Demi nodded, then shook her head:
"Uh... originally it was mostly out of gratitude,
but that lord threw in six additional bottles of precious healing potions."
"Just healing potions."
Pergina felt somewhat relieved. Just healing potions—it wasn’t like she couldn’t make those.
"Teacher, here are those six bottles. I almost forgot to give them to you."
Six golden pattern potions appeared before Pergina.
Pergina wasn’t paying attention at first, but then she looked over...
Her gaze immediately got stuck as she grabbed them in her hands.
"These... these are Golden Pattern healing potions?!!!"
She carefully observed the intricate golden patterns on the bottles.
Unconsciously opening one bottle,
she brought her nose close and sniffed lightly. Her body immediately filled with vitality.
"Yes, yes, they’re Golden Pattern healing potions!"
Demi was actually pretty calm. She felt her teacher was putting on an act again.
that as a great-level alchemical master, her teacher would be blown away by ’mere’ Golden Pattern healing potions.
Confirming these were indeed Golden Pattern healing potions, Pergina’s heart began wrestling:
Should she still try to buy back Uto?
These were Golden Pattern healing potions! And six bottles at that!
While Pergina was deep in thought,
Demi suddenly remembered she had one more thing to mention and hurriedly said:
"Teacher, that lord said
he will personally visit you soon!
Should we make some preparations?"
Pergina was carefully wiping the Golden Pattern healing potion bottles when she looked up in bewilderment.
"Why would he visit me?
We’ve never even met?"
Demi’s eyes sparkled as she said proudly for her teacher:
"That lord was blown away by your ’little work’ Uto!
Before parting, he specifically told me that he must visit you!"
She began considering whether she should move to a different city.
And find a new student while she was at it...
In the deepest part of the Desolate Desert,
stood a ’giant ant nest’ several hundred meters tall, like a small mountain peak.
Built entirely of dark brown sand and stone, it gave off a strange pale green glow.
On the nest’s surface, worker ants about 3 feet long crawled up and down.
Their abdomens constantly secreted green, gooey liquid
that mixed with the sand and continuously expanded the nest’s scale.
In the sky not far from the nest, a human figure hovered,
the gaze from under the mask thoughtful, as if making preliminary judgments about the nest before him.
"From current appearances, the Mineral Soldier Ant nest hasn’t reached its true peak strength yet."
Although the Mineral Ant nest’s scale was far from its peak, it still couldn’t be taken lightly.
Several hundred meters tall, with dozens of entrances at the nest’s base.
Without thinking, the interior must be a maze.
Looking around, teams of fierce Mineral Soldier Ants constantly went in and out,
either transporting prey into the caves or heading out to hunt in the distance.
These Mineral Soldier Ants, compared to the thin Worker Ants with little aggression, were much larger.
A full 10 feet long, with giant mandibles on their heads
shaped like inverted scythes, gleaming with metallic shine, incredibly sharp.
Combined with the powerful strength of ant-type monsters,
they could undoubtedly easily snap any prey that had the nerve to approach.
Carlos flew around the nest, carefully observing in a circle,
making further judgments about this dark mist node boss’s condition.
"Only Mineral Soldier Ants are out hunting, with no trace of Mineral Soldier Ant Guards.
It seems the Mineral Ant Queen is still in the second stage."
The Mineral Ant nest dark mist node was divided into three stages.
The first stage was the nest construction phase.
After awakening, the Mineral Ant Queen would rapidly produce large numbers of Worker Ants.
Worker Ants were responsible for hunting low-spirituality monsters
to provide nutrition for the Mineral Ant Queen and build the nest.
This stage had the weakest nest strength and shortest duration,
making it the easiest stage for taking down.
In the second stage, after the Mineral Ant Queen piled up sufficient nutrition,
she would begin producing more powerful Mineral Soldier Ants and small numbers of Mineral Soldier Ant Guards.
Mineral Soldier Ants replaced Worker Ants in hunting monsters with higher spirituality;
while Mineral Soldier Ant Guards, until reaching a certain scale,
would stay put in the nest protecting the Mineral Ant Queen’s reproduction.
The third stage, the final phase,
the Mineral Ant Queen would stop producing soldier ants, send out Mineral Soldier Ant Guards to speed up hunting, and focus entirely on breeding Mineral Queen Ants.
Once several Mineral Queen Ants were bred, even if the first-generation Mineral Ant Queen got taken out,
one of the Mineral Queen Ants would become the new generation Mineral Ant Queen, continuing the nest’s survival.
"The situation matches expectations pretty well."
Having finished his reconnaissance, wings flapping, Carlos flew toward the distance.
Finally, he landed on a sand dune about 2,300 feet from the nest.
"This position should be just outside the Mineral Ant Queen’s communication range."
With a thought, shield guards giving off killing aura appeared on the sand,
with Purple Vortex standing out awkwardly in the formation.
Its large head rotated 360 degrees while its eyeballs spun 180 degrees, curiously observing the surrounding environment.
"Dig a deep pit here, as large and deep as possible!"
Carlos issued orders to the shield guards.
Greatswords easily pierced the sand as the sound of shoveling erupted in unison!
Twenty-four shield guards transformed into frenzied sand-digging machines, stirring up waves of sand.
On the originally flat sand, a pit visibly appeared and rapidly expanded...
Purple Vortex, who hadn’t received digging orders, looked puzzledly at its companions frantically digging sand.
It seemed to think of something, and its weirdly assembled face suddenly showed an expression of understanding.
It stared at the sand pit with enthusiastic eyes, as if seeing through the secrets buried beneath.
At the same time, it urgently sent a soul request to Carlos to join the digging.
"You want to dig too?"
Originally Carlos thought that as his first retainer, it deserved special treatment.
This kind of physical labor could be avoided if possible.
Who would have thought it would actively request to join? Carlos felt a touch of emotion.
What a good retainer, actively sharing the master’s burdens!
With a boom, Purple Vortex excitedly jumped into the center of the sand pit, its hands shooting into the sand with a swoosh!
"Whoosh whoosh whoosh!"
Black sand flew everywhere. With Purple Vortex as the center, countless grains of black sand shot out, hitting the shield guards with ding-ding sounds. The pit’s expansion speed immediately picked up significantly...
"Very good, very good. In terms of digging speed alone, Purple Vortex alone equals five!"
Carlos felt his initial decision was wrong. Purple Vortex was obviously really skilled, and it enjoyed it too.
In the future, for jobs , it could be missing anyone but not Purple Vortex.
After digging enthusiastically for a while, Purple Vortex gradually noticed something was off.
Why was there nothing under the sand?