When Rick's internal clock roused him from his dream, he felt an outrageous heaviness on both shoulders, already numb. His hands and legs seemed tangled, unable to move.
Why this sensation? Rick's half-awake mind puzzled.
"I'm tied up!—" The thought jolted him awake like a bucket of cold water, eyes snapping open.
"Huh?"
No upside-down hanging by the Wolf Pack as imagined—he still lay by the bookshelves, but...
Rick's face burned at the sight. This was the so-called surrounded by beauties. His left arm held Anna in her underwear, hand resting—perhaps too freely—on her round, firm butt. Glancing down, his face reddened further: Anna's cleavage pressed provocatively against him, her sexy legs coiled around his left thigh like a water snake.
On his right, Lav was no different. Golden hair spilled over his chest; she seemed to love this warm spot, practically sprawled on him. His right arm served as her pillow, his palm brushing the taut nub beneath her thin clothes.
"Dear... God..."
Such a seductive scene—how could this adolescent boy resist? A physical reaction surged unbidden. Unfortunately, Lav's position was ill-timed: the swelling bulge in his pants brushed her sensitive nose as it strained against the fabric.
"Be good, don't move!～～" Lav mumbled in her dream, as if soothing a pet. Her hand stroked the very thing Rick struggled to control, and finding her dream-pet unruly, she even gave it a kiss.
Pop!～～
That was the last straw for the inexperienced Rick. His eyes rolled back, a long breath escaping—with a dampness...
"Ugh, you disgusting pervert! I'll never talk to you again!" Lav blushed, shuffling far from Rick.
"I... I didn't mean to..." Rick's head hung low, daring not to meet her gaze.
"You did... Achoo!～～" Lav's nose itched fiercely, sneezing until her nostrils flared red.
"Caught a chill?" Rick remembered Lav's clothes hadn't dried since yesterday, and the underground dampness might have caused a cold.
"A bit cold." Lav shivered, hugging her arms.
"Here, take this." Rick removed his tattered leather jacket and draped it over her shoulders. Lav initially wanted to refuse but accepted gratefully.
Just then, Anna arrived with another armful of books to burn, wrapped in a cloak. Normally, Lav would have argued fiercely—though she'd hated studying as a child, she couldn't stand book-burning. But too cold to protest, she only moved her lips wordlessly.
A warm fire soon crackled. To help the paper burn, Rick tore thick books into sheets. As he grabbed a book, a falling page caught his eye. The illustration showed combat moves, with tiny annotations on human body parts.
"This is... body technique!" Rick's heart leaped. He stopped his savage book-burning, wiping the book with his sleeve to read carefully.
For insect hunters, a good combat egg is crucial, but body technique comes first. Rick spent his first week at Kester Insect Association training in it. Only after reaching certain transaction volumes and earning enough badges could one learn advanced techniques.
Of course, the Association didn't monopolize body techniques. Families like Rant's Sheffield, known as the Spirit Spear Clan, had ancient martial arts. Shust, though of unknown origin, claimed his technique surpassed even the Association's advanced ones.
But this hardly helped rookies like Rick, who lacked noble lineage or access to ancient techniques. Reaching Insect General rank, he felt stuck. He'd once asked Shust about this.
Shust wasn't much higher in egg cultivation, but his combat style stood out: rarely transforming, he relied on Heavenly Wolf Spider abilities and formidable body technique. Similarly, Rant, though entering Insect General later than Rick, outclassed him—partly due to his insect's higher rank, but also his miraculous spear skills, Rick's greatest fear.
Body technique—through millions of years of human evolution, it remains the sole combat instinct exclusive to humans. Unlike insects' innate hunting instincts, this human combat ability requires continuous learning to master. Previously, Rick had lacked such a learning opportunity, but now, he could hardly believe such a chance had been presented to him so easily.
"Breath—only by fully unlocking the power of breath can one become a true warrior." This was the first sentence in the body technique book, and it immediately plunged Rick into deep thought.
After several battles, Rick had noticed severe stamina issues—after intense fights, his energy drained rapidly. Shust had taught him a simple breathing method, urging him to use a unique rhythm during combat. Once he consciously controlled his breathing, his stamina indeed improved, sparking Rick's envy for Shust's body technique.
