Astral Ants

lakeside,

Under the tree planted by the azure god.

All the insects gathered at Xianglan Mountain, and the red peach, yellow peach, poisonous bean and columnar insects that stayed behind at Huangtao Mountain were also invited over.

An unprecedented grand celebration banquet.

Delicious royal honey is piled up in mountains and can be eaten at will.

Longbai will tell everyone again in detail about Red Robin's knowledge and experiences.

He was just about to get to the exciting part, talking about his own plan to use a super-large umbrella bird to self-destruct, preparing to unexpectedly blow up the metal puppet controlled by the Silver Oak God-Given Seed, but he was interrupted by the Domination Realm Force Plant that appeared out of nowhere...

Molan suddenly thought of something, raised her claws and knocked, interrupting Longbai's words, and asked eagerly: "Longbai, could it be that the White Crystal Divine Tree has extended its claws?"

"Probably not..."

"There are a lot of Force plants in the Domination Realm, I'm not sure who they are..."

Long Bai continued, "When the truly strong fight, what matters is wisdom and battlefield layout. I turned the earth into a sea of ​​​​molten lava and cleared out all the weak metal puppets. On the surface, the giant umbrella bird and the super strong metal puppet were dueling in the air, but secretly they had already activated their wind-based abilities to become invisible and landed silently. When the Silver Oak God-given seed reacted, the golden box containing titanium sand had already fallen into my claws..."

"Oh, who doesn't know your little abilities? No need to tell me."

Molan spread her wings and flapped them, and asked, "Where is the White Crystal Sacred Tree? Have you seen the White Crystal Sacred Tree?"

Long Bai: "..."

Long Bai said unhappily, “I saw it!”

"You saw it?"

Molan jumped up in surprise, "Why don't you ask it for a law fruit?"

Longbai: "No fruit. The White Crystal Divine Tree evolved and awakened the 'White Crystal Divine Gift', which directly grants the ability to be reborn, without the need to produce fruit. The White Crystal Divine Tree is as calm, steady, and wise as the Great King Cypress. It pointed out the direction of my next evolution and promised that when I have cultivated to a certain level in the future, I can go find it and grant it the ability to be reborn."

"what?"

"This……"

"So simple?"

"Is the Baijing Divine Tree easy to talk to?"

"My king! What about me?"

"My king, take me with you!"

"My king, I! I! I!"

"And I!"

"Get out of the way! Get out of the way! Juniper, Silver Cypress, Spade, get out of the way!"

Molan was angry and asked in hope, "Captain Longbai, how are you going to find the White Crystal Sacred Tree?"

"Simple."

Long Bai: "In the Baxiang star system, at the Baijing Chamber of Commerce's headquarters in Area 1001 of the southern Shanxiang star, we'll go find President Daiyuan."

Molan: "I'll go with you!"

Long Bai: "The Second King can try to go with you. The other bugs can forget about it. In the future, when we have strength, power, and influence, we will try to communicate with the Baijing tribe and exchange the King Baizi for us."

"Yup!"

"It can be exchanged."

"Not now?"

"Nonsense. The difference in strength is too great. I will kill you secretly and take away the Great King Cypress."

"The White Crystal Galaxy belongs to the Holy Butterfly Tribe. It is a small third-level chamber of commerce with no reputation. If it disappears, it disappears. No bugs will notice it, and no bugs will care about it."

"Quiet! Quiet!"

Mo Lan asked again: "Captain Longbai, have you seen the tree-shaped clone of the God of Nature?"

Longbai: “I saw it.”

Cymbidium:"???"

The insects jumped up.

The True God of Nature?!
Molan jumped up and down, suspicious, "Is it true? I was just asking jokingly, did you really see it?"

"……real."

Longbai said unhappily, "Be serious! No one is kidding you."

Molan asked, "How did you see it? Aren't you in the titanium white realm of the Silver Oak Sacred Tree? How did you see it? When did you see it?"

Longbai: "Can't you just listen to me and finish my story?"

Molan said angrily, "Alright. Everyone knows you're great. Pick out the important points and speak faster! I'm so anxious!"

"Don't make trouble. I've finished talking now."

Long Bai muttered, and continued: "I got the metal box, opened it for inspection, scanned it, analyzed it with the intelligent brain, and confirmed that it was titanium sand. I swallowed it in one gulp without hesitation..."

Long Bai: "I transformed into a cocoon, and my consciousness should have been asleep, but I suddenly woke up, and my soul was pulled into a dimensional world filled with laws and divine power, which is a little similar to the Shanglu space..."

"The dimensional world where the tree-shaped clone of the True God of Nature took root?"

Molan asked, "What kind of tree is it? How tall is it? Does it have fruit? Longbai, use your water ability to simulate it for us!"

