Fatal Shot
chapter-174

Incubating Gatherer Beetle. Estimated Time Required: 380 seconds

In the desert filled with traces of battle, Feng Luo stood beside the corpse of the three-meter Desert Rock Lizard Commander while waiting for the new beetles to be hatched.

Although he had gained a lot during this battle, in truth, his losses were also quite significant. The Beetle "army" that he had just established and had not yet completed was halved, and, apart from one mutant Scout Beetle, the only remaining ones were four Bladed Beetles and two Spray Beetles. That was why Feng Luo could not waste the body of the Commander-grade Desert Rock Lizard lying beside him.

As to what type of beetle he should incubate? Bladed Beetle, Spray Beetle, or perhaps one that Feng Luo had never incubated before—the Steel Beetle, which had a stronger defense than the Desert Rock Lizard… Undoubtedly, all these three combat-type beetles were decent choices.

The only thing was, Feng Luo's final decision was very surprising. He chose to incubate a Gatherer Beetle from the hard-to-come-by Desert Rock Lizard Commander's corpse.

A Gatherer Beetle was definitely the beetle with the lowest combat strength among the seven types of beetles. More precisely, it barely had any combat strength!

Apart from gathering resources, its clamps that seemed very strong actually had extremely weak attacks. A Level-30 Gatherer Beetle could not even defeat a normal Level-15 monster in combat.

However, the Gatherer Beetle was like the Scout Beetle, it had uses that the other beetles could not replace. Specifically, the Desert Rock Lizard was a Level-38 Commander; using its corpse to incubate a beetle meant that there was a certain percent chance that a Commander-grade Gatherer Beetle would be incubated.

A Gatherer Beetle Commander. Although it would also not have any attack strength, it would have one more special skill and ability compared to normal beetles. Moreover, it would also have very high HP. Even if the Gatherer Beetle that hatched was not a Commander-grade and was only an Elite-grade Gatherer Beetle, it would not be much of a loss. That was because Elite-grade Gatherer Beetles had the ability to fly temporarily. Compared to normal Gatherer Beetles, they were also a lot stronger!

In fact, among all seven beetle types, the Elite and Commander-grade beetles were a lot stronger than the Normal-grade. At the same time, they also had additional skills or abilities!

But… even if that were the case, wouldn't it be better to incubate a combat-type Bladed Beetle or a Spray Beetle using the corpse of the Desert Rock Lizard Commander?

In fact, it was not that Feng Luo did not want a combat beetle. The main reason was due to an issue that was constantly coming up, which was the fact that 24K did not have enough psionic energy!

Although on the system interface, the psionic energy required for a Bladed Beetle was 50 points, the first time he'd actually incubated a beetle, Feng Luo had discovered that there was a pitfall in the system description. Apart from the basic psionic energy required to incubate the beetle, throughout the incubation process when the beetle absorbed the "Nutrition" from the body of the monster, the process needed to consume extra psionic energy. Moreover, the extra psionic energy was determined by a combination of factors including the level, size, combat strength, grade (Normal, Elite, Commander) of the monster when it was alive, as well as other factors.

If one were to only spend 50 psionic energy to incubate a Bladed Beetle, it was still possible, but the Bladed Beetle would only be at Level 1 with less than 50 HP. It would barely have any combat strength! Only by spending extra psionic energy would it be possible to have the larvae absorb more nutrition from the body of the monster during the incubation process so that it would have a higher level after it hatched.

For example, Feng Luo had tested this before. Hatching a Bladed Beetle from the corpse of a Level-40 Normal-grade Wolf required a total of 90 (50+40) psionic energy points, and the hatched beetle was Level 20, Normal Grade! And if the beetle hatched from a Level-40 Elite Swamp Piranha, it needed 150 (50+100) psionic energy points, and the hatched beetle would be Level 30, Normal Grade; there was even a chance of it being Level 20, Elite-grade!

If the beetle were to hatch from the current Desert Rock Lizard Commander's corpse, it would consume a total of 550 (50+500) psionic energy, which exceeded 24K's current maximum psionic energy.

24K was now at Level 29, with a maximum psionic energy of 490 points (10*29+100+100). This was because every time it leveled up, there was only a 10-point increase in psionic energy max value, but at Level 10 and Level 20, each increased by an additional 100 points.