He'd overheard Shust say that before becoming an insect master, an insect hunter couldn't be called a warrior—merely a human-shaped weapon temporarily transformed by an insect. Shust's words made Rick ashamed: his high compatibility with the insect egg had made him fully embrace the scythe insect's combat instincts. With limited fighting styles, he fought little differently from the insect itself, differing only in strength.
In essence, Rick's combat relied on adopting the insect's methods, which helped the egg evolve and reach higher Insect General ranks but did nothing for his own combat literacy. Without sufficient personal combat skill, even maxing out an Insect General egg could never lead to becoming an insect master.
"I will become an insect master—definitely!" The thought of body technique as a crucial threshold set Rick's blood ablaze.
He sprang up, pointing at the pile of books destined for fuel. "Help me find any book with 'body technique'! None related to that can be burned!" With that, he dashed into the labyrinth of bookshelves.
Behind him, Anna, holding a book to toss into the fire, looked at Lav curiously. "What's wrong with him?"
Lav tightened her clothes. "No idea. Maybe he found something he wants to learn. These books are 300 years old—priceless documents and records. Only a barbarian like you would burn them for firewood."
"Barbarian!～～" Anna bristled at the insult, but a sudden thought struck her. "Right! Even if there's no treasure, the annual city taxes were huge. If we find the mayor's account logs, we can track the money!"
This prospect outweighed arguing with Lav. With coins dancing in her head, she forgot about the firewood and vanished into the shelves...
It was hard to imagine that Rick and his companions had come here to take refuge, but the current development had turned them all into bookworms.
Needless to say, Lav had completely immersed herself in the history of Tanzan City. Yellowed journals were leafed through again after 300 years, and the secrets they held were all committed to Lav's mind, thanks to her unique ability of photographic memory.
Rick was no less absorbed than Lav—if anything, his obsession ran deeper. The library held not many but still a full bookshelf of over a hundred volumes on body techniques, encompassing various schools and combat skills from Tanzan City's era.
From this, it seemed body technique cultivation hadn't been a secret in Tanzan City, yet people didn't value it. They'd apparently focused on another killing technique, which Rick now found worthless, while these forgotten ancient tomes were the true treasures.
However, the sheer number of body technique classics posed a problem. Aware of their value, Rick couldn't bear to abandon any, but mastering them all in a short time was impossible—he feared even a lifetime might not suffice to practice three or four of them.
This was Rick's current state: always wanting more. Some might call him greedy, but his upbringing had ingrained a near-obsessive lust for wealth. Terrified of returning to nothingness, he refused to give up on this intangible treasure.
"Block, slice, dismantle!" The three-word formula flashed through his mind, and his body reacted instantly—raising his arm to strike the opponent's inner elbow, stepping forward like an arrow, ready to dismantle the bones.
"Wait, who am I fighting?" Suddenly, this crucial question struck Rick, halting his fluid movements as clarity returned.
First, he saw a head of red hair—Anna, face pale. His right hand pressed against her collarbone, the first step in bone-breaking. His left hand gripped Lav's wrist; she knelt trembling, clearly in agony.
"What am I doing?" Rick started, releasing them hurriedly. The moment he let go, Lav and Anna shrieked in pain. Lav, sensitive to pain, wept until her eyes swelled.
"Sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me. I..." Rick frowned, struggling to explain even to himself.
"Hey, you! After I've been nice to you, you think you can run wild? Look, you've bruised my arm and swollen my hand!" Anna, hot-tempered, was the first to lash out.
"I didn't mean to." Rick mumbled.
"We know you didn't—if you did, you wouldn't be standing here." Anna threatened with her stinger, then stepped back warily. "Are you possessed or something?"
"Possessed?" Rick blinked. "I was just dreaming—practicing a body technique. Then you woke me up..." Realizing something, he pointed at Anna. "That's it! Can't you wake people gently? Don't you know not to startle a sleeper?"
"Gently? Would that wake you? You've slept a whole day, pig! How long do you want to sleep?"
"A whole day..."
"Of course! Our food's almost gone. If you want to live here forever, at least get some supplies." Lav pouted.
"Oh right—we've been here nearly a week." Lav's words jolted Rick. Checking their food pouch, only crumbs remained.
"I'll check if the Wolf Pack is gone."