Longbai explained: "The tree is more than a kilometer tall, and its shape is similar to the Northern Elm, but its leaves are slightly wider. It is suspected to be a kind of elm tree that grows in the south... There is no fruit on it."

Bei Kuiyu: “!!!”

Bei Kuiyu said in horror: "Everyone, could it be that the True God of Nature is a plant? An evolution of some kind of elm tree?"

"impossible!"

Shuangse Sang was furious.

Two-Colored Sang is determined to evolve into the first true god of the plant clan.

"If the True God of Nature is a plant, then doesn't that mean I can only be second in command?"

"That's right!"

"I support the two-color mulberry this time!"

"If the true god of nature is an elm tree, then what are we grape trees? Can an elm tree be compared to a grape tree?"

"Shut up, lowly vine! If you want to evolve into a god, you must be a tall tree. You must be a tall tree!"

"What's a tree? It's just a trunk. The Wanglan with many branches is the most perfect life form in the universe!"

"Elephant Foot King Orchid is right! The orchid with many branches is the most perfect..."

……

The Force plants, who had been listening quietly, suddenly started arguing fiercely for no apparent reason.

——A group of unreasonable guys.

Mo Lan shook her tentacles, propped up a soul shield, isolated her mental power, and asked, "Long Bai, does this mean that the True God of Nature has taken the initiative to contact you? Does that mean that you have attracted the attention of the True God of Nature?"

"Yes!"

"The King is the best!"

"The King is the next true god of the Zerg civilization!"

"My lord, what did the God of Nature say to you?"

Long Bai: "As usual, I have a chance to ask questions. However, I am asking about the information of the White Tower civilization. Unfortunately, the True God of Nature is not omniscient and omnipotent, and it does not know. However, the 'Crystal Throne' has a new theory..."

Long Bai detailed the information he had heard from the tree-shaped clone of the True God of Nature, and concluded:
"The universe is not as peaceful and tranquil as we see it. Civilizations, especially powerful ones, are naturally rife with conflicts of interest, racial bloodlines, ideologies, and cultural customs. The contradictions are irreconcilable, and when they meet, it will be a fight to the death."

"We must be mentally prepared, and we must also prepare for war as early as possible. If we fail in business, we will only suffer poverty, but if we fail in war, we will die."

Long Bai took the opportunity to express his thoughts and plans.

"At present, our Xianglanshan Chamber of Commerce focuses on business development and commercial trade, and completely ignores combat training. This system must be adjusted, and a plan must be determined immediately and implemented as soon as possible."

"On the way back, I thought about it and came up with some preliminary ideas. I said, please take it into consideration and raise any objections."

"Xiangbai, please record it and make it public later."

"First, whether it is the Xiangshanlan Chamber of Commerce or its subordinate chambers of commerce, the number of settled warriors in each district will be reduced from 350 to 300. The vacated land will be used to build a large combat training ground with a side length of 50 kilometers. Remember to report to the Baijing Chamber of Commerce."

"All combat members of the military, starting from the Three Trace Realm, must devote 6000 years every 1800 years to combat training."

"Secondly, the combat members of the Military Department will undergo a comprehensive ability assessment after they break through the Nine Marks into One to advance to the Star Mark Realm, and after they condense the Star Core to advance to the Half Star Realm, as well as the Planetary Realm and the Star Realm. After each major stage breakthrough, they will undergo a comprehensive ability assessment."

"The Great King Cypress will be in charge of organizing, supervising, and reviewing. The main battle trees will be the Night Fragrance, Wingless, Two-Colored Mulberry, Round-Leafed Ivy, Thunder Oak, Silver Tilia, Spotted Thousand-Clawed King Orchid, Wisdom Cypress, Blood Orange, and Hemlock. A total of eleven God-given species will jointly judge and give scores."

"Truncate the scores and calculate the average."

“1至3分为差，4至6分为合格，7至9分为优。满分10分，超优。”

"The statistics and review will be conducted by Da Wangbai, and those with scores between 1 and 3 will be eliminated and transferred to logistics management."

"For every point scored by a qualified warrior, 1 points of contribution to the Chamber of Commerce will be awarded. If the overall score is qualified, an additional 1000 points and 3000 million Yuan Crystals will be awarded. If the overall score is excellent, an additional 300 points and 5000 million Yuan Crystals will be awarded. If the overall score is full marks, which is excellent, an additional 500 points and 1 million Yuan Crystals will be awarded."

"As for the judging criteria, we only look at the ability, and don't consider anything else."

"You can't use me and Molan as a reference. You have to exclude the improvements brought by the divine products of law and some powerful divine products. You should mainly examine your own awakened abilities and the strength of the abilities combined through basic abilities."

