That idiot from the Sword Sect turned out to be a lucky charm.

Chapter 27 Beehive

After the battle ended, everyone rested on the spot.

Lin Jun and his companions collapsed to the ground, completely disregarding their appearance. Lin Jun even yelled at Lin Zhifeng, "Little Lin, I'm done for! My face got stung, I'm disfigured now!"

Upon closer inspection, Lin Zhifeng discovered a large venomous bump in the center of his forehead. The bump had likely already been treated; at least, it appeared to Lin Zhifeng that the wild bee's stinger had been removed. However, the venom had probably caused an inflammatory reaction, and the area where he had been stung was now swollen as if horns had grown from his head.

Lin Zhifeng laughed at him: "Oh ho, so Senior Brother Lin Jun actually has dragon blood?" He touched his chin and clicked his tongue twice, then said: "No, this looks more like a unicorn."

Lin Jun lay on the ground groaning, "I'm so badly injured, and instead of showing concern and comfort, you come here to hurt me?"

Lin Zhifeng walked over and helped him up. "Get up quickly! There must be a lot of spiritual herbs and flowers nearby. Pick some more later to make up for your loss."

Lin Jun perked up after hearing his words, patted his bottom, and started making arrangements to pick flowers.

Seeing that everyone had recovered, Ding Mo said, "Later, everyone spread out a bit and conduct a thorough search. Pick any spiritual flowers or herbs you find on the spot. There's also a very important point that everyone needs to be aware of—there is definitely a huge beehive nearby, so be extremely careful. If you find a beehive, notify everyone immediately, and do not act rashly. The queen bee and the king bee are probably more powerful than you and me, and they won't be easy to deal with."

No one dared to be careless, and everyone focused their attention and began the search.

As they advanced, they soon came upon a field of blooming spiritual flowers.

This spiritual flower is called the Blood Spirit Flower. It is widely cultivated in various sects across the cultivation continent and is a key ingredient in the refining of healing pills.

These spiritual flowers aren't very old, but they're still at least a hundred years old. Their medicinal effects are definitely much stronger than those harvested only once every ten years by the sect.

These medicinal herbs can be brought back to the sect to earn contribution points, which can then be used to exchange for the resources you need.

So everyone accepted it without hesitation and began picking like crazy. Lin Zhifeng also picked quite a bit, albeit sporadically.

There's no need to add these relatively inexpensive medicinal herbs to the system's inventory. After all, the system doesn't award any luck points for harvesting them.

Lin Zhifeng put all the Blood Spirit Flowers into the storage bag he had temporarily bought.

With many hands making light work, in just one hour, everyone had picked all the Blood Spirit Flowers.

Everyone packed up their storage bags and continued heading towards the center of the secret realm.

Not far from the Blood Spirit Flower field, they entered a forest.

Most of the ancient trees in the forest had tall, dense canopies that blocked out all the light. Walking through the forest was truly gloomy and cold.

Not long after entering the woods, Ding Mo stopped the disciples who were scouting ahead. He had spotted a colossal beehive hanging from a towering tree.

Upon hearing Ding Mo's warning, everyone looked in the direction he pointed: the beehive was as tall as a three-story building.

Lin Zhifeng sighed inwardly: No wonder there were so many wild bees earlier, practically swarming everywhere. This hive should be bigger, otherwise it wouldn't be able to hold them all. He wondered how many wild bees were still inside the hive now.

However, he doesn't need to worry about these things; these are things that Ding Mo, the team leader, should be concerned about.

Actually, the easiest way is to just set the beehive on fire.

Besides the queen and queen bees, there must be many ordinary worker bees in this hive. Even if these worker bees are easy to deal with, the queen and queen bees are not to be trifled with.

But there should be plenty of honey in the hive, and if we're lucky, we might even find royal jelly. It would be such a waste to burn it all down. Even for the sake of the honey, we can't set it on fire this time.

Ding Mo selected several water-element disciples to go into the beehive with him, and Lin Zhifeng was among them.

Lin Zhifeng mingled among the group, not seeking merit, but only wanting to protect himself.

The system, which had been silent ever since he entered the secret realm, suddenly spoke up: "Master, there is a side quest: tame the wild queen bee. The reward is ten luck points."

