Chapter 135: Upgrading the Monster Army

It was now midday, and the Tier 6 Blood-Sucking Mosquitoes in his sub-dimensional space had reached full maturity.

Upon entering the space, Lu Sheng mindlessly crushed all the mosquitoes. Among them, three million Tier 5 peak-level mosquitoes had also matured. After harvesting 45,000 of them, Lu Sheng’s first priority was to see if he could upgrade the quality of his Spacetime Ants.

He began the enhancement process, placing the Spacetime Ants in the main card slot and the Blood-Sucking Mosquitoes in the secondary slot. It took a full ten thousand Blood-Sucking Mosquito cards just to reach one percent progress in the Spacetime Ants' enhancement.

This left Lu Sheng silent. It seemed that the number of mosquitoes he had on hand was nowhere near enough. He decided to set that aside for now and focus on upgrading his other monsters to see if he could push them to Tier 7. If he could bypass the restrictions of the Laws, he was confident he could raise a horde of top-tier monsters within a month. He could easily summon a legion of Tier 11 creatures.

Unfortunately, reality was cruel. After upgrading the Fire Bear Wolves, they hit a wall at Tier 6 peak; they could not be improved further without the laws within them breaking through to the second level. This required a significant number of Law Stones—a resource Lu Sheng was already struggling to provide for his own advancement. He could only spare elemental Law Stones for his monsters, as he could not absorb them himself. Even so, in Lu Sheng's view, it was better to prioritize his own level over theirs.

He selected twenty of his most powerful monsters, including the Fire Bear Wolves, the Fire Werewolf Leader, the Sword-Legged Spider, the Desert Giant, and the Earth-Controlling Beetle, and raised them all to Tier 6 peak. This consumed over twenty thousand Blood-Sucking Mosquitoes. He also upgraded various elemental mantises, as their offensive capabilities were formidable. Had he not run out of mosquitoes, he would have upgraded the beetles as well, knowing the synergy between the two was undeniably powerful.

He upgraded the remaining twenty-one mosquitoes to Tier 6 peak as well, one of which was male. These mosquitoes possessed the Law of Devouring, though it was far from the terrifying power he had imagined. It was weak—no different from the basic law pillars described by Xiong Dabiao and his companions—but it had the potential to become incredibly strong if cultivated.

Lu Sheng hesitated. While the Law of Devouring was not as rare as the Laws of Time or Space, it was still impossible to obtain easily. Improving the mosquitoes required non-elemental Law Stones, which would slow his own progress. However, he quickly realized that the benefit the mosquitoes provided far outweighed the minor delay in his own cultivation. He could simply hunt more Tier 6 monsters and use the resulting Source Points to elevate the mosquitoes' quality. The Hunt Ranking allowed for quality upgrades up to the Red tier. If he could raise a pair of Blood-Sucking Mosquitoes to Red quality, their combat potential would be immense.

Excited by this prospect, he decided to proceed with upgrading the mosquitoes' laws. The logic was simple: upgrading other monsters only improved one individual, which was of little use to him. But upgrading the mosquitoes to Tier 7 would allow them to produce Tier 7 offspring, creating an endless army.

If he kept upgrading them, attacking the Monster World would eventually be within reach. Lu Sheng’s expression grew complex; he had never expected that these seemingly useless, low-strength mosquitoes would reveal such a terrifying future. To proceed, he had to sacrifice the reproductive capability of one female mosquito, as they could only breed once. He didn’t want to gamble on whether killing and respawning them would reset their status, so he chose the path of least risk.

After feeding all the mosquitoes, a new cycle of reproduction began. Lu Sheng prepared to lead his monster army to attack the Boar Forest; this nest near his settlement had to be destroyed.

Meanwhile, the Blood-Sucking Mosquitoes roaming outside had been discovered. After a night and a morning of activity, their range had become vast, and it was only a matter of time before they were spotted in broad daylight. Dong Jian of the Heavenly Feather Sect had discovered them while out hunting. Initially, he assumed they were just wild monsters, but after killing a batch, he realized they were controlled by someone, as their corpses dissolved into cards.

Dong Jian was alarmed. He had casually slaughtered thousands of them; if they belonged to someone else, he had surely offended a powerful individual. He tried to call out to the owner, but no one responded. He moved on, but as he encountered more swarms—watching hundreds of monsters being sucked dry in seconds—a chill ran down his spine.

As the day progressed, he encountered multiple swarms. Convinced he was trapped in a powerful hallucination, he punched himself to break it. When the pain proved real, he realized this was no illusion. He sent two subordinates to track a swarm while he continued to investigate. He grew increasingly shocked as he realized the sheer scale of the operation. Yet, he consoled himself: these were only Tier 5 monsters. Even if they were numerous, they could never defeat a Tier 6 monster. They were useful for farming points, but they were not a true threat. Or so he thought.