"If you can reach the level of silver cypress, red sedge, and red maple, a full score of 10 is more than enough; if you can reach the level of juniper, green cypress, mulberry, and palm, you can score 9 points; if you can reach the level of nebula cypress, rainbow mulberry, and green heart, 7 or 8 points is no problem. For the rest, you can decide for yourself."

Da Wangbai: "Okay! I roughly understand."

Shuangse Sang questioned: "Ant, isn't your standard too low?"

Long Bai patiently explained: "Those little warriors who have not officially joined our Xianglan Chamber of Commerce have limited resources to obtain, and a limited number of awakened talents and abilities, so we can't ask for too much."

"We organize assessments to select the best and increase resource supply to help those young warriors with potential evolve and grow better, rather than to criticize them harshly."

Two-Colored Sang: "Ant, what you said makes sense!"

Ye Xiang asked, "What if there are trees messing around?"

Shuangse Sang was full of fighting spirit and said fiercely: "Listen carefully, this is related to everyone's future survival and development in the universe. It is a matter of life and death. If anyone dares to mess around, I, Shuangse Sang, will be the first to disagree. I will blow it up!" "..."

"Just don't mess around, Shuangse-san."

Long Bai gave a warning and continued, "Third, all soldiers in the military department at the 7th stage of the half-star realm, the 7th stage of the planetary realm, and the 7th stage of the star realm will be led by Mo Lan, Hong Feng, Gan Lang, or Sang to go to the Baqi star system, borrow the technological equipment there, enter the virtual universe, and conduct a Black Thorn Tower challenge training, while testing their comprehensive combat capabilities."

"It takes a hundred years. You must clear the first three levels and enter the fourth level to become an elite warrior to qualify."

"Similarly, those who can't even get through the first three levels will be eliminated directly and transferred to work in logistics."

"From the 4th to the 6th floor, each time you clear a floor, you will be rewarded with 5000 Chamber of Commerce contribution points and 500 million original crystals; from the 7th to the 9th floor, each time you clear a floor, you will be rewarded with 1 Chamber of Commerce points and 10 titanium sands!"

After Longbai finished speaking, he paused and asked, "Xiangbai, have you written everything down?"

Cedar: "I've made note of that, my king."

Molan raised her head and thought, pondered, and said: "Longbai, this is not reasonable! It's not fair! What about those soldiers who are not from the Ministry of War?"

Long Bai: "Other non-military members cannot be completely without combat effectiveness. They must also undergo appropriate combat training and assessment rewards."

Long Bai: "It is a hard rule that every 6000 years, non-military combat members must also take 600 years to conduct necessary combat training."

"In addition, the assessment and rewards are the same as those for members of the military department. The difference is that members of the military department are required to participate, and those who fail will be eliminated."

"Non-combat members of the military department are not required to take the assessment. If you think you can do it, you can give it a try. We encourage young soldiers to develop in all aspects."

"However, non-military combat members mainly obtain Chamber of Commerce contribution points and upgrade their Chamber of Commerce positions through work performance."

Molan tapped her antenna and said, "That makes sense. However, the Chamber of Commerce's expenses will definitely increase significantly!"

Long Bai: "Once the number of Flame Spider Warriors and Refined Auxiliary Kings increases, our trade in royal honey and gene agents can expand to the secondary source points outside the Bauhinia star system."

"Wait for news from Luo Li. We will go wherever Luo Li is assigned to."

...

Longbai originally planned to celebrate with great fanfare for half a month.

Molan was anxious to test the starship and kept urging him to eat faster.

The banquet lasted only one day before ending hastily.

Heihua went back to the headquarters of the Boxuwan Chamber of Commerce in District 4204 North, and brought with him Shanbai, Shitong and other assistant kings of the Boxuwan Chamber of Commerce, as well as the Queen Bee of Yiguo, the Queen Bee of Xiangfeng, the King Ant of Twin Leaves, the King Ant of Oil Nan, and the King Ant of Shike.

"Leader Longbai!"

"I heard that you made a fortune by going on adventures far away?"

"Are you ready to take out a large number of source gems to help everyone quickly get through the dormant period?"

The Queen Bee has the longest seniority and asked questions as a representative.

"Yes--"

Longbai asked, "Queen Bee Yiguo, is there any problem with the loan and repayment plan I proposed?"

"There will definitely be no problem lending the 840 to the Boshuwan Chamber of Commerce..."

The Queen Bee paused and said, "There may be two problems with lending it to the ant kings and bee queens."

"First, there are nearly 2100 seeds granted by the ant kings and bee queens, and source gems, but that's still not enough to share. How can we lend them? To whom can we lend them? Will those who don't get to borrow them be dissatisfied?"

"The second question is about repayment. Great Chief Longbai, I'm afraid that after everyone borrows it, it will take 40,000 to 50,000 years before they are able to repay it."

