Daily life of a cultivation judge

"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Queen Lihua," said Yang Qing once the introductions were done.

"Lihua is fine... being called Queen when I am the weaker party feels..." Lihua trailed off.

"I understand. Lihua it is," Yang Qing replied with an amiable smile to the dream ambrosia queen, who nodded slightly in gratitude.

One thousand three hundred and forty-two members; fifty-four in the core formation realm, the strongest at the sixth stage, not counting Lihua. Eleven hundred and two in the foundation establishment realm, and the rest in qi refinement...

And then there is that egg with unique fluctuations. A second-stage core formation embryo... Another queen, perhaps? mused Yang Qing as he swept his spiritual sense through the hive.

The hive itself was no larger than a small wine barrel, yet its interior was deceptively vast. While dream ambrosia bees were not especially gifted in manipulating space, they displayed remarkable skill when constructing their hives. Inside, its space and mechanisms functioned much like a storage ring, with one crucial difference—storage rings could not sustain living beings, but the hive could.

Cultivators everywhere had tried to study how dream ambrosia bees accomplished such feats, hoping to find a way to replicate it without needing to reach the late stage of the domain realm just to have a chance. But alas, those studies bore no fruit. Whatever lay behind the bees' hive-making abilities was an innate attribute, one they themselves did not fully understand. To them, it was nothing more than combining the resin they gathered from plants and flowers with the propolis and wax they produced for their honeycombs.

There were no specific plants required, the propolis came from no particular tree, and their wax was no different from that of other bees. If there was anything truly special, it would be their honey. And if that was indeed the reason behind the hive's space-expanding properties, then it was no wonder human cultivators could never hope to replicate the bees' gift of creating a habitable storage ring.

Pushing aside his stray thoughts, Yang Qing fixed his attention on the unique egg. Though he concealed it well from Meifeng and Lihua, his eyes flared with desire when he saw the pristine silver-gold liquid dripping slowly into it.

He didn't need anyone to tell him what it was. His instincts, sharpened by years of dedicated eating, already confirmed it—the silver-golden liquid, gleaming like divine blood, was dream ambrosia honey, the very thing he had been daydreaming about. But this one was special.

The hive itself was filled with honey. By his estimate, there were about 30,000 catties stored within its combs—yet another testament to how deceptively vast the hive's interior was compared to its small outward appearance.

And yet, despite being surrounded by such abundance, Yang Qing could tell that the honey dripping drop by drop into that unique egg was entirely different, whether it be in terms of luster or in quality. There was only about 20 catties of it, but in terms of aroma, appearance, and quality, its value more than equaled that of the remaining 29,980 catties combined.

Quality-wise, a single drop of that honey was enough to awaken a spiritual plant's spirit or strengthen a foundation establishment cultivator's soul fourfold. For any cultivator below the palace realm suffering from soul injuries—no matter how severe—those 20 catties would be more than sufficient to heal them completely.

And that was only the beginning. The honey also offered immense advantages to those cultivating soul techniques, not to mention its wondrous applications in alchemy as both a catalyst and stabilizer for many recipes, especially volatile ones. Beyond that, possessing even a small amount was like holding a second life. A single dose of the honey acted as an antidote against a hundred different toxins, and for those it could not neutralize entirely, it still curbed their effects, buying precious time before the situation turned fatal.

Royal ambrosia jelly... Yang Qing thought, instantly recognizing it—and with that, the true nature of the egg being nurtured by it. If he was not mistaken, inside that egg was likely another queen. Or rather, a queen in the making. And if it indeed was, then...

Yang Qing's eyes lit up again as excitement stirred at the implications. Dream ambrosia bees were placid by nature—far more so than most humans, spirit beasts, or even spiritual plants. But as calm and even-tempered as they were, they still had moments that reminded you they were spirit beasts. One of those moments lay in how they dealt with their own kind.

Just as one kingdom could not have two kings, one hive could not have two queens. The moment an egg or larva showed the potential of becoming a queen, the current queen had only two choices: nurture it, and once it hatched, drive it from the nest to start its own brood, or consume it upon hatching. Not out of malice, though, but because no tonic was more beneficial for a queen ambrosia bee than another queen.

For a queen seeking to rapidly improve her strength, there was no better resource than consuming another. Not only did it enhance her cultivation, but it also carried the possibility of triggering an evolution or awakening a new ability. Such an evolved ability could mean higher quality in the attributes of her honey, greater skill in weaving illusions, or improved talent in the brood she produced, which in turn strengthened the hive as a whole and increased its chances of survival.

Given such advantages, queen ambrosia bees had every reason to consume one another.

Yang Qing didn't blame them for it. Given the kind of lives they led and the outcomes most of their kind were subjected to, to endure or even maybe avoid all that, it sometimes demanded desperate solutions. If devouring another queen meant the hive had a better chance to endure, why wouldn't they? Especially if, in the end, the queen gained the ability to produce a Prince Ambrosia—otherwise known among them as the prince of promise.