Silver 4
Using the words Grandfather, the Myriad Poisons Divine Lord, had shared as a hint, a thought suddenly rose in my mind: what if the Heavenly Silkworm had eaten the queen of the Pagoda Termites and evolved into a Silver Silkworm?
While I was still alone and stunned by the idea, Grandfather Myriad Poisons Divine Lord saw the look on my face, tilted his head, and asked,
"What's the matter, So-ryong? You look as if you've been shocked."
"It's just... something suddenly occurred to me..."
"Occurred to you? What?"
"Let us go to the Clan Head's Hall first. To where Father-in-law is. No—to where all the direct lineage members of the clan are gathered. I will explain it there together."
"Everyone? Is it that important?"
When I asked for every direct descendant to be assembled, Grandfather Myriad Poisons Divine Lord questioned whether it was truly a matter important enough to gather the entire direct line of the family.
"Of course. It is extremely important."
"I-is that so?"
My solemn reply made Grandfather flinch for a moment. Yet he simply dismissed me as an eccentric and laughed.
"You little rascal. Sometimes I really wonder what goes on in that head of yours. Very well then, let us go together."
And just as I had requested, he ordered the warriors standing watch nearby to summon Hwa-eun and Mother-in-law to the Clan Head's Hall.
"You men—inform Hwa-eun and Hwa-eun's mother that they are to come to the Clan Head's Hall."
"Yes, Great Clan Head!"
"There. Will that do?"
"Yes!"
The smile still lingering on his face suggested he thought I was merely getting myself worked up over nothing. But this truly was a great discovery—something that could not be discussed just anywhere. It had to be shared with every important person present. After all, this was the scholarly achievement of none other than Spicy Fabre.
I'm going crazy. After reincarnating into the Central Plains where trading blows with martial arts is the "mainstream physics," I am about to carve my name into the history of the already niche field of poison arts—and within that, the even more obscure specialty of venomous creatures!
The reason I was making such a fuss was simple: what I had just uncovered was the evolutionary mechanism of venomous beasts. The secretly hidden evolutionary pathway of both venomous creatures and spiritual beasts.
Learning about their diet or the abilities they possessed would have been a respectable academic achievement in its own right. But the mechanism by which they transcended their innate limits and became something entirely different—that was a scholarly discovery of an entirely higher order.
Of course, for now it was still only a hypothesis. Yet that only made it more valuable. A hypothesis had been formed, which meant I now had the chance to present it before the distinguished experts who shared our poison arts.
That is exactly why I asked for all the direct elders to be gathered.
Who else in the middle of a hobby could make such a monumental discovery and then present a formal hypothesis? Only someone on the level of Spicy Fabre.
I carefully hid the excitement on my face, followed Grandfather, and organized in my head everything I would explain to the family.
"The Heavenly Silkworm ate the empress of the Pagoda Termites and became a Silver Silkworm." It was still only a hypothesis, and any hypothesis presentation would inevitably draw a barrage of questions. I needed to prepare.
The evolution part has clear grounds, so that should be fine, but this particular question is bound to come up, right? I wonder if this is how my professors felt back in my previous life when they presented their research findings?
With that fluttering heart I arrived at the Clan Head's Hall. The moment I stepped inside, Father-in-law looked at me with mild surprise.
"Back already?"
"Yes. It was not far, so I returned quickly."
Father-in-law seemed to find it strange that I had gone to search for the place where Bini had been hiding and yet returned so soon. Still, at my answer he simply nodded as if it were no great matter.
"Glad it was close, then. Incidentally, Father has come with you as well?"
"Indeed. I ran into So-ryong on the way here because of this mushroom."
"I see. So-ryong, tell us what you found."
Father-in-law, who had not yet heard the story, asked me to recount my outing. Grandfather Myriad Poisons Divine Lord stepped in for me.
"Wait a moment. So-ryong said there is something he must tell us with every direct descendant of the Tang Clan present, so I have also summoned Hwa-eun and the lady of the house, Hwa-eun's mother."
"What? Even Hwa-eun and my wife?"
Father-in-law blinked at the news that the entire family had been called. Yet he soon seemed to sense something and nodded thoughtfully.
"Did you obtain what you sought?"
"Yes, Father-in-law."
"Then we shall wait a little."
