Astral Gods

Chapter 91 The Dilemma of the Hundred Leaders

After completing their trade with the Rhinoceros Tortoise Tribe, the Hundred Tribes Caravan bid farewell to each other. The caravan then left the Rhinoceros Tortoise Tribe with its goods plentiful from the trade, heading towards the port at the southern tip of Elephant Banana Island.

There, merchant ships from the Flame Spider Kingdom would come to greet them, and while it was still early, they would head to the Thousand Star Islands for a trading trip.

Accompanying the caravan was the Lord of Zehui Mountain, who had finished his teaching assignment. He was returning home this year and would not be coming back to teach next year.

The young warriors of the Rhinoceros Tortoise tribe gathered at Great Green Peak to bid it a reluctant farewell. Although the Lord of Zehui Mountain had come to earn raw stones, he had indeed taught them many useful things and was their insect life mentor.

After the insects saw off the caravan of a hundred merchants, the Green Bamboo King distributed the various primal force foods they had acquired through the trade to everyone.

What they trade each year is mainly the divinely bestowed food produced from wild divinely bestowed seeds, which their own tribes cannot consume. They exchange this food with the Flame Spider Merchants for divinely bestowed food suitable for their own tribes.

Most of the ordinary Force food was exchanged for Spider King Scrolls, which made it easier for them to trade with other insects. For example, Ziling needed to settle accounts with several insect warriors who had worked at the end of the year, and Spider King Scrolls were more convenient for that.

Lord Green Fruit handed two bulging, large spider silk bags to Lord Purple Plum: "Purple Plum, these are the various kinds of primal force foods that your lineage needs."

Lord Zili scanned the area with his spiritual sense and found nothing missing. He then looked at King Qingzhujia and asked, "King Qingzhujia, is there anything else you would like to say? If not, we will head back now."

"Nothing else is wrong, but you should pay attention to the growth of the yew and don't rush it to break through and evolve."

"I understand." Lord Purple Plum spread his membranous wings, his six legs lifting two sacs of spider silk as he took flight: "My little ones, let's go home!"

"Let's go home." The three brothers flapped their wings behind it, while the Lord of Purple Pearl Mountain followed helplessly behind.

Lord Zili flew back to Ziling with a few companions and landed on a flat area next to the reservoir. After looking around, he thought the terrain was quite flat and instructed, "Zizhu, when you have time, use your earth and stone abilities to harden the land here. In a few years, once the yew seeds start producing, Ziling will have more than 20 divinely bestowed seeds."

"We'll need to bring in other caravans to trade later. The Baihe caravan is just too stingy; they're reluctant to even give us a few seeds. We'll find more generous caravans then."

Zizhu readily agreed: "Then I'll take advantage of the fact that I'm still at home at the end of the year to build a small trading square here with Zima and the others."

"Okay, call all the other warriors on the mountain over and distribute the Force food."

Zizhu summoned a large group of rhinoceros tortoise warriors who were waiting on the mountain, and they lined up to receive Force food.

After they were promoted to advanced level, they were separated from Lord Mo. The lord did not need to worry about their subsequent evolution. At most, when they evolved to the Mountain Lord level, the elders who were closer to them would share some of their primal force to provide some support.

At the same time, they also began to nurture their own offspring, which is how the relationship between the three brothers, Purple Pearl and Yew, came about.

When it comes to the younger generation of these high-level warriors and mountain lord-level warriors, their evolutionary resources are taken care of by their elders. Only in special cases like Zishan would Lord Zili have to worry about everything.

In this situation, the mountain lords only need to report the quantity and type of divinely bestowed primal force food they and their descendants need to Lord Zili. After all the transactions are completed, they can come and collect the primal force food, and then distribute it to their descendants.

Lord Purple Plum distributed bag after bag of Force food. The insects that received the Force food left on their own, going back to distribute what they needed to and evolve what they needed to evolve.

Even the Lord of Purple Pearl Mountain took a portion of Force food and waited to the side. Among the many Zerg warriors who came to collect Force food, there was also a non-Rhinoceros Golden Turtle warrior.

All the Rhinoceros Tortoise warriors except for the three Yew Brothers received their Force food, and the last one in line, Lord Willow Catkins, stood in front of Lord Purple Plum and waited.

Lord Zili took out a medium-sized spider silk bag from the large spider silk bag, which was filled with all kinds of wood-type primal force food.

"Lord Willow Catkins, this is a Wood-type Force Food Set worth 300,000 Primogems, including 100,000 Primogems worth of Divine Force Food. That should be enough for you to evolve to the first stage, right?"

Upon hearing that there was so much Force food, the Willow Catkin Mountain Master was immediately flattered and said, "This is too much. I don't need this much Force food at the first stage of evolution."

