Bab 13: Innate Talent! Spirit Insect Master
Editor: Atlas Studios
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"Fourth Brother, you don't believe me?" Wang Luojing's little face fell.
"Fourth Brother, I suggest you listen to that girl." The older Wang Luotong also came over. "Although Luojing is young, she has loved playing with bugs since she was little. She knows a lot about bugs and is especially good at attracting bugs."
"Interesting…" Wang Shouzhe suddenly became spirited and said with a burning gaze, "Tell Fourth Brother how you're going to deal with the aphids first. Don't rush. We have plenty of time."
"In recent years, I've always heard Grandpa complain that there are more aphids than previous years," Wang Luojing said timidly, "so I think if I can help Grandpa deal with the aphids, Grandpa will definitely be very happy. Then I can ask grandpa not to marry my sister off. I don't want my sister to leave…"
Wang Luotong's face turned a little pale all of a sudden. She lowered her head and didn't dare to speak. She had no say in such matters.
"If you can really resolve the aphid disaster, I promise that I will protect you as your Fourth Brother," Wang Shouzhe promised firmly. "If you're unwilling to marry, you can not marry."
"Thank you, Fourth Brother." Wang Luojing's brows were raised in joy. "Actually, I've long seen from the Book of Insects that the ancients once used lacewings to manage the aphids. However, in recent years, there have been fewer and fewer lacewings. Last year, I reared some aphids and lacewings. It was indeed effective, so this year, I asked my older brother to capture two Lacewing Kings in the mountains. I spent some effort to tame them…"
"Hang on…" Wang Shouzhe's expression changed." What is the Book of Insects? And you can actually tame the Lacewing Kings?"
"The Book of Insects is the Book of Insects. It's an ancient book I found in the clan's library," said Wang Luojing with an innocent expression. "The Book of Insects talked about how to tame insects. It's not very difficult. If Fourth Brother wants to learn, I can teach you."
Not very difficult!?
Wang Shouzhe's face was a little dark. Having fused the memories of his previous self, he knew quite a bit about the Arcane Martial World. There was a small group of people in the Arcane Martial World who liked to produce or fight by controlling spirit insects. They were usually known as Spirit Insect Masters.
However, Spirit Insect Masters were rather niche. Furthermore, the requirements for talent were relatively high, even higher than the requirements for Alchemists. The reason was very simple. Ordinary people who were slightly smarter could barely manage to learn alchemy. At most, they would consume a lot of resources and have limited achievements.
However, if one did not have the rare talent to communicate with spirit insects, they would not even be able to attain the entry level for the profession of a Spirit Insect Master.
Thus, Spirit Insect Masters were very niche. Ordinary scions of noble clans would never even have heard of them. According to what Wang Shouzhe knew, only the Xu Clan of Changning and Liu Clan of Shanyin secretly nurtured two Spirit Insect Masters.
If Wang Luojing had the talent for becoming a Spirit Insect Master…
For a moment, Wang Shouzhe's heart started racing.
"Fourth Brother, Fourth Brother, what's wrong?" Wang Luojing waved her hand in front of him and pouted angrily. "Do you also not believe me?"
"I believe you, I believe you." Wang Shouzhe nodded abruptly. "My Luojing is the smartest. Fourth Brother is very interested. Let's go a little further. Show Fourth Brother."
"Uh-huh. Those two Lacewing Kings are both in Fourth Brother's carriage." After being recognized, Wang Luojing appeared very happy. "I'll go with sister to get them."
Wang Shouzhe immediately remembered that when he saw the sisters this morning, he found that they were each carrying a strange big box. At that time, he thought that they were carrying their personal belongings. It was not appropriate to ask about the personal belongings of girls, so he only asked them to place them on the carriage.
Now that he thought about it, they probably already had plans to try it at the farm.
"Let the clan guards go." Wang Shouzhe waved his hand.
The clan guards who were serving them in the distance immediately ran over and said respectfully, "Patriarch, what are your orders?"
"Wang Wu, Wang Yong, go to the carriage and bring Miss Luojing's two boxes over."
"Yes, Patriarch."
The two clan guards ran over at an extremely fast speed. In about seven minutes minutes, they returned with a box each.
"Wang Gui, Wang Wu, the few of you, go to the Fourth Old Master and see if there's anything you can do to help." Wang Shouzhe sent them all away. In any case, he saw that Wang Xiaozhi seemed to be thinking of ways to manage the aphids with wood ash water as well. They should be short of manpower.