After a short while Hwa-eun and Mother-in-law arrived.
"Grandfather, we heard you called for us."
"Father, why me as well?"
The two women entered and asked why they had been summoned. Father-in-law and Grandfather Myriad Poisons Divine Lord both looked at me and smiled.
"It was not I who called you—it was So-ryong."
"Since our son-in-law has summoned you, take your seats first."
The two of them tilted their heads in puzzlement and sat down. Once I confirmed they were seated, I steadied my racing heart, put on the most serious expression I could manage, and rose to my feet. After all, this was a hypothesis presentation.
"The reason I have gathered the four direct members of the family in one place is because I have discovered something of the utmost importance."
"Something important?"
Hwa-eun asked a question before I had even begun. The timing was awkward, so I answered with a strained smile.
"Questions later."
"?"
Hwa-eun blinked at me with a thoroughly bewildered expression. I felt a little sorry, but the occasion was the occasion, after all.
"First I will explain what I learned today when I went to confirm the place where Bini had been hiding. The reason I searched for Bini's hiding place was to discover how Bini had become a Dark Profound Fiend Serpent.
"If I could learn why Bini had transformed into a Dark Profound Fiend Serpent, I thought I might find a common thread with how Cho became a Flying Centipede, and thereby glimpse how a Heavenly Silkworm turns into a Silver Silkworm."
"Oh-ho..."
"Ah..."
The family members nodded at my orderly reasoning. Smiling, I continued.
"So I took Bini and searched for the place where it had hidden. It turned out Bini had taken shelter inside the snake den—the very place where I had thrown myself when the Blood Cult bastards appeared. That den swarming with lakeside vipers."
"You said it was close—was it really that close?"
"That child was in such a nearby place? They say the darkest place is under the lamp, yet we only looked far away... No wonder we never found it. We made the warriors suffer for nothing."
"Bini... ah..."
The two elders were astonished that Bini had been so near all along. Hwa-eun, who had already been scolded once, started to say something and then covered her own mouth.
Their startled voices interrupted the presentation, yet it was not exactly a question. As a father I also felt vaguely guilty about the warriors' wasted effort, so I simply continued with an awkward expression.
"Yes. According to Bini, it became a Dark Profound Fiend Serpent after feeding on the yin energy thick with death qi that had pooled there.
"Cho ate the inner core of the Flying Divine Snake, and Bini absorbed the stagnant yin energy of the snake den."
"A curious fact. To think it could even accept the yin energy that had gathered in a snake blood cave..."
"Indeed. Truly astonishing."
The two of them interrupted the story again, but I decided simply to press on. Come to think of it, this was probably the first time any of them had ever attended a presentation like this. I still felt a little bad for only scolding Hwa-eun earlier.
I feel needlessly sorry.
Carrying that apologetic feeling toward Hwa-eun, I explained the core of my hypothesis to the family—the conclusion I had logically deduced from the evidence already laid bare.
"So this is what I thought. Cho ate the inner core of the Flying Divine Snake and became a Flying Centipede. Bini sucked up the death qi—the yin energy pooled in the snake blood cave—and became a Dark Profound Fiend Serpent, did they not?
"I do not know if every venomous beast is the same, but it seems that when spiritual beasts among the venomous creatures absorb a great quantity of energy, they evolve. That is the idea that struck me."
When I finished explaining the heart of my hypothesis, Father-in-law and Grandfather Myriad Poisons Divine Lord both nodded.
"Oh-ho, so that is it. Because they are spiritual beasts, when they consume a vast amount of energy they transform into an entirely different form, as if remolding their bones and changing their very body. If one thinks of it that way, it fits perfectly."
"Certainly, when the body is filled with energy one undergoes a complete metamorphosis. If spiritual beasts are similar, then my son-in-law's opinion has considerable merit."
Two distinguished masters supported my view from the perspective of martial arts. With renewed confidence I delivered the conclusion.
"Yes. Therefore the conclusion I reached is this: did the Heavenly Silkworm not also eat something and become a Silver Silkworm? And the moment I saw the mushroom Grandfather Myriad Poisons Divine Lord showed me, this thought occurred to me.
"To humans the mushroom may be useless, yet it contains natural earth energy. If the Empress Pagoda Termite—said to live more than fifty years—ate it every single day, and if the Heavenly Silkworm then consumed that Empress Pagoda Termite...
