If Ma Jian were there, he would have found the scene extremely familiar.
There was a boiling pot of water, and a table next to it lined with chopped materials that looked like ingredients for cooking…
Water hydrates, hence it is able to nourish wood. The materials on the table consisted mostly of wood-type materials, with a few water-type materials mixed within. Devil Mantises had wood-type attributes.
Gao Peng picked up what looked to be a fish's swim bladder in his hands. It was about the size of a fist and transparent. In this air bladder, there was a bit of greyish white liquid.
He took a silver needle and carefully poked a small hole in the air bladder. He drained the liquid out until, finally, a seed came out as well.
This was a Fish Bubble, a type of material that grew from trees. It was extremely resilient, could withstand high temperatures, and was waterproof as well.
Gao Peng blended the other chopped materials together and placed it into the Fish Bubble. Gently flipping the Fish Bubble around, it became a little pocket, wrapping all the materials together. After tying up the opening on the Fish Bubble with a dead knot, the materials were all properly contained within the Fish Bubble.
He repeated these steps until he had filled 10 Fish Bubbles, before putting them all in the boiling water.
This step was really troublesome. He needed to cook the materials in boiling water, but at the same time, he had to prevent the materials from being contaminated by the steam or else the medicinal properties of the wood-attribute materials would be damaged.
Ten minutes later, he fished out all the Fish Bubbles and placed them on a wooden board. Because metal overcomes wood, the medicinal materials could not be allowed to come into contact with metal or else contamination would occur then as well.
Using a glass knife, he gently cut open the fish bubbles. The medicinal materials were stuck together after being cut, blended and cooked. He rolled them into balls before feeding them to the Devil Mantises.
After eating them, the Devil Mantises began to tremble before suddenly collapsing. They lay on the floor with their wings twitching mildly.
The first step was now completed. Only two more steps left. Gao Peng worked without stopping, preparing the next batch of medicinal herbs.
At night, the laboratory lights remained bright.
Gao Peng was the only one in the lab, so all the steps needed to be completed by him alone. All the materials were weighed using high-precision electronic scales to the accuracy of 0.01 grams.
The experiment continued all the way until next morning before finally coming to completion. In the lab were ten Devil Mantises that had fallen into deep comas.
Gao Peng tidied up all the excess materials and tossed them into concentrated sulfuric acid before taking of his mask and gloves.
He opened the laboratory doors. Outside, Liu Senlin, who had waited for a whole night, was awakened by the door opening. He got up from his chair and hurriedly went up to Gao Peng. "Mr. Gao, the results of the experiment…"
"It should have been successful. They should be able to wake up in the afternoon." Gao Peng was a little fatigued after working through the night. Right now, all he wanted was to have a good rest.
"That's great, thank you Mr. Gao," Liu Senlin nodded repeatedly. "Our company has already arranged for a room. If Mr. Gao requires it, you can head to the room to rest. If you would like to head home instead, we also have a car specially prepared to send you home."
Gao Peng thought for a moment. "Please send me directly to my studio then. Sorry for the trouble."
Entering his studio, Gao Peng lowered the backrest of his chair and adjusted it to a comfortable position for sleeping. Since there were few customers anyway, he could probably sleep with peace of mind.
Gao Peng slept into the afternoon before waking up on his own. As expected, there were no customers throughout the whole morning.
He saw the thank-you text sent by Liu Senlin after he woke up. It said that some of the Devil Mantises had begun to evolve. Gao Peng was not surprised because the Mantises that he had chosen were the best among the lot, and were the most suitable for evolution. Each of them was at level 20. Just a promotion in grade would fulfil the requirements for evolution. It would be surprising if they had not evolved.
At the other side, Liu Senlin's heart was beating fast. A Devil Mantis was beginning to evolve right in front of his eyes. Its body was slowly increasing in length. On its back, its wings raised high. A tearing sound came from its skin as a new, stronger-looking pair of wings emerged from under the skin.
Whoosh~
With a gentle shake, the fluid that was stuck on the wings was blown off.
A mere flutter of its wings sent the dust on the ground flying and made a mess out of Liu Senlin's hair.
Its body bent forward and its bladed forelimbs sunk into the cement floor.
Blurry-looking balls of light surrounded the Devil Mantis, and were rushing into its body one by one. With each ball of light, its body grew in size.
The evolution process took around fifteen minutes before coming to an end.
The Devil Mantis before Liu Senlin had changed completely. Its height was one and a half times its original size, and its body had ballooned to three times of what it originally was.
The number of wings it had behind its back had doubled, such that it had two pairs now. Its sleek, emerald-bladed limbs were thrust into the cement floor, cutting through it as easily as cutting a block of tofu.
Its color had also turned into a jade green, as though the monster was carved out of the highest quality jade.
The surrounding Devil Mantises took a glance at it and cautiously backed away from it. Mantises were not social animals. When facing a stronger member of their species they would not choose to submit to it, but to run or hide instead.
"Commander tier, Four-Winged Jade Devil Mantis…" muttered Liu Senlin as he pushed up his spectacles. He felt as though he were looking at a distinguished work of art.
Before this Devil Mantis evolved, his entire company only had a total of four commander tier Devil Mantises. With this one, it would bring the total number to five. With its evolution, it proved that it had successfully promoted to a perfect grade.
In the past, Liu Senlin had approached other intermediate level Monster Breeders before. But because Devil Mantises were rather niche Familiars, they found little success in promoting them. His only alternative was to approach the Experiment Division of the Southern Sky Group, where he had bought the Devil Mantises from, as these mantises were created by the Experiment Division themselves. In the past, each successfully promoted Devil Mantis came at the price of spending huge amounts of money.
This Gao Peng was really his lucky star.
At the thought of Gao Peng, Liu Senlin felt a burning wave of relief in his heart. Hiring Gao Peng to be the company's Monster Breeder consultant was definitely the wisest decision he had ever made.
Back then, he had only agreed to sign a contract with Gao Peng at the request of his uncle. But right now, he truly admired this young man from the bottom of his heart.
It was not clear what Gao Peng's actual identity was, but his uncle had specifically reminded him not to give him too much slack, nor to offend him.
But even excluding his mysterious identity, Gao Peng's abilities alone were worth paying plenty of attention to.
…
Three days later, along the perimeter of the Dark Ember Forest, a large amount of soldiers had already sealed off the area inside and cleared out a large open area outside the perimeter.
In the rear, numerous artillery vehicles were at the ready, like cold, hulking metal beasts. There seemed to be traces of cannon fire along the edges of the forest.
"We are glad to have all of you here," the military representative addressed his large audience.
There were a few groups of people in front of him, each clearly separate from each other, and each divided into a few teams of their own.
Within this group of people, those from the Blue Shield Protection Company were the most eye-catching.
Within their ranks were eight jade-green giant mantises that were much larger that the surrounding Devil Mantises. They caught plenty of attention from the surrounding groups.
A regular Devil Mantis was two meters tall, but these Four-Winged Jade Devil Mantises reached a height of almost three meters. Their presence brought an immense feeling of pressure to everyone around them.
Eight commander tier Familiars!
Each of the organizations around them sent only three to four commander tier Familiars. After all, there was no way they could have sent their full strength on a single mission.
"According to the experiments we have performed on a few live samples that were captured, we have found that the Brutal Grey Devil Spider's weakness is fire. They clearly react in terror towards flames."