: The Mining Ants and the Magic Tree

Chapter 97. The Method of the Mining Ants and the Magic Tree

The poor queen ant has never experienced this feeling.

A level three mage, and a level three mage with a lot of cheat codes at that, cast a spell on it, and it had no chance to resist in the slightest.

Its spirit was almost instantly influenced by Kroya's power, sinking into the tranquil melody and hearing the latter's gentle voice—

"Help me, and I will give you plenty of food, a safe nest, and plenty of magic."

The combination of natural communication and a tranquil serenade immediately presented the queen ant with a beautiful scene.

It was a nest built from all sorts of food and magical ores. No need to worry about food and magic anymore; just help this generous mage find minerals and magical veins.

You can get it simply by doing this!

The gentle voice kept assaulting its consciousness, displaying those images directly in front of it.

How could a tiny queen ant resist such temptation?

In the struggle for survival, even demonic insects will seek a safe place to reproduce and thrive, and now such a place is right in front of us.

It quickly became immersed in the beautiful scene, and a thought gradually arose in its mind: to find minerals! Finding minerals would allow the group to live more comfortably and evolve!

This desire was so strong that the pheromones it released were filled with this thought, infecting all the other gray ants around it.

And so, just as Kroya had predicted.

The same consciousness simultaneously emanated from the Protoss bodies of the surrounding gray demon ants—

"Search for mineral veins and magic veins!"

Although the consciousness of a single ant is insignificant, the sheer number of ants made even Kroya sense their unwavering determination.

It was even somewhat deafening.

A smile appeared on the monk's face; he knew his attempt had succeeded.

As he thought, it was indeed possible to induce desire in them through temptation and hypnosis, but... this method was probably only effective against creatures with weak mental strength.

It might not even work on Warcraft.

Because the mental power of monsters is actually very difficult to influence and tame. If you want to instill your thoughts into them, you have to be several levels stronger than them.

Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many animal trainers.

The road is there, it's difficult to walk, but it's walkable.

Kroya was quite satisfied with this result.

He happily reached out and cradled the queen ant in his palm, beginning to imprint her.

This time, when he was engraving, he used the magic runes he learned from the coconut tree, and superimposed them on the "mineral vein perception" given by the astral crystal turtle.

Magic plus one is not that simple.

The combination and magic runes inside... If he hadn't experimented with it in the Sea of ​​the Illusory Moon, it would have been really troublesome to do it this way.

The difficulty has also increased dramatically.

Even a mage as powerful as Kroya was exhausted after completing this almost entirely new magical inscription.

This is just the beginning.

Next, he had to individually imprint each ant, which was extremely painful. If it weren't for the fact that the demonic ants could live for a very long time, he really wouldn't have done it.

You can't go through all that trouble to carve the image, only to have the person die soon after; that would be truly infuriating.

I never expected that the imprints I originally intended for bees and night-blooming jasmine would end up on ants... It's quite a coincidence.

I wonder if the ants will satisfy him.

……

Time passed second by second.

Kroya was so engrossed in the pleasure of recording that he didn't notice the giant tentacle slime slowly approaching him.

Jamie covered his mouth, trying to call out "Kroya" in fear, but was immediately overwhelmed and knocked down by several slimes.

The slimes gagged him, and poor Jamie could only make "woo-woo-woo" sounds.

He watched helplessly as the tentacle slime walked behind Kroya, who was resting with his eyes closed, and then... directly hugged the mage with its tentacles!

"!!!" Jamie looked shocked as he struggled to escape the slime's grasp.

Having grown up on an island, he had seen many things and heard some rather sinister legends.

Could it be that the evil slime is planning to...?

Unable to break free, he could only close his eyes and pray.

What if I see something I shouldn't see? Will I be silenced?

"Um?"

Kroya, who was inscribing the spell, felt something was off and glanced at it out of the corner of his eye.

The enormous slime was binding his body with its tentacles, allowing him to sit against the slime's soft, jelly-like body.

Honestly, it felt pretty good.

The weather at the beach was already very hot, but suddenly being embraced by a walking, cool, jelly-like sofa made the heat disappear instantly.

The only problem is... something's a little strange.

It looked as if he was bound by a tentacle slime and was about to be eaten at any moment.

After a moment's hesitation, he decisively ignored the odd thing and focused on continuing to inscribe the magic.

As long as it's comfortable, that's fine. If it doesn't look good... well, it doesn't look good then.

Anyway, there's an apprentice named Jamie here, and even if he's crazy, he would never dare to tell anyone.

With the slime's cooling effect, Kroa's inscription magic speed increased considerably, and he did not intend to inscribe magic on all the gray ants at once.

Instead, they carefully selected one hundred of the strongest worker ants.

The sun in the sky gradually slanted from noon, and a dim, yellowish light replaced the bright sunshine. The air was filled with the smell of cooking smoke and the aroma of food being cooked.

We worked from noon until evening.

He finally breathed a sigh of relief; the engraving was complete.

[Imprint successful, Gray Demon Ant - Tentacles (Mineral Vein Perception - Modified)]

This magic will undergo some changes; the form of the Gray Ants will change.

