Astral Cockroach

Like interwoven blue and green silk, a crystal clear planet of life, the most dazzling pearl in the universe.

Rolling mountains, dense jungles, an ocean of living beings.

Dusk.

A young cockroach, entirely black, stood on a leaf at the very top of the tallest tree on the mountaintop, waving its antennae, its body slowly turning, surveying all directions.

"Everywhere is barren mountains and vegetation, this is an undeveloped primitive planet! A primitive planet that nurtures carbon-based life!"

"I've struck it rich! Discovering such a primitive planet suitable for human migration, how much merit reward can I get? Perhaps I can be promoted to become the governor of the planet..."

"But..."

The fiery enthusiasm that had just surged into his mind vanished without a trace.

"My soul should have been mutated by the radiation of the metal core being escorted. I was lucky to survive the air crash, instinctively plundering the body of a cockroach in gestation to continue living."

"Now, I am no longer human, I have become a young cockroach..."

"Which galaxy is this? The Milky Way? It shouldn't be. The Milky Way has already been fully developed by humans, it is impossible for primitive planets to exist."

"The Hephaestus Galaxy? Or a more distant galaxy?"

"First of all, I am no longer human. Secondly, it is uncertain whether the wreckage of the warship crashed on this planet. Even if I find the wreckage of the warship, it may not have a long-range communicator to send a distress signal. Even if it does, the distance is unknown, and it may not be able to transmit to the command post."

"The most fatal thing is that my soul has been mutated by radiation, and I have left the category of human beings from the soul level."

"As a Galactic Federation Space Marine, I know best the attitude of humans towards alien intelligent races. Sending a signal and attracting the Federation army is tantamount to seeking my own death."

Thinking about it, he became even more worried.

The young cockroach standing on the treetop was named Banbu Hoss, a 3rd class soldier of the Logistics Transportation Unit 419 of the 7th Army of the Galactic Federation Lightning Expeditionary Force. His duty was to guard the precious cargo on the transport spacecraft.

The transport spacecraft Banbu worked on was numbered “Luan-K704”, transporting a batch of massive spoils of war plundered from a metal race called “Kapas” in the Hephaestus galaxy.

The Kapas tribe was a semi-technological, semi-martial arts civilization that achieved self-evolution through cultivation and had been completely destroyed by the human army. The spoils included 8 metal cores at the Overlord level. It is said that the human race also sacrificed 11 martial arts experts at the Overlord level for this.

On the way back to the Milky Way, Luan-K704 encountered space-time turbulence during space jump. Within one-thousandth of a second, the solid hull was torn into pieces by the unmatched power of space.

Before his death, Banbu was guarding outside the warehouse. He clearly remembered that the warehouse was broken, and the energy radiation of the metal core penetrated his armor without hindrance. He lost consciousness and woke up to find himself in a brand new world, possessing a brand new body—a cockroach nymph just hatched from the ootheca.

"Where should I go from here?"

Standing on the leaf at the top of the tree, Banbu fell into deep thought.

A gentle breeze blew, the leaves swayed, and the tree made a subtle "rustling" sound.

The cockroach's clinging ability was not strong. The swaying leaves shook Banbu off, and he fell to the ground.

Instinctively, he desperately flapped his undeveloped wing buds, and was carried by the breeze, drifting.

Finally, unfortunately, he crashed heavily on a hard rock.

The body of only 4 instars was fragile and unbearable, and one of his walking legs was broken off at the root.

"Alas, most of my sisters hatched in the same batch are already 7 instars."

Banbu sighed, picked up the broken hind leg with two forelimbs, and slowly gnawed at it.

The 7th instar was not far from the 10th instar of the sub-adult, but he had only completed 3 molts and was still a weak 4th instar.

Banbu guessed that it was because he possessed human intelligence and overused his brain.

The cockroach's brain was very small, with few brain cells, but it seemed to have the ability to proliferate infinitely. The human soul drove the small brain to think about complex problems, killing a batch of brain cells, and immediately consuming the stored nutrients and organic energy in the body to generate new brain cells.

The nutrients needed for growth and molting were consumed by the brain.

"According to the cockroach's inherited memory, I must complete at least 9 molts before winter comes to reach the sub-adult stage, otherwise I will not be able to survive the cold winter."

"Inherited memory indicates that rotten leaves are the worst food, and meat can help them grow quickly, and the fact is..."