It has been four or five years since its last evolutionary age. During this time, it not only has the Force food produced by its Destiny Seed to eat, but it can also earn some Primal Stones by working around to buy Force food. It is only a little bit short of the Force food needed for evolution.

"It's alright," Lord Purple Plum said magnanimously. "If there's any left over after the evolution, consider it compensation for your migration of your destiny seed."

After the Flame Spider Merchants arrived at Elephant Banana Island, the Willow Catkin Mountain Lord asked them to revert their life seed back to its seed form and transplant it to the territory of the Rhinoceros Golden Turtle Tribe. Now, new seedlings have begun to sprout, which can be considered as a pledge of loyalty.

After its life form is migrated, it will need to grow at full speed for the next three or four years, so it certainly won't be able to produce any primal force food. It will need to compensate for this to some extent.

Lord Zili believed that if they were going to bribe the insect heart, they should do it thoroughly. Whether it was 10 raw stones or 30 raw stones, it would be fine. It was not as satisfying to see the Hundred Tribes Caravan being so stingy.

Since Lord Purple Plum had already said so much, what else could Lord Willow Catkin Mountain say? It happily accepted the spider silk bag: "Lord Purple Plum, then I won't stand on ceremony."

The Force Food Set that Lord Purple Plum bought from the Flame Spider Merchant's Claw, worth 30 Primogems, is enough for it to evolve for another generation.

"I hope you don't think it's too little." Their Zerg warriors mainly rely on eating Force food to evolve during their aging period.

Generally speaking, the cost of Force Food required for a Mountain Lord to advance to the next age is approximately 20 to 30 Primogems. Of course, this is a guaranteed evolution method for ordinary Zerg warriors.

If you want to eat better, just increase the portion of God-given Force Food in the Evolution Set Meal. For those with more resources, the cost is 40.

10,000 Originium. 500,000 Originium is normal for an evolution to age one.

The better the food, the greater the probability of successful evolution and the greater the probability of awakening abilities.

As for the upper limit, there is no limit. If you want to eat better, there are set meals consisting entirely of God-given Force foods. The best is the top-tier God-given Force food set meal, which contains hundreds or even thousands of God-given Force foods. As long as you can afford the Primogems, the Flame Spider Merchant can get them for you.

For example, the Divine Red Heart Cherries produced by the Divine Seed of Red Heart Cherries are purchased by the Hundred Caravans for 300 raw stones each.

It wouldn't be buying these to eat itself, would it? It's definitely planning to sell them to the top tribes on the Thousand Trees Continent that have the potential to develop metal-type talents. The purchase price here is already 300 primal stones, so the selling price can't be lower than that, right?

The cherries are not very big; for Zerg warriors of the Mountain Lord level and above, a hundred or so are just enough to give them a taste.

Warriors from large tribes who can afford top-grade divine-given food wouldn't just buy one type, would they? A combination of several divine-given foods could easily cost tens or hundreds of thousands of primal stones.

"We've got the Force Food. After you've used your abilities on the Yew Seed, go evolve it. Also, have the Black Date Mountain Lord go wait for the Liriodendron Seed."

The total annual output of all of Lord Zili's Destiny Seeds is only a little over 30 Origin Stones. It is using all of its territory's Destiny Seed output for this year to help Lord Liuxu Mountain purchase Origin Force food, naturally wanting it to reach its full age as soon as possible so it can start working.

Having received the task assigned by Lord Purple Plum, Lord Willow Catkins Mountain immediately left to bring Lord Black Date Mountain and the others into Purple Ridge.

After seeing Lord Liuxu off, Lord Zili took out a spider silk bag and handed it to Zishan: "Zishan, this bag of divinely bestowed primal force food is prepared for your advancement to advanced warrior. It is worth 5 primal stones. You eat an average of 500 primal stones a day. Once you finish eating it, you will be able to advance to the next level."

"Oh." Zishan took the spider silk bag.

Lord Zili then looked at Zihuai and Ziai: "Recently, the tribe has been short of funds. Since you have already advanced to a higher level and your life seeds have begun to produce primal force food, I will not provide additional funding for your growth and evolution."

"Understood," the two brothers replied. They had discussed this matter two years ago, so they were not surprised.

"Purple Locust, Purple Artemisia, you don't need to rush to evolve. After the Purple Fir advances to become an advanced warrior, the Life Seed will start producing Force Food. You should mainly use the Divine Force Food produced by the Purple Fir Life Seed, and then combine it with other Divine Force Food to make a Divine Force Set Meal. This will greatly increase the probability of successful evolution and the chance of awakening your abilities."

"That's what we thought too. So last year, we didn't use the 40,000 Primogems we received from pollinating the divine seed of the male mulberry tree to buy Force Food this year; instead, we exchanged them all for Primogems."

