Wait… I’m a Druid in a Cultivation World?! - Chapter 93

Qi Ping had prepared a total of fifty different formula combinations for brewing Hundred Spirit Honey.

“With this many combinations, we should be able to find one that completely masks the characteristics of the Hundred Spirit Grass…”

After configuring these combinations and handing them over to the brewer Honeybell bees, Qi Ping turned his attention to the issue of cultivating the bee colony.

Over the past month, Qi Ping had newly cultivated and matured about two thousand bees. This was still far from his goal of ten thousand combat bees and three thousand brewer Honeybell bees.

The reason for the slower-than-expected colony growth wasn’t due to the speed of his Blood Ginseng cultivation, but rather, it was limited by the Queen Bee’s strength.

Being only Middle Tier-1, the Queen Bee, although capable of producing offspring that inherited the stronger bloodlines from the drones, could only lay a maximum of seventy to eighty eggs per day.

Previously, because Qi Ping’s ability to cultivate spiritual herbs was limited, the Queen’s egg-laying rate still exceeded his herb cultivation speed. Additionally, considering the Queen Bee’s crucial role in maintaining the stability of the hive, and the fact that the colony itself showed no inclination to replace her, Qi Ping hadn’t considered changing the Queen.

Moreover, Qi Ping held onto another idea. For insect colonies with queens, like bees, the Demonic Insect Cultivation Manual contained numerous records, even including specific explanations on the issue of replacing the colony’s queen.

Regarding the queen of an insect colony, the Demonic Insect Cultivation Manual’s best advice was generally: don’t replace her!

For powerful spirit beasts, the birth of a queen is exceptionally difficult. The queen plays an extremely high role in the colony’s stability and holds extraordinary significance.

However, a common problem in colony cultivation arises when male insects successfully mutate: the queen’s strength begins to lag behind that of the drones. After all, no insect-taming cultivator would dare gamble their insect queen on that tiny probability of mutation, as the birth of a new insect queen is far too difficult. Even if successful, integrating her with the existing colony would pose a significant challenge.

Therefore, in such situations, the best option is to provide the insect queen with the finest resources and wait for her to achieve a breakthrough and advancement on her own! There are many successful cases of queens accomplishing self-directed mutation and promotion.

A queen who advances through her own mutation can elevate the bloodline of the entire colony once more, which is far superior to simply breeding a new queen. This is because insect queens, due to the special nature of their own bloodline, inherently have a higher success rate for mutation.

Thus, once male insects within the colony mutate into higher-tier beings, and these bloodline-enhanced drones impregnate the queen, she can absorb portions of the advanced bloodline power from the eggs during pregnancy, using it as nourishment to evolve her own bloodline.

Under these circumstances, generally, as long as the queen’s innate aptitude is sufficient and ample high-tier resources are provided, there is a significant probability that the Queen Bee can achieve mutation and advancement.

Once such an insect queen completes her advancement, it ensures the highest possible stability for the colony’s bloodline. Especially in colonies where multiple types of male insects have achieved mutation and advancement, a queen who advances thereafter might potentially become even more powerful than a Harmonizer bee.

The offspring born from such a queen would also have a higher probability of subsequent mutation compared to ordinary Harmonizer bees, and their potential would be far greater.

This was the most important reason why Qi Ping had never considered replacing the Queen Bee!

He had consistently been having the brewer Honeybell bees produce the finest Royal Jelly for the Queen Bee to consume, hoping she would quickly complete her bloodline advancement and mutation.

However, the limitation on the rapid expansion of his forces this past month forced Qi Ping to start considering the cultivation of a new queen.

But just at this moment, something happened that delighted Qi Ping!

At this moment, the Queen Bee stood quietly on a rock, enveloped in dense spiritual energy. Her aura and pressure were continuously intensifying.

This was a unique, imposing pressure specific to a Queen Bee, far surpassing what ordinary drones exhibited during their advancements.

Thousands of bees surrounded the entire mountain peak, sealing it tightly, all having entered the highest state of alert.

