The nest of the Chimera Jellyfish looks like a half-egg shell broken in the middle from the outside, with the opening facing upwards and a nearly ten-meter-deep sea pit below.
Fang Chang led the members of the Sea Spider clan down from the edge of the sea pit. In the dark seawater, they occasionally encountered a few lone Chimera Jellyfish, which were quickly slain by the enraged Sea Spider clansmen.
Although the sea pit seemed quite large, compared to the several-meter-long bodies of Fang Chang and the Sea Spider Queen, it wasn't particularly spacious.
After just a few steps, a turn, a few more steps, and another turn, they had already explored the entire pit.
At first glance, the nest didn't seem to have anything special. Fang Chang raised one of his spider legs to his chin, pondering carefully. His intuition told him that this nest couldn't be as simple as it appeared.
"Little Gold, how long have the Chimera Jellyfish occupied this nest?" Fang Chang established a telepathic connection with the Sea Spider Queen and asked, hoping to find some useful clues from her.
Little Gold was the name he had given to the Sea Spider Queen. The spider clan originally didn't have the concept of names, but Fang Chang had given her one for convenience.
Little Gold's eyes showed a thoughtful expression. "Probably tens of thousands of years."
"Ever since I can remember, the Chimera Jellyfish's lair has always been here. We've fought countless times, and several times we drove them away, but they always came back."
"Oh..." Fang Chang nodded, quickly thinking things through.
From Little Gold's words, he gathered an important piece of information: for tens of thousands of years, the Chimera Jellyfish had almost always lived here, but it was only in the last two years that their strength had suddenly surged.
There were roughly two possibilities for this situation: either their sudden increase in strength had nothing to do with this nest, or they had only discovered something in the nest two years ago that allowed their strength to surge.
Unfortunately, the fused jellyfish monster had already been digested in Fang Chang's stomach, leaving no trace, so he couldn't ask it for answers.
Little Gold hesitated for a moment, then continued through the telepathic link, "The lifespan of Chimera Jellyfish is usually very short, rarely exceeding a thousand years. But in the past two years, some of them have reached a soul power of over two thousand years."
"This alone is very abnormal. Additionally, their numbers have significantly increased compared to before. After just thirty years of peace, their numbers have nearly doubled."
"It's precisely because of this that our Sea Spider clan was so badly beaten this time." Her tone noticeably grew heavier at this point.
Wait... Fang Chang suddenly noticed a key point in her words. "You said you hadn't fought for over thirty years?"
"Yes," Little Gold nodded. "For a long time, they were much more subdued and didn't dare to enter our territory. During that period, we didn't have any conflicts, until a few days ago."
That's it—this is the key to the problem, Fang Chang realized.
It's very likely that it wasn't some object that caused the Chimera Jellyfish's numbers to increase, but rather the period of peace that allowed them to expand, as their reproduction rate is much faster than that of the Sea Spider clan.
If their numbers increased, then...
"Little Gold, do you remember if the nest was originally this big?" Fang Chang asked urgently, catching Little Gold off guard.
"About the same..." She looked around the sea pit, then added uncertainly, "But it doesn't seem as deep as it is now."
After receiving her reply, Fang Chang immediately ordered her to lead the clan members to dig deeper into the sea pit. He also used his two shield-like front legs as shovels to dig through the accumulated mud and carried it out of the pit to dump.
After digging down another meter or so, Fang Chang suddenly sensed a strange and powerful aura.
He turned to Little Gold, who had also clearly sensed the same aura and was looking at him, while the weaker Sea Spiders showed no reaction.
Keep digging. The two of them exchanged a glance and came to the same conclusion.
Dozens of spiders continued digging in the pit, and after about two more hours, the pit had deepened by nearly two meters.
The mysterious aura grew stronger, and Fang Chang and Little Gold could now even sense the direction it was coming from.
"Dig here," Fang Chang transmitted the message while quickly rushing to the southwest side of the nest, where the mysterious aura was emanating from.
Soon, as the spiders dug, a roughly ten-meter-long, coiled, pale golden skeleton gradually came into view.
The skeleton was about ten meters long, with half of it being the body and head, and the other half a long tail. It had wings on its back, two pairs of short legs on its abdomen, and a narrow, elongated skull.
A dragon! The name simultaneously appeared in Fang Chang and Little Gold's minds, filling them with joy. Who would have thought that beneath the nest of the Chimera Jellyfish lay the skeleton of a dragon.
In the Douluo world, dragons were extraordinary creatures, revered as the rulers of all soul beasts. Their strength and physical prowess far surpassed that of other soul beasts.
Moreover, dragons were not only powerful in life but even after death, they could have unique effects on their surroundings.
For example, the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well was formed after two of the nine Dragon Kings perished there, creating a special terrain that allowed plants to grow at ten times their normal speed.
And here, there was also a dragon skeleton. It was likely that the Chimera Jellyfish's sudden increase in strength was due to its influence.
Fang Chang's first reaction upon seeing the dragon bones was to eat them!
However, after a careful inspection, he was disappointed to find that the dragon bones had been buried for so long that they had become one with the earth.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't separate the dragon bones from the ground. Moreover, the bones still carried a faint pressure that made Fang Chang uncomfortable.
After several attempts, he decided to temporarily abandon the idea of eating the dragon bones and instead began studying their effects.
His first thought was that they might be able to speed up the cultivation of soul beasts, just like the Chimera Jellyfish.
After more than half a month of experimentation, he finally discovered that the dragon bones did indeed have a boosting effect on cultivation speed.
The weaker the soul beast, the more effective the bones were. For Sea Spiders with only a few decades of cultivation, their cultivation speed near the dragon bones could increase by five to six times.
For soul beasts with cultivation levels ranging from a few hundred to a thousand years, the dragon bones could still double their cultivation speed.
However, the effect diminished significantly for stronger soul beasts, especially for those like Fang Chang and Little Gold, who had cultivation levels of eighty to ninety thousand years. The bones had almost no effect on them.
At the same time, Fang Chang made another important discovery: the sea mud near the dragon bones, likely influenced by them over time, carried a trace of spiritual energy.
If soul beasts consumed this spiritually charged mud, their strength could also increase, especially for weaker soul beasts, who could rapidly boost their power this way.
This was likely the key reason for the Chimera Jellyfish's sudden increase in strength over the past two years. Due to thirty years of peace and their unrestrained reproduction, their numbers had exploded.
The original nest was no longer large enough to accommodate so many Chimera Jellyfish, and it became overcrowded. Some of them began digging and consuming the mud at the bottom of the nest to expand their living space.
Soon, they discovered that their soul power was rapidly increasing, attracting more Chimera Jellyfish to join in consuming the mud. This eventually led to their strength surpassing that of the Sea Spider clan.
Understanding this, Fang Chang immediately decided to relocate the entire Sea Spider clan's nest to this area. He also collected the spiritually charged mud near the dragon bones and distributed it based on talent, potential, and contributions to the clan.
With the help of the dragon bones, he believed that the Sea Spider clan would rise rapidly in the near future.