"Would that not be more than enough for the Heavenly Silkworm to become a Silver Silkworm?"
"That mushroom every day for fifty years? And then the Heavenly Silkworm ate the Empress Pagoda Termite that had consumed it for fifty years?"
"A fascinating tale. If it is true, then another of the Ten Great Poisons will be added to the clan."
The elders nodded with faintly admiring expressions at my hypothesis. At that moment Hwa-eun asked in a careful voice,
"C-can I ask a question now?"
I had been feeling guilty anyway, so I quickly nodded.
"Of course."
Hwa-eun seemed to ponder something carefully, then asked the very question I had anticipated.
"But last time So-ryong explained that among ants there is only one empress, did he not? If she had been eaten, should there not have been no empress at all when we opened the breeding chamber?"
"Ah, that is right. So-ryong did say that during the army-ant incident."
A sudden question might have thrown me off, but when the expected one arrived a smile naturally rose to my lips. I smiled at Hwa-eun.
People tend to believe that an ant nest has only one queen, yet that is not entirely accurate. Depending on the species, some ants keep multiple queens.
And termites—creatures far closer to cockroaches than to ants—possess even more unique traits. Inside a termite nest exist what are called secondary reproductives: individuals that are neither the true queen nor mere workers, but something like princesses or secondary wives. They are called princesses, yet they actually lay eggs, and there are males that control them as well. In short they are a kind of reserve consort. Even more curious, some of them are genetic clones of the queen herself.
There is a reason for this arrangement. Unlike ants, termites cannot store a male's sperm for life after a single mating; they must mate frequently. That is why termites, uniquely among social insects, maintain a king. The problem arises if the queen dies for any reason. If a princess then takes over the lineage, she must mate with the king—and that would be inbreeding, with all the genetic risks that entails. Therefore the queen prepares her own clones in advance as a safeguard against possible genetic catastrophe.
So even if one queen vanishes, another clone queen will quickly take her place.
"...Therefore another Empress Pagoda Termite would naturally have succeeded her."
"Termites truly are peculiar insects."
"Indeed. To think the Pagoda Termites are so unusual..."
"Ah, I see."
After I explained those facts, the family members nodded. When my explanation ended, Father-in-law asked with a smile,
"Yet that is only your conjecture. Naturally there must be a process of direct verification, yes?"
Heh heh, as expected of Father-in-law. He was enough of an intellectual of the Tang Clan to have even studied medical texts; even when I spoke casually he immediately grasped what truly mattered.
Just as he said, once a hypothesis had been formed it now had to be proven through experiment. Nothing is better than experiment for confirming the truth of a hypothesis.
And the experiment to prove mine was extremely simple. All I needed to do was let a Heavenly Silkworm eat a queen of the Pagoda Termites; the answer would appear at once.
"Of course."
The next day the Divine Thief, who was staying with the clan in order to obtain Heavenly Silkworms, followed us with a grumbling face.
The research to verify the hypothesis consisted of taking the Heavenly Silkworms that had already hatched and been left inside an ant nest, then feeding them a queen captured from another nest.
We dug open a nest whose original queen and king had disappeared and where a new queen was about to take over, recovered the Heavenly Silkworms, and presented a queen taken from a different pillar right in front of them.
—Chomp.
The moment the creature confirmed the baguette-like body of the queen termite, it sank its teeth in without hesitation. The queen thrashed in surprise—yet at the same instant a sweet fragrance poured from the yellow antennae on the Heavenly Silkworm's head. Strangely enough, the queen grew quiet. It remained still until every drop of fluid had been drained from its body.
And once that plump body had shriveled into nothing but a husk, our Heavenly Silkworm molted and revealed a form of dazzling silver brilliance. It was a third-instar larva.
"I-it was real!"
"T-this is a Silver Silkworm!"
Everyone who had accompanied us cried out in admiration. On the road back to the Tang Clan after the research was finished, two Silver Silkworms that had been fed queen termites as their very first solid food sparkled as they clung to my shoulders.
"Ha... what am I supposed to name these little ones?"
Once I raised them all the way to adulthood, the Silver Silkworm Moth—one of the Ten Great Poisons of the Central Plains—would be mine.