Banbu gnawed at his own leg meat, thinking silently.

At the broken leg position, a new walking leg was slowly growing out. He could feel that a little bit of nutrients stored in his body were being consumed.

Limb regeneration is a capability possessed by many kinds of insects.

Banbu had carefully observed it and realized that his ability was somewhat different.

Other cockroaches can only regrow their broken legs and antennae when they molt next time.

Banbu could immediately regenerate a broken limb.

This was already the fifth time his leg had been broken, so he seemed very calm.

Meat was hard to come by, so he couldn't miss any bit of it. Calmly holding his broken leg, he leisurely gnawed at it.

"Having become like this, it's quite boring to live on."

"Early death, early rebirth, that's what they say... But, what if, I can't be reborn again? Wouldn't I be dead?"

Banbu finished eating his insect leg and turned his head to look. The newly grown insect leg had only grown to half its original size.

Eating, digesting, and absorbing, this process consumes energy, and there is also a very large loss of nutrients.

There were no excess nutrients in his body for it to grow back to its original appearance.

"Then I should live on first, take one step at a time..."

Cockroaches have six legs, and now he was missing half a leg, which did not affect his walking much. Banbu nimbly climbed towards the waist of the mountain, returning to his nest.

...

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Low and long mountains, undulating peaks.

Mid-level of the mountain range.

Below a broad-leaved tree was a thicket of shrubs.

Banbu's nest was opened in the thick layer of fallen leaves and humus in the shrub.

This was the primitive survival skill in the cockroach's inherited memory.

The nest was very shallow. The soft dead branches and leaves would not accumulate water. With the shelter of the shrubs, he was not afraid of wind and rain.

The best thing was that the decaying dead leaves that had been decomposed by fungi were soft, crisp, and easy to digest and absorb when eaten into the stomach.

The nest chamber was full of food. Although it was inferior and lacked nutrients, the advantage was that it was inexhaustible and endless.

Banbu analyzed with high-end human knowledge that eating more, exercising more, and thinking less would allow the dead branches and leaves to maintain the growth he needed. The root cause of his slow growth was that he instinctively used his brain to think about problems.

Night had fallen.

Night was the best time for cockroaches to be active.

Banbu held a thick dead leaf and gnawed at it. After eating his fill, he clearly felt that the organic energy consumed by the long journey and the regeneration of his broken leg was quickly restored to fullness.

The consumed organic energy was easy to recover.

What was difficult were nutrients such as protein.

The newly grown walking leg grew at an extremely slow speed.

Soon, the energy intake was excessive, and he had to stop eating, climb out of the nest, and consume energy through exercise.

Thousands of cockroaches of the same species lived nearby. They also encountered the problem of excessive energy and insufficient protein during the eating process. They had extremely low intelligence and only knew to crawl around at night according to the guidance of their inherited memory, searching for insect corpses that were almost impossible to find.

Banbu did not do those useless things, but carried out energy consumption in a very targeted manner—he laboriously climbed onto a rock, and then glided down to the ground by flapping his wings.

Climbing upwards, overcoming gravity, could accelerate energy consumption.

Gliding by flapping his wings, resisting the gravitational pull, consumed more physical strength, and could also exercise his flying ability by the way.

Cockroaches have wing buds, but they were not good at flying or simply could not fly. Banbu planned to try to master the flying ability after exercising.

The previous four times his legs were broken were accidentally broken while exercising his flying ability.

A broken leg could be regenerated, but the price was very high.

The reason why Banbu persevered was to verify a problem: whether cockroaches could change little by little through scientific exercise like humans.

If so, then perhaps weak cockroaches could become stronger and even undergo genetic evolution.

If not, then it meant that cockroaches were a completely inferior race with no future to speak of. Surviving by lingering on was meaningless, and early death and early rebirth was the wise choice.

The inherited memory obtained when he completed the third molt showed that Banbu's exact race was the "Flying Fire Cockroach Clan"'s branch tribe, the "Red Cockroach Tribe", which ruled the entire jungle.

Banbu was skeptical about this.

Cockroaches were the most numerous all over the mountains and fields, other kinds of insects were rare, and beasts were rare. Perhaps they could be considered the rulers.

But there were also many birds living in the mountains. They acted during the day and occasionally caught a few lost cockroaches to eat.

Cockroaches had no resistance in front of birds. Once discovered and locked on, they would inevitably become food. What kind of ruler was this?