The next day, Astera.
Mother Chameleos, as if having discovered some new toy, directed several tightly wrapped medics to carry that hunter who was still in coma but whose complexion already looked much better into Her cave.
Mother Chameleos had never seen such a strange thing; the blood drawn from this hunter actually contained a very peculiar energy toxin.
Yes, energy virus, and it was even the contagious kind!
This virus would automatically react with energy inside living beings, thereby diluting it and precisely stripping the energy away from the living beings themselves.
In Mother Chameleos's view, it seemed as if some kind of creature had evolved specially for drawing out energy inside living beings.
This thing that went beyond conventional toxins interested Her even more than Frenzy Virus of past, especially after She completed Her own mutation and became special individual among Chameleos, when She was for a time still somewhat confused about future; appearance of this virus really gave Her some new ideas, and perhaps Her toxins could also be further developed to target energy.
Therefore, after helping stabilize vital signs of hunter and one medic, Mother Chameleos then put forward request to move them into Her cave for Her own research.
Of course, healing them in passing was still no problem.
As for whether this virus would have any effect on Her and little Chameleos, that was completely nothing to worry about.
If it were not that life energy inside human bodies in this world belonged to bottom tier, and that life energy, which was already not much, was stripped away by virus, causing bodily functions to rapidly fall to freezing point.
This kind of energy virus that could not even poison large monster would fundamentally not be big problem.
Moreover, in solutions Mother Chameleos had obtained after using super brain for time being, She had two countermeasures.
First was, through medicinal mist, to continuously inject into hunter energy within range he could bear, thereby offsetting life energy loss caused by energy virus, and then relying on hunter's own physical constitution to metabolize these toxins.
Second was most commonly used fighting poison with poison!
Toxins likewise were also one kind of energy; as long as toxicity was sufficient, after these viruses absorbed toxin, they would naturally die along with it, and because viruses were absorbing toxin and reducing toxin's toxicity, as long as antidote was prepared, hunter also did not need to worry about dying under toxin.
After receiving Chameleos's assurance, Commander also completely let out long sigh of relief; looking at Chameleos's delighted appearance, he knew this plague probably would not be able to spread, and Astera could be considered to have successfully avoided one disaster that had not yet broken out.
"Then next is matter of investigation, Wildspire Waste, huh? It really is troublesome!"
It was also unknown whether this trouble in Commander's mouth referred to that red bug, or that Elder Dragon named Malzeno that mechanic had mentioned.
Very soon, one investigation squad led by Huntsman, fully armed, rode wingdrakes and flew toward Wildspire Waste; on their waists, several Grimalkynes of Wasteland Protectors Tribe firmly grabbed their belts to guide them.
...
On Ancient Tree, Logan rarely licked his own dragon egg; although he was somewhat annoyed that this little fellow not yet born had divided much of Aki's attention, after all, being father for first time, he was still very much looking forward to this little fellow's birth.
At side, while eating, Aki watched Logan here; seeing peaceful appearance of Logan and dragon egg, she finally put down a bit of vigilance.
She had heard some Rathians say that some Rathalos, because they were fathers for first time, would sometimes act nervously, always feeling they had lost their mate's attention, and thus would inexplicably develop some hostility toward dragon egg.
Therefore, before Rathalos completely adapted to family having new member, Rathian would guard dragon egg very tightly.
In addition, this egg was something Aki had managed to conceive and lay only after many years, so she naturally did not wish even slightest problem to appear.
As for not trusting Logan, was it not because several nights Logan had always wanted to take egg out of nest? That jealous, jealous appearance truly made Aki unable to trust him.
To this, Logan also had nothing good to argue; anyway, he had already thought it through—at most five or six years, Aki's attention would naturally return to him, and by then true love would still be true love, and child would become one accident.
On Ancient Tree, Logan's small days continued pleasantly.
Inside hollow of Ancient Tree, that Qurio larva had, with passage of time, completely changed appearance, its body size had increased quite a bit, and it was no longer in that state of possibly dying at any moment.
In appearance, apart from enlarged body size, its body basically showed no trace of Qurio; overall color tone became interwoven blue and silver, its ferocious mouthparts gradually became flattened, evolving toward direction more convenient for sucking tree sap, and edges of one pair of ice-blue wings also revealed crystalline form resembling Terastal shoots.
