Chapter 629 - 434: The Bee Queen’s Awakening and Heaven-Defying Divine Techniques

But even Elder Ya could not have imagined that Jinbao still had a contingency left by Tu Wuzhao—or, to be more precise, a protective measure jointly arranged by Jinbao’s father and Tu Wuzhao to keep him safe.

’Hmph. When it comes to powerful backing, I’m not that far behind you. From now on, Jinbao’s father is my big bro!’

After once again thanking Jinbao’s kind, unseen father in his heart, Fang Qingyuan fell into deep thought. The encounter with Elder Ya was a reminder: if he insisted on fighting Chunyu Hua first, that Elder Ya would certainly not sit idly by.

His previous plan had been flawed. If a shameless Nascent Soul Cultivator like Elder Ya decided to interfere in this glory duel, there was really nothing he could do about it.

’Should I perhaps invite Di Yuanpu and other Nascent Soul Cultivators to witness the duel and prevent Elder Ya from pulling any tricks in secret?’

Bear Wind was currently on the Qingyuan Sect’s mountain assimilating the Pardon Decree, so he couldn’t leave easily. Besides, the Black River Daoist Palace wasn’t on White Mountain; it was on the border of the Qi Yun Sect’s territory. If Bear Wind came here, would he have to register with the Qi Yun Sect and pay for a pass?

And if he didn’t buy one, would Bear Wind’s combat strength, suppressed by the ’Celestial Essence’ Array, still be a match for Elder Ya from the Beast Taming Sect?

This was a difficult situation. Fang Qingyuan felt stuck. After thinking it over and over, he wondered if, as a last resort, it would be feasible to just have Hao Shi fight and bypass Chunyu Hua himself.

Or rather, how could he make Chunyu Hua understand that the opponent he *should* be fighting is Hao Shi?

Just as Fang Qingyuan was pondering this, the deep furrows on his brow suddenly smoothed out. It wasn’t that he had thought of a good solution, but that a summons had come from within his Immortal Mansion.

’The Bee Queen is awake!’

「Immortal Mansion, Purple Bamboo Forest, Beehive Palace.」

At that moment, nearly a million Mutated Scorpion-tailed Bees took to the air in unison, forming a black cloud that blotted out the sun and turned the sky above into a dark ocean.

With the rapid expansion of the Immortal Mansion, various flowers had bloomed across the lands suitable for cultivating Spirit Plants. They grew in dense clusters, covering most of the Immortal Mansion’s territory.

Flowers are the lifeblood of bees; the more flowers, the more bees they can support. The nearly one million Mutated Scorpion-tailed Bees today were all descendants of the offspring the Bee Queen had produced back then.

The Bee Queen herself had long since stopped laying eggs personally. Otherwise, even if she did nothing else all day, she could never have produced a million Scorpion-tailed Bees.

These Scorpion-tailed Bees originated from different hives. As the Immortal Mansion expanded, the original hive in the Purple Bamboo Forest had split off, forming over a hundred unique hives that were evenly distributed throughout the Immortal Mansion, each responsible for its own area of nectar sources.

Every hive had a Queen Bee, which was transformed from an ordinary Worker Bee. When a hive was about to split, a batch of young larvae would be selected from among the unhatched Worker Bee eggs to be incubated as replacement queens.

Then, the best-developed one would be chosen and raised as the Queen Bee, while the others would be disposed of as failures and turned into nourishment for the new queen.

Currently, there were over a thousand Queen Bees within the Immortal Mansion at the Middle to Late-stage of Qi Cultivation. But as the origin of these million Scorpion-tailed Bees and the supreme ruler over the hundreds of Queen Bees, the Bee Queen, Fang Ruoxi, was the one and only matriarch of the bees in the Immortal Mansion.

Therefore, when Fang Qingyuan’s consciousness entered the Immortal Mansion, this was the scene that greeted him: nearly a million bees of various shapes and breeds, all dancing in unison with a bizarre rhythm.

The spectacle was both magical and chilling, enough to give Yinbao, who was watching the excitement from a distance, goosebumps.

In the nearly one hundred years that had passed, the Golden Jade Scorpion-tailed Bees that the Bee Queen had originally produced had all long since died.

The lifespan of a bee is not long, even for those that become beasts. This is because the structure of bee society does not require any single bee to live for too long.

