"Mantis brother, I'm sorry!"
Wei Ping tore off one leg of the mantis in his hand, and then summoned his avatar panel.
"Incubate!"
With a thought, the mantis leg in Wei Ping's hand disappeared.
Looking back at the crimson golden sphere in Wei Ping's sea of consciousness, he noticed that a green mantis leg had appeared at some point.
Sizzle! Sizzle!
The crimson color in the sphere began to fade and turned into a mist of blood, enveloping the green mantis leg completely.
Then, the sphere slowly began to rotate.
Wei Ping could feel the crimson energy slowly transforming into a tiny and mysterious substance that seemed to contain life.
Unfortunately, the incubation process was quite slow.
Wei Ping watched for a full quarter of an hour before the small substance grew slightly larger.
"It seems that incubating an avatar takes quite a bit of time?"
Wei Ping blinked his eyes, feeling a bit disappointed.
He had thought it would appear with just a snap of his fingers.
So Wei Ping opened the panel again, only to find that the data had already changed.
Name: Wei Ping
Realm: None
Technique: Golden Mantis Refinement Art (Harmony Degree: 3%. Practice Progress: 32%)
Avatar: Mantis (Incubation Progress: 2%)
Number of Condensable Avatars: 0
"Has it already incubated 2%?"
Wei Ping was pleasantly surprised
The benefit of data visualization is that it can make everything clear, so there's no need to feel anxious like before.
"A quarter of hour results in a 2% increase, so it will take fifty quarters of an hour for full growth. And one hour has eight quarters, which means there's still a little over six hours left?"
Wei Ping calculated the time and exclaimed, "So by tomorrow morning, my mantis avatar will be fully grown!"
That night was destined to be a sleepless one. Although Wei Ping knew the progress of his avatar's growth, he was too excited and frequently opened the panel to check on the progress.
...
When Wei Ping woke up the next day with dark circles under his eyes, the first thing he did was to open the panel again and check the progress of his avatar's growth.
When he saw that it had reached 61%, Wei Ping grinned and got up to wash up and prepare to have breakfast in the cafeteria.
Due to the avatar's growth, it seemed to have consumed a lot of his energy, and now he was hungrier than ever.
At this time, it was just barely dawn, but when Wei Ping arrived at the cafeteria, there were already many people eating breakfast inside.
These people were all teenagers around Wei Ping's age, who had been abducted by the Jin Tang Sect.
As far as Wei Ping knew, there were originally two hundred teenagers in this group. After ten months, only about twenty had successfully practiced the first level of shape-shifting.
Unless there were unexpected changes, the remaining one hundred and eighty teenagers with ordinary talent would have to participate in the mantis trial under the threat of their lives.
Under such pressure, they were pushing themselves to the limit every day, striving to pass the mantis trial in two months.
After getting his food, Wei Ping started chewing and swallowing as if he were a starving ghost.
"Hey, what's wrong with Wei Ping today? He's eating so much! Doesn't he know that eating too much will affect the movements of the Jin Tang shape-shifting technique and hinder his practice?"
"From what I see, Wei Ping knows he has extremely poor talent and is certain he won't pass the mantis trial, so he's giving up on himself. Since he won't pass anyway, why not enjoy the last two months by eating and sleeping well..."
"He's a wise man!" snickered one of the boys "Unlike us, no matter how hard we practice, what good is it? Only half of the people can pass the trial, and that's an unchangeable result!"
"At least by working hard, there's still a chance to survive. If you don't try, you will die, won't you?"
Seeing Wei Ping's wolf-like and tiger-like appearance as he ate, the others in the sect cafeteria couldn't help but make fun of him, but some also sighed at their own situation.
Wei Ping paid no attention to this.
He only wanted to fill his stomach now!
Fortunately, the laughter didn't last too long, and no one came to pick a fight with him.
There were only two months left until the mantis trial, and everyone was under a lot of pressure. They didn't have time to waste, so they went back to their practice after eating.
In the first ten months, the young men had to practice every day and were indoctrinated with the new ideology of the Golden Mantis Sect, which was known as "brainwashing."
But now that everything that needed to be taught had been taught, and everything that needed to be instilled had been instilled, it was up to the individual's own destiny. The Golden Mantis Sect did not force anyone to practice.
As a result, some people went to the practice field to spar with others, some went back to their rooms to practice alone, and others decided to listen to the instructors explain martial arts to see if they could gain something from it. There were many different ways to spend their time.
After finishing his meal, Wei Ping also returned to his small room.
Seeing that his avatar's gestation progress had reached 63%, Wei Ping smirked.
...
