When a Useless Guide Transmigrated into the Zerg Race - Chapter 5

Outside the door, Chris, having recovered from his state of extreme panic, was pacing back and forth anxiously.

He did not regret begging Lord Winslow to save Ylair; if there was even a shred of hope, he wanted to try. However, Winslow was a fragile and precious Male. Chris feared that his own selfishness might lead to the Lord Male being injured or even killed.

A soldier in a state of total frenzy possessed extreme destructive power. Usually, only a few Males of exceptionally high rank could emerge unscathed. Chris felt he should not have let the Male take such a risk without first confirming his rank.

Admittedly, this Male was exceptionally beautiful and exquisite. Among Males, whose appearance was directly linked to their rank, he looked like a high-level noble at first glance. But what if? What if this Lord was simply good-looking? If his mental power was not strong enough, he could be accidentally injured the moment he touched the frenzied mental sea.

The more he thought about it, the more anxious he became. Chris could not bear the consequences of harming the Lord Male. He even considered pushing the door open to check the situation, but he knew that a Male required absolute silence and privacy during a mental grooming session.

Just as Chris was consumed by unease, the door to the confinement room suddenly opened from the inside.

“How is it so fast? It has only been half a star-hour! Could the Lord Male be injured?” Chris worried.

The soldiers gathered at the door all looked toward the opening with panicked expressions. Then, they saw Winslow walking out with an expressionless face.

Coming out only to be surrounded by several tall, sturdy soldiers, Winslow was also a bit slow to react.

“What is this now? A team-building exercise?” Winslow wondered.

The crowd breathed a slight sigh of relief seeing Winslow intact, with no signs of mental exhaustion. Chris directed a robotic insect to scan him. When the results showed that Winslow’s physical condition was excellent, the heavy stone in Chris’s heart finally fell.

However, given such a short amount of time and the lack of exhaustion in the Lord Male’s mental power, they assumed the mental grooming had failed. The soldiers felt somewhat dejected, though they took comfort in the fact that the Lord Male was unharmed.

“Um,” Winslow interrupted their collective gloom, “Colonel Ylair has finished his mental grooming. He is likely asleep now. Are you not going to carry him out?”

It was truly strange, Winslow thought. These soldiers were so desperate before he entered the room, yet now they seemed completely indifferent to Ylair.

In truth, he had misjudged them. Seeing him come out so quickly and in such good spirits, the soldiers assumed the session had not even started. They avoided mentioning it to spare the Male’s pride. Now, hearing the Male say the grooming was finished and the patient was asleep, every face wore an expression of disbelief.

“Asleep? How is that possible?” an unfamiliar soldier muttered in shock.

“Holy crap, Colonel Ylair really is asleep!” shouted a soldier who had rushed into the confinement room the moment Winslow finished speaking.

“What!” The crowd ignored the Male still standing outside and scrambled into the room.

In the center of the room, Ylair sat reclined against the back of the chair, looking peaceful and deep in sleep.

It was common knowledge that soldiers possessed high levels of alertness. Even for a Female, it was impossible to fall into a comfortable sleep immediately after a mental grooming. The scene before them shattered their past understanding. Ylair had actually fallen asleep after the procedure! Just how comfortable must that grooming have been for him to drift off so soundly?

Chris stepped forward with a shocked expression and used the robotic insect to perform a scan.

“Beep. After inspection: Colonel Ylair, Mental Purification Level 100%, Mental Sea Pollution Level 0%.”

The air went silent for a moment. Suddenly, a massive wave of disbelief spread through the room. The shock on every soldier’s face was clearly reflected in the eyes of the others.

Mental Purification Level 100%! Pollution Level 0%!

What did that even mean? Every Female insect, whether from the Federation or the Empire, only possessed a 100% purification level at birth. As they aged, the pollution of the mental sea intensified for various reasons. They were dependent on the mental grooming of Males; otherwise, they would die suddenly from a mental sea collapse.

But even with a Male’s grooming, it was absolutely impossible to reach this stage! Even an S-rank Male, spending three star-hours on a very serious grooming, could only control the pollution at 20% and reach 80% purification. Because the process was tedious, Males preferred to release pheromones, which, when combined with grooming, could reach a 90% purification level.

However, pheromones were even rarer for Females; some might go their entire lives without obtaining a Male’s pheromones. Yet this Male had achieved 100% purification in just half a star-hour! And he did it using only mental grooming!

“He is simply a deity!” This thought surfaced in everyone’s minds.

Winslow did not know what the soldiers were thinking. Seeing that no one was paying him any attention, he returned to his lounge first. He wanted to see how his spiritual manifestation was doing after devouring that unknown black mist. Why could he not summon it?

Once in the bedroom, Winslow directly threw the unsummonable white snake out of his mental domain. The sluggish white snake lay limp on the bed. Sensing the change in environment, it looked up once with misty, blood-red eyes before lying back down.