After the prompt, the antennae of the gray demon ants he had chosen began to undergo some very noticeable changes: they became longer, and magical energy was attached to them, making them a beautiful, bluish-green color.

The queen ant, who was the first to be imprinted with magic, also underwent a change.

It also grew long tentacles, but these tentacles were so long that they exceeded the length of its body.

The blue light on those tentacles flickered at the same frequency.

The notification sounded again—

[Grey Demon Ants can use their antennae to detect potential mineral veins/magic veins in the surrounding area. The more Grey Demon Ants that possess "Mineral Vein Perception - Modified," the wider their perception range.]

You can feed them different types of magic to make them search for specific types/attributes of minerals/magic veins.

[The area of ​​effect will increase by 100% when the Queen Ant is present.]

The gray ants that had been marked suddenly froze.

They all rushed toward a certain spot, then worked together to dig, and soon disappeared underground.

"Huh? Is there a mineral vein there?"

Kroya watched their movements silently, perceiving them with his mental power.

A minute later, he sensed the joy in the gray ants and immediately realized something was wrong.

The island was thoroughly searched by the Astral Crystal Turtle, and there were no mineral veins at all. How could you possibly find one?

Are you guys even more powerful than the Astral Crystal Turtle?

He walked over with suspicion and poured his power into the earth.

"Let me see what it is!"

The earth suddenly began to churn, as if an invisible hand was tearing the soil apart, gradually revealing a pit.

In the very center of the pit, there is a...

Crystalline pipes.

Upon seeing this thing, Chloe's heart tightened. She glanced at Jamie beside her and gave an order to the slime.

The latter immediately used its tentacles to bind Jamie, placed him on its body, covered his eyes, and carried him away.

There are obvious human creations inside, and the style of these crystal tubes gives the impression that they were left behind by a sorcerer. Whatever lies deeper inside is beyond Jamie's comprehension.

Letting the slime take him away is for his own good. What if he accidentally sees something he shouldn't see? Should we kill him to cover it up or kill him to cover it up?

After sending Jamie away, he went to the front of the pit and began to dig away the soil around the pipe using Wizard's Hand and Earth Shaping spells.

As the soil was continuously dug away, what emerged from it once again surprised him.

That... what looks like a crystal pipe is actually just a special case formed by chance. Buried deep in the soil is a strange tree-like thing.

Its branches come in various shapes, some thick and some thin, some smooth and some twisted and contorted, all displaying a free and unrestrained nature.

It's just a protruding tree branch that forms the shape of a crystal tube.

Many mosses also grow on its surface.

The pale blue moss was translucent and had very obvious characteristics of elemental magical plants.

He stared intently at it.

The Demon Field Moss—Astral Imprint Technique provides this answer.

On the contrary, the strange tree did not appear.

This means that it is neither a magical beast nor a magical plant.

It's more like...

"The Demon Field Technique?" Kroa frowned.

After he completely dug out this strange "tree", he became even more certain that this thing must be a creation of the Demon Field Method.

Because at the base of the tree, there is a crystal-clear magic crystal.

It was a four-sided magic crystal, with different magic patterns engraved on each face. They intertwined and completely covered the crystal.

The magic runes are somewhat similar to the magic field technique that Kroa learned.

Clearly, it was this magic crystal that provided the energy, which then formed this tree that is about three meters tall—this shouldn't be called the Magic Field Technique; calling it the Magic Tree Technique would be more appropriate.

Kroya was overjoyed, as if she had struck gold.

A brand new method for cultivating magical fields!

He couldn't wait to walk to the base of the tree, carefully examining the magic crystal from which branches were extending, and memorizing the magic runes engraved on it.

This is a brand new method for creating magical fields; its value is practically priceless.

To be honest, although he had the Demon Field Grapevine, he didn't know how it was formed, so he always wanted to replicate it himself.

The Demon Field Method was the target he planned to study.

If the magic field technique could be imprinted on the seed or root of a certain magical plant, could it grow into a special magical plant similar to the magic field grapevine?

Although it's certainly not as intelligent as the Magic Field Grapevine, it's still a path.

A path he can control is much better than buying things from the Holy Spring Chamber of Commerce.

He watched for a while, until he felt dizzy and mentally exhausted, before he stopped.

The magic runes on this are far too complex; it's practically impossible to fully understand them in one go.

"I'll have to move it back first and study it in the lab later." He sighed. Luckily, this thing could be put into a seashell artifact, otherwise moving it would be a hassle.

This thing was probably left behind by the ancient Archmage Eurydice. Besides him, Chloe couldn't think of anyone else who possessed such magical power.

But why this thing is growing here... well, that's a mystery.

The only question is, are there any left?

Is there really only one plant?

Thank you so much to the generous donor who changed my name so much, and to all the other generous donors for their monthly tickets, it's really a lot... I feel your love!

QAQ, I fell asleep when I got home today, and only realized I didn't set a timer when I woke up. I'm so stupid.

(End of this chapter)