Chapter 120: Poison
After entering the ant’s nest, Qi Ying felt as if he had walked into a vast expanse of darkness. He pulled out a green fluorescent stone from his spatial ring to illuminate the path ahead of him.
The dark interior was filled with countless paths, and as Qi Ying strode along, he left some marks on the walls to ensure he wasn’t going around in circles.
Of course, as soon as he entered the nest, the Ice Fire Ants immediately identified him as an intruder.
The worker ants were only normal beasts, so they posed virtually no threat to Qi Ying. The only thing he had to be wary of was their toxic mist.
Thus, Qi Ying hurried through the cave in order to avoid confrontation between himself and the ants.
He could hide in the cave, and if those people rushed in to pursue him, he would be able to use the terrain of the cave to his advantage, allowing him to bring them down one by one. If they didn’t come in after him, then they would eventually leave, and he would be able to escape after that.
The rat-sized worker Ice Fire Ants weren’t all that dangerous; he could kick them aside with ease, and his True Energy Protective Barrier prevented their poison mist from entering his body.
The ants also possessed very low levels of intelligence, so if there weren’t any immediate threats, they wouldn’t attack.
To put it simply, as long as he didn’t bring an ant swarm upon himself by killing the Ice Fire Ants around him, their nest was actually quite a safe hiding place.
Soon, Qi Ying had made his way deep into the nest.
There weren’t even that many Ice Fire Ants around in that area, and Qi Ying was hiding in a corner, recovering his True Energy.
‘Who could have sent those people to come after me?’
Qi Ying’s brows were tightly furrowed.
He had only just arrived at the Green Class and hadn’t gotten into any altercations, aside from the one with that Instructor Jiang.
If anyone had a motive to hunt him down, it would be Sun Changyu, whose brother he had killed, as well as the Qin and Chu families.
After contemplating the situation, he saw the last option as the one most likely!
He had already sensed that something was amiss when Jiang Yuanping had taken the initiative to speak to him the day prior, and it appeared that his suspicions were not unwarranted.
Jiang Yuanping was a former servant to the Chu family, and Chu Bixue just so happened to be in the Green Class...
The warriors who were coming after him were Jade Class disciples, so they were most likely members of the Chu family’s youth army!
‘F*ck, trouble follows me wherever I go...’
Qi Ying knew that there was no way for him to alleviate the tension between himself and the Chu family. The situation was even worse than his blood feud with the Duan family, back when he was at the Celestial River Academy.
Furthermore, it was obvious that the Duan family couldn’t even hold a candle to a colossus like the Chu family!
Even the imperial family had to treat the seven major families with respect.
The imperial family was on the wane; thus, the core power of the entire kingdom consisted of the seven major families, and the Chu family just so happened to be one of the higher-ranked ones among the seven.
Qi, Qin, Chu, Yan, Zhao, Wei, Han.
That was roughly the order the families were ranked in.
The patriarch of the Qi family was Qi Xun, the number one pioneer when the Yun Xiao Kingdom was first founded. He had an extremely important position as a high-ranking official in the kingdom for a decade thereafter, and even all the way to the present day, the Qi family was still the leader of the seven major families.
The Qin family was once a relatively insignificant family compared to their six counterparts, but a generation of insanely-talented prodigies suddenly emerged among the ranks, and they gradually claimed a berth as the newest addition to the seven major families.
The Chu family’s patriarch had also contributed greatly to the founding of the kingdom, but the family was responsible for guarding its borders, and only moved into the capital over a century later.
The Yan family consisted of the guardians of the imperial family. They were connected very closely to the imperial family, but they were also the weakest among the seven major families. The only reason they were ranked alongside their six counterparts was due to their special identities.
The Zhao, Wei, and Han families made consistent appearances in the history of the kingdom. Their power was comparable to any of the four families that were ranked above them, but they were of a slightly lower status, due to a lack of contribution to the kingdom compared to the Qi, Qin, Chu, and Wei families.
In any case, they formed the foundation of the kingdom’s power.
The Chu family would definitely not be willing to let things slide, even if someone from one of the other major families had killed Chu Kaolie, let alone an underprivileged warrior like Qi Ying.
Qi Ying was just thinking about the seven major families, when a sharp pain shot through his back, and he reflexively swept a palm behind him.
Slap!
Something was pulverized by his hand.
Qi Ying looked down and his expression instantly changed.
There was an Ice Fire Ant carcass on his right hand, and pus was still flowing from its body while a dark purple mist wafted through the air.
‘Ant poison!’
Qi Ying immediately unleashed his True Energy Protective Barrier, but a portion of the ant poison had already entered his body.
historical
Thankfully, the toxins within one Ice Fire Ant were quite limited, and an Energy Martial Stage like him would be able to repress it with his True Energy. As long as he didn’t absorb the toxins from more than ten ants at once, he wouldn’t be in too much danger.
Thus, he immediately circulated his True Energy to target the toxins that had already entered his bloodstream.
However.
‘This feeling...’
Qi Ying was slightly stumped as he found that even after the ant poison had entered his body, he didn’t experience any sense of paralysis as he had expected.
On the contrary, a scorching flow of energy seemed to have appeared in his body. Following some internal inspection, Qi Ying discovered that after the purple ant poison entered his bloodstream, it was broken down by the grey light in his bloodline, and thus converted to pure energy!
‘I’m immune to ant poison?!’
Qi Ying was stunned.
However, thinking back, he realized that he seemed to have never been poisoned throughout his life.
Even back when he was stung by wasps as a child, the swelling on his body would always disappear in a short time. He was also bitten by a snake on one occasion, but that didn’t do anything to him either.
At that moment.
Rustle rustle rustle!
All of a sudden, over ten Ice Fire Ants appeared before him.
‘Crap!’
He had just unintentionally killed an Ice Fire Ant, and the scent of its internal fluids was permeating through the nest, thereby attracting the attention of a large number of ants.
Qi Ying unleashed a palm projection to send all of the Ice Fire Ants before him flying. At the same time, he turned and quickly fled the scene to avoid more ants converging upon and surrounding him.
However, he had only taken just one step.
Crack!
A sticky sensation welled up underfoot.
“F*ck! Why did you have to throw yourself under my shoe?”
Qi Ying swore at the Ice Fire Ant he had just trodden on.
At that moment, more and more ants were swarming toward him from all directions.
The entire nest was filled with the eerie rustling of countless ants scurrying over sandstone.
Qi Ying quickly departed, treading upon and killing several more Ice Fire Ants in the process.
The scent of their internal fluids was drawing more and more of their companions to Qi Ying.
All of the ants converged toward the invader, exuding their most lethal purple toxic mist in the process.
Qi Ying strengthened his True Energy Protective Barrier, but the toxic mist was able to erode through it.
Soon, a large amount of it passed through his barrier, and was absorbed into his body.
Qi Ying was then able to confirm that the ant poison truly had no effect on him!
Not only was it completely harmless, it was transformed into energy that replenished his own energy reserves. Of course, most of that energy was taken by his left hand.
Large amounts of toxic mist were breathed in, but he experienced no symptoms of paralysis, dizziness, or hallucinations. Instead, it was only working to benefit him.