Astral Gods

Chapter 23 4-year-old stage

The little warriors don't need to worry about tribal trade; all they need to do is eat.

After the month-long trade fair concluded, Lord Zili sent the three little ones a batch of divinely bestowed food to aid their evolution and growth.

Having plenty of Force food to eat in winter is a wonderful thing. The three little ones hide in their warm nest, and do nothing but sleep and eat all day long.

With an unlimited supply of Force-infused food, Zihuai and Ziai rapidly advanced several age stages, becoming ninth-age novice warriors.

Zerg warriors are like that; with the support of their elders, they can advance to a higher age level in just one or two months during the initial stage.

Without the support of elders, they can only grow by eating the primal energy food produced by their own life seed. It takes three to six months to advance to the next age stage. By the time they advance to the ninth age stage, most of their lifespan has been consumed.

This applies not only to the beginner stage, but also to the intermediate and advanced stages.

Just like Purple Pearl and Purple Paulownia, in the early stages of their life cycle, Purple Pearl and others do not produce their own primal force food. They rely entirely on Lord Purple Plum to provide them with primal force food so that they can grow in 70-day cycles. They can advance to intermediate warriors at the age of three.

In the intermediate stage, they grow at a rate of one year every six months, and become advanced warriors before they are even 10 years old.

However, things change after they advance to advanced warriors. After advancing to advanced warriors, their territory's life form begins to produce primal force food, and the Purple Plum Lord basically no longer provides evolutionary resources, or only provides a small amount of evolutionary resources to assist their growth.

After all, compared to the beginner and intermediate levels, the evolution resources for advanced warriors are no small amount. In addition to his own growth, Lord Zili also has a large number of rhinoceros beetle warriors under his command who do not have divinely bestowed seeds, and he cannot take care of each and every one of them.

Therefore, once they reach the advanced level, they can only evolve and grow by producing their own life essence.

Compared to the Zerg warriors who have no elders, this is already very good. The Purple Pearls are all large trees that are nurtured in their infancy. After advancing to advanced warriors, they have abundant output. Even if they rely on their own life seed output, they can still grow at a rate of one growth cycle every three years.

At this rate, they have a good chance of becoming mountain lords before the age of 40. As for those above mountain lord, if they do not obtain a divine seed within 40 years, they basically have no hope of advancement.

As long as Zerg warriors can trade with other Zerg and exchange food items, except for those who are unlucky, they can basically advance to the advanced stage. After reaching the advanced stage, the Mountain Lord level is a major hurdle, and less than one-fifth of Zerg warriors can advance smoothly.

After the Mountain Lord level, the Lord level is another major hurdle. Without a divinely bestowed seed, there is basically no chance of advancing to the Lord level.

Because the Purple Locust and Purple Artemisia are needed to help the Purple Fir accelerate its evolution, Lord Purple Plum is already fully investing resources to assist their evolution.

A Lord-level Zerg warrior used resources to lay the foundation for them, and the effect was naturally excellent, which is why they can safely evolve once a month.

However, compared to her two older brothers, Zishan's evolution speed is much slower.

Throughout the winter, for three or four months, it remained in the early stage of the third age, without even undergoing one age-related evolution.

This made both Zizhu and Zili, who were watching it, somewhat worried.

It should be noted that during this period, although they invested a lot of evolutionary resources in the purple locust and purple artemisia, they invested the most in the yew. Not only was there an ample supply of various divinely bestowed primal force foods, but they also consumed more than 15,000 primal stones.

Even so, it has yet to evolve.

It wasn't until spring arrived, with its gentle rains and new buds sprouting from the leaves, that the yew began to evolve within its nest chamber.

The Purple Plum Lords stood outside the nest chamber, sensing the evolutionary fluctuations within, and felt a sense of unease.

Zizhu couldn't help but ask, "Lord Zili, it only took a little over three months for Zishan to advance from the 2nd to the 3rd stage, so why did it take even longer to advance from the 3rd to the 4th stage?"

At this rate, it might not even evolve through three life stages in a year, and by then, even advancing to a mid-level warrior will be difficult.

Lord Zili pondered for a moment and then said, "I have some guesses in my mind. It may be that the quality of the red cypress seed nurtured at the 3rd year stage is too high. It would require a huge amount of power to transform it into a divinely bestowed seed, which is why its evolution speed is slowed down."

"I see." Upon hearing Lord Zili's words, Zizhu was greatly alarmed: "So, does that mean we can't let it nurture a tree seed? We should find some herbaceous plants for it to nurture."

Lord Zili pondered for a moment and said, "This is just my guess, and it may not be the main reason for the matter. However, to be on the safe side, we shouldn't use a large tree as a seed to nurture it in its initial stage. The important thing is to help it advance to the intermediate warrior level first."

While the insects waited, the yew successfully advanced to the fourth instar, crawled out of the nest, and expelled the red cypress seed that had been nurtured during the third instar.

Lord Zili picked up the Red Cypress Life Seed and examined it. The Life Seed still had the unique primal force patterns of a divinely bestowed seed, but its aura was not full, and it looked malnourished, which made it a little worried, fearing that it would not be able to grow.

After thinking for a moment, Lord Zili put away the pine nuts he had originally prepared for Yew as its fourth-year life seed, and took a green-hearted sunflower seed, handing it to Yew instead: "Yew, you are still young, it seems a bit difficult for you to nurture a large tree as your life seed. In the initial stage, you should nurture a herbaceous plant as your life seed first."

Alright, Zishan had no objection to Lord Zili's arrangement and accepted the sunflower seeds.

At this moment, Zizhu asked Lord Zili, "Should we plant the Red Cypress seeds now? It's springtime, which is perfect for plant growth."

"That's what I was thinking too. Let's not delay. Let's get the Red Quick and use it to plant seeds."

Lord Purple Plum led his insects to the seed-planting ground of the yew tree.

As usual, I checked the many seeds that had been sown. Eight seeds of purple locust and purple mugwort had been sown, and the oldest mulberry seed had grown to more than 4 meters tall.

Among the many seedlings, the most eye-catching is the male mulberry seedling planted at the first age of the yew tree. It has now grown to more than 5 meters tall, but the trunk still looks somewhat slender.

As everyone knows, this is because the weather turns cold in winter, and the life-giving plants don't grow much.

For example, the mulberry seedlings planted at the two-year age of the yew tree not far away have only grown to a little over two meters tall.

However, as everyone knows, once spring arrives, as long as there is sufficient nutrition and primal energy, these two life-giving plants will grow rapidly.

Purple Pearl selected a location for the Red Cypress seed, forming a triangle with the locations of the two Mulberry seed species.

The yew tree planted the red cypress seedlings on its own. Springtime is the perfect time for plant growth, and in less than a day, the red cypress seedlings sprouted tender buds under the spring rain, and then grew true leaves.

In less than a week, it grew to more than half a meter tall, and then in another week, the trunk transformed from a wooden stem into a more resilient lignified trunk.