamboo forest was still too little!

Yang Ling made his way around the forest’s perimeter once. Two thousand Arrow Bamboos planted in one place might seem magnificent on the surface, but it was incomparable to the primordial forest of Arrow Bamboos growing in the valley.

Was there some way to accelerate the growth of the Arrow Bamboos?

Yang Ling stood staring at the vast field contained in the Wizard Pagoda’s space, thinking hard. The playful little Unicorn pranced over, and Yang Ling patted its head playfully. Suddenly he recalled the lake that this little Unicorn had been guarding all this time, as well as the Tree of Life growing quickly beside it.

He decided to dig a small canal, since he had no basin or watering can. He did not heed the little Unicorn’s protests and directly routed the sweet lake water into the forest of Arrow Bamboo.

Whoosh…

All at once, with the nourishment from the water, the Arrow Bamboos began to sway, though there was no wind, their leaves rustling as if they were dancing in the breeze. Through the mental energy that he had projected outward, Yang Ling noticed that the Arrow Bamboos’ roots were growing rapidly, extending downward, and little sprouts were beginning to appear all over the bamboo.

Perhaps, this might truly become a forest of Arrow Bamboos after I wake up!

Watching the Arrow Bamboo begin to transform convinced Yang Ling that he was on the right track to complete his plan. He was sure he could make the space within the Wizard’s Pagoda a true Magical Beast Base.

Yang Ling recalled his consciousness from within the Wizard’s Pagoda, and directly laid down to rest. He fell asleep immediately, exhausted from the night’s near-constant exertions. His mental energy was close to fully depleted.

…

Some time later, Yang Ling was roused from his slumbers. Far off, he could hear waves of noise.

“Damn Hans, come back!”

“Hehe, why are you so fierce? What if you can’t marry yourself off even after you are old and all your teeth have dropped out?”

Listening closely, he determined that Lia and Hans were quarreling again.

Hans noticed Yang Ling rubbing his eyes as he opened the door to his tent. He walked over to Yang Ling with long, energetic strides, and said “Brother Yuri! Lia just dared to accuse me of eating her Siberian Snow Plum last night! How could she do such a thing?”

Yang Ling shook his head, considering clocking them both on the side of the head. Their quarreling so loudly so early in the day, as if they were mortal enemies, over something as inconsequential as a Siberian Snow Plum was ridiculous to him.

Yang Ling inspected Hans’ expression of feigned innocence, and didn’t have to think very hard to determine that the fat man was at fault. He put on a sarcastic tone, and said “Hans, I didn’t see anything. I definitely won’t tell anyone that you were the one who ate the Siberian Snow Plum. Don’t worry!”

Hans only picked up on what Yang Ling had actually said after Yang Ling was already in his carriage. Hans didn’t notice as Lia crept up behind him, like a ferocious tiger. The outcome was as one might expect: Hans’ ears were red from all of Lia’s pinching. If she had continued, he might soon have ended up with ears even sharper than a forest elf.

As Yang Ling steered the ‘Ferrari’ toward the valley the group understood his intentions. They mounted their horses and followed behind the carriage. Hans and Lia, for their part, did not even stop quarreling.

After a time, the old man Lubnick spurred his horse forward, and pulled up to Yang Ling’s carriage. He looked at Yang Ling with respect, and asked, “Sir, why don’t we send a few people ahead of us to scout the area, in case we encounter another army of Bloodthirsty Ants or something?”

Lubnick was speaking from experience. There were five people from his clan that hunted in the valley back then, but only one had managed to crawl out alive to tell his brethren that they had been attacked by Bloodthirsty Ants. As a precaution, he hoped that Yang Ling would act prudently.

Yang Ling accepted the cup of rum that Yuna presented him, and took a sip. He looked out at Lubnick, and then past him at Hans, who was rapidly approaching, an angry grimace on his face. Yang Ling continued, “Don’t worry! Since Hans is a top notch Summoner, no number of Bloodthirsty Ants will be enough if he summons his precious Green-skinned Condor!”

Lubnick looked from Yang Ling’s big-eyed sincerity to Hans’ look of consternation, and decided it was best to stay out of that. He bowed respectfully and fell back with his horse, leaving the other two men to their business. Hans, for his part, summoned his mottled Green-skinned Condor and boasted loudly about its prowess, completely forgetting that he still had a score to settle with Yang Ling.

“The Green-skinned Condor is a unique high level Magical Beast on this continent. It would not have any problems against a group of Snow Wolves, much less a bunch of Bloodthirsty Ants!” Hans boasted.

Hans didn’t have very many talents, but he was a frontrunner in the group when it came to eating and boasting. He rattled on about hunting Violent Earth Bears and killing Siberian Snow Wolves, hyping his Green-skinned Condor all the while. He remained oblivious to Yang Ling’s contented grin.

