The metal cube unfurled like a flower spreading its petals, and out of it came buzzing bees. The buzzing sound that the wings of the bees made was different from what normal bees made. These buzzing bees sounded like the static of radios and televisions.
The bees were also made completely out of metal. There were tens of thousands of these bees in the outpost core. So most of the space within the metal cube was used to hold them.
The bees surged out of the metal flower into their surroundings. After they were gone, the crystal gem at the center of the outpost core was revealed.
The crystal gem was white, but it wasn’t transparent. It was opaque like ice.
This crystal gem looked important to Loki. But for now, the crystal wasn’t doing anything. It was the metal bees that were doing things, so he turned to look at them.
The metal bees first went around surveying the surroundings. They flew more than ten kilometers away from the outpost core searching for stuff. They also went down into the water beyond the island in their search.
When they found a material that they thought was useful, they would settle down on the material to eat it. All of the useful materials they found were rocks and stones. They were all hard and dense materials, but the bees ate through them like rats eating cheese.
The bees communicated with each other through the flapping of their wings. Once a useful material had been found by a single bee, all the nearby bees would hear about it and rush over to eat the useful material.
The more bees were in a single location, the louder the noise of the buzzing of their wings would become, and the larger their range of communication would be. This makes it so that the number of bees attracted to a useful material only increases over time.
So in most cases, any useful material they found rarely lasted more than 60 seconds before it was eaten through. Then the metal bees would return to the outpost core.
The bees would come back and regurgitate what they’ve eaten onto the white gem. The white gem would absorb everything that was regurgitated and would use the absorbed materials as nutrients to grow bigger.
From what they were told when they were given the outpost core, Loki knew that when the white gem grew large enough to become useful, their outpost mission would become complete and successful.
So from here on out, what they have to do is to guard the outpost core. In order to help it reach maturity, they have to stop anyone who tries to destroy the outpost core.
He was thinking about this when he remembered Money Body’s plan for him. That plan made his eyes narrow in suspicion.
He thought to himself, ’Does he really not want me to die? I doubt it.’
’If I’m being honest, I’ll admit that his plan seems sound. If the plan goes well, we will be one step closer to victory. But a lot can go wrong with the plan.’
’If something goes wrong with the plan, I’ll die. I’m not sure if he wants to kill me or not. But I remember vividly that he only said that he didn’t want me to die until three dragons die. So once three dragons die, I’ll outlive my usefulness.’
While he was thinking to himself, Money Body had bent over the outpost core and was inspecting it. Loki immediately paused his thoughts to focus on Money Body and see what the money cultivator was going to do.
The outpost core is even more important than the shield breaker, so nothing could be allowed to happen to it. Even though they had three other copies that they could use as replacements in case something went wrong with this one, they would lose their progress and would have to start over again.
He watched for more than 3 minutes, but he didn’t see anything useful or suspicious. Money Body didn’t seem to be interested in doing anything to the outpost core.
The money cultivator appeared to be content with looking at the outpost core, so Loki relaxed somewhat and began to think about his situation again.
He said to himself, ’After knowing how much rank 8 cultivators have to pay for their life leech, I don’t think he is interested in getting a fourth Divine Position. After seeing how strong he is, I can say confidently that if he wanted to get a fourth Divine Position, he can do so easily.’
’So he shouldn’t target me just to acquire the Gold Body Metac for himself. But that doesn’t mean he is harmless. After all, he can still orchestrate my death so that he can replace me with someone else whom he likes better.’
Just as these thoughts flashed through his mind, he saw Money Body suddenly look up and stare into the distance. When he followed Money Body’s line of sight, he saw a brief flash of scales the size of houses before the creature that the scales belonged to disappeared into the water.
Even without seeing the full creature, he knew that it was a water dragon, one of the world kings. But he was a little miffed by the fact that Money Body was able to notice the approach of the world king while he didn’t.
This made him shake his head and say inwardly, ’No matter what I think of him, it doesn’t change the fact that he is very powerful. Just his perception outclasses mine by so much."
’I’ve only seen two world kings, but he has been able to find six of them. I guess that’s why he is the leader. That 2,843 million square kilometers of his Cave Heaven is not for show.’
No one can tell how large his Cave Heaven is, but he can tell how large the Cave Heaven of the other three is. This advantage in information can be used to determine other useful things.