The Great Worm Lich

 Zhang Lisheng exhaled leisurely after changing and filling his stomach with food. He washed his hands and went out of the room with his backpack. He walked quickly out of the hotel following the corridor. He ran towards a dark corner quietly that he found, as he looked around. He chanted witchcraft incantation in the dark corner, soon a giant lizard which silhouette looked like a Western black dragon appeared next to him.

He lifted his head to look at Island Dragon’s ferocious face hidden in the night and climbed onto his wizard worm. He controlled the giant lizard to hop up, traveling across Rukututu’s night sky like it was gliding, while changing colors continuously. Over ten minutes later, he arrived in the Amazon jungle.

At the dense jungle’s border, Zhang Lisheng controlled Island Dragon to stop. He got off the wizard worm and took a few steps back on the muddy jungle ground. He spat a mouthful of black blood and shouted the word ‘transform’. A mysterious power activated in the silence naturally, as the spell came out. It splashed onto Island Dragon together with the black blood and penetrated into the wizard worm’s skin. Island Dragon shrieked in ‘tss…’ while its body grew a few meters longer now.

Through this refinement, Island Dragon’s body looked even more slender and smooth than before. It revealed an indescribable ferociousness and rapidness with its three-segment scorpion tail moving softly at the back. Unfortunately, Zhang Lisheng was dissatisfied with Island Dragon’s improvement that had no changes on its nature, “I’ve already transformed an ancient strange insect by accident, I’ve never expected the spell ‘refine’ can’t transform it further. It would be great even if it’s just one more tail… Forget it, I still have Mountoad…”

He mumbled then began chanting witchcraft incantation to control Mountoad to hop out of his backpack. Subsequently, he spat a mouthful of black blood and shouted the word ‘transform’. Within the rainforest, the hundreds or thousands of hollowed spikes on its body stood up all of a sudden from Zhang Lisheng’s blood nourishments and activation of witchcraft incantation. There was sharp ‘tss…’ noise coming out of them, while it inhaled sea of air to expand its body to the size of a six-door bus.

It squatted on the ground while opening its mouth big, releasing countless spiral air into the sky, opening a ten meters big hole in the dense jungle above its head directly. Amazon’s bright moonlight shone onto Mountoad’s toad skin from the hole, showing a faint black smoke lingering on it. It made the wizard worm even more mysterious and terrifying than before.

Wizard power drained from refining wizard worms would go up continuously, following the frequency. Zhang Lisheng had just broken through to a Rank-4 Wizard, the exhaustion of wizard power from refining Island Dragon and Mountoad the third time now was more than what he used to do. Nevertheless, he panted for a while and caressed Mountoad’s body that was already bigger than a house and the bumps on its toad skin that was as big as a gong. He sighed, it was clear that he was unsatisfied with Mountoad’s refinement as well.

Later on, he closed his eyes to calm down his mind. He took a few steps back again and shouted the word ‘connect’ in Mandarin as his blood stirred. He performed the brand new spell that he obtained since he elevated to a Rank-4 Wizard. As the word ‘connect’ came out, the black blood that he spat went two ways, covering both of his wizard worms in a bloody mist. Mountoad’s shadow formed behind Island Dragon, while Mountoad’s back had Island Dragon’s black and white shadow as well.

With the boost of a spell, Mountoad’s body that usually seemed heavy looked extremely agile now. It could even move right, left, front and back so quickly, as if it was teleporting. Island Dragon, on the other hand, shrieked with its giant mouth wide opened, revealing its sharp teeth from the boost of a spell. It inhaled a mouthful of air as well as countless tree branches in front of it into its body. It formed a vacuumed area of over 100 meters long, three to four meters high and seven to eight meters wide.

As soon as the vacuumed area was formed, the air around was sucked in, causing a rumble of air explosions. The air explosions caused the surrounding to be in a sand mist, Island Dragon which had expanded more than 100 meters now hopped high up all of a sudden. It cleared a jungle land that was square kilometers wide with its mouth, claws and tail spike within a few seconds.

“So the spell ‘connect’ that I got since becoming a Rank-4 Wizard is a power for my wizard worms to… to connect their omniscient power! I don’t really see how Mountoad is benefited from Island Dragon’s nihilate and solidate omniscient power, but Island Dragon’s so… so powerful obtaining Mountoad’s expand and shrink omniscient power. This is a power that could totally destroy a modern civilized city, it could be done if the situation’s desperate…” Zhang Lisheng mumbled as he looked stunned, watching Island Dragon that was lying on the ground with its surroundings, that looked like a collapsed skyscraper after it was done destroying the place.

Before he was done speaking, he was hit by a pain in his head that he had not experienced for a long time all of a sudden. He was almost suffocating in the pain. He expected the pain to come, Zhang Lisheng tolerated it while clenching his teeth. A couple of minutes later, the pain subsided and replaced with deep exhaustion and sleepiness.