“Baby, spit on it, spit on it!” Hans cried to his Condor as they rounded a small hill. There was a Snow Pheasant there, suddenly alarmed into flight toward a protective shrub not far away.

But the Condor, which Hans had spent so much energy praising, couldn’t even finish off a clumsy Snow Pheasant. The few sprays of acid it managed failed to kill its intended prey. Perhaps it was simply too cold for the bird, or perhaps Hans had forgotten to feed it. In the end, it was Lia who put the now-mangled Snow Pheasant out of its misery, using a short rain of Icicles.

This was all the Green-skinned Condor could do?

Lubnick, unused to this kind of display, shook his head in a combination of disappointment and disbelief. Despite the Snow Pheasant’s awkwardness, the weak Green-skinned Condor was no match for the task. It took a couple of lazy turns above them, looking tired. This was nothing new to Halalei and Lobina, though, as they were all too familiar with Hans’ personality quirks. They laughed it off.

The group picked up their pace, and soon arrived at the valley’s deep center. But to their surprise, they found no Bloodthirsty Ants at all.

“Oh, what is happening here?” Lubnick made his way around the edge of the forest of Arrow Bamboos in disbelief, unable to understand what he was seeing.

Yang Ling feigned confusion for a moment. Then he pretended to have an idea. “Could it be that the weather is too cold, and the Bloodthirsty Ants had long moved away or are hiding somewhere to hibernate?” he asked.

Do Bloodthirsty Ants need to hibernate?

The group deliberated quietly, muttering amongst themselves for a moment. Finally, they came to the unanimous agreement that the Bloodthirsty Ants had moved away. Taking Orlando’s lead, the group began the work of chopping down the premium Arrow Bamboos.

At the beginning of their task, Lia and Hans felt elated to be harvesting the bamboo, seeing it as a fresh new challenge. But they tired of it just an hour later, and ran off to play with their horses. Even the knight Halalei and archer Lobina lost interest, shaking their heads and giving up after just two hours of work. Only Orlando, the white bearded old man Lubnick, and the rest of his clansmen continued to work.

After another two hours of harvesting bamboo, Yang Ling made the excuse of checking out the surrounding terrain to sneak away and deep into the bamboo forest. He made sure there was no one around to observe him, and then transported a bunch of Arrow Bamboo into the space of the Wizard’s Pagoda.

Unlike the previous night, he deliberately chose the saplings that had not grown to full size to stretch his mental ability as far as he could. In the end, he managed to transport another five thousand young Arrow Bamboos in just four hours. Of course, he exhausted nearly eighty percent of his mental energy.

With the lake’s added nourishment, the Arrow Bamboos Yang Ling had harvested transformed immensely in just a few hours. Each bamboo had grown to six meters tall — far taller than any wild Arrow Bamboo.

After overcoming her initial unease, the queen ant had settled down in the new forest of Arrow Bamboos, and was instructing the worker ants to build a new hive. She spawned hundreds of ant eggs overnight, and was incubating nearly two thousand young ants, including the ant eggs that Yang Ling had transported in.

The forest of Arrow Bamboos depended on the water from the lake for its accelerated growth, the survival of the Bloodthirsty Ants depended on the Arrow Bamboos, and the Magical Beasts fed on the Bloodthirsty Ants. When he had more time and energy to absorb a greater amount of green life force, Yang Ling would be able to increase the small lake’s area. Just like that, Yang Ling was confident that he would be able to set up a perfect ecosystem in the space of the Wizard’s Pagoda, thus creating a mature Magical Beast Base.

After forbidding the Magical Beasts from feeding on the Bloodthirsty Ants, Yang Ling continued the journey toward Montson with the soldiers. He left Lubnick and his tribesmen behind, responsible for harvesting the remaining Arrow Bamboos, while they waited for the army in the Aila Mountain Pass to come to them.

Unlike mineral ores, Arrow Bamboos were a renewable resource. New Arrow Bamboos would grow in the place of those they had chopped down just two years later. Yang Ling would not miss this opportunity now that he had found such a large piece of primordial forest of Arrow Bamboos. He wrote a written order to Casey, instructing him to build a military depot in the valley, and enlisted an aborigine to deliver the letter to Casey as soon as possible.

The Wilderness of Siberia spanned thousands of miles and harbored countless resources. Building a military depot in the valley would allow them to occupy the premium forest of Arrow Bamboos, and it would allow them to search the wilderness for resources. Furthermore, it could also serve as an early warning base, in case enemy armies tried to launch a surprise attack on the fortress at the Aila Mountain Pass. It was three birds with one stone!