Astral Cockroach

Bamboo exhausts the essence of its rhizomes, sacrificing its life to pass on its genes to the next generation. The flowering and fruiting process is only a brief twenty-odd days, a speed that can be described as miraculous compared to other plants.

After Banbu thoroughly perfected his cultivation technique, it wasn't long before various bamboo species successively matured. The corresponding bamboo forests and leaves began to wither and fall, heading towards decline and death.

Unsurprisingly, Banbu harvested a seed resembling a grain of rice, cyan and yellow in color, a God-given Seed!

Creating a cultivation technique and obtaining a God-given Seed were not the end of the good fortune.

After harvesting the seeds from the new bamboo species from the Wind Chime Territory planted on the north side of the mountain, its leaves did not turn yellow even after several days. Banbu noticed this and went to investigate, discovering that the life force of the underground rhizome not only hadn't disappeared but was slowly recovering.

Fertilizing with sludge and irrigating with marsh water, miraculously, the underground rhizome regained its vitality and began to spread and grow laterally. As expected, this was a super high-quality bamboo species with a short flowering and fruiting cycle that didn't wither after flowering and bearing seeds.

Banbu named it "Golden Thread Bamboo". He dried the three seeds along with the God-given Seed with utmost care and meticulously preserved them, ensuring nothing would go wrong.

After the successful hybridization of Golden Thread Bamboo and Spotted Bamboo, a batch of seeds was also harvested. Since the current season was not suitable for sowing, detailed information could not be obtained, so it was temporarily named.

Regrettably, as predicted, the hybridization experiment between Moso Bamboo and Cattail Bamboo ended in failure.

…

While deducing the cultivation technique, Banbu had pondered methods to absorb unowned mental power. Moreover, with the meditation techniques from his time as a human as a blueprint, it was relatively easy.

He quickly deduced a method, waiting only to verify its feasibility.

The distance from Reeds Bamboo Peak to the location where the metal core fell wasn't short. At Banbu's current flying speed, a round trip at full speed would take about half a day.

A mid-level warrior residing alone on a mountain peak shouldn't leave their territory for more than two days. If the time is too long, the scent will dissipate, and various small and medium-sized predators will invade the territory, targeting the ordinary cockroaches under protection. More seriously, during the flowering and fruiting season of the life seeds, some animals might be attracted to target the life seed fruits.

Fortunately, it was late summer, and only the God-given Seed was currently spiking, not yet flowering.

The ordinary cockroaches on the mountain had just hatched from their egg casings, were small in size, and few in number, so there was no need to worry too much.

Anxiously wanting to try his self-created method, Banbu made simple preparations and chose to depart in the evening.

…

After more than half a year, the range of the metal core's resonant field had shrunk by about 100 meters again. The exposed land, the grass and trees turned into grayish-white powder and scattered, a very thin layer of dust. The soil layer below had turned into a hard slab, like a smooth and polished ceramic floor.

Suddenly, Banbu was no longer in a hurry. He wandered around the swamp, hunted a python, and placed it outside the resonant field as spare food before stepping into the field's range.

Spreading his wing membranes and gently flapping them, his spiracles opened and closed, breathing evenly. His divine consciousness entered an ethereal state, and his body naturally rose and fell with his breath.

Gradually, Banbu's own mental field achieved a subtle resonance with the metal core's resonant field. Traces of cold mental power seeped into Banbu's mental field, entered his carapace, and were finally absorbed by Banbu's soul.

"It works!"

Banbu retracted his wing membranes, stopped absorbing, and after a slight pause, carefully probed deeper into the resonant field.

After trying, he confirmed that in terms of mental cultivation, the difference between humans and cockroaches wasn't significant. The absorption method he had created was indeed feasible.

Banbu's soul had undergone a mutation due to being irradiated by the metal core at close range. His soul didn't reject the mental power emanating from the metal core, but even after absorption, he couldn't immediately use it, requiring a certain amount of time to adapt and digest.

The unowned mental power wandering on the periphery of the resonant field was too thin and inefficient, so Banbu planned to approach deeper. When his own mental field was compressed by the resonant field to the point where it couldn't leave his carapace, that would be the limit of his endurance, the most efficient point for absorbing mental power with his current strength.

Spreading his wing membranes, he entered an ethereal state in a few seconds, and his mental power increased at a perceptible rate.