Winslow looked thoughtfully at the lazy white snake. The snake was a derivative of his spirit; he could perceive its thoughts, and sometimes its reactions represented his own. He picked up the limp snake with his fair, slender fingers and held it up in the air, inspecting it from every angle.

There truly seemed to be no problem. If there was a change, he felt that his perception of the mental power within his mental domain had become clearer; he could even manipulate his mental power to perceive things thousands of miles away. Back at the White Tower, he clearly could not feel his mental power like this. Why was that?

A faint doubt flashed in Winslow’s eyes. The black mist, the spiritual white snake, the rift, the Zerg race: what was the connection?

Winslow reached no conclusion, and by now, he was very hungry. He needed something to eat.

Fortunately, Chris remembered that Winslow had not eaten for a long time. He knocked on Winslow’s door.

“My Lord, are you resting? I have prepared some food for you.”

After seeing the results of Ylair’s grooming, Chris’s emotions toward Winslow were extraordinarily complex: guilt, worship, gratitude, and astonishment. A tide of conflicting feelings was blocked in his chest, unable to find an exit. But the most important thing he could do now was prepare dinner for the Male and satisfy all of his conditions. As long as he could do it, this time, he was willing.

Winslow opened the door. Chris was still in his rigorous and neat military uniform, the Colonel rank shining on his shoulders. His silver-gray eyes seemed to glow, filled with respect and gratitude. He stepped aside to let the robotic insect carrying roasted meat and fruit enter the room first.

“I have prepared some specialties from the border planet. I am not sure if you are accustomed to them. The roasted Interstellar Beast meat and the red fruits are clean and non-toxic; you can eat them safely,” Chris introduced softly, head bowed.

Winslow looked down at the fragrant roasted meat and the fruit that looked incredibly juicy. He blinked slowly.

At the door, Chris bowed deeply, drawing Winslow’s attention away from the food. “Lord Winslow, I am deeply grateful that you were willing to help Lord Ylair with his mental grooming and save his life. I am also very sorry for making you face such a dangerous soldier. If you do not mind, I am willing to give you all of my property as a gift of thanks and compensation. I have two small mechanical planets, over a dozen aircraft, and more.”

“Eh? Wait,” Winslow blinked slowly again. Why was this person giving him all his property? Although he was indeed poor in this world, he did not think he needed to resort to robbery.

“I think you have made a mistake,” Winslow’s clear, cold voice interrupted Chris’s rambling list of assets. “Saving Ylair was my own choice. I am grateful to you for saving me and giving me a place to stay. So,” Winslow’s calm eyes swept over Chris’s slightly confused face, “it is just returning a human, or insect favor. Do not worry about it too much.”

Chris became even more confused. What insect favor? Was there an obligation Winslow needed to repay? The instinct to serve Males, carved into the Zerg genetic code, made him feel that taking care of Winslow was only natural.

Furthermore, Winslow’s refusal of his wealth left him bewildered. Why would a Male refuse property offered by a Female? No Male would refuse wealth, even if they already had a fortune to squander; no one wanted less. But Lord Winslow refused.

Winslow felt his stomach was about to growl. He politely said goodbye to the confused, tall soldier and closed the door to eat.

The roasted meat and fruit were neatly arranged on the table. The meat of an unknown species was roasted perfectly, its skin crispy with an amber oily glow. The warm white steam mixed with the aroma of the roast meat filled the room. Beside it, the red fruit was sliced into petals, juices overflowing at the cuts, looking fresh and appetizing.

Winslow sat down elegantly and picked up his knife and fork, prepared to enjoy his first gourmet meal in this different world. “At least I did not end up on the streets begging,” a thought flashed through his mind for some reason.

The little white snake on the bed smelled the delicious scent. It crawled leisurely off the bed, up Winslow’s trouser leg, and onto the table. Man and snake finished dinner quickly in silence.

After eating, Winslow took a shower to wash away the dust and the smell of roasted meat. He lay quietly on the bed without moving. He was not asleep; the day’s experiences were truly too bizarre. He had been exiled, fell into a rift, arrived in a world of insects, was picked up and identified as a Male, performed his first successful grooming, and more.

Winslow turned on his side, his long, slender fingers idly tapping the playing dead white snake that was full and content. He thought of the soldiers’ attitudes toward him: Chris’s kindness from the start, and the gratitude shown during the grooming.

These things did not exist at the White Tower. At the White Tower, the ones tied up were never the Sentinels, but the uncooperative Guides. For Guides who did not comply, the White Tower used a control collar around the neck.

Thanks to his powerful parents and his childhood friend Lu Yu, who had taken care of him after his parents passed away, he had never worn such a thing. Winslow unconsciously touched his smooth, delicate neck.

He thought of his parents who had been gone for years, and of Lu Yu. Lu Yu was an S-rank Sentinel with extreme combat capabilities. Before Winslow’s coming-of-age ceremony, Lu Yu had been sent on a mission expected to last a year.

His last memory of Lu Yu was of the black-haired youth with arrogant, defiant eyes patting his head, saying with a smile that he would make up for the ceremony when he returned.