The Great Worm Lich

When Aruba, who did not understand the inside story of the problem that was plaguing Zhang Lisheng, changed his course of thought, he came up with the most likely answer and could not help but whisper, “Raider, legend has it that the Mainlanders are very greedy. They would often dare sacrifice their lives for the sake of wealth. I think, maybe one of the Mainlanders onboard had carried these precious stones with him and when he encountered the pirates in the sea, he was unwilling to give out his treasure in exchange for his life and instead, he swallowed the stones. The pirates who didn’t gain anything killed him and then threw his body at the bottom of the ship. In the end, his body was further swallowed by the demon occupying the wooden ship…”

“Aruba, you mean…” Zhang Lisheng’s heart jolt as he continued to peer into Aruba’s words.

“I mean, the Mainlander swallowed these glowing stones and then was further swallowed by the demon.” Seeing the excited expression on the Raider, Aruba became shocked and somewhat regretted his own rashness. In a hesitating manner, he repeated.

“The Mainlander swallowed these stones… The Mainlander swallowed these glowing stones…” Zhang Lisheng stared at the Gold Core fragments in his hand and mumbled thoughtfully.

Aruba’s speculation allowed him to see from another perspective and gradually figured it out. The ‘corpse monster’ might not be a strange thing at all. Instead, it was a smuggler or some treasure transporter who thought that he would prefer death over losing the Gold Core fragments when they encountered the pirates so, in the end, he swallowed the fragments and became a monster together with the other passengers on the wooden ship.

They were killed by the pirates and perhaps some were still alive when they were locked at the cabin at the bottom of the passenger ship. The pirates then smashed through the deck of the bottom of the ship and lit a raging fire, thinking that they would die so they left the wooden ship just like that in satisfaction along with their loot.

Unexpectedly, the Mainlander who swallowed the Gold Core’s fragment had somehow inexplicably mutated in the fire, turning into the core of the corpse monster. He shrouded himself over his charred companions and blocked the big hole at the bottom of the ship, becoming a parasitic monster on the passenger ship, and just so happened to save the wooden ship.

Such an inference also illustrated the problem that the Gold Core fragment was likely to be a luxury good in the eyes of the Mainlanders from Shrimp World No. 2, just like those first-class diamonds that had a mind-blowing price on Earth. This also meant that those ‘civilized people’ knew the protectors better than the Hellfire people.

“Civilization and barbarism, stupidity and wisdom are sometimes very interesting things…” Now that Zhang Lisheng had figured it out, he gripped the Gold Core fragments in his hand and looked at the corpse pile monster on the beach. Then, he looked at Aruba again and sighed with slight emotion.

At this time, a Tudenan warrior, who had two feathers on his head, walked up to him and submitted a fragment with both hands. Respectfully, he said, “Raider, we’ve already carefully searched the beach within 1000 steps and we only found this one small stone.”

“55 pieces is already enough.” Zhang Lisheng picked up the last piece of Gold Core fragment from the short yet strong aborigine in front of him and muttered. All of a sudden, he commanded the wizard gu that had covered the dead corpse monster with its web until everything was full of silk thread to transform back to a four-faced spider.

Then, he jumped onto the back of the wizard gu and returned to the Tudenan tribe, riding on Ghostface under the shocked gaze of the aborigines.

Ever since then, Zhang Lisheng hid in the big treehouse in the tribe that had been transformed into a standard laboratory and took all sorts of jungle animals on Shrimp B1 Island to become the living experiment for his Gold Core transplantation.

Due to the reason that the animals in the Shrimp World No. 2 and the living things on Earth had some benchmark differences in terms of genetics, this was a necessary optimization process.

Various stabilizers were re-formulated when they were used up. When the experimental material was lacking, the Tudenan’s hunters were ordered to catch living animals. Not only that, the primate subjects in the final forming stage were directly replaced by Lohlos from the tribe. Finally, after one month, Zhang Lisheng managed to formulate a drug that he thought was more suitable for the use of the foreign world’s aborigines based on the foundation of the stabilizer developed by Steven.

One could say that the reason he was able to succeed was entirely because ‘optimization’ was much simpler than ‘innovation’.

After the reagents were successfully deployed, the 55 Gold Core fragments on Zhang Lisheng’s hand had deteriorated and seven had been scrapped as worthless. Not only that, he had also appeared to have long hair, unkempt and exhausted.

However, compared to these efforts, the harvest was obviously bigger. For the first time in 30 days, the young man walked out of the tree house and greeted the dazzling sunshine. He glanced at a special colorless transparent test tube which he held between his fingers that was containing clear water-like blue liquid. With a happy expression on his face, he entered the treehouse enshrining Tudenan’s tribal book of history.

“Great Raider, y-you’re out of the treehouse…” When the Tudenan’s headman, who was sitting on the animal skin putting on a front while muttering something under his breath, saw the curtain being lifted and the Raider striding in without warning, he hurriedly crouched on the floor and said.