"Um--"

Longbai tapped his antennae and said, "The first question is, the source gems are lent out for God-given seeds. Let's not look at the insects, but only at the trees. There is no doubt that the top-level God-given seeds are given priority. Below the top-level God-given seeds, the double-excellent God-given seeds are given priority. If there are a lot of double-excellent God-given seeds, then seniority will be the priority."

"As for the second question..."

"For a long time to come, our Xianglan Chamber of Commerce will not have a large-scale use of source gems, and will not expand in large steps."

"The 840 source gems lent to the Boshuwan Chamber of Commerce will be repaid in about years. After years, the Queen Bee and the Assistant Kings will continue to repay, and the relationship will continue. These source gems will be used by the God-given seeds produced by the source point of our Xianglan Mountain business."

"Chief Longbai is generous!"

Queen Bee Yiguo expressed her sincere gratitude and asked, "Then, President Black Birch and I will go to the Huosuo star system first to communicate with the queen bees and ant kings there and make a statistics? We will come up with a preliminary distribution plan, and then Chief Longbai will review and confirm it?"

Long Bai: "That's what I mean. I have a lot of things to do, so I won't go with you for now."

Just a brief discussion.

First, take a batch of source gems for the wild God-given seeds belonging to the Boxuwan Chamber of Commerce.

Black Birch, Queen Bee and the other insects made preparations and set off on the Star Spider.

...

On the Xianglan Mountain side,
The half-ant artist carried Longbai, Molan, Xiangcedar, and Ghost Fan, traveling through space, teleporting continuously, and quickly moving away from the range of the star system.

The half-ant artist converged, transformed into an artist, and released the White Tower.

The insects land on the starship.

"Taber, activate the space compass to locate."

Mo Lan gave the order.

Tubb: "Got it!"

Taber: "Positioning completed. Taber is currently in the Bauhinia star system, in the Force radiation zone."

Molan: "Can you confirm the exact coordinates of the Azure Star System?"

Tubb: "Yes! The straight-line distance between the Tubb and the azure star system is currently 687 light years, and the journey will take about 112 days."

It is worthy of being a leader ship!

President Xiao Peng’s Star Spider voyage will take more than two years.

The Tubber took less than four months.

Molan's tentacles flew up, "Okay! Tubber, let's go, to the azure star system!"

Taber replied coldly without any emotion: "Invalid command."

Cymbidium:"……"

Molan waved its antennae and patted the cypress.

"Captain Longbai! Let's go!"

Long Bai: "Taber, let's go to the azure star system. Turn on the holographic projection in the living room and show the scene outside the starship in real time."

Tubb: "Got it!"

Tubber: "Holographic projection is on!"

Taber: "The starship has started to store energy and is expected to be ready in 12 hours..."

...

The light from the living room dome was dim.

Infinite and profound darkness.

All that was left was a purple-red light spot representing the Tabor and a firefly-like orange light spot not far away representing a star in the Bauhinia system.

Far away in the distance, there is a green dot in the azure star system representing the destination of this journey.

A straight white line connects.

...

It was the first time for everyone to set sail on their own starship.

As expected, it is the fastest and most luxurious leader-class starship in the universe.

Longbai, Molan, Xiangbai, and Guishan were in no mood to stay dormant, so they lay together in the living room, observing the beauty of the universe through holographic projection.

Half a day later,
The starship has completed its energy storage and is ready to jump.

Jump once,
Stop to store energy, perform self-inspection, conduct reconnaissance scan, and reposition.

Half a day later, the energy was stored, and after inspection, reconnaissance and positioning were completed, it jumped again and set off.

...

Dark living room,

In the holographic projection, the orange-yellow light spot representing the Bauhinia star system gradually dimmed and disappeared.

All that remained were the purple-red light dots representing the starship and the green dots representing the azure star system of the destination.

There is nothing else, nothing to see.

The universe is a prison of scarcity.

There is nothing exciting, romantic or fun about deep space travel.

The voyage lasted less than four months.

The time passed as everyone chatted idly.

The Tubber was docked 100 million kilometers away from the star system.

Longbai controlled the artist, entered the cockpit, and connected to the crystal console for inspection.

The original crystal consumed more than 123 million points.

That means that the cost of raw crystals for a round trip between the Bauhinia star system and the Azure star system is close to 250 million.

This is an empty run. If it is carrying cargo, the cost will be even higher.

Chairman Xiao Peng's Star Spider paid for the entire trip. If it was not transporting heavy cargo like ecological base stations and life bases, the round-trip fee was only 100 million. If it was transporting heavy cargo, the price would only be increased by 50.

The only advantage of a starship is that it is not restricted by the star network and can go anywhere in the universe.

To navigate within the range of the star network, you still have to be a Star Spider.

Longbai did a quick calculation and called everyone to set off. (End of this chapter)