"What happened?"

Jiang Yuan waited for a while but still didn't get a response from Leng Yue. He had already decided to remelt the Stone Breath to replace Regeneration in order to explore the ant nest.

"Jiang Yuan, there are ants coming from ahead!" Ning Yanlan tugged at Jiang Yuan's sleeve. Because they were both shrouded in concealing robes, their ability to sense scents was at its lowest.

Sure enough, a group of fourteen cave ants came into their view, their antennae waving wildly as if searching for something.

"There's only one Soul Energy type in the team!"

Jiang Yuan, who was pressed against the wall, noticed something interesting: thirteen out of the fourteen cave ants in front of him were ordinary monsters, and only one was an elite monster. And just like the ones that had appeared on the surface before, only the cave soul ants were elite monsters.

An idea popped into Jiang Yuan's mind!

Just as a group of cave ants was about to pass by the two, Jiang Yuan used mind control on the leading elite monster cave soul ant.

A group of cave ants suddenly stopped in their tracks, but resumed their movements a few seconds later.

"Strange, I couldn't control it!" Jiang Yuan saw that he was about to be discovered, so he drew his gun and stabbed at the cave soul ants.

Because the attack was so sudden and swift, the cave ants were killed before they could even react, and no cores were lost. However, Jiang Yuan noticed that the remaining thirteen cave ants were fleeing haphazardly without a leader.

"Die!"

The cave ants not attacking did not mean Jiang Yuan would let them go. He stabbed them twelve times in a row, one ant at a time, until only one cave ant was left, its feet frozen to the ground by Ning Yanlan.

"Not a single core exploded, it's really a ghost story today!"

At this moment, Jiang Yuan's surprise was even greater than when he failed to control the fifth-tier cave soul ants. With a 50% drop rate, not a single core had been obtained. This probability was truly abnormal.

"Do you remember the sharp-toothed fish we caught last time?" Ning Yanlan asked.

Jiang Yuan nodded, agreeing that the drop rate was equally impressive.

"Perhaps these concentrated groups of monsters have another method for calculating drop rates, or simply put, their drop rates are much lower!" Ning Yanlan guessed.

"That's possible!"

Jiang Yuan didn't care about the core. He stepped on the frozen cave ant, which was an ordinary cave power ant. He left it behind to verify why mind control was ineffective.

"What should we do with this cave ant? Kill it?" Ning Yanlan pointed to the one on the ground.

Mind control!

Without saying a word, Jiang Yuan used mind control on the ant, but things didn't go as planned. The cave ant was just as sluggish as before, returning to normal after three seconds.

"Strange, why can't I control it! This is only a third-tier monster, but a sixth-tier monster can usually affect it!" Jiang Yuan wondered.

Knowing Jiang Yuan's talent, Ning Yanlan guessed, "Do you think it might be because cave ants don't have thoughts?"

"I'm afraid it's part of it!" Jiang Yuan nodded.

Ning Yanlan's guess was spot on. Mind control is more effective against creatures with their own thoughts, while it has little effect on creatures like low-level cave ants that have almost no self-awareness.

However, this is only one of the reasons. During the process of controlling the cave ants, Jiang Yuan suddenly discovered that these cave ants had already shown signs of being controlled, and his mind control was obviously no match for the existence of the cave ants.

"Ninth-tier Soul Energy System!"

Jiang Yuan suddenly remembered the last message Leng Yue had sent him. He was shocked and grabbed Ning Yanlan, pulling her deeper into the cave.

"What's wrong?" Ning Yanlan asked, somewhat puzzled.

"There's a queen ant here! Little Fatty and Leng Yue must have encountered the queen ant!" Jiang Yuan was anxious but not panicked.

The fact that Leng Yue was able to sever her soul rings proves that her environment is relatively safe. Otherwise, she would have definitely fought to the death or warned them to evacuate, instead of choosing to remain silent as she is now.

"But how do we find the queen ant?"

Jiang Yuan hesitated for a moment, then asked as they walked, "Yanlan, how many talents do you think you have?"

"Two, one is a Spirit Shield, and the other is a Spirit Judgment. What's wrong?" Ning Yanlan didn't know why Jiang Yuan was asking this, but she still explained.

"No, if I gave you another talent, could you use it?" Jiang Yuan asked solemnly.

"I really don't know about that," Ning Yanlan said, looking troubled.

"Why don't we give it a try!"

Jiang Yuan used the template of the Stone Breath from before and began to use the Mark of the Dead to forge the Stone Breath.

He made this move because he didn't want to waste any resources. The three talents he currently possessed were all advanced talents. Although they were all support-oriented, they were undoubtedly more valuable than the Breath of Stone. If he replaced them and got a new advanced talent, he would waste 10,000 Dead Marks.

Giving the Breath of Stone to Ning Yanlan now saves 9,000 Marks of the Dead, and because the Breath of Stone consumes very little, it is extremely suitable for Ning Yanlan's current state.

"What is this?" Ning Yanlan asked, looking at the light in Jiang Yuan's hand with a puzzled expression. This wasn't the first time she had seen Jiang Yuan take out this.

"Intermediate talent - Breath of Stone, can detect any aura within a ten-mile radius!" Jiang Yuan explained before implanting the Mark of the Dead into Ning Yanlan's brow.

As the light dimmed, Ning Yanlan opened her eyes, slightly surprised, and said, "I think I know where Leng Yue and Xiao Pang are!"

"Where are they?" Jiang Yuan suppressed his elation. Right now, the most important thing was the safety of Leng Yue and Xiao Pang. Once the talent issue was confirmed, things would be much easier.

"Come with me!"

Ning Yanlan led the way, while Jiang Yuan followed closely behind, extremely vigilant, ready to act in the shortest possible time should anything unexpected happen.

The ant nest was a maze of interconnected passages, and it took the two of them a long time to avoid the large swarm of ants and get close to the very center of the nest.

If it weren't for the Stone's Breath, they don't know how long it would have taken them to get here.

"Leng Yue and Xiao Pang are both inside, but Xiao Pang seems to have fainted, while Leng Yue is lurking in a corner!" Ning Yanlan whispered.

They were only a few dozen meters away from the queen ant, and a few more steps would have allowed them to clearly see the huge burrow where the queen ant lived.

"Ninth-tier, I can't beat them!" Jiang Yuan never thought he had the right to be arrogant. He was already extremely lucky to escape from a ninth-tier ant queen with a large number of subordinates.

"What do you mean?"

"Once you find them, run! Don't fight them!" Jiang Yuan stated his plan, then instructed Ning Yanlan, "Plan the best escape route now."

"Yes." Ning Yanlan nodded heavily.

"I'll go in first!"

Jiang Yuan used his concealment technique to reach the cave entrance. The cave where the queen ant was located was already the deepest part. If he were discovered, the cave ants outside would probably swarm in and trap them to death in the ant nest.

Concealing Breath was a skill he had acquired earlier. Although it was only at the second level, he approached cautiously without disturbing any cave ants. When Jiang Yuan stepped into the queen ant's cave, he was surprised by what he saw.

A white, fleshy worm, larger than a house, lay in the center of the cave. If it weren't for the black blob in front of the white worm, Jiang Yuan would never have realized that it was the queen ant.

"Little Fatty!"