Chronicles of the Primordial Wars III

316-320

316  - Sapphire 

Shao Xuan did not tell anyone about his success with the beetle, nor did he seal the beetle hole in the corner of the house.

He'd initially planned to kill it after but he'd change its mind and let it live instead. However, that beetle would appear once a day, and on one day it even rolled a ball of dung right to his feet.

When that happened, all Shao Xuan could think was should he kill it, or kill it?

Perhaps sensing Shao Xuan's feelings about this incident, the beetle lifted its legs and pushed the ball of dung back into its hole. After that day, it never pushed any dung balls out of its hole again, saving its own life.

Every day, whenever it scurried around Shao Xuan, he could barely hold himself back from stepping on it. After a while though, thank goodness the beetle stopped scurrying randomly indoors. Other than appearing before him once a day, it stopped walking in the house. Shao Xuan occasionally saw the beetle at the camel stables.

In the beginning, this beetle was hard to spot. There were many insects walking around even on cold days in Beast Battle City. These insects were the more cold-resistant species, often spotted around places where there were animals. After a while, Shao Xuan could easily spot his beetle slave from tens of different beetles.

As days passed, he realised his beetle was growing at immense speed- much quicker than its peers. Within five days, it had almost doubled in size and seemed to still be growing.

Other than its size, it was changing in colour too. Initially black, the beetle was now a bright blue.

Shao Xuan even attempted to unlock one shackle but he was not familiar with the process of unshackling, nor had he seen Su Gu unshackling his slaves. After a while of consideration, he gave up on this thought.

Five more days passed. It had turned a deeper, purer blue. It was as if it was wearing a suit of deep blue armour, shiny under sunlight. It was still growing- if anything, it was growing bigger, faster.

It was ten days since the day of enslavement. From a black dot no bigger than the tip of Shao Xuan pinky, the beetle was almost as big as his fist now. Its six legs looked like knives with hooks, Shao Xuan had personally witnessed this little bastard easily cut through grass while rolling dung at the camel stables.

Initially, Shao Xuan was worried it might be seen by someone, the beetle being so unique. However, the little bastard was quite smart too. It dove into hiding at lightning speed every time someone passed, leaving a dung ball obviously larger than the rest out in the open while it hid in some grass. Fortunately, the slaves caring for the camels did not notice.

Usually, even if the beetle appeared at Shao Xuan's room, it would remain near its hole in the corner, never scurrying randomly across the floors. This was at his request, and to his surprise, the beetle listened. This beetle had grown to be receptive towards more and more complex commands.

Other than Shao Xuan, Lei and Tuo naturally knew of this beetle's existence too, though they did not know it was his slave. 

They were given the instruction not to kill this beetle, so naturally, they too noticed the changes in this beetle as time passed. While they had their questions, since Shao Xuan was unwilling to talk about it, they never asked. They privately wondered if Shao Xuan had somehow tamed this beetle.

When it wasn't moving, this beetle looked like a block of sapphire.

"Hey, it does look like a sapphire!" remarked Lei.