They advanced to a higher stage before they were even ten years old, and they still have a long lifespan, so they are not in a hurry to evolve.

The number of yew species is large, and their need for primal force when evolving to a higher realm must be huge. They can't possibly rely on the tribe to provide primal stones for everything.

Since I have the Primal Stone in my claws, I will naturally invest in it, prioritizing the successful evolution of the Yew.

Lord Purple Plum swayed his tentacles, not caring how the three Purple Fir brothers used their raw stones; their future wealth was certain.

Even now, the income is considerable. The mulberries from the male yew mulberry trees pollinated this year will probably ripen by the end of the year, at which time another 40,000 raw stones can be distributed, which is more than the average annual output of most mountain lord-level insectoid warriors.

It commanded, "Go to your seedlings' place; it's time to pay the Black Date Mountain Lord and the others their wages."

The Flame Spider merchants, carrying loads of goods, walked with their heads down. After leaving the Rhinoceros Tortoise tribe and arriving at the port at the southern end of Elephant Banana Island, the spiders put down the goods on their carapaces and waited for the kingdom's large ship to arrive.

Just as everyone was taking a break, the leader of the Hundred Tribes called out to Lord Zehui: "Zehui, I have something to ask you."

"Leader." Lord Zehui Mountain didn't understand what the Hundred Tribes Leader wanted to ask it, but it still walked to its side and waited for its question.

"You've spent five years with the Rhinoceros Beetle tribe, you should know quite a bit about them, right?"

Lord Zehui didn't understand why the leader of the Hundred Tribes suddenly asked this question, but there was no point in hiding it. He thought for a moment and said, "I think I know quite a lot about them, after all, their tribes don't have many insect populations. The main body of the Double-Forked Rhinoceros Tortoise tribe only has about 300 Rhinoceros Tortoise warriors, and with the Rhinoceros Tortoise warriors of the affiliated tribes, there are only about 600 in total."

Their tribe has one insect king, nine lords, over 150 mountain lords, and the rest are junior warriors at the beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels.

The tribal leader swayed his beard and limbs: "That's not what I wanted to ask. You've been here for five years, do you know how many divinely bestowed seeds their tribe has in total?"

Do you know how many divinely bestowed seeds they have received in the last 20 years? How many divinely bestowed seeds have they received in the last five years?

Lord Zehui pondered for a moment, silently calculating that although he received an annual salary of 100,000 raw stones for teaching in the Rhinoceros Golden Turtle tribe, the tribe's profits and outputs were unrelated to him.

But out of its instinct as a wandering flame spider, it would still try to learn about this information when it had nothing else to do.

After calculating in its mind, it spoke cautiously: "As far as I know, the entire Rhinoceros Tortoise tribe has revealed a total of fifty-seven divinely bestowed seeds."

I don't know the exact number of God-given Seeds found in the last twenty years, since nobody really cares when they were obtained. But I remember the number was probably eight or nine.

I am quite clear about the number of divinely bestowed seeds their tribe has received in the past five years; there are a total of six.

One of them is a Divine Gift of the Thorn Leaf Cloud Fruit, a small shrub with mediocre yield and effects that was found in the wild by the Mongoloid Rhinoceros Golden Tortoise Warrior.

Another one is a divinely bestowed seed of the jujube found by the Mammoth Hercules warrior. It was also randomly born in the wild and is a herbaceous divinely bestowed seed, so its value is not high.

In addition, there are the yew warriors of the Double-Forked Rhinoceros Beetle tribe, each possessing a divinely bestowed seed of a male mulberry tree, a divinely bestowed seed of a wisteria, and a divinely bestowed seed of a red cherry.

The remaining one is the Divine-Given Seed of the Araceae Star, which belongs to the Golden Tortoise Warrior with the Forked Rhinoceros, which only migrated back this year.

"Have so many divinely bestowed seeds been born in the last five years?" After listening to the explanation from the Lord of Zehui Mountain, the leader of the Hundred Tribes felt that the number of divinely bestowed seeds born in the Rhinoceros Golden Turtle Tribe in the last five years was rather large.

Under normal circumstances, it would be considered quite lucky for such a small tribe to find a divinely bestowed seed within two or three years.

If one divine seed can be found every year, then over several hundred years, the number of divine seeds in the tribe will be as many as the number of Zerg warriors.

Knowing that the leaders of the Hundred Tribes must have a reason for asking this, the Lord of Zehui Mountain quickly replied, "Leaders of the Hundred Tribes, is there a problem?"

"There's a problem, a big problem. You know about the divinely bestowed red cherry variety, right? But do you know the quality of the fruit it produces?"