The clan guards were all Arcane Martial Artists. They were much more efficient than ordinary tenant farmers when put to good use.
Most importantly, things were not confirmed yet. He did not want everyone to know.
After Wang Gui and the other four clan guards left, Wang Shouzhe personally carried two large boxes and led Wang Luotong and Wang Luojing to a remote wheat field.
The 3,000 and few hundred acres of land was like a vast ocean. There was no one here, and it was just enough to demonstrate.
Wang Shouzhe flipped open the ear of the wheat. As expected, there were also some green aphids in the wheat field over here. The tiny bugs made his hair stand on end.
"Luojing, let Fourth Brother see your methods."
"Hmm… The aphid outbreak this time is even earlier than I expected." Wang Luojing's expression was also a little solemn and nervous. She carefully opened one of the boxes.
Wang Shouzhe glanced into the box curiously. Instantly, his density phobia kicked in, and his hair stood on end. That was because the box was filled with leaves, and there were strands of silk-like objects that were growing from those leaves, full of dense round dots.
"Fourth Brother, Sister, do me a favor." Wang Luojing took out pieces of "leaves". "Place a leaf for every square foot."
The corners of Wang Shouzhe's mouth twitched. This little girl was really bold. She even dared to order the patriarch around at will. However, his hands and feet were very honest as he listened to Wang Luojing's instructions. His cultivation level was outstanding. He grabbed a "leaf" and casually tossed it. The "leaf" landed firmly on the ground.
According to Wang Luojing's "instructions", dozens of leaves were needed to be placed into every acre of the wheat field. She only opened one of the boxes in her two big boxes, and there were only a few hundred "leaves", barely enough to be placed in ten acres of land. Among thousands of acres of wheat field, it was just a drop in the bucket.
After spending 15 minutes to finish placing them, Wang Shouzhe and Wang Luotong stood near Wang Luojing and waited patiently for her instructions.
"Fourth Brother, these lacewing eggs have a three-day incubation period," Wang Luojing explained. "They hatch slower in the dark box. Once they see the sun, they'll hatch soon."
All right, you're a technical expert in this area. You have the say here.
Wang Shouzhe had always been very honest when it came to the blind spots of his knowledge. He never overstepped his boundaries. Time passed by slowly. In less than an hour, the few leaves that were initially placed changed. One by one, strange-looking bugs broke out of their shells with difficulty.
The leaves were right in front of him, and he could clearly see those small bugs. They were less than two millimeters in size, and looked like elongated beetles. However, there were two huge pincers in front of their heads, making them look very ugly.
They were motionless after birth, hanging silently on the silk strands.
After another long moment, they finally began to move. They slid down the silk onto the leaves and slowly spread in all directions. As if they were born with the ability to sense where there was food, they leisurely crawled up along the wheat stalks.
Suddenly, one of them encountered an aphid. It pounced on the aphid fiercely and caught the aphid in its pincers. It stabbed its mouthpart into the aphid's body and began to suck. In less than half an hour, the poor aphid was sucked into an empty shell that scattered with the wind.
Then, the lacewing larva continued to climb forward in search of its next prey.
"Impressive!" Wang Shouzhe exclaimed. "This little bug is really ferocious."
"Fourth Brother, when I was raising the lacewing larvae previously, I calculated that it would turn into a pupa in only ten days, and during this period, it could eat close to a thousand aphids. It's relatively small when it was born, and it could only eat a dozen or so every day for the first two days." Wang Luojing had been playing with this kind of things all along, so she was not surprised.
"If that's really the case, although the production of the wheat in this area of more than ten acres that has just started to fill will be reduced slightly, there's still hope." While Wang Shouzhe was praising, he said worriedly, "Just our Bountiful Farm alone has thousands of acres of wheat."
"Don't be anxious, Fourth Brother. I was only testing it just now." Wang Luojing opened another box. There were no longer densely packed larvae, but small, colorful beetles.
"Isn't this…" Wang Shouzhe saw that the beetles looked familiar and couldn't help but say in surprise," Seven-spotted ladybugs? "
"Fourth Brother knows them as well? The Book of Insects says that it's a Nine-spotted Beetle, not seven-spotted, though." Wang Luojing took out a fist-sized giant beetle with nine spots on its body and stroked it happily. "I'll call you the Nine-spotted Beetle King in the future."
…
-- Hadiah diterima