Chapter 299: Chapter 292: Subduing the Exotic Insects of Heaven and Earth _1

“You agree, but will your parents and brother agree?”

Qin Niu was still somewhat worried.

Having one’s daughter become a concubine was not a particularly honorable matter.

Many families of the girl’s side would oppose it.

Unless they were poor and saw it as a way to make a sum of money and climb the social ladder by connecting with a wealthy family, they might agree to marry their daughter off as a concubine to someone else.

And most often, they were married off to old men.

Tang Caixian’s conditions were not bad, and Qin Niu’s current status and strength that was openly known were merely those of an ordinary Insect Master. Such individuals were a dime a dozen in Black Tiger City, far from being considered particularly outstanding.

“If they don’t agree, I will think of a way to convince them. In the end, I am the one who will be living the life, and as long as they see you will treat me well, they should agree,” she said, although she had no real confidence in her heart.

“Caixian, thank you. The only promise I can give you is that I will be true to you, supporting each other until old age.”

In matters of affection, Qin Niu was a novice.

He was very naive in all aspects.

But his heart was wholly sincere towards the two women.

And he was confident in providing them with a happy married life.

…

After returning home from Daoyuan Village, he began to read through the Insect Control scrolls and Insect Control Books he had gathered.

The Spider Technique Scrolls he had found on Zhu Zhu’s body and the Breeding Insects Secrets he had obtained from Elder Jiu Yin were his focus for study.

The Spider Technique Scroll was an ancient volume at first glance.

Its content was extremely profound.

It mentioned various methods of controlling, breeding, catching, creating, and exterminating spiders.

Later on, it even detailed the methods of cultivating demon spiders and the abilities of various demon spiders.

For instance, the Phantom Jumping Spider, killed by Qin Niu, could become a demon when cultivated to a later stage. Its invisibility power would be extremely formidable in the forest, far surpassing ordinary magical beasts and insect demons.

Moreover, the difficulty of a bug transforming into a demon was much greater than that of beasts or birds, and the Phantom Jumping Spider only needed to find a tree on the verge of gaining spiritual essence and drink its sap to greatly increase the success rate of becoming a demon.

After its transformation, it could even use that nearly enlightened tree as a den to form a strange symbiotic relationship.

This made Qin Niu think of the Ancient Banyan Tree.

That Ancient Banyan Tree was likely on the brink of becoming enlightened, or it already had.

Especially in the evening, when Qin Niu escaped from the maze of the Ancient Banyan Tree, it actually opened up a path for him, indicating it had already acquired a certain level of sentience.

This was also why Qin Niu believed it may have already become enlightened.

The Spider Technique Scroll also mentioned that spiders drinking the sap of plants about to become enlightened had a chance to upgrade or awaken special powers.

A smile crossed Qin Niu’s face.

This point, he had already figured out.

His Termites, bees, Diamond Ink Turtle, Green Ox, and other pets were able to advance only after consuming the Ancient Banyan Tree Blood.

Currently, only the Grade Seven Red-eyed Golden Toad had not consumed the Ancient Banyan Tree Blood.

It wasn’t that he begrudged it; he had simply kept needing it to provide protection. If it drank the Ancient Banyan Tree Blood and, like the Green Ox, fell asleep for two or three months, Qin Niu would lose a powerful ally in battle.

Lately, the Red-eyed Golden Toad had earned numerous merits, helping Qin Niu resolve many dangers.

Once the conflict between the Black Tiger Gang and the Nine Insect Gang had come to an end, he would immediately nurture it.

In the cultivation methods of the Spider Technique Scroll, there was a method mentioned called “spider fusion.”

It involved letting one spider devour another, merging to become one.

If the fusion were successful, it could lead to the development of a new species that combined the virtues of both spiders.

However, this method had a high rate of failure, and even if the fusion were successful, it wasn’t guaranteed to combine the virtues of the two spiders. It could also potentially combine the faults of the other spider.

This could lead to the new species having significant defects.

The way to increase the success rate was to try to have the primary spider devour spiders of the same kind.

The primary spider should preferably devour spiders weaker than itself.

