Chapter 144: The Mirage-Eating Bird Clan

Yun Duo'er was not about to fall behind and immediately joined the "battle."

Next came Lou Yuhui and Yu Yan.

A quarter of an hour later, the three stuffed humans and one bird collapsed onto the ground in completely ungraceful heaps. Little Qing had flipped entirely onto its back, exposing its round, chubby belly to the sky—it had already revealed its original form, which was as large as a door panel.

For some reason, although the egg was delicious, it was extremely difficult to digest.

A single bite of the egg went into their stomachs, but after a quarter of an hour, only a whisper-thin layer had been digested.

At this rate, digesting a basketball-sized egg would surely take a month or two.

The feeling of being bloated in the stomach was truly agonizing.

Yu Yan massaged her stomach for quite a while to no avail, so she simply sat cross-legged and attempted to refine the energy.

No matter what kind of energy was contained within this egg, there was nothing her plant-spirit imprint could not refine. Sure enough, as Yu Yan actively began to circulate her plant-spirit imprint, a massive amount of energy emanated from the egg whites and yolk in her belly.

Yu Yan let out a sigh of comfort.

The type of this energy was unknown, but the meridians and cells it passed through were thoroughly cleansed by it.

The impurities within were like ink dissolving in water, entirely carried away.

Merely refining a tiny piece of egg white made the meridians and cells inside Yu Yan's body significantly purer.

The twelfth-grade spatial phantom lotus imprint was no joke; its energy refinement efficiency was remarkably high.

Before long, Yu Yan's belly shrank by a circle.

Seeing that activating the spiritual meridian imprint had such outstanding results, Yun Duo'er and Lou Yuhui followed Yu Yan's example by sitting cross-legged and beginning to circulate the bloodline imprints between their brows. Little Qing struggled to flip itself upright, following its bodily instincts to join in as well.

Yu Yan was the first to finish refining an entire egg.

For some reason, the moment she opened her eyes and saw the scattered eggshells on the ground beside her, Yu Yan subconsciously picked them up and stuffed them into her mouth.

One piece, two pieces, until every single piece of eggshell from the egg she had consumed was eaten.

Only then did that intense craving to feed subside.

Fortunately, Yun Duo'er, Lou Yuhui, and even Little Qing all had their eyes closed, busy refining the eggs inside their bodies.

Not a single person witnessed this scene.

As for the Golden Spirit on Yun Duo'er's wrist, a vine naturally did not grow eyes. In case it accidentally grew them... Yu Yan cast a threatening glance its way. The Golden Spirit understood in a fraction of a second, the two leaves at the tip of its vine shaking frantically as it desperately expressed that it had seen absolutely nothing.

"Tap, tap, tap~"

"Pop!"

Following a subtle movement, the sound of an eggshell cracking rang out.

Yu Yan looked around to the left and right, finding no abnormalities whatsoever.

Soon realizing that the sound came from within her body,

she sank her consciousness inward, finally discovering a miniature, strange-looking bird in her soul sea. It was pitch-black, its feathers glossy and gleaming with a luster that clearly indicated extraordinary waterproof capabilities! Occupying almost half of its entire body was a beak that exhibited a grayish-yellow tinged with gold.

What on earth is this?

Yu Yan was baffled, her consciousness drawing closer to this ugly little bird.

"Hum~~~~~~"

It felt as though her head had been split in two halves, and a multitude of memories that did not belong to her were shoved inside.

After quite a while, Yu Yan massaged her dazed head, finally sorting out what had happened.

As it turned out, she had swallowed the entire soul of a Mirage-Devouring Bird!

A Mirage-Devouring Bird was the offspring that would have hatched from the egg she had eaten—had it been incubated.

They fed on mirage-insects.

Whenever a mirage-dragon died, the scavenger insects residing in the place where the dragon's corpse lay would feed on the remains. Over the course of long ages, ordinary mortal insects evolved into spiritual insects, and these spiritual insects were the so-called mirage-insects.

Mirage-insects of Earth Grade Tier 4 or above could even gnaw away at mirage-dragon scales.

If not for the fact that the mirage-dragon skeleton possessed an odor they detested, they wouldn't have spared even the bones.

In places where mirage-insects swarmed, certain birds would accidentally ingest them and evolve into Mirage-Devouring Birds.