"Are the Red Heart Cherries ripe yet? At the beginning of the year, Lord Purple Plum took me to see them and even had me test whether the Red Heart Cherry Divine Seed was a Divine Grade Divine Seed. Unfortunately, it wasn't. As for the fruit yield—"

All I knew was that they left ten fruits this year; I hadn't really paid attention to their quality. Is there a problem with the quality?

"During the transaction just now, King Qingzhu Jia showed me some ripe, divinely bestowed red cherries, which are top-grade divinely bestowed food."

"Superior grade?" Upon hearing this quality, the Lord of Zehui Mountain was greatly surprised. This was even rarer than a divine grade fruit. As for which was more precious, the divine grade fruit or the superior grade fruit, that was a matter of opinion.

"King Qingzhujia wanted to take some more top-quality tree species from my hands, including seeds of male Qinghun kiwifruit plants, and said he would show me other good things in a few years."

I'm not sure what it is, so I wanted to ask if you know anything about the Rhinoceros Beetle tribe? Have they found a divinely bestowed seed?

The Lord of Zehui Mountain's heart pounded wildly: "Two years ago, the little warrior Zishan did ask me a lot about special divinely bestowed seeds. I also told him about the types of various special divinely bestowed seeds, as well as the specific details and general awakening directions of some divine fruits."

I hadn't taken it seriously until you mentioned it, but upon closer reflection, their tribe does seem to have some issues.

At the beginning of the year, when the Red Heart Cherry Divine Seeds bloomed, Lord Purple Plum even asked me to take a look at whether the fruits produced by the Red Heart Cherry Divine Seeds were divine fruits. Before, I thought they were just daydreaming and having unrealistic dreams.

But hearing you say that the red-hearted cherries produced by the Yew Seed are top-grade divinely bestowed food means that the Rhinoceros Tortoise tribe wasn't speaking without reason, but rather that they already knew this divinely bestowed seed had something special about it. It's just that their limited knowledge and experience prevented them from knowing what made it special. That's why they asked me to come and take a look.

The leader of the Hundred Tribes directly denied it: "Impossible. Whether it is a divine-grade or a superior-grade divine-given seed, it is very difficult to distinguish it from an ordinary divine-given seed before it blossoms and bears fruit."

In the astral realm, only Soul-type Divine Gift Seeds, or Power-type Dragon Bamboo Divine Gift Seeds, or Life-type Longevity Divine Gift Seeds, are Divine-grade Divine Gift Seeds upon birth. How could a small tribe like the Rhinoceros Golden Turtle Tribe, who has never even heard of Super-grade or Divine-grade seeds, have such knowledge?

"Could it be that they have awakened the ability to detect the special characteristics of the divinely bestowed seeds?"

"It's not impossible, but there's no point in speculating here. Let's wait a couple of years and see what's going on with the Rhinoceros Tortoise tribe."

"Should we also provide seeds of other top-quality tree species and male Qinghun kiwifruit plants?"

The leader of the hundred tribes said indifferently, "King Qingzhujia is insatiable. How can we refuse to give it to him? If we delay, he will probably turn around and ask other caravans for it. There are more than just us caravans coming to Xiangjiao Island."

It knows we need its help now, which is why it's been so brazen. Until we obtain the trading rights to the divinely bestowed red cherries, let's just have to bear with it for now!

Lord Zehui sighed, "If the Rhinoceros Golden Turtle tribe could sow the divinely bestowed seeds of the male mulberry tree and the divinely bestowed seeds of the red cherry tree as wild divinely bestowed seeds, they might still be somewhat poor for the next few hundred years, but once they grow up, the wealth they create will be no less than that of a divinely bestowed seed, and the tribe will prosper in the future."

Unfortunately, their ignorance has jeopardized their future. Although they may be wealthy for a while now, once the Yew reaches the King level and leaves the Astral Plane, the tribe will likely be reduced to its original state.

The leader of the hundred tribes calmly said, "These are not things we should be concerned about. If they don't nurture these few divinely bestowed seeds into life-sustaining seeds, perhaps we won't even live to see them bear fruit!"

Lord Zehui glanced at Luoshi and Shewen, who were resting nearby, and suggested, "Having stayed in the Rhinoceros Beetle Tribe for so many years, I can tell that the three Zishan brothers are insects that the Rhinoceros Beetle Tribe is cultivating with all its might. They have a high probability of becoming the next leader of the Rhinoceros Beetle Tribe."

I suggest that instead of engaging in a power struggle and infighting with the Green Bamboo King, we should have the Spiderwort and Snake Kiss handle this insect situation ourselves.

The leader of the hundred tribes looked at the two little spiders beside him. For a caravan to continue, it was essential to cultivate insect-based relationships with the younger generation. There were indeed some things that were better suited for them to do: "Let's postpone this for now and arrange the trade over at the Thousand Star Islands first."