Otherwise, it might be devoured in reverse, and the new species formed would be dominated by the secondary spider.

Qin Niu couldn’t help but think of the Green Demon Bee and the Corpse Bee.

They all belonged to the bee species, and their prototypes were evolved from hornets.

They were essentially of the same origin.

The success rate of having them devour each other should greatly increase.

And it would be Green Demon Bees taking the lead, exactly as Qin Niu had intended.

With this idea in mind, he began to study meticulously the insect breeding method recorded in the Spider Technique Scroll.

Reading into the night, waves of sleepiness washed over him, and he sat in the backyard, replacing sleep with spiritual practice.

As his cultivation improved, his spiritual power also recovered rapidly.

…

The next morning, Qin Niu did not go to the mountains for cultivation or insect breeding.

Because he hadn’t yet found the method to raise Green Demon Bees.

He wondered if he should let the Worker Bees serve as nursemaids?

The main issue was that he did not know what food the young Green Demon Bees needed.

The Green Demon Bee Breeding Classics did not mention a word about it.

Qin Niu felt this issue was urgent and immediately started studying the Breeding Insects Secrets written by Elder Jiu Yin.

It detailed Elder Jiu Yin’s breeding processes for various insects.

Compared to Green Demons, Elder Jiu Yin did not hold back any secrets, recording the complete breeding processes and insights for every insect.

One book summed up Elder Jiu Yin’s three hundred years of familial history.

As long as Elder Jiu Yin had raised the insect, whether it was a Rabuja, a Bloodsucking Leech, or the Fire Ant, Taiyin Yaoyao, Four-Winged Demon Centipede… the breeding process for every insect was described in great detail.

Even how to obtain the original insect was thoroughly recorded.

For instance, the most formidable Four-Winged Demon Centipede was captured by Elder Jiu Yin by chance in the Poisonous Miasma Forest with at least a millennium’s history.

It started off as a Dual-Winged Flying Centipede.

After Elder Jiu Yin captured it with great difficulty, he thought of many ways to subjugate it, using more than thirty Advanced Contract Talismans alone.

When subduing this insect, Elder Jiu Yin adopted a war of attrition method.

He had his attendants and a host of enslaved insects use mid-tier Contract Charms to continuously wear down the Dual-Winged Flying Centipede’s energy.

Only when it was extremely weary did Elder Jiu Yin personally take action, subduing it at once.

To subdue it, Elder Jiu Yin endured a grueling three days and four nights, using thirty-four Advanced Contract Talismans. Only then did he manage to subdue it.

Of all the pets Qin Niu had tamed, the most difficult to subdue had been the War Bee Queen Bee.

He had never experienced paying such a huge price to subdue an insect like Elder Jiu Yin did.

However, he learned a lot from Elder Jiu Yin’s experiences.

In the future, when encountering particularly difficult insects or animals to tame, he could adopt a war of attrition or relentless harassment approach to subdue them.

In general, insects that require such effort to subdue are either of a high grade or are rare species of heaven and earth.

The Four-Winged Demon Centipede was one of those rare species.

Elder Jiu Yin’s Taiyin Yaoyao had a rather common origin.

At that time, Elder Jiu Yin was over thirty years old and still unmarried.

Lacking any special skills, penniless, short, and somewhat ugly, he epitomized the trifecta of poor, stubby, and unattractive.

Not a single maiden was willing to marry him.

It’s said that necessity is the mother of invention, so Elder Jiu Yin used the money he had saved from working to buy a Low-grade Contract Charm and a popular Insect Control Book.

Then his reversal of fortune began.

Initially, he wanted to subdue a venomous spider. Since Elder Jiu Yin was a native to the Nine Insect Gang, he grew up in the deep mountains surrounded by forests.

The most common sight in the forests were spiders.

At that time, he could barely read and spent over half a year begging for help to learn how to read so that he could comprehend the insect control books.

Feeling somewhat confident in what he had learned, Elder Jiu Yin went into the deep forest full of ambition, searching for the most powerful venomous spider.

The result was that two days later, he crawled back home.

He didn’t catch a venomous spider; instead, he was bitten by one.