Two hours passed quickly, and when the gestation progress of his avatar reached 100%, Wei Ping couldn't help but shake his body.
Because he could feel that his soul seemed to have been split in two at that moment.
One was still himself, and the other was a little hazy, struggling to open its eyes.
In the golden nucleus, Wei Ping curiously looked at the hazy world and then looked down at his own hand. It had turned into a tender mantis arm with irregular serrations.
"Mantis avatar, success!"
Wei Ping was overjoyed.
Immediately, he moved his mind, and the mantis avatar disappeared from the core of his knowledge sea, appearing in the palm of his hand.
"So small?"
Wei Ping's mouth twitched slightly.
Because his mantis avatar was only the size of a fingernail, its whole body appeared tender and slightly translucent.
However, the two of them had indeed established some kind of strange connection.
In Wei Ping's view, he saw the young and tender mantis avatar.
And in the mantis avatar's view, there appeared a figure as big as a mountain
And it didn't take long for Wei Ping to get familiar with this peculiar state, and he also had almost complete control over the body of his avatar.
"I'm going to start practicing the Golden Mantis Body Refining Technique. I hope there will be surprises!" Wei Ping's gaze sharpened, and he began his practice.
The next step was to verify if his idea was correct.
This was a matter of life and death!
"Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale..."
Wei Ping began to manipulate his avatar, performing various movements in the body refining technique.
Before, Wei Ping always felt uncomfortable when doing the movements of the technique. But now, that feeling had disappeared, and the avatar's movements were very smooth!
At the same time, Wei Ping no longer needed to control his breathing rate deliberately.
Because he found that the avatar was naturally breathing, which resonated with the movements.
"Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale..."
The avatar moved its body, swaying left and right, striking with its blade arms, and then opening and closing its mandibles.
Soon, Wei Ping felt a warm stream flowing inside him.
More accurately, it came from his avatar.
Although this warm feeling was not very obvious, it did exist.
The warm flow wandered through the avatar's body, stimulating its various organs, promoting its growth, and strengthening its physique.
Wei Ping had never felt anything like this before.
"It's really effective!"
Wei Ping was overjoyed.
He had bet correctly. Practicing the Golden Mantis Body Refining Technique with his avatar did have a miraculous effect!
But the price of achieving good results in his practice was that the energy within the avatar was consumed after only a few repetitions of the technique, and its stomach became empty and twisted.
"I'm so hungry! I want to eat something!"
Feeling the demand transmitted from the avatar, Wei Ping subconsciously felt hungry himself.
But he quickly realized that it wasn't him who was hungry, but the avatar. The two couldn't be confused.
"Are you hungry? Wait a moment, I'll get you something to eat."
Wei Ping quickly took out the brown sugar steamed buns he had brought from the kitchen in the morning and tore them into pieces, scattering them on the ground.
Soon, several ants were attracted by the crumbs.
"This should barely be enough for a meal!"
With a smirk, Wei Ping manipulated the avatar to approach.
Although it had just been born, the mantis was a natural hunter and had an innate instinct to prey.
Whoosh!
The blade arm moved so fast that Wei Ping's eyes couldn't even keep up. The avatar had already caught an ant and immobilized it with its blade arms, then opened and closed its mandibles, starting to feast.
In just a few dozen breaths, the avatar had already eaten all the ants.
Until it had eaten six or seven ants, the abdomen of the mantis avatar swelled and became full, and only then did it no longer feel hungry.
"Continue to cultivate!"
Wei Ping narrowed his eyes and quickly controlled the mantis avatar to continue practicing the Golden Mantis Body Refining Technique.
Soon, a warm current appeared again, tingling and very comfortable.
Wei Ping became addicted to it and couldn't pull himself away.
So, the mantis avatar practiced when it was full and caught ants as food when it was hungry, and then practiced again after it was full, repeating this cycle.
It wasn't until it became dark again in the room that Wei Ping realized another day had passed.
And when Wei Ping summoned the interface, he found that the data on it had changed dramatically.
Golden Mantis Body Refining Technique (Affinity: 3%. Practice Progress: 33%)
"Wow! The practice progress of the Golden Mantis Body Refining Technique has actually increased by 1%?"
Wei Ping widened his eyes in disbelief.
Because previously, it had taken him a full ten months to increase the Golden Mantis Body Refining Technique to 32%.
In other words, it would take about ten days to increase it by 1%.
But now, the mantis avatar had only practiced for one day and increased it by 1%.
"Does that mean that the mantis avatar's cultivation speed is ten times faster than mine?"
When he came to this conclusion, Wei Ping was also surprised.