The only exception is a bee whose role is irreplaceable. In the entire society of bees, there is only one such bee with this crucial duty: the Queen Bee.

Fang Ruoxi, the Bee Queen, had also ascended from the rank of Queen Bee. In her original state, she was just an ordinary Golden Jade Scorpion-tailed Queen Bee.

As the first true living being in the Immortal Mansion, the Bee Queen’s incubation and growth had taken place almost entirely within it. When Fang Ruoxi’s compound eyes first opened to the world, the Immortal Mansion was all she could see.

Later, when Fang Ruoxi advanced, the Divine Techniques she awakened were of immense help to Fang Qingyuan. Without Fang Ruoxi, Fang Qingyuan estimated his journey would have been far more difficult than it had been.

Two years ago, the Bee Queen had fallen into a deep slumber. This was her first hibernation since advancing to the Mid-stage of Foundation Establishment.

Logically, upon waking this time, the Bee Queen should have advanced predictably to the Late-stage Foundation Establishment Realm. However, as Fang Qingyuan observed the scene before him, he began to feel uncertain about this expected outcome.

After all, insect beasts were a peculiar type of beast found in nature. Though inherently weak, they possessed the potential for limitless, multi-stage evolutions.

In a single evolution, some insect beasts could leap across two, or even three or four, ranks at once, transforming into higher life forms in a single bound.

This process was as magical as a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly, and it was the greatest gift bestowed by the heavens upon insect beasts—a chance to defy their fate.

’Could it be that the Bee Queen has encountered such a situation this time?’

How else could one explain this frenzied dance of a million bees, as if they were celebrating the birth of a perfect being?

Inside the Purple Bamboo Forest, what was once an ordinary beehive had become a massive labyrinth, covering an area of several acres.

At this moment, over a hundred plump, snow-white Queen Bees were prostrated before the central hive, exposing their softest undersides.

On a distant purple bamboo stalk, Nanli squatted silently to the side, quietly watching the scene with envy in its eyes.

Fang Qingyuan’s spiritual form gave a small wave to Nanli, then walked down the path lined with the prostrate Queen Bees to arrive before the hive. He called out softly:

"Ruoxi, are you awake?"

"THUMP, THUMP!"

After two hurried thuds, the Bee Queen Fang Ruoxi’s soft, timid voice sounded out:

"I’ve become so ugly now. Will you be disgusted with me, Master?"

"How could I? You’re still the prettiest of my little ones. Not even Jinbao can compete with you on that. Don’t worry, come on out."

Fang Qingyuan said this to coax his Spirit Beast, taking advantage of Jinbao’s absence without batting an eye.

Hearing Fang Qingyuan’s reassurance, Fang Ruoxi finally summoned the courage to emerge.

"BANG!"

The entrance to the Bee Queen Fang Ruoxi’s hive was blown far away, and then a giant pincer-like leg extended out.

As Fang Ruoxi struggled to emerge from the shattered hive, Fang Qingyuan felt he must be seeing things. ’Where is my adorable, pink little Bee Queen? What the hell is this behemoth before me?’

What appeared before Fang Qingyuan was a creature over ten meters long, a hybrid of a bee and a scorpion. However, unlike a scorpion’s tail which has a stinger, this creature’s rear was still a large, swollen abdomen, just like before.

Fang Qingyuan looked again at the broken hive and saw a large, deep pit inside. So, it turned out Fang Ruoxi had been hiding underground just a moment ago.

"Master, why have you gone silent after seeing me?"

Fang Ruoxi waved her two great pincers. Her head still faintly resembled her previous form. In response, Fang Qingyuan could only smile, fly forward, and pat the Bee Queen Fang Ruoxi’s head just as he always had.

’Huh? Those words just now... it seems Fang Ruoxi didn’t convey them to me through her Mind Divine Techniques. She actually spoke them herself. That must mean that with this evolution, the Bee Queen Fang Ruoxi truly skipped two ranks and reached the Golden Core Realm!’

Leaping from Mid-stage Foundation Establishment to the Golden Core Realm was likely something only an insect beast like the Bee Queen could do. As for the other three—Nanli, Jinbao, and Yinbao—they could only cultivate step-by-step.

After taking a few breaths to adjust, Fang Qingyuan asked the question that was foremost on his mind. Since Fang Ruoxi had skipped two whole ranks and her life form had changed so drastically, the Divine Techniques she awakened must be particularly heaven-defying.