"!" Lin Zhifeng was stunned. Such a good thing? You know, the side quest he received before only gave one point of luck for a thousand-year-old spiritual herb. But taming the queen bee gave ten times that! What does this mean? It means that the honey and royal jelly in this beehive are extremely precious, their value far exceeding that of a thousand-year-old spiritual herb.

Subduing the Queen Bee would bring immense benefits, but how? Lin Zhifeng knew that with his current abilities, he didn't even know how many rounds he could last against her. So, it was simply impossible for him!

The system guessed what was troubling him and offered a suggestion: "There are spirit pet pills in the shop. Master, you can exchange for one and feed it to the queen bee when you have the chance."

Lin Zhifeng was overjoyed: "Great! You're quite useful, Tongtong! You've helped me a lot this time."

As he walked, he opened the control panel and quickly redeemed a Spirit Pet Pill in the system store.

Having obtained the Spirit Pet Pill, Lin Zhifeng was still somewhat troubled: He could find an opportunity during the battle to feed the pill to the Queen Bee, which wasn't impossible. The problem was, how would he explain this to Ding Mo and the other Sword Sect disciples after subduing the Queen Bee?

He mentally shared his concerns with the system, which replied, "Just tell them clearly that you used a Spirit Pet Pill. After you've taken the Queen Bee as your Spirit Pet, you'll keep her in the backyard of your sect's home, and you'll have an endless supply of honey and royal jelly."

Lin Zhifeng thought to himself: Although this is a bit ostentatious and exposes my strength, it's the only way. Let them accept it for now; similar things will happen often in the future. I can't keep up the act of pretending to be stupid for long, so why bother? I'll just tell the truth and keep the system's secret. As for the pills, I'll say they were given to me by my sect leader father. Who can verify that? If someone can actually find my sect leader father, I'll have to thank them!

Having made up his mind, Lin Zhifeng stopped "slacking off" and instead went to the front of the group.

Ding Mo walked to the bottom of the hive and stood still. He turned to the water-elemental sword cultivator behind him and said, "I will try to cut a hole in the hive in a while. You will then act accordingly. If any worker bees or the queen bee fly out, everyone should retreat and lure them outside to eliminate them."

He paused, then continued, "I will be fighting the strongest queen bee. However, according to general rules, the queen bee will not leave the hive easily. I may need to go inside the hive to investigate. Your cultivation is still too shallow, so just wait for me outside. I will call you in after I have dealt with the queen bee."

Everyone shouted "Yes!"

Ding Mo stopped wasting words, took out the Dragon Roar Sword and swung it several times, immediately cutting a "door" two meters high and more than one meter wide into the beehive.

With such a large hole suddenly torn in the hive, some worker bees began to repair the damaged hive, while others flew out and launched an attack on Ding Mo.

However, their combat strength was far inferior to that of the previous soldier bees, and they were quickly wiped out by Lin Zhifeng and his group.

The queen bee quickly sent out several more queen bees, which were also dragged away and surrounded by the group. Although they could not eliminate these queen bees immediately, it was believed that it was only a matter of time.

While his disciples held off the queen bee, Ding Mo slipped through the hole he had cleaved open with his sword and entered the hive.

Lin Zhifeng was afraid that he would be instantly killed if he found the queen bee, so he quickly followed Ding Mo into the hive.

Ding Mo didn't say anything when he saw that there was a "tagalong" following him.

The honeycomb contains many small hexagonal cells, densely connected together. The walls of these cells are covered with honey, emitting the unique, rich aroma of honey.

Ding Mo led Lin Zhifeng deeper into the hive. At the very back of the hive, there was a place where the queen bee stayed.

If there are no external enemies, the queen bee's duty is to reproduce. She spends almost all her time in the hive, doing nothing but laying eggs, eating, and sleeping. But now that enemies have come knocking, she has no choice but to move, no matter how unwilling she is.

The queen bee slowly extended her steel stinger toward Ding Mo. It seemed to move very slowly, but in the blink of an eye, she teleported right in front of Ding Mo.

Ding Mo hurriedly raised his sword to meet the attack, but the Dragon Roar Sword struck the Queen Bee's steel needle with a crisp clang.

Dragon's Roar is the foremost of the four sacred swords of the Sword Sect, and has always been invincible. However, when it came to the Queen Bee's stinger, the Queen Bee was completely unharmed, which shows that the Queen Bee's cultivation is at least equivalent to the Nascent Soul stage, and she should not be underestimated.