However, before he could finish his sentence, Zhang Lisheng had already ordered loudly, “Tugra, send out the order that I’m looking for Tudenan tribesmen who are willing to accept the gift of ‘casting ability’. As for conditions, one, they must be young warriors who have one feather on their heads or tied on their shoulder; second, they must be absolutely devout to me. Tell all the tribal warriors clearly that those who are not strong enough, or those who are not 100% devout to me will inevitably die in the ‘gift ceremony’. This is a risk, but the gain will also be very rich once it succeeds. In addition to the amazing ability to cast spells, the ordinary warriors will be promoted to become a chief. As for the chief warriors who already have one feather on his head, I’ll personally insert another one for them..”

“Yes, Great Raider!” When Tugra heard that the Raider suddenly wanted to gift the Tudenan tribesmen the ability to cast spells, his heart jolted. Immediately, he crawled up from the floor and ran out of the tree house.

At this moment, the sun was already hanging high above the aborigines’ heads. Of the 20,000 warriors in the Tudenan tribe, other than the 4000 who were on duty to guard the tribe now, the rest had already gone out to hunt.

The Tudenan headman summoned a warrior wearing a piece of light-weight half-body armor outside the treehouse, who was only equipped with a wooden spear and was riding on giant millispider that seemed to have particularly long and slender legs.

After watching the warrior jump down from his partner and kneel in front of him, Tugra announced in a dignified and solemn manner as he quoted Zhang Lisheng’s words, “The Great Raider has an order to be passed down. He’ll give the Tudenan people a powerful ability to guard the tribe…”

When the warrior, whose job was to pass down the tribal order, heard this inconceivable command, his kneeling body froze in an unexpected manner. Then, with an obviously baffled expression, he leaped up onto the giant spider and rushed towards the group of warriors who were patrolling outside the tribe.

Very soon, the news about the Raider gifting the tribal warriors the ability to cast spells spread out. By the time night fell, there were already more than 10,000 people who volunteered to undergo the ceremony.

After learning this good news, the Tudenan headman who had been busy the entire day hurriedly walked back to the big tree house. Kneeling in front of Zhang Lisheng who was sitting on the soft animal skin, he said respectfully, “Raider, your order has been spread out to every tribal warrior. There are a total of 11,765 people willing to accept the ‘gift ceremony’.”

The image of the Money Toad and nine-tailed lizard formed from colorful smoke constantly changing behind Zhang Lisheng’s back gradually dissipated as Zhang Lisheng opened his eyes and grinned. With a malignant smile, he said, “11,765 people volunteered to accept the ‘gift ceremony’? Looks like there are many Tudenan warriors who feel that they’re 100% devout to me. In that case, go pick ten people from them first and wait outside the treehouse where I live.”

Upon hearing the Raider’s gloomy voice, Tugra secretly swallowed his saliva and replied, “Yes,” before standing up and walking out of the treehouse. Not long after, he personally took ten sturdy and healthy aborigines to stand outside of the tree house under the envious gaze of their compatriots where Zhang Lisheng had been using it as a laboratory.

After moments of waiting, Zhang Lisheng quickly appeared in front of them.

Under the illumination of the fire, the young man swept his gaze over the solemn aborigine warriors and asked despite knowing the reasons with a blank expression, “Are you all Tudenan warriors who volunteered to accept the ‘gift ceremony’?”

“We are, Great Raider!” the ten warriors replied in unison.

“I’ve mentioned before that the ‘gift ceremony’ is very dangerous! Whether it’s a devout heart to me or an extremely strong body, any lack of either one of them would inevitably result in failure. Are you all still willing to accept it even after knowing so?”

“Yes, we are! Great Raider!”

“Very good! You will wait for my instructions and enter the treehouse in turns!” Zhang Lisheng said with a low chuckle. Transforming his right arm into a giant arm, he grabbed the neck of the leftmost native, and brought him into the tree house.

It was night. The howling in the tree house continued. None of the ten native warriors who voluntarily accepted the so-called ‘gift ceremony’ were spared as they all transformed into nothingness.

The second day, Zhang Lisheng ordered Tugra to bring another 10 native warriors who volunteered to accept the ‘ceremony’ to his treehouse. In the end, none of them survived as well.

Just like that, another ten days had passed. It would be at least 10, or at most 15 casualties each day. As a result, the number of volunteers of more than 10,000 native warriors gradually decreased. Of course, the reason given was that they felt that they were not strong enough.

Zhang Lisheng was not bothered by this at all. Instead, he was secretly happy in his heart. This was because gifting the power to a Tudenan tribesman who was a true believer who could still persist in this situation and believed in his own faith was naturally the best choice.

However, he was very anxious over the repeated failures of the transplant experiment. Compared to using animals as the materials for living experiments, even if the Hellfire man eventually turned into flying ash as well, the duration had no doubt lasted longer. This also made the energy of the Gold Core fragment deteriorate much faster, causing the loss in just slightly over ten days to be even more than one full month last time.

There were only forty pieces left in his hand now.