Based on the current trend, to use the corpse of the Level-38 Desert Rock Lizard Commander to incubate a Bladed Warrior, Feng Luo would have to at least wait until 24K leveled up to over Level 30.

Of course, since he'd obtained a rare psionic energy crystal today, although 24K's evolution was still not yet complete at the moment, Feng Luo felt that once it was complete, its maximum psionic energy would continue to increase.

However, he was not prepared to wait there, since although Commander-grade monster corpses were rare, it was not like he would never encounter one again. And to have the chance to obtain a Commander-grade Gatherer Beetle, Feng Luo was still expectant!

******

Since the incubation of the Gatherer Beetle still needed six more minutes, Feng Luo put the other beetles away and only left 24K and a Scout Beetle outside, waiting beside the corpse of the Desert Rock Lizard Commander. At the same time, he shifted his attention to the forum of the Withered Desert map.

Players could visit game forums, watch movies, or browse websites when not in combat or during special missions. However, the reason for Feng Luo's forum visit was not casual. It was for his next mission.

Among the last two mission items of Lin's mission, the fifth item, the "Crystallized Spit of the Desert Rock Lizard" was now in his hands. But the real headache was actually the sixth item: the "Desert Fire Ant Egg."

On the desert map, the most dangerous monsters were not monsters that acted alone like the Desert Rock Lizard. They were the small, low-level, pack monsters and their ridiculous numbers.

The Desert Fire Ant was one of those pack monsters. Moreover, its numbers were insanely high. Although they were only at Level 30, under normal circumstances, a nest would contain several thousand, tens of thousands, and even hundreds of thousands of Desert Fire Ants.

Even if most of them were Worker Ants that were like the Gatherer Beetles and did not have high combat strength, as the saying went, "with enough ants, even an elephant could be killed." Normal players would definitely not try to mess with them.

However, for pack monsters like these, due to their huge numbers, although the experience and drop rate of items weren't high, once accumulated, the reward for getting rid of a Desert Fire Ant nest was no less lucrative to beating a Quasi-boss or even a Boss monster, so the draw for players was anything but low.

As such, some Scout players would specifically look for the nests of these pack monsters on large maps. Then they would earn money from it by setting the location of these nests as paid posts so that other players had to pay money to view them. This was another way to play the game.

As for Feng Luo, at that moment, he was specifically looking for these types of posts on the forum; moreover, it would be best if the post had been posted today.

"Huh?"

What surprised Feng Luo was that after he entered the forum of the Withered Desert map through his virtual screen, but before he began looking for the newest posts regarding the Fire Desert Ants, he noticed a free thread that had been posted just a few minutes before. It had been bumped to the top few rows due to its popularity with the title, "Provide free Desert Fire Ant nest address. Everyone close enter quickly! Will start fighting soon!"

"Coordinates: 2873, 4887. Discovered a mid-sized Desert Fire Ant nest. Due to the mission, providing free address. Everyone hurry. First come, first fight…"

"Publishing the address due to a mission? So generous!"

Feng Luo was a little suspicious, but judging by the content of the post, it did not seem to be fake. Because, in the replies below, there were already players who had reached the area and were calling for others to join. Moreover, the replies in the thread had reached the hundreds.

Although the Withered Desert was not a popular leveling zone, it still could not withstand the sheer number of players in Storm City—a total of 15 million players. Even if one in1,000 came to train here, it would mean 10,000 people.

The only thing was that the Withered Desert was too big, so it was unlikely for players to encounter each other.

Yes, perhaps I should go and take a look! With so many people, even if I don't get a Desert Fire Ant Egg, someone else might get one.

Feng Luo thought for a bit and closed the forum after recording the coordinates. Then he entered them into the terminal and noticed that on the 3D map, the target destination was around 50 miles away from his location.

"Not that far away. Hmm…"

However, at that moment, the Scout Beetle parked not far away suddenly sent him a warning signal through 24K's mental link.

Feng Luo raised his head and saw that an energy SUV was coming from behind a tall sand dune not far away. It sent the yellow sand flying into the air in the gradually darkening night sky.

Most importantly, the car's style seemed very familiar. It was a full-spec C-10 energy SUV that cost 200,000 credits. It was not common to encounter a second one of these in the Withered Desert, a place where few came to level up.

Six young male and female players sat inside the air-conditioned energy SUV. Almost at the same time Feng Luo saw them, they noticed the lone Feng Luo, standing beside the Desert Rock Lizard Commander's corpse.