47: Chapter 47 Ant-Man with Shield

[E-grade Divine Building: blessing of the sacrificer]

[Current probability of breakthrough to the next Transcendent level: 0.02217834%]

[Blessed Race: Ant-man Race]

With generations of sacrifices from the Fine Black Ant-men tribe, the breakthrough probability has already grown to two in ten thousand.

One generation of Fine Black Ant-men has a lifespan of about a year. Under tenfold speed, ten generations of Ant-men can be sacrificed in a single day, amounting to nearly two million.

At this rate of sacrifice, it would only take fifty days to reach a one percent probability. Once enough probability is accumulated, the E-grade Divine Building, blessing of the sacrificer, will definitely undergo a qualitative change.

In the future, if his father's divine kingdom believers face difficulties breaking through, he could even lend it to him.

Gu Han was also looking forward to seeing what the active effect of Gu Yanxiao's companion skill would be.

Putting this matter aside for now, he shifted his attention to the larval chamber of the underground nest.

After a complex process of trial and error, the offspring produced by the Shield-Armored Armadillo and the Black Armored Ant were bizarre and varied.

The first dozen or so Reproduction attempts produced nothing but deformed ants. Some had armadillo heads but dragged ant abdomens behind them; some didn't even have legs, being nothing more than a scaly lump; others had uneven shield armor.

Until the twenty-third attempt.

An adult ant, two sizes larger than a normal Black Armored Ant, crawled out. Its back was covered in a thick, dark gray carapace. When encountering danger, it could connect head to tail, and the shield armor on its six limbs could snap together to form a perfectly seamless, hard sphere.

It perfectly inherited the mutated shield armor of the Shield-Armored Armadillo while retaining the original characteristics of an ant—the Shield-Armored Ant was a success.

This successful case had finally matured. But just having Shield-Armored Ants wasn't enough; what he wanted was the intelligent Shield-Armored Ant-Men.

[Forced Breeding] was activated once again, this time combining the Shield-Armored Ant with the Level 2 Sapien.

This time, the difficulty skyrocketed. The human body structure was completely different from that of an armadillo.

The resulting Shield-Armored Ant-Men were also highly varied in form. Some had massive carapaces and crawled on the ground; some were slender with very little shield armor; most importantly, not a single one could curl up into a ball.

The human skeletal structure limited them. Perhaps the Shield-Armored Ant-Men needed a long period of evolution; only after several or even dozens of generations would it be possible to achieve the effect of curling completely into a ball.

In Gu Han's vision, the Shield-Armored Ant-Men needed to be able to curl into a seamless armored ball like the Shield-Armored Armadillo, making them completely impervious to ranged attacks.

However, even after over a hundred Shield-Armored Ant-Men matured, none of them satisfied Gu Han. In the end, he had to settle for the next best thing and choose those that were close enough.

Soon, the first batch of barely successful Shield-Armored Ant-Men was born.

These guys stood a full two meters tall. The carapace on their bodies was thick and aggressive, displaying exaggerated spikes and sharp angles, looking like armored warriors.

On the outer sides of their four arms grew shield armor the size of half a door. When under attack, the shield armor on their four arms could piece together, completely protecting their upper bodies.

It was a pity they couldn't curl into a seamless ball, but it didn't matter. They were absolutely qualified to serve as heavy shield-bearers.

In the future, when facing ranged attacks, these guys could completely brave the fire to charge the enemy lines, and slaughter them once they got close.

Aside from the newly added troop type, after integrating the Level 2 Sapien genes, the entire Ant-man Race underwent a major overhaul.

The new generation of Black-Armored Ant-men had much sturdier physiques. Their originally somewhat clunky oval exoskeletons had now evolved into muscle-fiber-like lines resembling human musculature, making them look more like Kamen Riders.

Balancing both defense and agility, their running speed increased by nearly a third, and they possessed a highly violent aesthetic.

The one that changed the most was the Hidden-Armor Ant-Man.