"Wait—before surfacing, we need to visit two places. That's why we woke you." Lav and Anna exchanged a smile.
"Where?"
"The bank!" Anna brandished a thick account book, pointing to two characters.
"Bank? What's that?" The term was new to Rick.
"You don't need to know—just follow us." Anna laughed triumphantly, already imagining swimming in a sea of gold coins.
"And the Royal Academy of Sciences." Lav interjected.
"Royal Academy of Sciences?" Rick was more confused—these new terms were unfamiliar.
"It holds insect eggs... from 300 years ago."
Forcing himself, Rick used the dumbest method to memorize the body technique classics, even the illustrations, pushing his mind to record them like a computer. He lacked Lav's photographic memory, but his pathological perseverance maximized his potential—including memory and brain capacity.
After five rotations of his internal clock—over 120 hours—Rick miraculously hadn't rested, memorizing millions of words from the body technique books. He hadn't learned or even understood them, merely stored everything to practice later.
Finally done, Rick's frayed nerves screamed for rest. He rose haggardly from the books, shaking his throbbing head, and walked to the shelf where Lav stayed. There, he saw Lav comfortably propped up, using books as a table, chin in hand as she flipped pages and jotted notes in a large notebook.
"Where's Anna?" Rick sat beside her, sipping water.
"Checking accounts over there." Lav pointed with her pen, then looked up in alarm. "Wow, why are your eye circles so dark? You have wrinkles!"
"Brain overuse." Rick yawned, spotting Anna still buried in account books—enough to give him a headache. "I hope I don't develop a reading phobia..." He smiled wryly, rubbing his temple before curling up beside Lav to sleep.
Exhausted, he soon snored loudly. Yet five days of intense study had formed a mental habit: even asleep, his mind churned, producing dreams.
Rick was indeed dreaming, but not an ordinary one—it was like a body technique tutorial. In this dream, he felt like an outsider, clearly watching himself stand with a faceless figure, practicing the illustrated moves he'd memorized over and over.
At first, dream-Rick was clumsy, unable to execute moves properly. But with repetition, his form grew fluid, nearly matching his unseen teacher's.
"Rick!――"
A familiar cry jolted him awake. Instinctively rolling over, he used a move from his dream.
"Hey! Are you crazy?!"
Another cry—Rick realized he'd seized someone's wrist. As he prepared to twist the joint as practiced, a stinger jabbed toward his ear stopped him.
"Three-hundred-year-old insect eggs? Can they still be used?"
"According to this, there's a device that can store insect eggs long-term. If it's still operational, we should find some eggs—and they'll be completely different from today's." Lav's voice trembled with barely contained excitement.
"Right! Three-hundred-year-old eggs—worth a fortune!" Anna cut in.
"No selling my eggs!" Lav protested instantly.
Anna scoffed. "You'll just study them, and they'll be useless afterward. Better I sell them."
In the oasis, sunlight dappled through lush trees, but Kashin's mood was far from sunny—like a storm brewing, ready to erupt.
"Sir." A subordinate knelt tremblingly beside him.
"Still nothing?" Kashin's expression remained as eerily handsome as ever, but his tone was ice-cold, forced through clenched teeth.
"Y-yes, sir." The subordinate finally forced out the answer after a long hesitation.
Those words ignited Kashin's pent-up fury. He grabbed the man's hair, glaring murderously. "Six days! Six days of searching! Tell me, where the hell are those brats? I can't believe they could vanish in such a small area unless they can truly fly or burrow!"
"I don't know, sir..." The subordinate bowed his head helplessly.
"Useless fools! What good are you!" Kashin's killing intent flared as blade-like horns sprouted from his elbows.
Just then, the lake exploded as a shadow rocketed out, spun in mid-air, and landed lightly.
"Don't take out your incompetence on your men." Balzac's mocking tone slithered into Kashin's ears like a viper.
Kashin whirled, red-rimmed eyes fixed on Balzac. "Want to settle this now?"
"After we deal with those brats, I'll gladly oblige."
Kashin started, his aggression fading. "You found them?"
"Found where they're hiding."
"Where?!" Kashin reached for Balzac's shoulder, but caught sight of Balzac's slightly opened fingers and stopped short.
Kashin's caution drew a smile from Balzac, who turned to point at the water. "They're right below us."