And such changes had not completely stopped; under influence of miraculous life energy and that domineering Terastal energy, its way of survival would still further complete its metamorphosis until it thoroughly adapted to and relied on Ancient Tree environment.
...
As days passed, inside Ancient Tree, cat carrying medicine basket on back followed behind young ancient Wyverian and, according to method it had learned for picking Terastal sprouts, picked one Terastal sprout that looked very plump and moist and put it into medicine basket on its back.
In these years, ever since first Terastal sprout was discovered by ancient Wyverian prophet, large numbers of Terastal sprouts had gradually begun to appear on Ancient Tree. The closer it was to top of Ancient Tree, the more of these things there were, and there were even faint signs of them spreading toward canopy layer outside tree hollow.
Later, as research on Terastal sprouts deepened, it was discovered that this thing not only very much matched material requirements of ancient Wyverian alchemy but also possessed excellent heat resistance and softness, and thus was also widely used in construction of Fire Wyvern nests.
"Eh? What is this, meow? A bug I have never seen before, meow."
After cat used small knife to assist in snapping off that top part of one Terastal sprout, it discovered, hidden under leaves, insect eggs each as long as two centimeters, and a bug whose whole body was silver, with shell almost crystal-like transparent and blue patterns on its body, was lying quietly beside these insect eggs.
Its short proboscis was at this moment pierced into leaf, continuously sucking sap.
The cat could even clearly see, through its body, sap in leaf flowing along proboscis into bug's body.
"Aaaah! It is a pest, meow!!"
Almost in next second, this cat classified this bug, directly putting it into pest category.
Terastal sprouts had already appeared for several years, and cats had once tried to use residue left after alchemy to cultivate bugs, to see whether they could increase output of bugs or cultivate new varieties.
As result, after series of experiments, they found that they simply had never seen any bug that would be interested in this thing; even the least picky Bitterbug would not take a single bite.
This result made cats both fall silent and breathe sigh of relief.
Although they did not obtain expected result, it also meant that in future they did not need to send manpower to carry out pest-protection work on Terastal sprouts, this kind of "strategic resource" in mouth of ancient Wyverian prophet.
But now, what was it seeing!!
A "pest" had actually appeared without them knowing!!
It could not tolerate this, meow!
Cat raised small knife in hand, just about to bring it down and smack this hateful pest to death, when voice of ancient Wyverian youth leading team came from above its head.
"Wait!"
Ancient Wyverian youth stopped cat's movement and, under cat's puzzled gaze, carefully squatted down beside this bug, afraid that if his movements were too big, he would startle this bug.
Ancient Wyverian youth pushed up glasses on bridge of his nose, carefully sensing energy flow of bug in front of him.
As assistant of ancient Wyverian prophet, he likewise possessed extremely high alchemy talent, and thus deeply understood special nature of Terastal sprouts.
As special product that Terastal sprout, produced by Ancient Tree mutating under influence of Boss Fire Wyvern's mighty power in order to adapt to existence of Boss Fire Wyvern, this thing could be said to be one brand-new species.
This kind of brand-new species, logically speaking, should not so quickly have insects appear that live by sucking its sap.
Moreover, in his perception, energy inside this bug was actually exactly same as Terastal sprout, perfectly accommodating mixed life energy inside Terastal sprout.
Research value of this bug seemed a bit high, ah.
Thinking of this, ancient Wyverian youth quietly stretched out hand, attempting to grab this bug from back.
Suddenly, bug that was happily feeding sensed movement of ancient Wyverian youth, and sucking behavior instantly stopped.
In next second, crystallized part along edge of wings swept across one streak of energy sheen.
"Careful, meow!"
Cat made flying pounce, grabbed ancient Wyverian youth's arm, gave strong pull, and then saw palm of ancient Wyverian youth brush past edge of folded wings that bug had suddenly opened.
"Sss! So hot!"
Slow-to-react ancient Wyverian youth sharply drew in breath of cold air and looked at that one small bright-red mark on withdrawn palm; this had only just brushed past and had not completely come into contact with bug's wings.
Otherwise, he feared it would not just be one red streak but would have been directly burned!
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