Reincarnated as A Bamboo

One or two thousand Evolution Points would normally be impossible to earn within a short frame of time, based on Lin Ming's previous track record of his speed of accumulation.

However, now that he was witnessing a huge surge of insects, he knew that several thousand points would not be out of his reach.

After all, he knew from past experience that killing even a tiny insect like a bamboo locust earned him 1 Evolution Point. Now, there were at least tens of thousands, probably even hundreds of thousands of insects around him. It was as if the points had presented themselves on a silver platter to him.

Some of his strong and solid bamboo branches begin to move at lightning speed. A horrifying noise boomed through the air as they curled up with extreme force, while even more of the branches coiled about bewitchingly in response.

The diamond-shaped mark in the middle of his culm grew numerous colorful threads that shimmered like the stars in the night sky. They spread through every branch and reached each bamboo leaf. The amazing light show turned the mutated giant bamboo that was Lin Ming into a sight of wonder and beauty, though not without a subtle hint of eeriness.

That mark emanated an aura that possessed an extremely powerful spiritual aura, much like the stars and clouds in the sky. It spun around continuously, causing the wave of insects within the valley to go even crazier!

"It looks like I now possess an ability like Adorable Little Snake's Charm Fragrance."

Lin Ming's voice was drowned out amongst the waves of insects swarming about him, the sound of their flapping and crawling dominating the air.

He took a closer look at the insect wave. It seemed to be made up of different mutated bees, locusts, moths, and butterflies. There were even species such as spiders and centipedes in there. However, their sizes were now completely different from any ordinary animal.

The Adorable Little Snake was curled up on a branch connected to the culm. It did not dare move at all. On the other hand, the wolf pups were like coil springs, ready to jump if it weren't for Lin Ming controlling them with his branches.

For a moment, the bamboo was quite noisy as the wolf pups' excited howling grew louder.

It was very soon when the flying insect coalesced together into the first wave. They had now entered Lin Ming's Effective Range!

A few bamboo branches curled and uncoiled quickly in the air. The bamboo leaves covered everywhere they could, with a few levels of leaves joining together as a giant flyswatter. It was extremely heavy, but the attack speed was quick and it swatted the clump of insects racing towards him.

Boom!

Every swat that hit was a powerful one, causing a major tremor to the earth around. The juicy fluids of the insects splattered everywhere, even changing the color of the ground with the sheer amount!

[You have killed a mutated wasp, Evolution Points +0.1]

[You have killed a mutated gray moth, Evolution Points +0.1]

[You have killed…]

What was going on?

Lin Ming felt something strange was happening. Before this, no matter how many little insects he had killed, he would always gain 1 Evolution Point.

Yet, now he was only getting 0.1 for every death.

Could it be that the Evolution Points were adjusted after he evolved? If he were to evolve to Rank-2, would every insect then be worth only 0.01 points?

This was quite a terrible feeling.

He was looking forward to accumulating tens of thousands, or maybe even hundreds of thousands of Evolution Points after the insect wave. It looked like nothing of that sort would happen now.

He could only gain 1 point after killing ten of them. That would mean after tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of kills, he would only end up with a few thousand or tens of thousands in points.

That only would be if Lin Ming did kill all of them.

Even if he could only get a few thousand points, Lin Ming still urgently needed them. 

"Come on! Let's have more of you!"

Even though Lin Ming was quite unhappy with the situation, his Giant Bamboo Flyswatter never stopped swatting, while his Bamboo Whip handled any insects that managed to evade the flyswatter attacks. 

The entire valley shook as the sound of the whip cracking in the air mingled with the swatting's booming.

Lin Ming had been holding back the Adorable Little Snake and the pups, but now released them. He left some insects for them to attack.

Adorable Little Snake was hesitant at first, but quickly took things into stride. After its first kill, it went on to do a double kill, then a massacre, and was on a murderous rampage soon enough. No insects could get past it!

As for the seven wolf pups, they ran straight ahead, evading the booming attack from Lin Ming's giant flyswatter and even determined a suitable opening as they went straight for the mutated centipedes and other insect armies attacking from the ground. They attacked them swiftly, one after the other.

Lin Ming immediately dedicated a few bamboo branches to help cover for the overexcited wolf pups when he saw what was happening.

A few thousand insects coming towards him was not much of an issue, but they could seriously hurt the pups. 

The usually calm lake surface gradually 'boiled' from Lin Ming's wild movements. Continuous waves splashed across it, and many of the big and small fish leaped to the surface. Among them were even crabs and shrimp thrown out of the water. Some tried to claw their way up the destroyed lakeshore.

As for Lin Ming, he took the opportunity to harvest these newly-exposed creatures easily with his Razor Leaves.

[You have killed a mutated carp, Evolution Points +0.2]

[You have killed a mutated shrimp, Evolution Points +0.1]

Sigh, even the Evolution Points from these lot were as measly as those from the insects.

Lin Ming had even given the lake a desperate look-over in search for something like another Unranked colossal man-eating catfish, which might have earned him a little bit more regarding points.

However, nothing of the sort showed up after waiting for nearly half the day. All he could do now was to give his full attention to the endless wave of fervent insects coming at him.

Following the insect wave, there were also many wild beasts and birds grouping into armies.

Their body sizes were of course much larger than the insects', but they were fewer in number. Mutated rats or rabbits made up most of the armies, but very few of them were gigantic.

Lin Ming had an idea. He purposely caught a few with his branches and did not bother with the remaining ones.

He mainly wanted to chase the horde off and catch a few for his use. Only a small number of them were killed, to serve as a warning to others.

The birds were much better at avoiding danger than the wild beasts. They were frightened into scattering after Lin Ming waved his Bamboo Whip about a few times to chase them off, and they stopped bothering him.

His bamboo branch sliced a few porcupines charging towards the pups, while another branch beat a vicious jackal so hard that it flew back from the impact!

Lin Ming caught quite a lot of animals. 

Monkeys, lynxes, black bears, birds like little egrets and red-crowned cranes, were all caught by Lin Ming in an instant. They were imprisoned within a cage made up of bamboo branches, rendering them motionless. Among the weirder animals trapped were pandas and a strange animal that looked like a cross between a cow and a sheep.

The panda gave him a sudden realization of which part of the world he was in.

It was not long before Lin Ming finally destroyed all the animal armies. The only things left on the ground were the carcasses of the insects.

The Adorable Little Snake and the seven wolf pups paced back and forth repeatedly to inspect the ground, much like eight little authoritative generals.

They would not allow a single insect to escape alive. During the fight, they had also killed many mutated rats and seemed to have gained quite a lot of experience from this.

Dawn approached from the East, and the sun was about to rise.

Lin Ming could not help but laugh bitterly in his heart when he noticed his new surroundings.

It looked like he had done something major…

The terrain had completely changed.