Chapter Ninety-Two: The Time-Space Ant Evolves [Crowdfunding Bonus]

After finding a concealed place to lie low for the moment, Lu Sheng took out the spoils from his earlier haul and began to inspect them.

There was not much worth looking at in the backflow sand or the fifth-rank source pearl. The card, however, aroused his curiosity.

Sand Heart

Quality: Blue

Effect: Allows a blue-quality monster to comprehend one skill.

This palm-sized card gleamed with a blue sheen, a heart formed from grains of sand taking shape upon its surface.

Lu Sheng already had a candidate for it; he simply did not know what quality the Desert Giant would ultimately be.

The Desert Giant had never used any skills during the entire battle. Even when it was on the verge of death and tried to unleash its ultimate move in a desperate gamble, Lu Sheng had interrupted it before it could release anything.

A switch between true form and clone. The true body descends.

One thing at a time.

First, he took out the goblin and checked it. There were no lingering side effects from the berserk skill; after being killed and refreshed, the goblin was restored to full condition.

He then had the goblin kill itself, testing whether suicide would allow it to turn into a card and return to his hand.

The result satisfied Lu Sheng greatly. The goblin successfully transformed into a card and appeared in his palm.

This meant he could assemble a death squad. As long as the enemy was not so overwhelmingly strong that they could kill his monsters in a single strike, he would possess an undead legion!

Just thinking about it was thrilling.

Next, he examined the Desert Giant card.

Desert Giant

Quality: Blue

Rank: Early Fifth Rank

Skill: Sand Domain

Awakening Requirement: Desert Crystal

Sand Domain: Burns life force to become a domain. The domain covers a radius of one thousand meters. Within it, ordinary objects can be turned into grains of sand, and those grains can be commanded to attack enemies. Once transformed into the domain, consciousness can persist for only ten minutes, and one minute of preparation time is required in advance.

So the Desert Giant possessed a skill meant for desperate battles. No wonder it had not used it right away.

This was a good thing.

Could he revive it after it fought to the death?

A prompt rang out.

System notification:

Monsters of blue quality begin to contain traces of law within their bodies. At present, it is not possible to capture those laws and reconstruct a monster’s flesh. If a blue-quality monster dies and its body is remade, its quality will be reduced to green.

Sufficient numbers of high-quality monsters of different types must be captured and their laws analyzed by "Talent" in order to obtain the function of reconstructing high-quality monster bodies.

Blue: 3/100

It seemed his idea had fallen through. For now, only white and green monsters could be revived endlessly.

Still, it was not a complete loss. He simply needed to capture more blue-quality monsters and let "Talent" analyze the laws.

It would just take some time.

He gave the Sand Heart to the Desert Giant.

It was, after all, his only blue-quality combat monster at the moment, and this was the best use for it.

Ideally, it would comprehend a combat skill.

The Sand Heart dissolved into white motes of light and merged into the Desert Giant.

Very soon, a new skill appeared in the Desert Giant’s card description.

Sandstorm: Cast upon a designated point. The minimum gathering time is five seconds, and the maximum is twenty seconds. The longer the gathering time, the greater the power unleashed.

This counted as an area-of-effect skill, and it was fairly decent.

Still, Lu Sheng would have preferred a powerful single-target attack skill.

With that done, he was ready for the final feast.

Evolving the Time-Space Ant!

He placed the spatial stone and backflow sand before the Time-Space Ant card.

A force of devouring surged out from within the card, and both the spatial stone and the backflow sand were swallowed by the Time-Space Ant in an instant.

The next second, the Time-Space Ant burst into dazzling white light, then settled down once more.

Time-Space Ant

Quality: Red

Rank: Late Fourth Rank

Skills: Subdimensional Space, One Hundredfold Strength, Time Reversal, Spatial Freeze, Spatial Traversal, Spatial Lock-On.

Evolution Skill: Combat Form.

Combat Form:
1. Ant-Man Form — the Time-Space Ant transforms and fights autonomously.
2. Armor Form — it becomes a suit of armor with formidable defense that covers its master from head to toe.

At last, the evolution was complete.

The other skills had not changed, but the Time-Space Ant’s true body had gained a pair of small wings, along with one additional evolution skill.

He summoned the Time-Space Ant. It was still tiny, only the size of a thumb.

"Master, I can speak now!"

The moment it appeared, the Time-Space Ant cried out excitedly. Its voice was childlike, soft and tender.

Lu Sheng smiled. "Come, let me see your evolution skill."

"All right."

The Time-Space Ant answered brightly. Because of their linked origin, Lu Sheng could also feel its excitement.

The next instant, the thumb-sized ant transformed into a silver-white ant-man about as tall as Lu Sheng, complete with a silver-white spear in hand.

"Master, this is my Ant-Man Form. From now on, I can help you fight."

"Very good. Let me see the Armor Form as well."

"Okay!"

Still brimming with excitement, the Time-Space Ant turned into motes of light and circled around Lu Sheng.

Soon, a suit of silver-white armor enveloped his entire body.

The sharply edged silver armor looked exceedingly handsome, covering him from head to toe and leaving only his eyes, nose, and mouth exposed, lending him an added air of mystery.

Lu Sheng moved about a little. It fit perfectly, without the slightest discomfort or awkwardness, and was far more comfortable than the snakeskin under-armor worn by the scarecrow clone.

After testing it, Lu Sheng quickly switched bodies, bringing the clone over.

Controlling the scarecrow clone, he prepared to leave.

His mission here was complete. He had already obtained the backflow sand, and there was no need to remain and take further risks.

The lizardmen dwelling in the middle of the backflow sand sea might not come out, but what if they did?

At the seventh rank, he could not withstand them.

Riding the White Cloud Horse, Lu Sheng began his journey back.

Just as he entered the rock strata region, he saw several people being chased by one man. The slowest was seized by the pursuer almost immediately.

They were knocked unconscious in an instant, bound, and left where they were before the chaser continued after the others.

The man in pursuit wore red-and-black garments and moved with astonishing speed.

At the pace the fugitives were running, being caught was only a matter of time.

As soon as Lu Sheng spotted them, the pursued also spotted him and immediately ran in his direction.

"Sir, help me! That man is from the Frenzied God Cult! They’ve surrounded this area and are capturing everyone within it!"

When Zhou Zhen saw Lu Sheng, he felt as though he had seen his only hope.

He shouted desperately, begging Lu Sheng to save him.

But why would Lu Sheng care?

Seeing an unknown trouble rushing in his direction, he immediately urged the White Cloud Horse into a run.

A full-speed run, too. He had never once let the White Cloud Horse go all out before.

In the blink of an eye, Lu Sheng vanished without a trace.

When Zhou Zhen saw him disappear, his hope shattered. He stood frozen for a moment, utterly at a loss.

"So... so he ran? This place is already surrounded by the Frenzied God Cult. Why couldn’t he save me and help think of a solution together?"

For a moment, Zhou Zhen’s mind filled with resentment toward Lu Sheng, blaming him for refusing to help.

Naturally, the Frenzied God Cult’s men also saw Lu Sheng escape, but they did not pursue him. This little team was their prey for the moment.

As the encirclement gradually tightened, everyone here would be caught sooner or later.