Chapter 706 - Sea of Steel Beetles

Chapter 706 - Sea of Steel Beetles

The clock was ticking, so Han Wu and Qin Shuang rushed to the mines. Numerous mine shafts dotted the area, mostly useless ones that had been abandoned after the ores had been mined out.

Once the foot traffic dwindled to nothing, Steel Beetles moved in. These shafts still housed many iron-rich waste ores that the Steel Beetle liked to eat, which allowed them to proliferate exceedingly fast within the abandoned shafts.

Standing above a vertical mine shaft, Han Wu could see black Steel Beetles swarm at the bottom, moving continuously. The fist-sized Steel Beetles were piled atop one another in the shaft. There were an incredible number of them, but fortunately, the smooth walls of the mine shaft were too slippery for them to climb. The beetles could only multiply atop one another in hopes of one day crawling out.

Han Wu couldn’t help but smile at the sight.

Qin Shuang saw his expression and asked, “Han Wu, what are you smiling at?”

Han Wu pointed at the swarm of Steel Beetles below. “Do you see what I’m seeing?”

“Aren’t they just insects?”

Han Wu’s core race was the locusts, so Qin Shuang had long since become indifferent to insects, meaning the swarming Steel Beetles didn’t put her off.

“They’re insects,” Han Wu agreed. “They’re also a source of essence for upgrading our weapons. Who knows how deep the mine shaft is, and how many Steel Beetles are down there? How much essence do you think you could get if you unleashed your lightning in there?”

Qin Shuang’s eyes lit up. Steel Beetles were weak and would yield little essence per one slain. However, the yield of a swarm would still be sizable. Coincidentally, Qin Shuang also had a powerful technique that required little energy.

“Let me try,” she said, summoning her coin-shaped Divine Weapon that had since reformed.

As she gathered Lightning Energy, Han Wu summoned his Locust-V and fired at the Steel Beetles below. The powerful bullets penetrated several Steel Beetles in one go.

He also periodically tossed his Explosive Locust Blade down. Each explosion killed at least ten thousand Steel Beetles. Their essence flowed into Han Wu’s Divine Weapon Atlas and brought him one step closer to unlocking his fifth Divine Weapon.

Qin Shuang’s coin turned completely white once it gathered enough energy.

“Here I go!” she yelled, flicking the coin down the middle of the mine shaft.

A thunderous boom echoed as the coin exploded in the sea of Steel Beetles, blowing many of them apart. The electricity zapped the survivors into charcoal. Soon, all that was left behind were their thin and lightweight carapaces.

Han Wu picked one up and measured it in his palm. It was roughly a single gram. Master Ou needed a thousand catties, which equated to around 500,000 Steel Beetle carapaces.

It wasn’t a lot, especially with the ease with which Steel Beetles could be hunted. The time-consuming part was actually extracting the carapace.

Luckily, Qin Shuang could skip this step with her lightning, which allowed her to heat the Steel Beetles and quite literally refine them from the inside out. She could not only burn away the flesh of the Steel Beetles but even melt their carapaces together into a ball with her lightning.

After some experimenting, the first carapace ball soon took shape. It was still rather impure and needed to be refined further, but it was undoubtedly better than a completely unrefined carapace.

A single carapace ball was the size of a fist, but it wasn’t heavy at all. It was at most ten catties. Han Wu kept it in the urn tied to his waist. Qin Shuang then used her other Divine Weapons to summon more lightning.

Her Feather Dart split into 30,000 darts, which she shot down into the mine shaft. This was the limit of her capabilities.

She then discharged the electricity contained within the feathers all at once. All the Steel Beetles within a certain radius of the Feather Darts were electrocuted. Some of them got off light and were only paralyzed, while others were carbonized entirely, leaving only their thin carapace behind.

Millions of Steel Beetles died in one go, bringing with them a wave of essence for her to absorb. She had only recently unlocked her fourth Divine Weapon, but was already close to unlocking her fifth one. However, extending her powers had left her exhausted and in need of rest.

Han Wu, on the other hand, remained spirited and continued to fire at the Steel Beetle swarm with Locust-V and his Explosive Locust Blade. He even summoned his Locust Soul Orb so the tiger could spit ghostly fire at the Steel Beetles as well.

𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

Ah Da and Ah Er also appeared, riding Han Wu’s Small Locust Blades as they attacked the Steel Beetles relentlessly. The Locust Soul Orb absorbed the souls of the slain beetles. Just like the essence, the individual amount was weak, but the sheer number of beetles made up for it.

The three souls attacked without reservation, and the orb’s capacity was soon maxed out.

Qin Shuang and Han Wu killed at least 400 million Steel Beetles across the daylight hours from morning to evening, but their numbers didn’t dwindle at all. They simply didn’t have enough manpower or firepower to eliminate the swarm.

Thankfully, their task wasn’t to hunt Steel Beetles, but to collect carapaces. With Qin Shuang’s lightning, they had long since gathered the thousand catties needed.

Han Wu parted ways with Qin Shuang to bring the carapaces back to the workshop before sundown. Master Ou was shocked that Han Wu had actually accomplished the mission in the given time frame, to the point of suspecting that he had accumulated and kept these carapaces to gain a favor.

Master Ou dismissed that thought almost as soon as it appeared. His need for the Steel Beetle carapace came from a sudden burst of inspiration. It wasn’t planned in the first place, so there was no way Han Wu could have gathered them in advance.

Upon laying eyes on the fused carapace balls, Master Ou lit up with delight. These would shorten the time needed to refine them. Having received the requested items, he readily agreed to help Han Wu.

Han Wu summoned his Explosive Locust Blade, and Master Ou was stunned when he saw its parameters. He had never seen a Divine Weapon that was designed to destroy itself. Using self-detonation to increase the value of a Divine Weapon was novel even to his experienced eyes.

Deeming it a worthwhile challenge to equip a gem to such a fragile Divine Weapon, he accepted Han Wu’s request and immediately started work on it. The entire process lasted through the night.

After three failures, he finally managed to equip the gem onto the Explosive Locust Blade, granting it a new Divine effect. The compatibility between the gem and the Explosive Locust Blade was high enough that the effect was boosted.

This effect, called Flare Explosion, was far more powerful and had a greater range than Self-Detonation. Han Wu was extremely satisfied with it.