Lonemoon was speechless, it felt like he had met a fake queen earlier. But he was too lazy to bother with her and walked right towards Shen Ying, looked at the egg in her hands and asked, "How is it Shen Ying, is this the spirit seed?"
Shen Ying frowned, only replying moments later. "Perhaps..." With that said, her hands tighten, with a crack, the spirit seed was crushed.
"Damn, Shen Ying what are you... huh?" He paused midway, instantly stunned. "It's empty!" How could this be, he looked closely at her palms, there was only the empty eggshells, there was nothing in it at all. Even that aura of original source that was initially on it had vanished.
For a moment, the gazes of all three people fell onto a certain massive being.
"It... It has nothing to do with me, Mdm!" The queen shivered as her entire body began trembling, a layer of dust fell from the room, looking like it was about to collapse from her shaking. "I... I've never opened that egg, I only absorbed some of the energy on the shell. Really! I swear!" As she spoke, she lifted eight claws and two feelers, leaving only a huge belly to maintain her shape.
"This spirit seed might not have been in this egg from the start." Yi Qing said in a low voice. "This might be why we couldn't sense its location no matter what in the Immortal Spirit Academy previously." The Qi of the original source on the shell was too weak, without it being in their presence they couldn't sense it too. At the beginning, they'd thought it was because the egg shell was hiding the spirit seed, they didn't expect the spirit seed to not be here at all.
On further thought, Lonemoon thought that makes sense too! It seems like this queen wouldn't dare lie to Shen Ying too. Besides, spirit seeds carried such concentrated Qi of the original source, if it was really in the insect nest, it was impossible that they were unaware.
"What do we do now?" He frowned, their lead was broken again. "Where do we go to find it?"
"The egg shell is here now, then it's highly possible that the spirit seed had already broken away from this form." Yi Qing also frowned. "Right now we do not know what form it will appear in, we're indeed at a loss of where to start looking."
Both of them went silent, they didn't think it would be a futile attempt.
"Why don't we find and ask fish bone?" Shen Ying suddenly suggested.
"What fish bone?" Lonemoon was confused then came to a realization a moment after. "You're referring to Ling Wen Xuan? Why him?"
On the other hand, Yi Qing faltered before hastily reminding, "Father Niu, do you remember how Ling Wen Xuan injured his legs?"
"Ah?" Lonemoon was still lost. "Didn't they say it was during a mission from the academy that he met a demon monster and even brought this spirit... damn!" He was instantly enlightened, his eyes widened abruptly. "Could it be that he was the one to bring this spirit seed back?!"
Ling Hong had mentioned to him that the first prize of the league was something that was found during the time Ling Wen Xuan injured his legs in a mission. This proved that they must have encountered danger before finding it, Ling Wen Xuan was even injured, then he naturally ought to know what happened then.
"Let's go, we'll go back to find him!" He walked out directly, Shen Ying and Yi Qing followed.
In a moment's time, three people disappeared from the room. A certain massive being that was still curled up in a corner then sighed in relief carefully, while still not daring to let out sounds there were too loud, afraid of bringing the people who'd already left back.
She actually didn't die, she was actually still alive, her race was still well! She really wanted to cry...
——————
The few of them flew very quickly, in less than ten minutes they were back in Yang City and heading right for Ling Hong's house. Ling Hong had gone to the academy, when they arrived, he'd yet to return, Ling Wen Xuan who opened the door was stunned for a moment when he saw them before he ushered them in.
"My three benefactors, why are you here?" He was delighted and invited them to sit. In the short period of a few days, his legs had already recovered, he could walk like a normal person. Lonemoon swept a glance and found that the demonic aura in his body had completely dissipated and he had resumed his Golden Core cultivation.
"I was intending on personally paying you a visit to give my thanks after my brother returns, I didn't expect you all to come here first." He looked at the three of them and questioned after a thought came to mind. "I remember that it is the day of the finals today, why did Ling Hong not return together?"
"We had something on so we left first." Lonemoon replied, "We disrupted you today because we had a matter that we wanted to ask Fellow Daoist Ling for some information about."
"You're too polite, just call me Wen Xuan." His smile was exceedingly gentle. "The recovery of my legs was all thanks to the help of you guys. Wherever you need, please feel free to let me know, climbing a mountain of swords or plunging into a sea of flames, I will not say no."
"Not at all, fellow daoist." Lonemoon habitually said a word of courtesy.
We only helped to refine the fish bone, it's not considered any great act of kindness."
Yet his expression became even more solemn. "What are you saying! My brother couldn't tell, but how would I not know. Regardless of how unusual the Red Scented Fish bone was, it cannot cure my legs and recover my cultivation." He said directly, "The medicine you gave me that day was completely different from what my brother had produced, I understand that it was you all helping me in the dark that I could recover so quickly!"
As he spoke, he dropped to his knees and solemnly bowed to the three of them. "Thank you all, for the grace of rebirth!"
"Don't mention it, Wen Xuan!" He didn't expect him to be a wise one, that was great then. Lonemoon quickly helped him up. "The last time was just a small matter, but now we indeed have something that needs to trouble you."
"Please speak!" Ling Wen Xuan seemed to have noticed their haste and asked directly, without any delay.
"Could please tell us in detail about this rainbow colored egg?" He brought out the colored egg that had been broken by Shen Ying earlier on and was repaired by his spell. "Where did you find this that day, did you encounter anything?"
"This... colored egg?" Ling Wen Xuan faltered, glancing at the egg, a trace of surprise flashed across his face at once. "Turns out you won the championship of the league! Congratulations fellow daoist." He excitedly congratulated before answering, this egg was found on a mission I went on with a teacher from the academy to the northern flame mountain."
He thought back carefully before continuing to say, "The Flame Mountain is a fire mountain, there are many demon monsters deep in the Flame forest near it. Back then it was because high level demon monster charged into a city and they were unable to handle it, and so requested for Immortal Spirit Academy to help out. And this colored egg was found in the den of the demon monster after we exterminated it."
"Other than this, did any unusual things happen?" Lonemoon continued to question.
"No." He shook his head. "If you were to say unusual... that demon monster was surprisingly aggressive, even teacher couldn't guard against it completely, that's why I..." He subconsciously looked down at his own legs and sighed. "After I was bitten, I lost all my cultivation and was totally unable to use any spells."
Hold on! Cultivation?