He wiped the cold sweat on his forehead away, knowing that he had maxed out the wizard power in his body. Nevertheless, he had refined both of his wizard worms while figuring out the function of the new spell that he obtained from breaking through to a Rank-4 Wizard. He controlled Mountoad to hop back into his backpack strenuously and walked to Island Dragon staggering. He climbed onto the giant lizard with great effort.

Later on, he chanted witchcraft incantation to control his wizard worm to hop up. He then left the rainforest quickly. As he returned to the hotel looking pale, he rejected the attendant’s kind greeting and returned to his room. He tolerated the exhaustion and replaced sleep with secret method cultivation. Finally, he regained his vitality after over 20 hours of cultivation.

He did not waste any time when he woke up. He had a clumsy steak meal and headed to the hotel counter that sold jungle survival material. Every holiday hotel in Tatetutu would have a big corner selling jungle survival items specifically. It seemed to become a custom, even in Rukututu which was heavily commercialized.

There were outdoor tents, Arc’teryx portable assault boat, Victorinox Swiss Army knife… Nobody was talking to him as Zhang Lisheng browsed the items on the racks. However, a native lady wearing an army attire came to him immediately as soon as he raised his hand. She asked, “Hi sir, may I know how could I assist you?”

“I need a couple of energy bars to fill this backpack,” Zhang Lisheng removed his backpack and opened it.

“You want to fill this backpack?” The native lady looked at the backpack in surprise, realizing there was nothing else in the backpack apart from a hideous wooden toad sculpture, who was about the size of a basketball. She might need at least 50 energy bars to fill it up. Energy bars that were brought into the jungle was not a snack, it was usually unsavory to eat with the main purpose of giving sufficient calories and nutrients. However, one energy bar was enough to give an adult energy for the entire day. It was very rare for a person to purchase 50 at once.

“Why? Do you not have that many energy bars here?”

“Of course not sir, please give me a minute. I’ll pack them for you right away,” Although Zhang Lisheng was not condemning, the native lady was scared and packed 50 energy bars into his backpack agilely as if she was terrified that the guest would be unhappy, “Is there anything else that you need?”

“Hmm, give me a lighter. There’s nothing else that I need, thanks,” Zhang Lisheng took out his credit card to pay as he spoke. He then rented a GPS device at the hotel’s front desk. As he prepared everything he needed, he asked for a limousine at the hotel to get to the nearest watercourse pier, since it was inconvenient to control his wizard worm to get him there during the day.

As he expected, all of the freshwater piers in Rukututu City were crowded with all sorts of wood dealers from all over the world, as well as the employees of all kinds that they hired. In such a crowded and noisy environment, nobody would notice a skinny Chinese young man wearing an army jacket carrying a thick canvas backpack, sneaking into the jungle not far away. Just like that, Zhang Lisheng soon sneaked into the rainforest as he wished and began looking for his third wizard worm.

A cricket with a head as big as a bean and extremely long antennas, thick shell on its back with sharp spikes on its front legs. It had wings as thin as cicada’s and flew in lightning speed; Amazon parasitic bee that had a tiny body, even when it was fully grown. It was silent when it flew, they would always secrete numbing poison into the prey’s neck, as well as injecting a few eggs, using its prey as the parasitical target. It consumed mainly the prey’s spinal cord, nerves, and brains; Bullet ant that usually come in a group, though small but it would give intense pain that lasts 24 hours when it bit someone. It could even cause the person’s heart to numb and die instantly…

For 20 days exactly, Zhang Lisheng went deep into the rainforest and selected tens of wizard worm embryos out of 100 of species with the spell ‘assemble’. However, none of them could consolidate omniscient power after they were refined into wizard worm. They were disposed of. Zhang Lisheng began to panic since the winter holiday was ending soon. He did not think that he had great luck that he captured two wizard worms possessing omniscient power effortlessly. Instead, he thought his luck turned bad. He began controlling Island Dragon to go deeper into Amazon jungle’s danger zone with the attempt to kill even more ferocious creature in order to hunt for the wizard worm that he was satisfied with.

It was afternoon the day before Zhang Lisheng had to get back to the airport to return to New York tomorrow morning. He was running out of time, he stood in a dimmed jungle area and controlled Mountoad to expand its body while shooting out three spiral airwaves that could be seen with naked eyes consecutively. It crushed hundreds of little beasts and a big part of the rainforest into pieces.

Later on, he spat a mouthful of black blood towards the messy trees with blood, without even looking and shouted the word ‘assemble’. At an instant, countless venomous worms and insects began fighting for the bloody food. As his wizard power boosted, although he could not attract large reptiles to turn them into gu with the ‘assemble’ spell, the spell could do more than what it could do when it worked on Mountoad back then. The creatures that were attracted here by the spell seemed extraordinary fierce when they fought. Soon, there were carcasses all over the ground, while the winner even ate the losers.