These little guys, who specialized in assassination, originally had only simple claws on their forelimbs. Now, their five fingers had evolved to be extremely flexible, with distinct joints.

With this level of finger dexterity, they could absolutely wield weapons. They were no longer limited to biting with their teeth and tearing with their claws; their combat methods would undergo a qualitative leap.

The problem was, the Ant-man Race currently had no knowledge of forging technology at all, let alone crafting pocket-sized weapons for these miniature assassins.

He made a mental note of this for now, planning to search the trading market later for related miniature forging blueprints or special buildings.

With the explosive growth and genetic evolution of the Ant-man Race, the two former nuisances were no longer a threat.

The Giant Golden Beetle had already been beaten to death by the Black-Armored Ant-men, and even its carapace had been stripped off to be hung on the altar as a decoration.

As for that Large Honey Badger, which used to pick a fight at the slightest provocation, it now took a detour whenever it saw the Ant-men. After several narrow escapes, it simply hid in the desert, never daring to provoke the Ant-man Race again.

With no natural predators and no pressure to survive, the Ant-men's combat experience and evolutionary speed had noticeably slowed down.

This wouldn't do.

Gu Han opened the trading software.

He entered the search criteria: Disaster-grade, insect-eating, adapts to harsh terrain.

Soon, Gu Han selected several types of monsters.

[Earth Rampager: A Disaster-grade exotic species. Huge in size, it feeds exclusively on insectoids and lives deep underground all year round.]

[Flame Glutton: A Disaster-grade exotic species. Inhabiting volcanic regions, it is extremely brutal by nature and capable of spitting ultra-high-temperature gas.]

[Sand Swallower: A Disaster-grade exotic species. Inhabiting desert regions, it excels at ambushing travelers in the desert and is huge in size.]

[Sea Prisoner: A Disaster-grade exotic species. Inhabiting deep ocean waters, it has a transparent, jellyfish-like body, possesses flexible, octopus-like tentacles, carries paralyzing toxins, and is extremely difficult to deal with.]

[Giant Ice Toad: A Disaster-grade exotic species. It loves to feed on insectoids, and its skin and bodily fluids are highly toxic.]

Since they were all Disaster-grade species, usually captured from foreign battlefields, the price was actually not too expensive, costing only a few hundred credits each.

Gu Han placed an order directly, buying a thousand of each.

Before long, the divine kingdom's teleportation portal lit up, and five species cards were delivered. Gu Han released them one by one according to the terrain.

The Earth Rampager and Sand Swallower were somewhat similar, differing only in their living environments. As soon as they were released, they burrowed deep underground.

They possessed mouths full of razor-sharp teeth like meat grinders, with clearly segmented bodies and hundreds of pairs of thick legs, resembling both centipedes and giant worms.

The Flame Glutton resembled a giant lizard, with dark red, high-heat veins flowing all over its body. Pungent, sulfurous hot air continuously puffed from its nostrils, and white smoke rose from its entire body.

The Sea Prisoner and Giant Ice Toad also quickly dispersed to occupy their respective areas.

To prevent these sparring partners from starving to death, Gu Han also purchased many food-type species, completing the ecological food chain for all five environments.

Even the 1.7-plus million he made today was completely spent, reducing Gu Han's assets to zero once again. Indeed, no amount of credits was ever enough.

While others spent money to strengthen their troops, he was spending money to breed natural predators.

In total, he had invested around ten million credits into his divine kingdom.

Some might think that if he had invested in the Orcs, with Gu Han's Reproduction skill, they would have reached a scale of nearly a thousand by now, so why go through all this trouble?

That was indeed true. Even without considering hybridization, Forced Breeding was still extremely powerful for normal reproduction.

However, others had too many ways to achieve this, even piling up believer numbers with money, which would render Gu Han's advantage non-existent before the scions of great families.

Only by doing what he was doing now, combining the advantages of his skills with his knowledge to the absolute limit, could he possibly surpass them.

A life-and-death trial for the Ant-man Race had officially begun, with the Earth Rampager and the Giant Ice Toad being the primary threats they had to face.