Their palates were exceedingly finicky; once they had tasted mirage-insects, they could never again adapt to the taste of ordinary bugs.

Yet after eating mirage-insects, they became prone to impulsive reproduction.

Consequently, before long, the population of Mirage-Devouring Birds would flood into a disaster, to the point where even the mirage-insects sustained by an entire mirage-dragon corpse were not enough to feed them. Lacking food, they could only starve to death, leaving behind a ground littered with over-propagated bird eggs as testimony to their tribe's former glory.

Initially, with the mirage-dragon skeleton reigning supreme,

other creatures dared not enter this domain, and the bird eggs remained relatively safe.

Gradually, realizing that the skeleton was merely a paper tiger that posed no genuine threat to them, dungeon monsters began tentatively breaking into the cavern.

With the first egg-thieving dungeon monster came a second.

These shameless egg thieves stole the bird eggs away, either for their own use or to feed their offspring. Creatures that ate the bird eggs would have their vision and spiritual power enhanced, and those that ate a large amount could even acquire the True Sight unique to the Mirage-Devouring Bird clan!

The so-called True Sight was the ability to see through illusions.

It was also the fundamental reason why their Mirage-Devouring Bird clan could feed on mirage-insects.

After all, since mirage-insects fed on the mirage-dragon's corpse, they naturally acquired a portion of the mirage-dragon's abilities. The mirage-dragon's greatest ability was creating illusions; every single mirage-insect, even unranked ones, could conjure a dozen or so different clones.

Amidst falsehood and reality, had they not possessed True Sight, they would never have been able to catch those delicious mirage-insects.

The Mirage-Devouring Bird whose soul Yu Yan had swallowed evidently held a deep, burning hatred for egg thieves.

Yu Yan touched the bridge of her nose.

As the most successful member among the egg thieves, her phantom-lotus space was hiding a full several hundred Mirage-Devouring Bird eggs.

Well... she really felt rather embarrassed.

However, Yu Yan could not bring herself to agree with the Mirage-Devouring Bird's tastes.

The mirage-insects that were considered the utmost delicacy in their eyes—Yu Yan, out of curiosity, specifically pulled up the Mirage-Devouring Bird's memories to take a look.

They were a kind of plump, white, fat maggot-like insect.

Before the dungeon world descended, they looked not just somewhat similar to the creatures found in rural outhouses or certain places—one could only say they looked eighty to ninety percent alike. Yu Yan felt a trace of regret; why on earth was her curiosity so strong?

The images of the Mirage-Devouring Birds feasting heartily on those mirage-insects kept revolving before her eyes.

Yu Yan felt that for a short period of time, she would not want to eat any Mirage-Devouring Bird eggs.

Because Yu Yan's plant-spirit had reached Heaven Grade Tier 12, coupled with the fact that she possessed a "biochemical" plant-spirit skill, her refinement speed was naturally several times that of others. By the time Yu Yan finished swallowing the Mirage-Devouring Bird's soul and sorting through all its memories,

Yun Duo'er, Lou Yuhui, and even Little Qing had yet to finish.

Lou Yuhui's belly was bulging and round, while Yun Duo'er and Little Qing were slightly better off, though not by much.

Judging by this appearance, they wouldn't be finishing anytime soon.

Bored out of her mind, Yu Yan could only draw circles on the ground.

Her cultivation was stuck at the peak of Tier 4, and her esper tier was the same. Reaching this level, breakthroughs could no longer be achieved simply by piling up energy. In the end, she decisively took another deep dive into the lake water.

In those... television shows, horned dragons generally possessed internal cores.

A mirage-dragon was also a dragon; she had collected an entire skeleton and gathered so many dragon scales, leaving only the mirage-dragon's internal core missing.

If she accidentally managed to find it, wouldn't that be sheer bliss?

Of course, Yu Yan knew very well in her heart that she was simply finding something to keep herself busy.

As for any mirage-dragon internal core, she was probably the only person in this world who had ever seen a true dragon, and even then, it was just a skeletal remains of a dragon's body. Those people hadn't even laid eyes on a dragon before talking endlessly about treasures on a dragon's body—what credibility could that possibly have?

Besides, earlier in order to search for the scattered dragon scales, she had already turned the mud and sand at the bottom of the lake over several times.

If there really were any internal core, she should have found it long ago!

Yet, after digging around for merely two or three turns, Yu Yan fell into deep contemplation.