Sensing the special pressure emanating from the Queen Bee, Qi Ping felt a hint of astonishment. The pressure and momentum of the Queen’s advancement truly were incomparable to that of ordinary bee promotions.

Yet, more than astonishment, what filled Qi Ping’s heart now was pleasant surprise!

Immense, pleasant surprise!

“She’s finally advancing!”

This indicated that this Queen Bee’s bloodline was absolutely not inferior!

Furthermore, the fact that this Queen Bee could advance once meant that in the future, as long as male bee cultivation was successful and sufficient high-tier resources were provided, the probability of her advancing again would be much, much greater than that of a queen who had never advanced before.

This was also one of the reasons the Demonic Insect Cultivation Manual highly advocated allowing the insect queen to advance on her own.

“After today, I finally won’t have to worry about the speed of building up my forces anymore…”

A Queen Bee advancing to High Tier-1 would absolutely have no problem increasing her egg-laying rate by four or five times.

Qi Ping wasn’t particularly worried about the Queen Bee’s advancement either.

Her physical condition, nurtured by the finest Royal Jelly, had already reached a very solid and powerful state. Coupled with the stable aura and extremely smooth progression of her mutation process, Qi Ping wasn’t too concerned about whether she would succeed.

What Qi Ping was more concerned about now was, after the Queen Bee’s mutation, just how much she would surpass the Harmonizer bee…

“Right now, the Queen Bee must have absorbed sufficient high-tier bloodline power during pregnancy, incorporating the bloodline energies of the Swiftcutter Bee, the Armored Beetle Bee, the Venomsting Bee, the Harmonizer Bee, and the brewer Honeybell Bee…”

“I wonder how much of these five bloodline powers the Queen Bee can assimilate.”

Actually, the amount of exceptional traits she could devour and fuse from the bloodlines depends on the Queen Bee’s innate aptitude.

A Queen Bee with better innate aptitude possesses a stronger ability to fuse the exceptional traits within the bloodlines.

The more exceptional bloodline traits the Queen Bee merges, the higher the overall potential of both herself and the future bee colony will be.

Of course, this doesn’t mean the more exceptional bloodlines the Queen absorbs, the better. According to data recorded in the Demonic Insect Cultivation Manual, it is most suitable for an insect queen to devour and integrate between three to seven exceptional bloodlines, as this leads to more optimal mutation outcomes.

This is precisely why some insect cultivators, even if they manage to mutate dozens of types of drones, will only select three to seven for focused cultivation.

As for Qi Ping’s five mutated bee species, perhaps due to the influence of his [Beast King’s Blessing] talent, aside from the Harmonizer Bee being fairly standard, the overall mutation circumstances of the others were actually quite exceptional.

The Swiftcutter Bee’s blade-sharp wings.
The Armored Beetle Bee’s defense, strength, and bite force.
The Venomsting Bee’s potent toxin.
The brewer Honeybell Bee’s honey-making ability.

All four of these abilities were outstanding traits.

“You are a Queen Bee blessed by the Beast King’s Blessing. If the ordinary drones mutated so excellently, surely you, as their Queen, can’t perform worse, right?” Qi Ping silently cheered her on.

“But no matter what, you absolutely must inherit the honey-making ability!”

Compared to offensive capabilities, the honey-making ability was what Qi Ping anticipated the most.

While the probability of re-mutating combat bee strains was high for Qi Ping, the likelihood of cultivating another Tier-2 brewer Honeybell Bee was very low.

Whether it was the blade-wings, the armored carapace, or the potent venom, these offensive traits had relatively high substitutability. They were excellent characteristics, but not absolutely indispensable.

However, Qi Ping truly couldn’t think of any other trait that could replace the brewer Honeybell Bee’s honey-making ability.

And so, amidst Qi Ping’s somewhat anxious anticipation, after a full six hours of mutation, the Queen Bee finally completed her transformation… A distinct, powerful, and imposing pressure erupted from her body!