Late at night, the total amount of mental power reached the limit his soul could bear, and Banbu withdrew from the resonant field.

External mental power affected the soul, and the soul first induced brain cell mutations, with many brain cells dying in the process of mutation.

Banbu's heart beat faster, and his blood carried away the remnants of the dead cells, sending in a large amount of nutrients and energy, injecting them into the successfully mutated brain cells, causing them to grow and divide rapidly.

The entire mutation process had a certain degree of danger. He couldn't feel any pain, only an imperceptible fatigue and weakness throughout his body.

Everything was as expected. Banbu endured the drowsy fatigue, slowly enjoying the food he had prepared in advance, recovering his consumption, while concentrating and carefully experiencing the subsequent changes in his body.

Soul mutation directly led to brain cell mutation, but subsequently, the impact on other parts of the body seemed very slow and weak.

After Banbu's brain regained clarity, he continued to feel the changes in himself while pondering the reason. Lacking technological means to assist him, he couldn't collect detailed data and couldn't draw a definite conclusion, with only two guesses: it might be because the soul mutation wasn't significant, not causing obvious changes to the body; or it might be a long and continuous process, requiring time.

After all, it was the power left behind by a Dominator-level being, and moreover, a metal lifeform completely different from carbon-based life, which could very likely induce unbearable genetic mutations.

Banbu didn't dare to continue rashly. After his physical strength recovered, he got up and returned to Reeds Bamboo Peak, intending to observe for a period of time before making specific plans.

…

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On the north side of Reeds Bamboo Peak, the newly hatched small cockroaches were mostly in their third instar. Banbu landed at the entrance of the cave, and these little guys popped their heads out, watching from a distance.

They had low-level intelligence and knew that Banbu was a fellow clan member who protected them, so they cleverly chose to live near the cave where Banbu resided. At the same time, they were afraid of Banbu's large size and the aura of a Force creature, not daring to get too close.

Each time Banbu ate, he would throw out bones with a lot of fresh meat left on them, or even directly feed them entire pieces of pure meat.

The little cockroaches quickly developed a habit. Every time Banbu landed, they would rush over, eagerly waiting for food to fall.

However, they quickly saw that Banbu had returned empty-handed this time, and after watching for a while, they dispersed in twos and threes, taking advantage of the night to continue crawling everywhere. When they were tired of crawling, they would gnaw on rotten leaves, and after they were full, they would crawl again… repeating the cycle, absorbing nutrients through exercise and frequent eating, accelerating their growth.

Before winter, these little cockroaches could grow into sub-adults. Most of them would freeze to death, and only a few exceptionally strong ones would be able to survive, grow rapidly after the spring of next year, and enter the breeding season in the summer of next year, reproducing offspring on a large scale.

Adult cockroaches of the Red Roach Tribe can breed 3,000 to 5,000 small cockroaches a year. In less than two years, Banbu's territory would have hundreds of thousands, millions of ordinary subordinates.

Ordinary cockroaches have weak combat power, but their survival and reproductive abilities are extremely strong. Therefore, the warriors protecting the territory usually don't need to spend any thought or time taking care of them.

Banbu, possessing human knowledge, would certainly not leave them unattended.

The female cockroaches, who were the most numerous, didn't need to be concerned about, but the male cockroaches had to be given priority protection.

Currently, there were about 20,000 small cockroaches in the territory, of which only about 50 were male. Banbu had figured out the location of each of their nests and would deliberately send them some meat every day to help them grow better.

Cockroaches have two reproductive modes: sexual reproduction is preferred, giving birth to strong offspring with excellent genes; when there are not enough male cockroaches, the female cockroaches cannot find a partner and will undergo parthenogenesis, giving birth to offspring that are essentially clones of the female cockroach.

Clones, in a better situation, completely inherit the genes of the mother, and in a worse situation, may experience genetic degradation, manifesting as a dual decline in physique and intelligence.

In contrast, sexual reproduction has a high probability of giving birth to offspring with excellent genes, becoming stronger generation by generation. The spread of excellent genes throughout the group manifests as the overall evolution of the race.

Banbu was 100% certain that ensuring the number of male cockroaches among the ordinary cockroaches in the territory could greatly increase the probability of giving birth to new tribal warriors.